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Objective of the Build
The goal of this build is to act as an area striker, in other words, to blow everything (but your allies and yourself, of course) the hell up. This comes at the cost of sacrificing the control potential of forced movement and status effects, but laying down hefty overdoses of damage across entire clusters of enemies is a form of control in its own right. Instead of simply focusing on at-wills, this build allows encounter powers to shine as well, though at-wills are given special attention due to being the bread and butter.

The Build at Level 24
Level: 24
Race: Genasi (Stormsoul)
Class: Wizard (Staff of Defense)
Paragon Path: Battle Engineer
Epic Destiny: Planeshaper
Background Benefit: Auspicious Birth/Born Under a Bad Sign
Ability Scores: 20+2 Strength, 12 Constitution, 13 Dexterity, 24+2+2 Intelligence, 16 Wisdom, 10 Charisma
Hit Points: 130; Bloodied: 65; Surges: 7; AC: 39; Fortitude: 36; Reflex: 36; Will: 35
Heroic Feats: Dual Implement Spellcaster, Echoes of Thunder, Elemental Empowerment, Focused Expertise (Staffs), Mark of Storm, Staff Fighting, Weapon Focus (Staffs)
Paragon Feats: Arcane Admixture (Chain Lightning: Thunder), Arcane Admixture (Magic Missile: Thunder), Arcane Admixture (Prismatic Burst: Thunder), Arcane Admixture (Scorching Burst: Cold), Enlarge Spell, Resounding Thunder
Epic Feats: Spell Accuracy
Multiclass Feats: Student of Artfice
Equipment: +5 Staff of Ruin (level 23 item), +5 Siberys Shard of the Mage (level 23 item), +5 Cloak of Distortion (level 24 item), +5 Summoned Efreetweave Cloth (225,000 gp), Paragon Belt of Vim (85,000 gp), Paragon Circlet of Indomitability (85,000 gp), Boots of Eagerness (4,200 gp), Salve of Power

Seems like you could get some real mileage out of Mark of Storm, if you could manage to fit it in there somehow. The build is basically all about throwing around thunder damage at a whole lot of people a whole lot of times every turn. Surely there's *some* feat in there that you could afford to drop for a slide 1 on every single hit. If nothing else, being able to slide your enemies makes it significantly easier to pile more of them into your burst templates.

borg285 wrote:

what's the feat that let's you take a -5 to hit your allies in the area?

War Wizardry, I think. Reduces damage to half for allies that do get hit, too. FRPG. Clearly a good choice pre-epic, at least.

SanityFaerie wrote:

Seems like you could get some real mileage out of Mark of Storm, if you could manage to fit it in there somehow. The build is basically all about throwing around thunder damage at a whole lot of people a whole lot of times every turn. Surely there's *some* feat in there that you could afford to drop for a slide 1 on every single hit. If nothing else, being able to slide your enemies makes it significantly easier to pile more of them into your burst templates.

Good catch. I had somehow thought that the Mark of Storm only affected lightning powers, but now that I see it affects thunder powers as well, it's a no-brainer for this build. I'm a little wary of giving up defense-boosters such as Armor Proficiency (Leather), Robust Defenses, and Epic Fortitude/Reflex/Will, but the sheer damage and control of this build should make up for it.

A way to make this better is by having all allies wear cloaks of distortion and you be sure you are far enough away so you have -5 to attack them.

Stack this with war wizardry and you don't have to wait till epic to have all your target:creatures in burst turn into target: all enemies.