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Mithrus wrote:

I think you are completely wrong in your evaluation of the illusion-centric build. Granted, it is situational in that gnomes make the build shine, but other races are solid picks also. I think it deserves a much higher rating, some color blue for sure. Same goes for gnomes. Take a look at the racial feats if you need more proof they should be a blue color.

I think I would have to chime in on your analysis of Genasi / Elemental Empowerment builds. A wizard can quite easily become an effective striker / with some controller powers, if they take the correct feats from Arcane Power.

First off, I want to say that I think this guide is something sorely needed, and you're noble man (woman?) for taking it on. Here's my thoughts:

On Gnomes: I really have a hard time considering any race with an Int bonus to be worse than black. Hitting is just really important for controllers. Small is a pretty trivial penalty for wizards. So you can't use your staff as a melee weapon, but you'd never hit with it to begin with; the number of situations where using your staff as a melee weapon is a good idea at all is generally irrelevantly small. Fade Away is not at all useless for Wizards; while it's fair to assume that your wizard is not too likely to get smacked as often as most characters, being able to fade away when he is is exceptionally valuable. (Certainly way, way more valuable than being able to smack people with your staff will ever be.)

Gnomes have the perfect stat bumps for illusionists, and also make exceptional wizards of any kind just for their int boost (certainly better than either of the shifters, for instance.) Gnome Phasmatist is such a good feat that even if gnomes had no other beneficial traits whatsoever, they'd still be at least blue for illusionist on the strength of that feat alone. Similarly, even if gnomes had no other traits besides +2 Int, that would make them at least black, bordering on blue for any wizard. You mention that starting with less than 18 int is rarely desirable, and that's true, but any race that doesn't get an int boost will be sinking its other stats into the toilet to get that, and Gnomes don't have to. If a Dwarf or Elf buys an 18 in int and wants a 16 in their secondary stat (let's say it's Wis), thier other stats are going to look something like 13/10/10/8, where the 13 is their other racial boost. If a gnome wants 18 in int and 16 in a secondary stat - Cha, maybe - their other stats look like 14/13/10/8. Even if they want Con as their secondary stat, they can get 18 int/16 con and have 14 Cha/12/10/8 for their other stats. Heck, even if they're going Wis - which diminishes the value of their cha boost - they can still get 18 int/16 Wis and then 12/12/10/10 or 13/11/10/10, if they're dumping Cha. Even with the secondary stat that synergizes the least with them - Wis - gnomes still look pretty nice compared to Elves and Dwarves in the stat department. (The elven racial power is very nice, but dex is just a +1 initiative for a Wis Wizard, and for anything that's not a Wis Wizard, Gnomes clearly have a significant stat advantage since they don't have to pay for an 18. (Eladrin are also much better than elves and dwarves for the same reason.)

As it is, gnomes are blue or maybe even sky blue for any wizard, and are clearly far and away the best choice for illusionist (possibly barring weird combos, but just playing things straight, gnomes are hands-down the best illusionists.)

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Right now, the guide and ratings seem a bit slanted toward orbizards. I can't and won't deny that orbizards do some sick things, but rating things based on their value for an orbizard seems less useful than rating them based on their value for a wizard built to take advantage of them. Obviously Tome of Binding is useless or near it for many wizards; it should be judged on what it brings to the sort of wizard who would bother to take it: a dedicated summoner wizard. Now, it may be the case that the feature is a trap and that summoner wizards are often better off with some other feature (similar to how archery rangers can often benefit more from having a beast than from the class feature for archery), or it may be the case that dedicated summoner wizards are just totally unworkable for some reason. If these are the reasons that Tome of Binding scores a poor rating, it should be noted; calling out something as subpar because it doesn't do anything for characters that aren't built to use it seems less helpful. I'm not saying that ToB is necessarily an awesome feature; it might legitimately be poor, especially at low levels where you're not getting much out of it with it affecting so few of your powers, to the extend that even a dedicated summoner wizard would be better off with something else; I just believe that it's more useful to judge things based on their value to characters that might consider taking them.