What makes red wizards so much better than disabling wizards? I'm used to Conjurers/Enchanters being preferred in normal 3.5 due to their ability to disable encounters and mobs having too much hp for nukes to be effective.
I replayed the final chapter with both the Blue and Red Transformations active, and there are a bunch of reasons why Red Wizards are just stronger currently:
1. Red Wizard's Elemental Form: On transformation, Red Wizards get a 50% damage boost to all their elemental spells. In contrast, a Blue Wizard gets 2 additional spell slots each spell level. The issue here is that there are helm, cloak and robe items that grant +1 additional spell slots each, so the Blue Wizard's benefit to transformation is not unique, and is still available to other Wizard specializations. The Red Wizard's 50% damage boost cannot be replicated otherwise, and it makes even a level 3 Fireball spell viable late game as a cheap damage source.
2. Contingent Break Enchantment: The game allows both the player and enemy casters to be prebuffed with Contingent Break Enchantment, which fires off whenever many of the disabling spells of a Blue Wizard take hold. Most high priority enemy casters have this spell in place. As a result, for a Blue Wizard to be effective in late game, his spells have to succeed in 3 consecutive dice rolls: 1 to bypass enemy spell resistance, 1 to bypass the enemy's saving throws (mostly willpower in the case of a Blue Wizard), and a final roll to not be dispelled by the Break Enchantment that activates. In contrast, a Red Wizard only has to succeed in 2 dice rolls to be effective: spell resistance and reflex saving throws (most of the time).
3. Prismatic Void: Not to be confused with the Level 7 Prismatic Spray spell found in both older and newer D&D editions, the level 9 Prismatic Void spell appears to be a homebrew spell that is the single most broken spell in the entire game, and one that has a profound negative impact on every encounter it is a part of. 95% of my reloads in Chapters 3 & 4 can be directly attributed to this one spell, and I'd shed no tear if it were outright deleted from the game. Anyway, quoting its effects from the website:
Prismatic Void (Evocation. Long Range. 30' radius. You create a short-lived multicoloured phenomenon. All creatures in the area of effect are blinded for one round (no save). Further, each creature receives a random effect. The exact effect depends on the result of 1d8:
Red beam: Deals 100 points of fire damage (Reflex half).
Orange beam: Deals 120 points of acid damage (Reflex half).
Yellow beam: Deals 140 points of electricity damage (Reflex half).
Green beam: Deals 200 points of acid damage (Fortitude half).
Blue beam: The creature is turned to stone (Fortitude negates).
Indigo beam: The creature gains the berserk condition permanently (Willpower negates).
Violet beam: Deals 10,000 points of damage from dematerialisation (Willpower negates).
Twin beams: The creature is struck by two rays randomly selected from the other seven effects.)
It's a spell that can be cast without any danger from long range and it covers a massive area. As long as the spell remains in the game in its current form, the big fights in Chapter 4 devolve into wizards on both sides mindlessly spamming 2 Prismatic Voids every turn; even Transformed Blue Wizards are better off using their level 9 spell slots for Prismatic Voids. In practical terms, the spell is already a tactical nuke whose elemental damage can be further bolstered by 50% thanks to the Red Wizard's Elemental Form.
There are ways to tank through the onslaught of Prismatic Voids by enemy mages, but the quickest (though RNG and reload heavy) way to deal with these encounters is to have multiple Prismatic Void casters of your own, and the Red Wizard's Elemental Form synergises particularly well with this approach.
