The Legendary Pixel Crew

Ah, yeah, I've done that before. After the first campaign I ever played, when a wizard set us on fire with a Wev + Burning Hands combo, "kill the spellcaster first" has become one of my obvious tactics.

This is why I play pornomancers. The world throws xp at you and promises you anything, if you will just stop breeding night hags and formians to make saggy, hairy, chitinous abominations.

Nukers who rain fire are OP? Dps is pretty much one of the worst uses of magic where they're averaging only 2.5 damage per level compared to the 20+ damage per level optimized melee puts out each round the stregnth of magic lies in crowd control, transportation and binary defenses. But yes "kill the caster" is a very very good idea if you're still below lv 7 or so while it's still possible to do.

Oh, kill the caster is still possible after level seven. It just takes a trick or two the normal martial characters who just bash things with swords aren't capable of.

Hmm, 20+damage per level... That's not too far off. Let's see, I have a fairly optimized lvl 14. Average damage per hit is 2d6+18 as a minimum[Well, assuming various things]. Upper damage per hit is in the 10d6+18 range not counting a crit[or other situation modifiers], in which case it's more 11d6+18 range. Where as 6d6+18 is probably my most standard hit. Meaning 315 average damage per round if they all hit, which puts it at yeah, 22.5 damage/level average. Granted, only about 2-3 hits will land since enemies tend to be fairly high level. And I can technically burst[Using various abilities and requiring certain situations] with all crits up to a max of...826(707 without crits), which is 59(50.5) damage per level max compared to the wizard's 6-8 really. [In practice, my highest damage rounds with that character were back at 13 when I somehow did an 847 round the day after I did a 926 damage round. The first was because something counted as six different targets in regards to sunder attempts, so 4/5ths of that damage was cutting off the Boss Monster's 5 tails. and the second was because I got surrounded. Ahh, being surrounded. Totally not worth the time it takes to roll that much dice.] I guess it depends on if you include multi-target or not. If a Wizard's fireball hits 12 people, 6 fail their save, you're looking at about 31.5[average] damage per level. Their single target isn't nearly the level of a martial characters in terms of straight damage, but their area damage beats most martial characters. The more enemies the higher their damage. Although if we're going on that logic... I'm just going to stop here before this never ends.

Yeah, raining fire has never been an optimal choice for a caster, but I have to admit, it can be incredibly fun to fireball a bunch of enemies at times.

IN all fairness a tricked out caster can do a lot of damage. My particular method of choice is the dual blooded sorcerer with orc blood and dragon blood. Which means per damage die (of a single element) your doing +2 damage. Meaning a 10th level Fire ball is doing 10d6+20. The really boost comes form the interaction from things like Empower spell since empower will multiply the static damage by 1.5 as well.

A sorcorer is not pulling off an empowered fireball till lv 12, and will be able to pull off 65 damage per round 3 times a day, meanwhile a rapid fire/twf pistoleer is getting off 7 never miss full BAB touch attacks of 1d8+14 every round forever, Mages are not damage dealers and their threat comes not from fireballs but from their utility spells.

With the right traits you can actually pull off empowered at the level you get 3rd level spells. At 10th level being able to use a 3rd level spell for an average of 82 damage is not the worst thing in the world. Though I prefer using single target low level spells with an attack roll, like shocking grasp or snowball, myself. Gotta love a chance to crit.
While I agree the casters provide an provide a lot of utility as well due to various GM i have played i have that utility is never allowed to be to strong. You use a divination spell one to many times to find an answer and the GM get very vague with them from then on.
Use a save or suck effect to end a big boss battle to often and suddenly the boss has amazing saves or some other way to counter your favorite spells.

It's all i what you're fighting, how many there are, and if you catch them all bunched together.

If you catch them bunched together, and your DM goes with the lots of weaker monsters instead of one big one approach, the wizard can effectively end a fight before it starts with raw damage.

The thing is though. That's only the most obvious scary thing they can do. The really scary things happen when you use effect spells rather than direct damage.

No matter what kind of wizard you play, it's stupid to dress like a wizard unless you belong to a specific order that requires you to dress like a wizard... and if they do, I advise that you kill the master and take over so you can change that rule, because it's suicide against any sort of intelligent opponent.

A Monk or Barbarian dressed like a wizard, on the other hand, can break the unsuspecting.

Exactly! ^_^

Dress the mage up like a fighter too, that way he'll get a couple of spells off before anybody catches on.