Given that the Wizard is already arguably the most powerful class in the game, with unparalleled magical versatility, any buffs the class would receive are naturally going to be somewhat minor.
The Wizard gets a couple new features, and there are some changes to various subclasses that are mostly pretty subtle (though Illusionists get a very cool new feature).
First off, Wizards get to pick one of a number of Intelligence-based skills and get expertise in it through the Scholar feature. Thus, Wizards will really be able to shine in some area of study that they've focused on. As of the UA, this is all of the Intelligence-based skills aside from Investigation, so, depending on the campaign or the type of DM you have, this could be useful or just largely fun flavor.
More powerful is Memorize Spell, which allows you to swap out one of your prepared spells on a short rest.
Finally, Wizards will also be able to swap out one of their cantrips on a long rest, similar to an optional feature from Tasha's.
Again, none of these are earth-shaking, but the Wizard was already in such a good place that I don't think they have anything to complain about - and they get even more spells to choose from with all the additions coming.
Like the Cleric, the Wizard is one of the two classes that actually sees fewer subclasses in this PHB than they got in the 2014 one, matching the other classes with four. I believe that the other subclasses - Conjuration, Transmutation, Enchantment, and Necromancy from 2014 should theoretically be usable with the 2024 Wizard, but the other four subclasses have gotten updates.
One change that is technically a bunch of subclass features but more or less feels like a class change is the way that various "Savant" features work. Rather than making it quicker and cheaper to copy spells of your school of magic, you now simply get a spell of that school at each level-up. I love this, because the bizarre thing about the old Savant spells was that it encouraged you not to take spells of your particular discipline when you leveled up, as you could more easily get those in-world. Now, your Diviner Wizard will naturally have a crapton of divination spells, which, you know, actually makes sense!
Abjurers (renamed from School of Abjuration - this will be a pattern) get a few boosts. Your Arcane Ward will now inherit the damage resistances, vulnerabilities, and immunities of the target it's on, so if you're a Red Dragonborn fighting a bunch of fire elementals, you'll get a Ward that is going to last twice as long.
Additionally, you'll get Dispel Magic and Counterspell prepared for free, and as part of this feature, if you fail to dispel that magic or counter that spell, you won't have to expend the spell slot. Additionally, you can now cast Dispel Magic as a bonus action.
I will say, I'll be curious to see how Counterspell feels in a world with the Monsters of the Multiverse style of caster NPC design. I really liked how Flee, Mortals! created a bunch of multiattack options that still counted as spells of a certain level, so that even if the DM didn't have to track spell slots on the creature, PC spellcasters could still interact with the spells in various ways. I will also say that I hope that the new Counterspell design (causing a Constitution saving throw rather than the whole ability check thing) makes it through, as I think that will also make it much more appealing to a DM to have spellcasting bosses.
Evokers are getting a slight shuffle to their features - their potent spellcasting feature, which allowed their saving throw cantrips to deal half damage on a successful save, has moved to level 3, and on top of that it will also apply to attack-roll cantrips. Thus, even if you miss with a Fire Bolt, you'll still be doing some damage to the target. An Evoker is always chipping away at the monsters' HP.
Diviners are getting a few boosts, like being able to use the Third Eye feature as a bonus action rather than an action.
Finally, Illusionists are getting the biggest boost, with a few brand-new features.
First off, you'll be able to ignore the verbal components on your Illusion spells. You still need somatic components, but this will let you create an illusion when a target has their back turned to you and be able to evade suspicion. Also, areas of magical silence won't be a problem for you casting these illusions.
Illusionists can also cast any illusion spell with a range of 10 feet a further 60 feet - so if you have a 10 foot spell, you can now cast it 70 feet away. (Great if you're hidden from some big nasty monster and want to make a distraction that won't just bring them right to you.)
You'll also get Phantasmal Creatures. This gives you Summon Beast and Summon Fey prepared for free, and gives you the option to change their school of magic to Illusion (so, extended range, no verbal component) without expending a spell slot once per day. The illusory version of these creatures does have half as much HP, but still pretty great - and you can always just cast them as normal.
I think this is a really cool feature, though I do think it won't necessarily scale well, given that the Summon spells really like being upcast (especially odd-leveled ones). I don't think this will be the case, but I'd like it if this also changed the summoned creature's damage type to psychic, which would get around some of the damage resistance issues that both of these conjurations usually deal with.
Illusory Self is also getting buffed - you now get to choose to use it after you know if an attack hit or missed you (so you'll never waste it) and you can also restore uses of the feature by burning 2nd level or higher spell slots. This means that as long as you've got lots of spell slots, you're basically unhittable. Naturally, I might save this feature and use Shield if I can, but this is a fantastic "get out of crit jail" card.
Illusory Reality is largely unchanged, but there's new guidance in the Rules Glossary to make sure that everyone's on the same page regarding how illusions work.
So, again, not a ton of changes here, but this is also one of the classes least in need of changes. You're still going to be overall better off in most cases. I will say that for the subclasses left behind in the 2014 PHB, I'd certainly allow for a couple of alterations as a DM. I would carry forth the change to Savant features into all of the Magic-School subclasses, and I might do things like change School of Necromancy to use Summon Undead instead of Animate Dead (though we haven't seen what the new version of Animate Dead will look like, so maybe it'll be fine).
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