Okay, we've seen some of the same arguments repeated here.
1. Grapples: How does a grapple work? Well, it's basically a block with an extra requirement (that you burn a tag or invoke), but with extra goodies you can inflict as a supplemental action. A grappled person can still attempt any action to go against the block though, and attacks or spells can break the grapple as well.
So how is that bad for wizards? Well, it's not. A spellcaster who acts with 10-11 (like the character in my first post) will be able to blow through even an 8 power block - and thus grapple - reliably. And with the need to tag for effect instead of bonus, a 6 power grapple seems more likely (5 Might+Inhuman Strength). Of course, that's with a focus item. Maybe our grappler uses his supplemental action to impose a Disarmed maneuver to make the wizard drop his blasting rod. But then the odds are actually even! Our wrestling monster drops by 1 from the minor action to 7, and the wizard's control sans item is also 7.
The idea that a grappled wizard is totally screwed, while common in the fiction, is not really supported by game mechanics.
A grapple+disarm strategy will also be extremely effective against characters with primary Guns or Weapons. They won't just lose a bonus when disarmed, they might lose the ability to apply their top relevant skill at all!
2. Mental attacks screw wizards.
I'll admit that, for their conviction and discipline ratings, a character using evocation is rather vulnerable because they're using up that stress track for their own powers too.
However, that's for characters of the same discipline and conviction skills - which will be quite high for the combat evoker, since those skills determine the power of their magic. Other characters have less of a reason to buy discipline, so it will probably be lower. Hence, mental attacks are more likely to hit those characters, and then will hit by a larger margin (thus doing more damage) when they do it.
Someone mentioned a Weapon 4 mental attack. Let's say our mental attacker gets a 4 on its attack (a +0 roll, with accuracy equal to power). A 5 Conviction, 4 Discipline wizard defends at 4 from Discipline and has 4 mental stress boxes. The spellcaster has around a 40ish percent chance to avoid the Great mental attack. He can absorb a glancing hit with his top stress box. On a defense roll of -1 to -3, he scrapes by with some stress and mild consequence - which his extra Mild Mental slot can take. Only on a roll of -4 does he need to suffer a Moderate consequence to avoid being taken out.
A character prioritizing more conventional combat skills (or anything else besides Discipline and Conviction) might end up with something like 2 Discipline and 1 Conviction. That's a defense of 2, and 3 mental stress boxes. Weapon 4 versus 3 stress means that all hits, no matter how minor, will inflict a mild consequence. Against the same accuracy 4, +0 roll, he needs a 6% chance +3 roll to avoid the attack. At least a moderate consequence will be suffered on a defense up to and including +0. On a sucky -4, our guy takes 10 damage and thus requires a Mild AND a Severe (or an Extreme) to remain active.
Is getting hit with a mental attack bad for a spellcaster? Heck yeah. But it's worse for someone without the mental defense skills. And buying a Great Discipline exclusively for mental defense is somewhat expensive (unless you're also using it for Feeding Dependency or something as well). Anyone can get hammered by high power mental attacks.
3. Ambushes are great. Yeah, they are.
In fact, they're so great they work pretty well against everyone. The vampire with 6 Stealth from Cloak of Shadows has something like a 2 out of 3 chance to get the drop on someone with Great Alertness - which seems like a pretty high skill. Most characters don't do so well when they only have a Mediocre defense. It doesn't seem unreasonable to say that the combat evoker is impacted less than other combat characters, since their base defense skill is probably lower. Shapechanging type characters (eg, Wereforms) may be especially vulnerable with Human Form, or may just need to spend actions to transform so their early rounds are further disadvantaged.
4. All combat ability leaves Jack a dull boy...
Well, not really. We're talking about a skill set defined by the top 3 of Conviction, Discipline, and Lore. I'll freely admit that Conviction is kind of bad - especially since an evocation using character will be using up those extra boxes. Having a bigger total stress can help against 3-4 size hits where having the box is the difference between a consequence or not. But the guy dealing mental stress to himself probably isn't to have more total available boxes compared to other characters. Discipline is the skill for mental defense, and can also block Intimidate. Lore covers knowledge of magic, detection of magical stuff (replacing some uses for Alertness), and your basic rituals. They have some utility in mental and social conflicts, as well as some knowledge uses. Most of them are more useful outside a fight than a skill like Guns or Fists.
Also, Evocation is a pretty versatile ability. You can use it to make area or structure attacks like Craftsmanship, create a shield for Athletics, Veil like Stealth, as well as serving as an attack skill. The Alertness, Fist/Weapon/Gun, Stealth, Might guy who sneaks up on the wizard, attacks, wins initiative and then grapples is more skill intensive. At Submerged, a 1/3/3/3/3 skill column leaves the evoker with 1 Great skill open, and then all Good to Fair skills for non combat or secondary combat abilities. The equivalent at a Great skill cap actually leaves you with a few extra points at 25 points. Even if the powers I've listed in the OP are technically affordable at the lowest starting level, they don't seem especially appropriate, so I'm not going to worry about the skill structure at that level.
A Conv/Lore/Disc skill apex also works well for thaumaturgy or ritual, which often goes with evocation in templates. That's really expensive in terms of refresh though, even if it does provide a powerful weapon in combat, and versatile toolset out of it.
5. Cofeekid's gunslinger:
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but:
Of course, you fabricated the ability to create freely taggable aspects on your guns out of nothing (unfortunately, adding an arbitrary damage bonus based on expert crafting isn't without precedent). Declarations about your equipment might be appropriate, but those don't seem like they'd refresh per scene. And why 3 aspects, not more? A house rule that grants massive bonuses to equipment attacks actually seems like a bigger change than one that provides a penalty to evocation attacks. Especially because of 2 major problems: First of all, not all attacks use a weapon, so those attacks couldn't be boosted with gear bonuses. Second, evocation uses equipment. Why settle for a vanilla magic wand or staff when you can pimp out your blasting rod with cooling vents, a reflex sight, custom grips, an experimental cartridge system, etc?
Also, you don't have the resources to support a Workshop that could handle even difficulty 3 projects. But the whole workshop rule seems really stupid anyway; I'm pretty sure we're ignoring it anyway.
I only see one stunt that can boost an attack, so his attack would default to 6, not 7.
Also, a Weapon Focus (effectively) stunt doesn't seem appropriately situational compared to the example attack booster. It's pretty easy to apply like 90% of the time. Even if Target Rich Environment is going to apply in 90% of the fights, it will lose utility as you drop enemies and even the odds. Unless you lose, I guess.
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So far, we've been using these rules in 2 sessions with our wizard. He retooled a bit, dropping to 8 Control, 6 Power and picking up more defensive items. Now, when he gets in a good hit, he's hitting for about 10 or so, instead of like 16. It's not like he became a combat lightweight. I think he also appreciated the ability to cast without stress in our recent zombie apocalypse adventure.
