I'm not sure what he's doing with that because I could have sworn that two of the same bonuses do not stack.
I think his isn't so much bash people, but to be a blockade.
And I just found out that this build is for Pathfinder. The game he's sitting in, will be his first PF game because the new DM wants to give that a shot. He did the build up while reading the books at work.
So in combat he'll do exactly the same as a level 1 spell? Filling out one 5ft square where the opponents can't go? How is that useful?
IIRC shield boni don't stack, and they didn't change that in pathfinder.
While they nerfed a lot of the spells, they kind of shot themselves in the foot with their backwards compatibility claim. As soon as someone brings a Spell Compendium to the table and the DM allows it, all of that "balance" was for naught.
Also some of the spells they nerfed very hard while others they didn't touch at all. Magic Jar is as gamebreaking as ever, and Black tentacles lost little but some damage and +3 to grapple, which, while it balances it some, is still a hardcore broken spell.
Sleet Storm and grease are still awesome.
All pathfinder really did to the spells was make Conjuration better than transmutation, so we could get that stupid debate finished up. Necromancy also gets quite good in Pathfinder since none of the broken spells in there were nerfed (Enervation, Ray of Exhaustion, Magic Jar).
The also made Illusion a lot better, it was already decent, but now it's gotten a level 1 spell that makes you invisible, and silent image is a good a BC spell as ever on the low levels.
All in all, I don't think pathfinder made the wizards and sorcerers much worse off, yes they got hit with a nerf-bat. But a very minor one, and they also get better class abilities now. Especially the sorcerer got better.