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This is from a session of 6 players + myself, as DM: I am reporting my player's experiences from our playtest sessions.
The Arcanist is a hybrid class with powerful potential that comes at the expense of staying power. It is a min/maxer's dream class, with the ability to pump save DC's and caster levels higher than ever before. Like the other hybrids, it rewards players who know how to optimize the classes it's derived from.
We played the Arcanist at levels 5 and 15. The level 5 Arcanist was a moderately powerful blaster. The level 15 was an extreme one.
For exploits, the character took the Orc Arcana, Potent Magic (the pump DC or CL exploit) and Force Spike. Combat was straightforward - with the use of a point from my pool, I was able to push Scorching Ray up to it's second ray, which meant 2x 4d6+4 ranged touch attacks. This worked well.
Consume spells is handy - if you're certain your utility spells aren't going to be used, you can basically enhance every spell you're going to cast. Generally this is done after combat. There's little concern about holding some low-level damage spells back if you've taken a damaging exploit (I prefer force spike as a finisher, but I can see the potential in others)
What became an issue is being too hasty with consume spells - you can quickly find yourself totally tapped out. This is a non-issue at higher levels (you have far more spells than you'd ever cast) but at lower levels you have to manage your resources carefully.
The level 15 Arcanist was very strong - with Improved Potent Magic and the counterspell exploits, she was both a controller, denying others the ability to cast spells near her, and also a devastating blaster: with careful feats chosen to optimize transmutation magic and the disintegrate spell, here's how her first 2 turns of the 'big boss' fight worked out:
Spell Perfection (Disintegrate) to allow for maximized & empowered disintegrates, for a DC 31 Fortitude Save or 19d6 + 250ish typeless damage.
Combined with a rod of metamagic quicken, this was 2 beams a round for the first 2 rounds: quite savage.
Most of this could have been accomplished by a sorcerer or wizard, but the Arcanist added some previously unavailable enhancements: with metamixing, the orc bloodline, and potent magic, the effectiveness of blaster spellcasting, even at high levels, cannot be discounted.
Likes
Consume Spells allows for extra oomph when it counts. Very strong but it comes at a high cost (at least at early levels) of using resources quickly. If you want to have strong spells all day long, your day is going to be short.
The counterspell exploits are incredibly strong. Honestly, this is what counterspelling needed to become useful - the existing counterspell rules are never used. Controlling the pace of an encounter by locking enemy spellcasters down is very strong. Again, this can quickly sap resources, but that's an acceptable tradeoff.
Skills, Hitpoints, BAB and saves are all appropriate for this class.
Dislikes
The difference between Sorcerer/Wizard and Arcanist is entirely related to their reservoir. With the ability to take the bloodline and school powers, the only reason to go Sorcerer or Wizard is for Archtypes or if you want to benefit from a numerical class ability, like the draconic bloodline breath weapon. Even so, there are plenty of bloodlines that just work without needing to be pumped (see: Orc, Arcane bloodlines) and there is danger of unintended consequences there. I would recommend adjusting these two exploits to say you gain the benefit of the bloodline for 1 minute with the use of 1 point, and the use of another point allows you to treat your Arcanist level as your wizard/sorcerer level for 1 round.
Certain items (ring of wizardry) make the class dramatically more powerful. A ring of wizardry is always good, but generally by the time you can afford one the benefits of twice as many scorching rays or invisibility spells is only marginal. With the Arcanist, you give yourself 4-12 extra reservoir points, which is great. Not sure how one fixes this, though - a reduction on the maximum points in your pool would make the after-combat pool refilling ritual less valuable, but it might also cause issues when refilling your pool at higher levels.
Tomorrow I'm going to post about our Brawler, with his immediate action feats!