I just got Spheres of Power and have begun to look through it. It's pretty interesting, and I can see why some people like it, but certain Spheres feel a little "bare" to me.
This is probably where Rituals and Spellcrafting come in, to help fill in the gaps.
So I thought I'd ask everyone what interesting standard pathfinder spells they've been able to recreate through mixing Spheres and Talents. (Or spells they've been unable to recreate)
How do you mean "bare"?
Honestly, once we got into it and making characters you can do just about everything. And by everything, I mean some of the stuff I couldn't replicate I'd have no interest in doing so. It just about covers all the bases.
the only thing i'm interested in is can i make an air bubble?
Stretching Spheres of Power with spellcrafting is more about imagination than options. You can do most anything based on what talents you use, spellcrafting just squares the whole situation as the options are based on how you mix the spheres and talents. But overall most spells I can think of that people actually use can be replicated. The things that really lose out are some downtime spells and spells with multiple weird complex effects.
It would be easier to ask you waht you want to do and figure out how to do that with spheres but in reality most of the usable spells in the game have an obvious counterpart.
Something like Mirror Image I guess? (Picking random spell for this)
Complex + Lingering Illusion + Illusionary Touch x2 + Illusionary Sound is close, but I don't know if "make all images react as you do" is quite possible with Complex's text, and making a saving through against a complex illusion means it sees through the entire illusion rather than one component part.
I guess you could spend multiple turns doing separate illusions? But by that point you might as well do something else.