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Your posts on this are sufficiently voluminous in their wrongness that I'm not going to address everything, but I will note that Ongoing Misery is specifically restricted to "prolonging the duration of any negative conditions" by 1 round.

I missed that, you're right.

I speak as someone who has been playing a summoner for years.

Though I admit I have not tried a ranged summoner build yet; I hear they're quite good.

Sorry, I didn't know.

F=MA. So the higher the Mass, the higher the Force (i.e. Strength)

My experience on these boards is that when you get that far away you are certainly knee deep in a rabbit hole.

I think the druid gives them a run for their money in that respect.

The Summoner is a martial and a spellcaster simultaneously (and not concurrently), a perfect switch hitter (for the Eidolon, not the Summoner), it has excellent mobility (once level 4), skill monkeyness, can take tanking duty (offtank only) and is one of the hardest classes to pin down. It's among the top healers in the game considering you can 2-action Heal and deal excellent damage in the same round. It's the best specialized skill monkey with the Eidolon who can help the Summoner or the other way around. It's the best scout in the game also (maybe the Wild Witch can compete, I'm testing that right now). The class is just full of shenanigans, you can make absolutely everything with it.

If you haven't played a Summoner you have no idea how this class is versatile. It has a solution to every situation.

The Druid is just a spellcaster who can turn into a martial but then lose all spellcasting ability, something that all Primal spellcasters can do. It's in the dust, without a hint of hesitation. And I think Deriven will second that point of view, he has more experience than I have with Druids.

Edit: I don't say the Druid is not versatile but the level of versatility you can reach with the Summoner is just unimaginable before you actually play one. There are lots of encounters (in a large sense) where one of the Summoner shenanigans can be somehow exploited to great effects.

I really underestimated this class during the playtest mainly because it doesn't do well what you would think a summoner does well. It's more like a super versatile martial class in two bodies than a caster.

The Summoner is the most versatile class in the game bar none. I really haven't found such a versatility in my Rogue, Alchemists nor Sorcerer (which are still very versatile classes).

Does "sustained up to x" even count as a timed duration as opposed to "exists until it doesn't" with an upper limit?

A very RAW point of view would make Ongoing Misery nearly impossible to use. For example, once a spell duration ends all the conditions the spell gives are removed. So even if you extend the Slowed condition from Slow it is removed when the spell duration expires. But I don't think anyone wants to play it that way (as shown in numerous places).

So I think Ongoing Misery has to be read with a bit of interpretation. The duration of the Evil Eye spell is "Sustained up to 1 minute". It's a duration and as such can be expended by one round with the use of Ongoing Misery. It obviously only increases the duration of the Sickened condition, not the part where it is impossible to remove it which is no condition.

PF1 rules questions make me love PF2 :D

What sickened condition has a duration listed in the specific ability?

Just for information, the Destachan inflicts Sickened 1 for 1 round.

Even if you're right, that reading still wouldn't apply to sickened which has no duration.

Most conditions don't have a duration. Haste gives the Quickened condition without a duration and I think you should be able to extend it beyond 1 minute (it's actually a very strong use of Ongoing Misery, buff an ally and extends the Quickened condition every round until you finally meet the enemies).

You should be able to extend a condition without a duration that has been applied by a spell with a duration. The condition just lasts longer than the spell.

But the condition does not have a duration by default.

But Evil Eye inflicts the Sickened condition until you stop Sustaining it. You should be able to extend it beyond Evil Eye's duration. It's in my opinion the whole reason Evil Eye has been moved from Frightened to Sickened: for Ongoing Misery to apply to it.

And I'm with Dubious Scholar: You can't prevent Frightened from ticking down more than you can prevent Confused from being removed by damage or Invisible from being removed by a hostile action. Allowing the condition to last beyond that would lead to too many shenanigans.

Of course. Why would that be in question?

There was a lot of negative answers so I was just bringing another case of "targetting the air" to get a specific effect.

Extending fleeing doesn't generally seem possible because an enemy that flees for one round will likely be more than 15 feet from your familiar. Maybe if you give your familiar fast movement and flier, it could keep up with something with 25 foot speed.

You can extend it before the enemy moves. Fear and if the enemy critically fails their save => Hex to increase Fleeing to 2 rounds.

Sounds like a lose lose scenario. Either evil eye is okay, but incompatible with Ongoing Misery, or it's bad but compatible with Ongoing Misery.

I love it: everyone is screaming about the Resentment being too strong, and then all of a sudden it becomes bad. Isn't there a middle ground somewhere?

Also, Sickened for 1 action doesn't seem bad at all, it's on par with the competition. And it combines itself with Ongoing Misery so it works very well when you don't have other conditions to increase. It also gives a way to use the benefit of Ongoing Misery without having to rely on something else (even if it's not hard to inflict a condition as an Occult Witch, it's still not possible through at-will class abilities if it wasn't for Evil Eye).

Sickened isn't given a specific duration in the spell entry. So it lasts as normal for Sickened.

It would need language like "Sickened as long as the effect lasts" somewhere in there for that to be the case.

Read Haste and come back to tell me that you are permanently Quickened.

You consider that because a condition has specific means of being removed it can't also have a duration, but there are multiple examples that contradict this reading. Invisibility Invisible Condition can be removed by a hostile action and has a 10-minute duration, Confusion Confused condition can be removed by taking damage and has a 1-minute duration, Ghosts Drained Touch inflict the Drained 1 condition for 1 day, Fear has a duration and only inflicts the Frightened condition, etc...

Conditions with a specific way of being removed can have a duration. You can be Sickened 1 for 1 round, the Destrachan proves it.

As Evil Eye has a duration and the sole effect of giving the Sickened condition it seems rather obvious that the Sickened condition lasts as long as you sustain Evil Eye.

So, Bandit falls fortitude save, is sickened 1. If the witch stops sustaining, does the condition end?

"The duration of a spell is how long the spell effect lasts."

There are rules about ongoing effects, like the Deafened Condition from Sound Burst, but they need to have a duration higher than the spell duration.

Sickened doesn't have a duration on its own so there's no reason for it to last longer than Evil Eye. Also, Evil Eye is a sustained spell with for sole effect the Sickened condition it gives, that'd be strange to see its effect lasting even if you don't sustain the spell.

There's another question about "putting things in the air" which is: Can you target the air with a Fireball so the affected area on the floor is smaller than a 20-foot radius? It can be rather handy, especially with extreme area spells like Eclipse Burst.

I also think it's a typo.

The spell provides the duration. That’s usually the case, frightened, sickened, and most stunned values being the exceptions that spells do not give durations to an have their own rules for reducing the condition that don't involve duration.

Frightened and Sickened are removed when the duration of the spell expires. It's especially true for the Resentment Witch because of Evil Eye: If you stop sustaining Evil Eye, the Sickened Condition is removed at the end of your turn. That's one of the basic uses of the ability to extend a duration: Evil Eye on one enemy while extending the duration of your previous Evil Eye.

It has to be a condition WITH A DURATION. Frightened and (usually) sickened don’t have fixed durations and don’t qualify. If it has a duration you’re extending but an end condition happens (like counteracted or a duration limited sicken ended by a vomit) it still ends.

Many conditions don't have a duration but are applied by a spell with a duration, like Synesthesia. Would you forbid it on the Clumsy 3 condition from Synesthesia?

Superbidi will be able to determine how badly the Summoner is reduced without electric arc.

The Summoner continues with Electric Arc. It's only at low level that it's really annoying. At higher level, the change shouldn't be felt too hard.

Still annoying, but not crippling.

Psychic... hmm. It only impacts some of the conscious minds. I think Oscillating Wave is better (Reflex save on amped Frostbite improves expected damage a lot), the other d4 cantrips are basically the same damage as before anyways, so Distant Step is unaffected. Imaginary Weapon was already hard to use, so I'm not sure how much Tangible Dream cares (Astral Rain is slightly better on average now).

Electric Arc was excellent on the Psychic, even better than some amped cantrips when Unleashed (both due to the save for half and double targets).

Not all classes have easy access to offensive focus spells though, and not all subclasses, etc.

That's why I speak about level 4 as I consider grabbing them through Dedications. Psychic being the easiest one.

Are you saying that pre-remaster, having access to both, you chose cantrips over offensive focus spells?

What do you mean by "having access"?

Pre-remaster, all my casters were using Electric Arc. Outside some niche situations the other cantrips were under my bare minimum of efficiency.

With the remaster, Electric Arc has been strongly hit, especially at low level. At level 1-2, Needle Darts deals roughly pre remaster Electric Arc damage on a single target but with a longer range. So in my opinion, it will replace Electric Arc at level 1-2 (it's available to all traditions, so easy to grab).
At level 4 (at the latest), I'll move to offensive Focus Spells as they are now usable multiple times per fight.

Cantrips are now a trap option to me. I don't see myself relying on them anymore.

@Teridax: The discussion is about offensive cantrips, hence why we don't talk about non-offensive ones.

Don't think many people will ban it being honest. Some will, for sure, but it is still legal in PFS, so hard to argue for a ban besides just doing it cause it is a strong spell.

If anything, I think more people will ban this subclass. Slow + resentment is already too much.

I don't find Resentment to be out of bounds. People are screaming about how strong it is but I don't see it being banned (well, it still depends on how people will play the Sickened condition, similarly to the discussion we got about the Frightened condition inflicted by Dirge of Doom). About Synesthesia, I expect at some point the old content to be somehow "archived". A lot of it is no more playable and even if it's playable it's using old syntax and traits. A couple of years in the future, I'd not be surprised if GMs start banning it on a regular basis just because it's disruptive.

Synesthesia may be forbidden by many GMs. All the spells from the core rulebook that haven't been reprinted can cause some issues (Synesthesia causes a balance one).

Slow is a 3rd level spell.
Revealing Light should work, too.

It depends on your approach to healing. The parties I see tend to be well organised. There is only occasional need for Heal in combat as they have other sources of healing, so typically they only need one Heal prepared. Most healing is done out of combat and daily resources like spell slots are just not required for that. In an undead heavy campaign the Heal is great. But otherwise you may as well try to use your divine font more efficiently.

I play PFS a lot with healers and I see the same thing: Past the first 4 levels the need for healing goes down to one Heal per day on average. That's why I have a very negative point of view on the Cleric class: In my opinion the Font is just overkill.

About Harm, I've been trying to do a Harm based character since day 1 and have never really been able to reach a satisfying build. The Warpriest seems the most obvious choice but then the save DC goes down at some point affecting Harm efficiency (and Channel Smite is a joke considering that it reduces your damage output). Also, the issue of using 1-action Harm repeatedly is the extreme resource cost of the strategy. That's why I consider the Tempest Oracle, with its Harm-like Focus Spell, to be a more sustainable Harm-based build.
I also think it's near mandatory to grab Occult casting for Spectral Hand unless you have a rather tanky character. 120ft range instead of Touch changes everything.

Generally speaking, in this case I'm only concerned with the early game, when the cantrip nerf hurts. Like I originally said, I don't think the bow's worth keeping up-to-date with level 8 and beyond upgrades. My intention there was only to demonstrate a weapon outscaling basic cantrips. I did forget about shadow signet though thank you.

I'm not concerned about +2 or +3 creatures either. After all, who's using cantrips against those? We have spell slots for that. The bow might be useful filler there, but that's all it is.

For high reflex saves though, sure the median is...

If it's really for the low levels, then I'd not choose a bow but a Heavy Crossbow with Potency Crystals. At low level, fights are extremely short (especially if you put bosses aside), rarely more than a couple of rounds. As such, you are not penalyzed by the reload (you will only shoot once). And with a Potency Crystal, the Heavy Crossbow packs a real punch unlike the bow. Also, it doesn't cost much, neither in character option nor in money.

Comparing a sequence of 3 bow shots with Potency Crystal and 1 Crossbow shot with Potency Crystal + Electric Arc, you'll deal respectively 20%, 26% and 48% extra damage during the 3 first levels. In my opinion, in the extremely fast low level fights, it will be much more interesting than a bow could be.

New electric arc clocks in at ~120%. It needs moderate saves to get back to that 150%. For me, in that high reflex early game, it's just not good enough.

According to Exocist's chart, median AC is exactly equal to high AC for each and every level. Median Ref is 2 points higher than moderate reflex at level -1, 1 point higher at levels 1 and 2 and 1 point lower at level 10-11. For the other levels, median reflex saves are moderate saves exactly. So "high reflex early game" is an overstatement. It's still closer to moderate than to high (level -1 enemies are hardly a danger).

Against Moderate saves and high AC, 2 Bow shots deal on average over the course of the 20 levels 9.8% more damage than single target Electric Arc against a same level opponents. I take a secondary target over 10% extra damage every day. Against a level +2/3 opponent, Electric Arc beats the bow significantly.

For Needle Darts, you forgot to count the Shadow Signet which helps a lot during 2-digit levels (even if it's hard to determine exactly what will be its impact, but it puts Needle Darts very close to the bow).

And all of that considers a fully runed bow at exactly the level you get the new rune with all the elemental runes on it, too. It is very much environment dependent (especially the elemental runes). Also, a bow costs more than a cantrip (in terms of character options and money).

Still, I don't say the bow is bad or whatever. It's a nice third action and there are situations where the bow will beat the cantrips. I just dislike when it is raised above its actual role.

Now that there aren't any damage cantrips worth casting early on

Honestly, Shortbow is nowhere close to strong. You need to wait for level 11 for 2 shots with a Shortbow to get beyond a ranged Ignition.

What I think people will do more is Psychic dedication at 2 for Telekinetic Projectile or Phase Bolt to have both better versions of those cantrips and a decent damaging focus spell (well, CHA and INT casters at least).

Amped TKP is not exactly interesting, but Phase Bolt gets really interesting, I agree. Well, that's also a good guess!

Overall, rage of elements boosted cantrips enough that the slight nerfing of a few of them is not a super big deal, but I think every full caster probably should have gotten 1 more of them, as the biggest effect of the remaster is that every caster now has to have multiple attack cantrips at low levels or they will underperform what they could do previously. Casters now must play the defense and damage type mini game and that takes 3 or 4 cantrips by itself for the first several levels.

I think it'll just change the caster's builds. Before, the most basic advice given to any beginner willing to play a caster was to grab Electric Arc one way or another. And it was working ok without much addition.

Now, it's hard to tell. EA starts at 76% of what it was, gets to 83% at level 3 and never rise above 90%. It's a severe nerf.

I would not be surprised to see Kineticist Dedication on casters more often. The Dedication gives you a ranged attack that you can combine with a cantrip and at level 4 you get good "cantrips" in the form of Impulses. And Constitution is an interesting attribute for casters anyway. It's more costly than grabbing Electric Arc but it's stronger.

For example, if I compare Tremor to Electric Arc: Both have the same range and the ability to hit multiple targets even if Electric Arc is easier to land. At level 4, Tremor does 25% more expected damage than the new Electric Arc (similar damage to the old one) and gets to 56% more at level 5 and then stays around +50% damage (that's considering a 16 starting Con and the level 12 feat to get Expert in Kineticist class DC). The comparison is telling.

In my opinion, the problem has just been sidestepped: You won't see more often the bad cantrips you will just see something else in place of Electric Arc (and I feel Tremor will become the new Electric Arc).

Also the whole: "Martials don't know how to attack at range" is ridiculous. Martials have absolutely no need for Electric Arc, it's actually a rarity in any optimized build (and in general, as Whew is pointing out, it's a side effect of grabbing something more valuable).

Cantrips are a min dmg bottom safety net that are almost always useable in a manner not possible to martials.

So it's a safety net on the floor?

Mark Seifter, one of PF2e's co-creators, explicitly said Electric Arc was overpowered

Well, maybe you should watch it again as Mark never said Electric Arc was overpowered, he just said that Electric Arc was stronger than the other cantrips and why.

I disagree. Electric arc IS overpowered. You only have to look at how many characters (martials and casters) go to significant lengths to get it. I've been in a PFS session where EVERY character had it. NONE of them getting it natively from their class.

Common doesn't mean overpowered. Electric Arc has traditionally been a safety net for weak builds: Low level casters, Investigators, Alchemists, low level archers, ranged option for martials with no Dexterity...

But EA has never been anywhere close to overpowered. There are not many top tier builds where it takes a significant role. And it's mostly because other cantrips were uselessly weak that EA took such a role, it was the only competitive attack cantrip in the game.

This will be a big deal if weaknesses are prevalent in the monster core 1, and it won’t be a big deal otherwise. We still have to wait and see.

Weakness exploitation is only valid for Arcane and Primal traditions. Divine and Occult traditions target a very limited number of damage types, many of them being physical (so everyone can exploit it and as such it doesn't become an asset anymore).

Burning hands/fire breath was/is clearly supposed to be some kind of multi-target damage bench mark for PF2, but electric arc used to obliterate it.

It has nothing to do with Electric Arc being too strong but with Burning Hands being an absolute pile of trash. Burning Hands needs a severe buff (you can double its damage) to be even considered by experienced players.

There are a couple of useful rank 1 spells per traditions for level 1-2 casters. Why Paizo designed first rank spells to be so weak, I have no clue. But nerfing cantrips won't make them better.

...

I've been there...

I won't answer your post because I think you are wrong from the first sentence to the last one. I'd sum up my point of view with this question you have eluded: What's your experience with casters in PF2?

As someone pretty to pf2e I will say that pre-remaster cantrips honestly seemed too strong in comparison to spell slots.

What's your experience with casters in PF2?

Electric Arc was the bare minimum for what a cantrip should be. It was never strong and never even remotely comparable to a slotted spell. The rest of the cantrips were so bad that one of the most basic advice to Divine and Occult casters was to grab Electric Arc one way or another.

Having played many casters (Sorcerer, Oracle and Summoner who got to at least mid levels), EA was my bread and butter spell at low level. Having to rely on other cantrips now is just uselessly painful. 1d4+4 to 2 targets for 2 actions was making martials laugh, now they are just sad as it's not even funny.

I assume that, like the magus, people will be using focus spells for eldritch archer. You don't need four different spells when you're firing psi amps or cleric domain spells.

You'll hardly get both the Eldritch Archer Dedication that starts at 6 and another Dedication unless you play with Free Archetype. So lots of people won't get any Focus Spell for their Eldritch Archer or only during the last third of their career.

What makes you feel that AoE dazzle is better than single target (and later AoE) -1 action? I fully agree that it's good, and you can just layer both of them with the local resentment witch, but I'd still take direct action loss in most scenarios.

Revealing Light is one level lower, has better range, targets a better save, affects multiple targets, lasts longer on a success and on top of it reduce Hidden/Concealed Conditions.

There are situations where Slow is better, it isn't overshadowed by Revealing Light. But as a bread and butter debuff spell, Revealing Light will replace Slow (Slow has actually never really been a bread and butter debuff due to all its limitations).
Also, I was speaking about Slow 3, comparing a level 6 spell and a level 2 one is hardly relevant.

Since you can fully refocus between fights, you should be able to get away with casting cantrips a bit less at low levels if you manage to get 2 or more focus spells and at least one of them is a generally usable one. That's what I tried to ask about.

Psychic put aside, there are not so many classes with damage focused low level 2-action Focus Spells. I see Fire Ray for Clerics, but it asks for a specific deity. Overall, the nerf to Cantrips affect all caster in a very similar manner.

A big change in my opinion is the new go to spell for debuff which is Revealing Light. Available to every traditions and better than Slow, what else could we ask?

Only drawback: We will see it a lot (like always).

Would you say the cantrip change has widen even more the difference between casters that have a good focus spell (or have focus cantrips) and those who don't between levels 1-4?

Focus spells and focus cantrips don't really interact with Cantrips. Whatever the damage of TKP, you gonna Inspire with your Bard. So it affects all casters roughly equally.

Also, a few of them were also buffed a bit, right? A few of them do 3d4 instead of 1d4 + mod. Do these feel better or is it mostly the same?

Electric Arc has been nerfed, TKP has been nerfed, Ray of Frost has been nerfed, even Daze has been nerfed. I'm not even sure any cantrip has been buffed. I've defaulted to Needle Darts as it hasn't been changed, but it doesn't feel good (it's roughly as good as TKP was but it ages badly). Clearly, a useless and unfair nerf.

Hostile actions you took before turning Invisible don't affect invisibility (luckily). But continuing them (like Sustaining a hostile spell) does.

Having played a low level caster since the remaster, I can say that the nerf to cantrips is weakening casters when they are at their lowest. Definitely a very bad choice, it would have been so easy to increase their efficiency instead of reducing it.

I'm quite happy about the change to Bless, but I don't understand why Bane, which is worse than Bless, has a lower radius...

I'm puzzled about Revealing Light. On one hand I'm happy to finally see the Divine spell list on par with the others in terms of debuff but on the other hand I'm a bit annoyed that the go to debuff spell is now so accessible and generalized.

a ruling that is made that isn't in the game is the definition is a houserule

Attacking objects is up to the GM and still everyone uses the same rules... So it looks like it's no houserule, it's just an unwritten one. Not all rules are written in the book, there are a lot of implications.

The game doesn't provide much to attack objects, it's roughly up to the GM.

And creatures can have Hardness, like Animated Objects, so there's no issue with Shattering Strike.

So "1 creature" means 1 creature.

I love how a class who doesn't need a buff gets a buff and people complain about the buff being too small...

I haven't found any rule for that and I've always tried to read multiple times such types of feat to find an answer. Overall, as a GM, I'll always go in the player direction if I lack a proper ruling unless something gets obviously out of control. In both your cases, I think no one would bat an eye if it's played to the player's advantage.

The melee option have a range of touch, and if he places the chosen square in touch range of the target its valid.

Yes. But the range is not melee, because you calculate the range from you and you are not in melee with the enemy.

Wny not?

Because the distance is still calculated from you.

You can exceed the spell normal range, ie. the spell range can be higher than it's max range, but you don't calculate the range from the point chosen by Warp Space but still from you.

Is this possible to use both melee option and warp space amp, in case of creature taking cover?

Yes. The distance to the creature is calculated from you while the lines of sight and effect are calculated from the point you choose. So if you have a creature at melee range with cover, you can use Warp Space to remove the cover while still applying the melee effects of Produce Flame.

Unlike what Nelzy says, you can't use Warp Space to use the melee option of Produce Flame at range.

The Eidolon must be chaotic evil, not the Summoner. Also, alignment being removed, there's no point in this rule anymore.