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After seeing a lot of discussion in discord servers, I wonder if Solarian is undertuned or not. My reasons include:
- No 1/ten minutes AoE powers at level one anymore. The playtest had Supernova and Black Hole as the level 1 revelations for Radiant and Degradant arrangements, respectively. The lack of AoE options at level 1 in general seems to be a greater downgrade in power from the playtest and I wonder if this was intended, and if it was intended, why?
- The photon mode's solar weapon does less additional flat damage than most PF2 non-fighter melee martials' damage booster features. This is also true for envoys that can add +3-4 damage at level 1 through Get 'Em, and striker operatives (which are expert in their relevant melee weapons at level 1) get Aim which is 1d4 at base and can scale to 4d6. Is it less for photon solar weapon strikes because unlike envoys and operatives there is no action cost? (Except manifesting)
- No option to take Dexterity as a Key Ability Score. The fact that Solar Shot is a ranged brawling attack that uses dexterity and that it has an extensive feat line dedicated to it feels odd when only Strength is available as a Key Ability Score. With the option for Dexterity KAS I feel it would be possible to have slightly weaker melee solar weapons but overall a greater versatility.
- Less flexibility in solar weapons when it comes to damage, handedness, and finesse. For instance, I would have expected two handed solar weapons do d12's of damage and 3 traits, with d10 reach weapons available as an option with two traits available to add. This logic would extend to finesse weapons being one handed d6 weapons with one trait available and 2 handed d8 weapons with 2 traits available to add.

In the playtest the Envoy had the problem of being too one-note, what with one directive available at level 1 and more through feats. However, Acts of Leadership at level 6 highly increased flexibility. Adding subclass directives and moving Acts of Leadership to level 1 would have squared the circle in my opinion.

However, the released state of Envoy makes me very sad.
-The flavourful skill feats (Inappropriate Joke, Sparkling Performance, Dazzling Performance) getting removed does affect Envoy because it's a leader class that doubles as a skill user, and as such has a PF2 Investigator amount of skill increases.
- The structure of directives changing to the 1 action bonus with 2 action Lead By Example really feels restrictive to the point of "boring".
- Limiting directives to once per *round* feels unnecessary (though I wonder if it was balanced like Pathfinder Bard's Composition Spells).
- Now onto two subclasses and their directives:
-- Guns Blazing's Ready Arms directive (two action) does not say that you can Strike/Area Fire/Auto Fire with any gun you may be holding, and requires you to change weapons (drawing/swapping arms/swapping) to even shoot the damn thing.
-- In The Spotlight is very perplexing. In the playtest, this subclass at lvl 6 got to Lead By Example by issuing a second directive, thus acting as an extremely versatile martial support. Now, it's a soft-locked melee build that does not have the hardiness as From The Front. And Dance Partner confounds me even more because:
--- It nominates an ally *within ten feet* of me. Then I stride, and then ally strides to me.
--- It then counts any enemy we both "threaten" as "flanked". Now I do not know 1e jargon but I've been told that "threatening" refers to "having enemies within my melee reach".
--- After that, we're both concealed to ranged attacks *within ten feet of us*.
First of all, why is there this limitation of 10 feet for both picking my ally AND being concealed to ranged attacks? Furthermore I do not believe this subclass has the hardiness of From The Front to be able to withstand any amount of melee pressure that ends up being more action intensive than a Pathfinder Rogue feat (Gang Up at level 6).

As for what I'd do with the subclass directives:
- Ready Arms: The two action Lead By Example can simply be used to Strike/Area Fire/Auto Fire and then an ally can spend a reaction making a ranged weapon Strike.
- Dance Partner: For all this action intensiveness, I'd rather nominate an ally within at least 30 ft of me, and be concealed against ranged attacks within 30 ft of me. Furthermore, being limited to melee targets in this Ranged Meta will be difficult to justify using over Get 'Em, so I'd've preferred if "enemies you both threaten" were changed to "enemies within reach or the first range increment of both of you and your weapons", for added versatility and action-intensive ranged flanking.

If I install a Stellar Cannon or Machine Gun on my drone with an Integrated Weapon Mount, am I able to use Area/Auto-Fire? If so, what DC do I use?