| simpetar |
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First of all, I love the archetype's concept! I tried to devise few builds on paper and then got to try 2 of them (one based on flurry Ranger, another based on wood kineticist, both using FA) out in a short game.
And I hit a brick wall:
1. The action tax is insane. One action alone is needed to keep the swarm going, each and every round, and if you fail, it becomes unusable for a minute (usually rest of the fight). Another action to make the swarm actually do something offensive.
2. The swarm is very slow. Unless you are fighting a horde of zombies, the swarm will never catch up to enemies who decide to outrun it. If enemies want to move away, even Weaver's Web cannot stop them: they need to end their turn in the web, not start in it. In addition, allies are immune to the swarm's damage, but not effects; your friends will get webbed too.
3. Every offensive action except the basic Bite and Sting has Flourish trait. If you sustain the swam and have it do something fancy, you cannot use other compressed actions to make up for what you lost.
4. The swarm shares your health like an eidolon. However, if you want to capitalize on what it does best (dealing damage to multiple enemies at once) and drop a fireball, you get punished.
In conclusion: if you use the swarm's to its potential, you are precluded from most of your base class's abilities. If you use your strong class abilities, you will be either wasting actions on the archetype or not benefitting from it at all.
Can something be done to make the archetype work? Am I missing something here?