We did our next round of play-testing tonight, doing an "arena" style series of encounters against a range of creature types.
Our Mesmerist was "no show" so not included.
Our last play-test was levels 1-2, this round started at level 8.
Players reported no issues leveling up.
We ran an average of two encounters before leveling up another level...ending at 11th.
Overall performance....
Keneticist: Had no problem landing attacks, and was actually the most consistent hitter. By using burn he generally did at least half an opponents HD each shot...so between him and the occultist, they took most opponents out in close to one round.
Medium: Performed poorly, partially due to incorrect expectations by the player as to what the class was attempting to "be". Player later re-assigned ability scores and tried to go for a more melee focused build, but that had relatively little impact on the classes overall performance.
It was more or less a fifth wheel all evening.
Occultist: Performance was right up there with Keneticist...had a wide range of options available, and was able to contribute against all opponents. There was a question regarding redundancy if taking the same focus more than once...
Psychic: Performed more or less in line with other dedicated casters of comparable level....had a few shining moments with some of the new psychic spells.
Spiritualist: Performance was actually pretty good, comparable to the Psychic, although options are far more limited. Hit and damage didn't meet the level of Keneticist or Occultist, but generally felt he had something to offer. It did come up (based on his combat style of both the spiritualist and phantom wading in side by side)that Team Work feats might be an interesting option to look at in regards to helping the phantoms performance without simply mimicking Eidolon customization ???
He specifically doesn't feel that "phase lurch" is overpowered or a problem. Would like to see more options for customizing a phantom that don't actually just mimic the Eidolon abilities (options for armed phantoms, options to allow traits for phantoms...etc...etc...)
I'm curious to see the Spiritualist's build, if you have access to it.