Playstyle Differences? Earth Wizard, Geomancer, Witch and Druid

[Icedminttea]

Hi Pathfinders,

I'm trying to get some familiarity into the differences between playstyles for earth-element based roles.

What is the difference in playstyle among (1) an Earth Elemental Wizard, (2) a Geo-kineticist, (3)a nature/debuffing Witch and (4) an earth druid?

I'm not sure if there are other earth based classes, but if you do please let me know.

Thanks,

Icedminttea

[Knight Magenta]

1 is a wizard. You can build him to be whatever a wizard can be.
2 is a kineticist. He focuses on blasts and probobly more tanky than other kineticists.
3 is going to be focused on debuffs
4 is a druid and can do whatever a druid does.

:p

You need to give us a little more than a class to get meaningful comparisons.

[Icedminttea]

For more specifics than class, I'd like to know the difference in playstyle between:

(1) An Earth Elemental Wizard with Wood as the opposition school, a bird animal familiar (e.g. hawk, owl, etc.)
(2) A geo-kineticist with some ground/battlefield shaping abilities possibly on a seismic level.
(3) A nature/debuffing Witch dominant over her Plant or Animal patron with its hawk/owl familiar, earth shaping focused hexes (as applicable).
(4) A druid elementalist with a caves subdomain/pit spells, wild shape earth elementals and summon nature's earth elementals with a bird animal companion.

For more specifics regarding combat playstyle, I'd like to know:
(1) Which class for levels 1-11 is best for combat roles where they spend about 35% of the time dealing damage, 40-50% on battlefield control, and the rest on buffing or debuffing.
(2) Survivability
(3) % of damage dealing combat dealt by bows or crossbow rather than spells/hexs/staves/wands/cantrips/magic in general.

For specifics on evaluating out of combat roles, I'd like to know which character best focuses on intelligence, exploration, identification, and investigative based skills (rather than social, diplomacy, leadership, negotiation, and physical strength based skills).

[Arcane Addict]

1) Probably the Druid as your number one, Kintecist or Wizard at 2 and 3 and Witch last. This rating is based on the damage vis a vis cc ratio. The druid does both nicely. The kineticist is probably more focused on dealing damage than these percentages and the wizard really is great at cc so 'shouldn't' deal much damage. The witch just isn't good at dealing damage at all most of the time (with few exceptions of course).
2) Kineticist, Druid, Witch, Wizard. Maybe you can switch the druid and the kineticist. Witch gets the nudge over the wizard because of access to healing spells.
3) I don't really see why any of these classes should use a bow or crossbow at all, honestly...

Out of combat, the Wizard is definitely king, followed by the witch then the druid and finally the kineticist.

Finally though, I do feel that of the classes you mentioned only the geokineticist really makes me feel like I'm playing an earth-based character. With wizards especially, there are so many options that it is easy to lose sight of your concept, especially later on. Of course, some refluffing can appease that feeling, but refluffing is a bit more difficult in PFS. Teleport becomes more like 'super-earthglide!', for instance.

[Val'bryn2]

The geokineticist is a lot better at pinpoint battlefield control, and can do it all day long. Kinetic Barrier is only one facing of a five foot square, but either they move, or they use up their best attack, or they can't full attack at all. They also have a strong attack, but not much in the way of buffing. It's a casting class that naturally gains DR and has Con as a casting stat, survivability is NOT an issue.

Witches are good at debuffing and buffing, with attacks at a disadvantage, with fair battlefield control. Survivability is a bit of an issue, but you should be fine.

Wizards take a while to get going, but can be the most powerful of the groups, but it takes a bit of a hit in that they will generally have to focus on how they want to proceed, only being lackluster if they try and fill your three roles.

Druids I haven't played, so will let someone who has give a better answer than I could.

[Taenia]

If you are looking for a melee combatant with Earth spells go druid, have a Decent Str and Wis and you can easily do both, though you should probably focus on one versus the other.

Wizard would be a full time spellcaster with an earth focus, even have an Earth School if you want it (Glitterdust is awesome in the school)

Geo Kineticist for Switchhitter role. Can do range or melee easily. Has a more limited selection of abilities but can use them a lot.

Witch is another caster but with the Hex option meaning fewer spells but more options in combat. I know some Witch/Shaman builds that almost never use their spells except to buff before the adventuring day.

[Icedminttea]

Thank you all for your messages.

Arcane Addict: I think I agree with you that wizard carries so many options that it is easy to lose sight of the concept, and this is something I'm struggling with. While I want an earth elemental focus, if I'm facing an obstacle based on another element where a knowledge/other check will clearly help the group, I feel compelled to help my group. I feel it will be hard to always be in the element, so to speak.

That said, I do think an earth elemental control wizard or the geokineticist are more of a fit lore-wise for what I look for.

With a wizard pick, I may swap the flying (air-like) familiar for something more grounded and tweak with the gear a bit to enhance the role.

Val'bryn2 This is really helpful input into a geokineticist (I've never played with one). I'll be reading a bit more into the class.

Taenia I like the idea of a druid but two things steer me away from it: (1) I want more of a caster role, and (2) I'm seeing that the live players in my area are fairly melee heavy. A caster seems to be a really good fit for my area at this time & I genuinely want to play one, but it will be some work to stick to the role and theme. I'll get to writing a few more pages of backstory . . .

[Taenia]

Caster Druids are pretty hefty as well. Check out Treantmonk's guide to caster Druids if you want to see how they compare to Wizards. Generally speaking, a Wizard is going to have a better spell selection and stronger spells while Druids have an advantage of being able to use wild shape to mitigate a number of problems Wizards have or have to spend spells on, not to mention being tougher.

You can always play a Druid earth specialist and by level 6 be running around casting as an Earth Gliding Earth Elemental.