What VMC Oracle revelations are actually viable?

[Ellioti]

Let's assume the worst case that all three revelations one gets suffer a -6 penalty. It's not clear the 2nd and 3rd do.
We can for example ignore all the armor revelations, as well as everything with rounds / Level.

Quote:

Battle: Battlecry, battlefield clarity, combat healer, iron skin, resiliency, skill at arms, surprising charge, war sight.

Bones: Armor of bones, bleeding wounds, death's touch, near death, raise the dead, resist life, soul siphon, spirit walk, undead servitude, voice of the grave.

Flame: Burning magic, fire breath, form of flame, gaze of flames, heat aura, molten skin, touch of flame, wings of fire.

Heavens: Coat of many stars, dweller in darkness, guiding star, interstellar void, lure of the heavens, mantle of moonlight, spray of shooting stars, star chart.

Life: Channel, delay affliction, energy body, enhanced cures, healing hands, life link, lifesense, safe curing, spirit boost.

Lore: Arcane archivist, automatic writing, brain drain, mental acuity, spontaneous symbology, think on it, whirlwind lesson.

Nature: Erosion touch, life leach, natural divination, speak with animals, spirit of nature, transcendental bond, undo artifice.

Stone: Acid skin, clobbering strike, crystal sight, earth glide, mighty pebble, rock throwing, shard explosion, steelbreaker skin, touch of acid.

Waves: Blizzard, fluid nature, fluid travel, freezing spells, ice armor, icy skin, punitive transformation, water form, water sight, wintry touch.

Wind: Air barrier, gaseous form, invisibility, lightning breath, spark skin, thunderburst, touch of electricity, vortex spells, wind sight, wings of air.

[Atarlost]

Battlecry isn't. It's a standard action for a +1 bonus until level 16. Even for a real oracle it's dubious.

Battlefield Clarity is functional. It's only once per day until level 13, but at least it's a useful effect.

Combat Healer is just bad. Quickening a cure is lame. Quickening a cure at the expense of double slot expenditure with a cleric's spells/day is really expensive. Doing so on anyone else is ridiculous.

Iron Skin the minimum level becomes 17. It's never more than once per day. That's not looking very viable.

Resiliency doesn't do anything. You need to be reduced to exactly zero HP and not negative. That almost never happens. It has no other effect until level 13 when you get a feat nobody wants.

Skill at Arms lets you qualify for prestige classes that require martial weapon proficiency. This one is maybe worth having.

Surprising Charge is probably decent. It's a once per day until level 13, but it's an effect that's actually worth having.

War Sight is good. Rolling twice for initiative is similar in value to improved initiative and at 13 you always act in the surprise round.

Nothing here is good enough to be worth a slow progression curse let alone losing your 7th and 11th level feats for basically nothing. Battle Oracle is not a viable VMC.

I suspect the answer will be the same for every revelation. None of them are anywhere near good enough to make up for a negative class feature at 1st and basically nothing at 7th and 11th even before a -6 level penalty is tacked on.

[Aleristhe]

I disagree. There are quite a lot of good options regarding Oracle revelations that are not dependant on class level.
Freezing spells is awesome for an arcane caster.
Vortex Spells is nice for a Magus.
Safe curing could be valid.
I can probably make a build that makes Burning Magic work as well.
It's all a matter of opening yourself up to new possibilities.

[zza ni]

some of the curses themselves are more then welcome.
an Undine with acid breath (racial alt ability) and the wolf mouth curse can pick noxios bite off the bat at 1st level. go monk and feral combat and your making bite attacks as flurry and every hit got a big chance of removing the target out of combat for a few rounds.
(just don't forget to pick ability focus(breath weapon) for it later on. +2 to dc)

[Ellioti]

zza ni wrote:

some of the curses themselves are more then welcome.

an Undine with acid breath (racial alt ability) and the wolf mouth curse can pick noxios bite off the bat at 1st level. go monk and feral combat and your making bite attacks as flurry and every hit got a big chance of removing the target out of combat for a few rounds.
(just don't forget to pick ability focus(breath weapon) for it later on. +2 to dc)

nice find.

The curses that add spells can be potentially useful. Blackened for a witch, Haunted for a cleric, etc...
Wolfscarred could be devastating on something like a Sacred Fist warpriest who makes good use of Greater Magic Fang

[HyperMissingno]

Wings of Flame is a dream if the class you're going for lacks a way to fly. 60 feet of fly speed for a minute as a swift action is amazing, even if you can't do it as much as the real thing. Molten Skin ain't flashy but permanent fire resistance ain't half bad.

[David knott 242]

Ellioti wrote:

The curses that add spells can be potentially useful. Blackened for a witch, Haunted for a cleric, etc...

Not really. These spells are added to your oracle spell list, which you don't have. Those curses should probably be avoided.

[Melkiador]

The lame curse is pretty minor to most ranged builds, and of value to any build that can abuse being immune to fatigue.

[fearcypher]

Melkiador wrote:

The lame curse is pretty minor to most ranged builds, and of value to any build that can abuse being immune to fatigue.

What ranged build in the right mind would give up half their feats though?

[Sundakan]

If you're VMCing Oracle for a Curse you may as well just DIP ORACLE.

I think a lot of people forget the Curse still progresses (albeit at 1/2 speed) for non-Oracle levels.

[Insain Dragoon]

Melkiador wrote:

The lame curse is pretty minor to most ranged builds, and of value to any build that can abuse being immune to fatigue.

Lame curse is great on Barbarians. Would be wearing medium armor anyway, so the speed penalty matters not.

[Ventnor]

Even with a -6 oracle level penalty, I'd imagine that a Wizard would appreciate Mental Acuity quite a bit.

[UnArcaneElection]

If you are an Alchemist or Ninja with the appropriate Discoveries or Ninja Tricks (respectively), VMC Oracle (Flame (Gaze of Flames)) will let you see through your Smoke Bombs without penalty (unfortunately one stage of this is eaten with the goofy Curse Focus, but getting Stabilize as an Orison could actually be useful in case your primary healer goes down -- just don't dump Charisma below 10), and later you can get Wings of Fire to let you save on Fly Extracts, and note that picking the Wasting Curse will eventually get you immunity to the Nauseated condition, so that you can move through your own Stink Bomb clouds without penalty.