A technomancer can effectively gain Weapon Specialization with spells, which aids the damage curve a bit. Also, range is a factor here as at most levels spells like Magic Missile will have longer range than the increments of your weapons.
Magic Missile from a 10th level Blaster Technomancer deals 2d4+7 out to 200 feet, or 3d4+8 as a full round action. Magic Missile does force damage, which (as far as I know right now) doesn't get resisted by that much, especially now that Shield is no more This is in comparison to the Elite Pistol's 3d6+5 up to twice with a 60 ft range increment that isn't an autohit. At that level the best you could do with that pistol is +12 or +8/+8.
That single subset is literally just a Technomancer with focus on their main stat and 1 of their spell hacks spent to get Harmful Spells. They've still got most of the rest of their point buy left, all of their feats, all of their money (but the Int upgrade, but what Technomancer isn't buying an Int upgrade by level 10) and 2nd-4th level spells to mess with. Harmful Spells also kicks in on Jolting Surge, Overheat, Arcing Surge, and Explosive Blast.
Blasting is, unsurprisingly, a bad way to go. It's been that way since the change to hit point bloat from 2e to 3e D&D. And SF increases HP bloat for PCs, and First Contact isn't exactly shy about HP scaling for monsters.
The +5 damage per spell for a 10th level technomancer fades rapidly to irrelevance when dealing with 150 HP CR 10 monsters. It isn't amazingly relevant against 52 HP CR 4 monsters
Even with the technomancers various ways of being janky and pulling extra spells, you're still dealing with a very limited number of spell slots, and wasting them on something that a pistol can deal with is a bad plan.
Having explosions in your pocket for groups of mooks isn't a terrible idea, but relying on damage spells will get you tapped faster than the encounters will resolve.
Its weird but Technomancer seems to have no particularly good damage options for 2nd level spells. So from 3rd level until 7th you'll be doing terrible damage while everyone else is getting weapon upgrades.
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Technomancers is just as much a gunslinger as everyone else. They're obligated to get weapon upgrades too.
Supercharge weapon is so good that you don't need 2nd level blast spells.
You can self buff with it, but you're generally better off casting it on the Operative/Soldier/Solarion.
Nothing says "screw you" quite like quadrupling the damage of your buddy's shotgun at level 1.
Unless I'm misreading something, Supercharge weapon is no better than magic missile: it takes a standard action to cast, it requires you to move right next to the ally you want to buff, it affects only the next attack made by the weapon whether or not it hits (And even the classes with the best accuracy on their attacks are not hitting more than 80% of the time against relevant enemies in Starfinder), and it deals 14 average damage when it works.
Assuming your ally is hitting 75% of their attacks, you're adding 10.5 damage by casting Supercharge weapon. Magic missile as a full action deals 3d4+3 or (surprise surprise) also 10.5 average damage. Seems to me that its kind of a wash, with magic missile being more reliable damage output.
Plus 10.5 average damage is not going to look like much at 5th level (especially since its using a spell slot). At 5th level your Soldier buddy is dealing 1d10+7+5 with one attack with her curve blade, each round. Assuming that same 75% accuracy and you see she has 13.125 average damage without you.
People seem pretty enamored with Supercharge weapon... not sure what they're seeing that I'm not.
Technomancers is just as much a gunslinger as everyone else. They're obligated to get weapon upgrades too.
Yeah, thats the conclusion I'm coming to as well.
Yeah, I don't particularly care for supercharge weapon. Without accuracy buffs there is an element of risk to it, and a large degree of overkill at level 1. Add in the action economy problem... eh.
I'd rather focus on utility stuff that either isn't replicable by tech or too expensive to bother buying.
Am I missing something here? Is there some redeeming factor I've overlooked?
I think so. Technomancers can be very effective blasters--moreso than most Pathfinder casters, in fact. The trick is in using your spells to enhance your guns rather than replace them--not inappropriate, given the class's flavor.
More specifically, the way to make technomancer spells "scale" is to use one or both of these magic hacks: Empowered Weapon and Spellshot. These let even your first-level spells continue to contribute to your damage throughout your career, by adding damage on top of your increasingly hefty weapon damage dice. (Hint: if you want to play a blaster technomancer, best to invest a couple feats in longarm proficiency & versatile specialization.) Spellshot does this directly, by letting you literally cast and shoot with one action; Empowered Weapon does this indirectly, by using otherwise-obsolete offensive spells to shoot better.
Best of all, though, is using the two at once: since Empowered Weapon takes a move action and Spellshot a standard, it's almost as though the abilities are designed for this. In any case, the synergy is great: the only downside with Spellshot is that you risk missing and wasting your spell, but Empowered Weapon's accuracy bonus mitigates this. It's exactly what you want for making that one, important shot--say, the shot that delivers 18d8 no-saving-throw untyped damage (that staggers on a failed Fort save) in the form of Synapse Overload.
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Yeah, I don't particularly care for supercharge weapon. Without accuracy buffs there is an element of risk to it, and a large degree of overkill at level 1. Add in the action economy problem... eh.
I'd rather focus on utility stuff that either isn't replicable by tech or too expensive to bother buying.
Enemy hp scales quickly so the overkill isn't that much. It's also great on a grenade or blast weapon. Yes magic missile is an automatic hit, but because your forced to target multiple enemies it's almost never going to finish off someone. At least with supercharge weapon you're either likely to make the attack kill an opponent or you'll be hitting more than two or three enemies.
Yes magic missile is an automatic hit, but because your forced to target multiple enemies it's almost never going to finish off someone.
I've seen this more than once, but can't see how it's justified by the text of the spell. Why do you think Magic Missile can't target a single enemy with multiple missiles? It even explicitly says "You can target a single creature or several creatures, but each missile can strike only one creature."
Spellshot does this directly, by letting you literally cast and shoot with one action; Empowered Weapon does this indirectly, by using otherwise-obsolete offensive spells to shoot better.
I'm going to wait for the FAQ on spellshot, because the interpretation that it lets you both fire your weapon and cast a spell at the same time (with both dealing damage) leads to this magic hack being far and away the best damage option Technomancer has (and vastly eclipses the damage anyone else is putting out, which raises some red flags with how hard Paizo has otherwise worked to make sure everyone has comparable damage output).
Yes magic missile is an automatic hit, but because your forced to target multiple enemies it's almost never going to finish off someone.
You can target the same creature with multiple missiles. The wording of the spell is clarifying that the same missile can't hit multiple creatures.
Spellshot does this directly, by letting you literally cast and shoot with one action; Empowered Weapon does this indirectly, by using otherwise-obsolete offensive spells to shoot better.I'm going to wait for the FAQ on spellshot, because the interpretation that it lets you both fire your weapon and cast a spell at the same time (with both dealing damage) leads to this magic hack being far and away the best damage option Technomancer has (and vastly eclipses the damage anyone else is putting out, which raises some red flags with how hard Paizo has otherwise worked to make sure everyone has comparable damage output).
Well, the magic hack explicitly states "You can fire the weapon as part of the standard action to cast the spell." I'm not sure how to interpret that other than how Ludovicus does.
It may be that the extra damage per standard action you receive from the ranged attack is balanced by the fact that you just put a miss chance on your area spell. An area spell almost always has a saving throw, but now it also needs to overcome KAC or EAC.
I'm going to wait for the FAQ on spellshot, because the interpretation that it lets you both fire your weapon and cast a spell at the same time (with both dealing damage) leads to this magic hack being far and away the best damage option Technomancer has (and vastly eclipses the damage anyone else is putting out, which raises some red flags with how hard Paizo has otherwise worked to make sure everyone has comparable damage output).
Yeah, I was worried about this too, and was originally inclined to interpret spellshot differently for just that reason. I made a post about the question a week or so ago, and was convinced then that the interpretation on which both your weapon and spell deal damage had to be right (for basically the reason Jimbles gives).
edit: It may be that what's supposed to justify spellshot's power is its limited uses per day, along with the fact that Starfinder is designed to facilitate longer adventuring days than the Pathfinder stereotype. In the best case scenario, spellshot averages about half again as much damage as what a soldier can do in a full attack (or anyway no more than twice), but while soldiers can do this as often as they want, for the technomancer it's a big nova.
I just reread the spell, and it does appear you can target multiple. However, in the sneak peek game video with Owen GMing, it was said that you could only send one missile per target. It could use clarification.
The spell text is _really_ clear. A offhand comment in a video based on pre-release rules has zero bearing.