This was a discussion that came up and got a tad more heated than I was meaning it to be, so I wanted to ask the consensus of the boards on the matter.
When using the Counterpunch ability, it states the following:
"You may ready an action to make an attack with a light melee weapon against the next enemy who makes a melee attack roll against you before the beginning of your next round; this attack is treated as an attack action for the purposes of talents as well as the Vital Strike feat and occurs before the attack that triggers it, gaining a +2 competence bonus to damage rolls. For every 4 points of base attack bonus you possess, this bonus increases by +2. Using this ability does not change your place in the initiative order."
Can you use the whirlwind knockdown talent of the lancer sphere in place of the attack? I was under the impression because it specifically says "As an Attack action" in its activation, which from my understanding couldn't be done as you already used your action to name the counterpunch readying. Am I incorrect in this?
As an attack action, you can attempt a single trip combat maneuver check against all creatures you threaten, tripping each creature whose CMD you successfully overcome. For each creature you target with this talent, you take a -1 penalty to your combat maneuver check. At +10 base attack bonus, all creatures knocked prone by this talent take damage equal to your base attack bonus."As an attack action" so yup, you can do it.
I do believe that counterpunch would restrict targeting though.
Thats what I don't really agree on though, the "as" part. You've already declared the attack being used for counterpunch, which means you no longer can perform a unique attack action from my understanding of it.
The best example I can think of is Cleave and Vital Strike. Vital Strike specifically calls out "WHEN" you make an attack, but Cleave is "as a standard action". Cleave can't be combined with similar action use abilities while Vital strike can because it's a triggered effect. Does SoM not make this distinction?
To address your example, the reason cleave doesn't work with vital strike is because cleave is it's own standard action while vital strike requires you to use the attack action.
This grants an attack action. It can be used with anything that uses an attack action.
Spheres has "special attack actions" which are mutually exclusive but are still attack actions.
I'm aware of that much, but the thing is the Counterpunch isn't an attack action. From what it seems it's readying an attack (which is a standard action), that counts as an attack action for the sake of triggered effects like Fencing/Duelist sphere.
I suppose I can probably relent on this, but it still feels very off. When I read "As an attack action" to me that says that it is in no way a triggered response that could be traded out for an attack granted by special use of a Standard action. If it had said "whenever you make an attack action" I might not be having this mental hang up.
In future installments, I hope the language is made more clear. Specifically what is a Special Action in this case, as I assumed Whirlwind Knockdown was a Special, and Boxing was a special as well, and from my understandings, you cannot overlap special actions in Pathfinder.