I find myself in the early and mid game using Fear quite a bit. At what level should I stop using Fear and use Phantasmal Killer at 4th level instead (I'm talking about vs Bosses, vs non-bosses I just use Fear 3)? Although Phantasmal Killer doesn't even make much sense when you can cast 6th and 7th level spells as the damage is pretty low. What to do?
Of course, as a 3rd level spell, Fear can target 5 creatures. Phantasmal Killer can't.
One of the nice things about this edition is that low level spells have the same DC as your high level spells. But I'm sure everyone already knows that.
The two spells are actually rather similar. Especially for battling bosses that are likely to at least not crit fail the save and may ignore incapacitation effects.
So ignoring the crit fail instakill effect of phantasmal killer, the main difference is that phantasmal killer also does some damage.
So it is definitely an upgrade, but may not even be a needed one. Depends on how much you want to be able to do damage while also causing the fear effect.
Ya I mean it seems as though Fear (1st level) is just as good early game as it is even into the late game although it may look a bit silly casting a 1st level spell vs a 17th level Dragon. I mean sure you have spells like Mask of Terror, but I would rather save that high level spell slot for something better.
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If you're speaking of an Occult caster, you should go for Synesthesia, in my opinion. So, as soon as you get to level 5 spells, you can forget about both Fear and Phantasmal Killer against bosses.
Phantasmal Killer does quite good damage and has 120 feet of range. It's good in a lot of situations that Fear isn't good in. It's a strong spell against archers in particular since it takes so many physical stats to fire a bow well.
Unlike PF1, spells of all levels remain as effective as an other (in terms of DC), what defines higher levels spells versus lower level spells is that they should theoretically do more than lower level counterparts.
They usually do.
But against on level and higher level enemies you wont get a crit fail, and often those better effects are mostly on the crit fail side.
So many times a low level slot can be as effective as higher level spell slots.
Unlike PF1, spells of all levels remain as effective as an other (in terms of DC), what defines higher levels spells versus lower level spells is that they should theoretically do more than lower level counterparts.
They usually do.
But against on level and higher level enemies you wont get a crit fail, and often those better effects are mostly on the crit fail side.
So many times a low level slot can be as effective as higher level spell slots.
As long as you're not blasting or summoning, this is almost always true!
That's a good caveat, yeah blast spells damage is pretty spell slot dependent and what you can summon is also slot dependent.
Though, summons in this edition are much weaker and more about having versatile options available for countering certain kinds of conditions or about soaking a hit or two. Summons just don't have a lot of staying power if the enemy focuses on them, but they're not supposed to either.
In PF1, you could end up in a situation where a summon might be 75% as effective as a melee character, but you spent a single spell slot on it and the other player dedicated their whole character. You still had all your other slots and class features. It made some melee character players really feel inadequate because they could be (mostly) replicated with a single spell slot.
That's a good caveat, yeah blast spells damage is pretty spell slot dependent and what you can summon is also slot dependent.
Blast spells, summoning spells, healing spells, counteracting spells, buff spells, incapacitation spells, multi target debuff spells. In fact, all spells but utility spells and single target debuff spells need your higher spell slots to be effective.
In PF1, you could do a lot with your low level slots. In PF2, they are mostly for utility spells.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No, see I strongly disagree Bidi. The healing spells, buff spells, and multi target debuffs all do fine. They just don't do as much as their higher level counterparts.
Though you can probably find a better way to use a low level spell slot than for a weak heal, it's not really diminished if you just need to heal a little.
The fact that higher level spells are better is obvious, they should be. But low level spells aren't weaker in PF2 like they were in PF1 (they basically never worked if they involved a save) and were relegated to buff and utility only.
In PF2 your 1st debuff spell will work just fine, it just wont do as much as your 5th level debuff.
In PF1, you could do a lot with your low level slots. In PF2, they are mostly for utility spells.
This is pretty much exactly backwards from my experience.
Buff spells are some of the most consistent across all levels, tbh (with some exceptions, cough magic weapon cough). Take a spell like Blur; rock solid as it gives a 20% miss chance on any spell or attack - amazing. 15 levels later and it’s still doing exactly that.
Even something like Heroism doesn’t need to be heightened to be relevant. A +1 is a +1, and can be a great thing to burn one of your lower level spells on.