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1. What are the play differences of the Bard, Sorcerer, Druid and Cleric healing styles?
Cleric can have extra spell slots equal to 1 + Charisma modifier that have Heal heightned to the max that they can cast, making them have a lot of extra healing juice.
Sorcerers and Bards being spontaneous casters can choose their healing spell as signature and have versatility on how to cast it.
-Bard have a focus spell that do some healing at higher level.
-Sorcerer specifically Angelic Sorcerer having heal as their granted spell it activates blood magic giving +1 will save status bonus and have a Focus spell that makes their healing stronger.
Druid have a focus spell that do healing.
2. Which class is most suited to a Controller/Healing playstyle?
Occult Sorcerer or Bard
3. Which class is most suited to a Support/Buff/Healing playstyle?
Cleric
4. Which class is most suited to a Debuff/Healing playstyle?
Bard
5. Which healing style class do you find most fun (subjective question, obviously) and why do you enjoy it?
Cleric, I just love the Cast Down metamagic.
6. What's are some of the more effective ways to build a controller/support based Wizard?
Enchanter or Illusion Wizard in my opinion.
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Clerics, Druids (non Wild Shape ones) and Divine/Primal Sorcerers are excellent healers. Clerics are the best ones but all can be very potent healers able to maintain the party up. Bards, Occult Sorcerers and Alchemists are secondary healers.
All casters can debuff (Fear is a staple). The Occult spell list is the best one for it, but you find debuffs everywhere (or spells with debuffing effects on top of their other effects).
Control is roughly no more a thing, monsters will act.
Buff is very disappointing, due to the reduction of durations. Only the Bard can consider himself a proper buffer before the high levels.
There are no real "effective" ways to build a support based Wizard. All it asks is preparing support spells.
Speaking about fun is hard. I dislike prepared casters and I dislike the way the Bard works in PF2. So, Sorcerer for me.
You need to be able to contribute to combat. Contributing vicariously through another PC, a reasonable tactic in PF1, is not sufficient in PF2.
-Buffing has sharp limits. (It's easy to bring PCs up to an effective power level, but difficult, albeit worthwhile, to bring them above this.)
Buffs are generally 1 minute, meaning they don't carry over into the next battle and you'll burn through your spells a bit too fast. Heroism lasts 10 minutes, but there's often a need for a lull between battles to do Medicine checks, repair shield, regain Focus Points, and so forth.
-Healing has exploded! Soothe is solid & Heal is game-changing. Just make sure to have something to do before there's damage.
-Debuffing is the best way to buff. Frightened or flat-footed are the easiest penalties to apply, making it easier to kill those enemies.
Each +1 (if within the normal range of values & crits are involved) represents about a 1/6 boost in damage (or potential effectiveness w/ spells). So those -1s & -2s on enemy ACs add up fast.
Note: Conditions are a bit harder to remove, and spells often need to be Heightened to contend with the difficulty level of your enemies.
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1. What are the play differences of the Bard, Sorcerer, Druid and Cleric healing styles?
5. Which healing style class do you find most fun (subjective question, obviously) and why do you enjoy it?
Before we start: make sure you read up on Treat Wounds. Treat Wounds is the new Wand of Cure Light Wounds. A normal sane party will be using Treat Wounds in between combats, rather than spells or potions, because Treat Wounds won't run out. If you want to play the healer of the party, you'll want to be good at this, otherwise someone else will have to steal your thunder.
So if you can fix most damage for free at the end of combat, what's the idea behind in combat healing then? Basically, it's keeping your troops going. Nothing less, but also not too much more.
So that doesn't mean spending Heal spells to heal every scratch. If you're fighting some mooks, you don't need to immediately leap to heal the fighter if he gets a little scratch. It's unlikely that he'll get hit often to put him in danger. You can treat his wounds for free afterwards. Instead of spending some of your daily spells, you can just use cantrips or weapons to win the fight faster, and conserve resources.
But if you're fighting a more serious boss and the fighter takes a hit early in the combat, even if he's not yet severely hurt, it can be good to patch it up. Because next round he might take a hit and a crit and you can't bring him back into the safe zone in one round then.
Think about that "safe zone" concept. Someone who won't go down from one crit and a hit is in the safe zone. Extreme bad luck can happen to anyone, but if you're doing it right, everyone who has only regular bad luck is staying on their feet.
So when everyone is still/again in the safe zone, you should be contributing in other ways. Proficiency with bows is excellent because they're one-action strikes at a distance, so you can even continue to attack while also casting two-action Heal spells.
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There's another part to healing: handling non-damage bad stuff. A character is blinded, gets a nasty disease, poison or curse. Your party is deep in the wilderness, a week's travel away from the nearest village and even further from one with a high-level NPC spellcaster. Can you fix it yourself?
This is where the cleric pulls ahead of the other classes as a full spectrum healer. Most of these conditions require you to make Counteract checks. For those checks, you compare the level of the spell you use to the level of the bad condition, and that determines how difficult it is. To deal with conditions imposed by bosses, you're often going to need spells from your highest level slots. And this is where the spontaneous casters like an Angelic Sorcerer get in trouble: they have limited spells known, limited signature spells, and so they can't have max-level versions of all of those condition removal spells available.
That doesn't mean those other classes go in the garbage bin immediately, but it is a strike against them. It's something you can cope with if your adventures mostly happen near civilization where you can get help from NPCs, but if your party has to go deep into dangerous territory, the cleric really has an advantage here.
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My own healer is a gnome cleric of Cernunnos (see Gods & Magic). He's got a bunch of different things going for him;
- He's got the Sensate heritage which gives him Imprecise Scent. That means he can smell where everyone is within 30ft. If we run into an invisible enemy I'll know where he is and where to drop the Faerie Fire.
- The favored weapon is the longbow. By not taking a composite longbow but a regular one, I avoid the propulsive trait so strength is not a factor in damage, so my 8 strength (gnome) is not a problem. I'm not the main damage dealer, but since I often do only one strike per round, MAP is also not a big problem.
- I get some nice spells from my god. True Strike helps with the bow or targeted spells. Animal Form gives me an option to mix it up in melee if needed, or get a climb speed to bypass an obstacle. Lightning Bolt gives me some physical firepower instead of only the typical alignment/positive stuff clerics get.
- I took a Rogue multiclass dedication to get more skills and light armor proficiency. Together with reasonable dex I'm in a decent spot for armor class.
- At level 5 I now have Str 8, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 19, Cha 16. I have good Perception, wisdom-based skills, social skills, dex skills. I'm a bit greedy for skills otherwise I'd prioritize constitution over intelligence. Overall I think cloistered clerics can consolidate well enough on 4 ability scores that will be important to your build.
1. What are the play differences of the Bard, Sorcerer, Druid and Cleric healing styles?
One thing I wanted to point out is that most of the casters really only get their legs under them at level 7. Until then, you're not going to be contributing as much as a martial.
The cleric is a big exception to this rule. The Healing Font is quite a front loaded ability, and you'll have a lot more in the tank than any of the other casters up to level 7 because of it.
That said, I did enjoy playing my Bard in the early game. Inspire Courage is also a front loaded ability, and it establishes a baseline of competence as long as you have at least 3 characters that make attacks to buff. You can be one of those characters with TK projectile in the early levels before the accuracy falls off at 5. That makes it so just 5 and 6 are hard levels for the bard.
Druids have a hard time until 4, when they get their adult animal companion. At that point, they are actually quite strong. I think they are a good choice in a smaller party where there is more incentive to buff your animal companion rather than another party member.
Divine Sorcerers, I think, are mostly worse casters than clerics until level 8 when they get crossblood evolution. The addition of Fireball, for example, as a signature spell gives them a pretty critical option that clerics don't have easy access to.
Wizards, and arcane sorcerers, are bad until level 7; they really need the full breadth of spells in order to do their job. At that point, they have some of the best answers to any particular problem, but I wouldn't exactly call them a support. The arcane spell list is very much an opportunistic player's dream spell list.
Appreciate all of the insights, everyone! The "Counteract" point especially was something I wasn't aware of, and seems well worth bearing in mind.
What is it about spellcasters that makes them more viable at level 7ish? From many of the above comments it seems like so many of the casters are have an uphill struggle until then. Are the low level spells that underwhelming in play?
Spellcasters get a proficiency boost at 7 and that boosts their save DCs. That begins to let you get ahead of the save bonuses of your targets.
EDIT: As far as enjoyment is concerned, the bard and druid in my group are living for their characters. They seem to struggle a bit with the limited number of spells they get, but cantrips have been helpful.
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I think it is particularly levels 5 and 6 that feel rough for caster because martial characters have gotten their boost to accuracy and casters have not. Spell attack roll spells are not great spells under most circumstances, especially if you don't have access to true strike, but many people feel that they are nearly unusable in the 5 and 6 level range because of the way that monster AC scales.
The biggest advantage that clerics have as healers over druids is that their highest level spell slots don't have to go to heal spells, in order for them to have amazing healing. Sorcerers kind of escape that trap as well, but if your party loves to rush into melee combat and take hits, your spell healing will quickly evaporate no matter what class your healer is.
Edit: The cleric in PF2 is a lot of fun. Finding a focus power you like makes a huge boost to the enjoyment of the class.
I don't think there's any kind of level mark for casters' efficiency. Like in previous editions, casters start weaker than martials and end up stronger. So, depending on the class and the build, it may happen earlier or later, but there is no clear level where it happens.
Level 5 is also excellent. The addition of Fireball and other area of effect spells makes a big improvement in damage dealing.
Divine Sorcerers don't need to wait for level 8 to be on par with Clerics. Level 5 is enough in general. That's the level where, through Signature spells, Bloodline spells and Blessed Blood, you start having a far wider spell list than a same level Cleric.
My opinion is that the cleric's main advantage is not in the hit point healing but in the ability to counteract all the other nasties - poison, disease, ability damage/drain, etc. Even in PF1, there was a general (erroneous) feeling that the cleric was just a walking wand of CLW, which is a really limited view.
As such, the divine sorcerer isn't a great overall healer in the long run (disclosure: my favorite PFS2 character is a divine sorcerer so this isn't to say the class is bad - just that it's a bad dedicated healer) unless your campaign has so much poison or disease or undead that it's worth a spontaneous slot. Cleric - even if it can't heal as many HP as another class - is a better healer overall. Chirugeon alchemist is also better than its HP healing might suggest.
I haven't gotten to 3rd with my sorcerer, but I think Signature Spell may really help with this, essentially freeing up higher level slots. I'll see how it works out in practice, but my hope is that the divine sorcerer is more than just a HP battery (which was pretty much the entirety of her combat role at 1st level).
The Cleric is not better than the Divine Sorcerer against Poisons, Paralysis, Fear, and most of the effects you speak of. It's even the opposite, it's worst at it as he has only 2 to 3 spell slots available to memorize them, and these are his only spell slots besides healing, so they will in general be allocated for damage effects.
The Sorcerer, on the other hand, has a ton of highest level spells know. 3-4 + number of spell level he has access to - 1. It's pretty easy for a Sorcerer to take Neutralize Poison as a Signature spell without hitting much his efficiency.
The only thing the Cleric heals better than the Sorcerer are long lasting conditions: Diseases, Curses and Blindness, because he can change his spell list the next day. So, they are equal when it comes to conditions. If you want to build a condition remover Sorcerer, he'll be way better than any Cleric at very high level (even if it will hurt it's efficiency, but it's a choice).
And I agree with you with Sorcerer VS Cleric. The Cleric is clearly the best dedicated healer of the game. But the Sorcerer can be much more than just a healer.
My Divine Sorcerer is also level 3, I'm starting to have fun with damaging spells and it works nicely despite being weak compared to higher level damaging spells.
The Cleric is not better than the Divine Sorcerer against Poisons, Paralysis, Fear, and most of the effects you speak of. It's even the opposite, it's worst at it as he has only 2 to 3 spell slots available to memorize them, and these are his only spell slots besides healing, so they will in general be allocated for damage effects.
The Sorcerer, on the other hand, has a ton of highest level spells know. 3-4 + number of spell level he has access to - 1. It's pretty easy for a Sorcerer to take Neutralize Poison as a Signature spell without hitting much his efficiency.
The only thing the Cleric heals better than the Sorcerer are long lasting conditions: Diseases, Curses and Blindness, because he can change his spell list the next day. So, they are equal when it comes to conditions. If you want to build a condition remover Sorcerer, he'll be way better than any Cleric at very high level (even if it will hurt it's efficiency, but it's a choice).And I agree with you with Sorcerer VS Cleric. The Cleric is clearly the best dedicated healer of the game. But the Sorcerer can be much more than just a healer.
My Divine Sorcerer is also level 3, I'm starting to have fun with damaging spells and it works nicely despite being weak compared to higher level damaging spells.
after the cleric gets channel succor, its not even really a contest.
realistically the second best healer imho is a champion.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I did the same mistake before, but if you read Channeled Succor feat you will see that it don't have the spell Restore Senses, Remove Fear and Neutralize Poison on it.
Only the spells Remove Curse and Remove Disease, both that have a casting of 10 minutes, Restoration that have a casting of 1 minute and Remove Paralysis that is the only one that can actually be used on battle.
And for Paralyzed champion can do even better with Mercy and at lvl 4.
If you want to build a condition remover Sorcerer, he'll be way better than any Cleric at very high level (even if it will hurt it's efficiency, but it's a choice).I think you're underestimating the ability of the cleric to prepare for a given situation. In many cases, you will have a rough idea about the challenges ahead and can prepare appropriate spells. Ancient tomb? Remove curse and remove paralysis, and maybe remove fear. Swamp temple? Neutralize poison and remove disease. That sort of thing.
You mean you enter the tomb with no single spell besides healing and removing conditions?
At level 8, you can have, as a Sorcerer: Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Neutralize Poison, Restoration, Restore Senses, Remove Fear and Remove Paralysis heightened to your highest level. There are not much other conditions you can remove.
The Cleric will have 3 spells (no ability to cast them multiple times if he fails the counteract check) and Channeled Succor for 4 of them... Sorcerer's ahead.
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@Superbidi: the problem for the sorcerer is that while you could learn any of these spells, if you wanna learn all of them as your highest level or signature spells so that you can do the counteract, that takes up a lot of space.
Remove Fear
Remove Paralysis
Restore Senses
Neutralize Poison
Remove Disease
Remove Curse
Dispel Magic
They've spread removal of these things out over so many different spells. If there had just been a Remove Condition spell like in Starfinder that you heighten to take on severe conditions, then the sorcerers would be awesome. But now they're paying a really heavy price if they wanna do it all.
As far as Cleric domains go: any domains/domain focus spells that are particularly interesting in practice? On paper, Sarenrae looks like a pretty interesting pick, giving some reasonable healing focus options (Healing, Sun) and some bonus fire damage spells that come from the arcane list, along with a focus damage spell (Fire). Seems like a pretty good pick for a Cloistered Cleric, but that's based off zero play experience.
I play the dedicated cleric healer (warpriest for tankiness) of Sarenrae in our current campaign of AoA, where we just finished the first volume and are currently at level 5. As a goddess of healing Sarenrae is a very good choice when it comes to focus spells as you can easily regain a focus point while using the Medicine skill and her domains selection grants access to some really nice focus spells. For domains I picked up the sun domain for Dazzling Flash (used very often, however requires your holy symbol in hand, but should be less of an issue for a cloistered cleric) and Positive Luminance later on (one-action cast light spell at maximum spell level due to auto-scaling + healing + utility vs undead). For second domain I picked up fire and Fire Ray in order to have an emergency ranged attack with the fire trait for an additional focus point, however because it requires a hit roll I do not use it very often, and if possible only versus debuffed or otherwise low AC enemies. Did not chose the healing domain because I somehow dislike the level 1 focus spell (unless your party finds a way to capitalize on it) however the level 8 focus spell is worth some consideration, not especially for the overall amount of healing done, but for the effect of not increasing wounded condition.
Note that Pharasma, the other healing deity also is an interesting pick, e.g. healing and knowledge domains, and was closely considered by me during character creation. Also Pharasma (N) seems a little more relaxed as far as alignment goes, so depending on group and setting this may also come in handy from an roleplaying point of view. Sarenrae clerics are the good guys (though not necessarily the nice guys).
@Superbidi: the problem for the sorcerer is that while you could learn any of these spells, if you wanna learn all of them as your highest level or signature spells so that you can do the counteract, that takes up a lot of space.
Remove Fear
Remove Paralysis
Restore Senses
Neutralize Poison
Remove Disease
Remove Curse
Dispel MagicThey've spread removal of these things out over so many different spells. If there had just been a Remove Condition spell like in Starfinder that you heighten to take on severe conditions, then the sorcerers would be awesome. But now they're paying a really heavy price if they wanna do it all.
The Sorcerer pays a heavy price to have them all, the Cleric just can't. The Cleric can only have the ones from Channeled Succor + 2 or 3 prepared ones he can cast only once during the day.
That's why I say the Sorcerer is on par with the Cleric for conditions: With low investment, the Cleric's ahead. With average investment, they are roughly equal (the Sorcerer can easily cherry pick the really important ones without hurting his efficiency, the Cleric can just take Channeled Succor). With high investment, the Sorcerer's ahead, as he can have them all cast spontaneously, unlike the Cleric (even if I agree I'll never play a condition remover character, it's too boring).
Also, having some of them as Signature Spells is a great advantage as you can choose the level of the spell you cast (-1/+1 than the effect you want to counteract for maximum efficiency).
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Also, some condition removers are not that useful. Restore Senses is of low use now that Blindness (the spell) can be dispelled and that permanent blindness comes only from critical failures. Remove Fear has lost of its importance now that Fleeing only happens on critical failures. Paralysis is less of a killer without Coup de Grace.
The really important ones are Dispel Magic, Restoration and Neutralize Poison.
I think the problem with arguing sorcerers are good for condition removal because they technically can learn a bunch of spells as signature is faulty. Even if it's technically possible, it's a terrible idea that will completely ruin your character. Clerics have the option to prepare a couple of castings of remove curse (or whatever) if they know the party is heading into deathcurse dungeontm. That situation doesn't come up too often, but it's a lot more viable than what the sorcerer can do.
In most situations, clerics and sorcerers are both relying on scrolls for unforseen condition removal. However, clerics can remove long-term conditions such as curses and diseases much easier than the sorcerer, and has channel succor which is a great way to become a versatile in-combat condition remover without sacrificing power. Cleric wins out by a long shot.
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and has channel succor which is a great way to become a versatile in-combat condition remover without sacrificing power. Cleric wins out by a long shot.
Channel Succor only have Remove Paralysis as combat remover, all the other conditions in the feat take 1 or 10 minutes of casting time...
and has channel succor which is a great way to become a versatile in-combat condition remover without sacrificing power. Cleric wins out by a long shot.Channel Succor only have Remove Paralysis as combat remover, all the other conditions in the feat take 1 or 10 minutes of casting time...
That's fair. My overall point remains the same, but I concede that particular point. Succor clerics don't gain much in-combat utility compared to a sorcerer, but they still gain those 4 spells to cast any time for a much, much lower investment than 4 signature spells
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Also, some condition removers are not that useful. Restore Senses is of low use now that Blindness (the spell) can be dispelled and that permanent blindness comes only from critical failures. Remove Fear has lost of its importance now that Fleeing only happens on critical failures. Paralysis is less of a killer without Coup de Grace.
The really important ones are Dispel Magic, Restoration and Neutralize Poison.
I'll admit that they're less urgent now that PF2 has made some of the debilitating conditions less completely wrecking. I'd rate Remove Disease higher though, because diseases are quite scary in PF2.
How well the sorcerer squares off against the cleric is going to depend a lot on whether you have an "NPC healthcare" system to fall back on. If you can go back to town and pay the high level NPC cleric to remove a condition, then the sorcerer looks pretty good. If you're going to another continent with no support network the cleric becomes important as a versatile and complete support caster.
Still, just speaking from my own feelings: when I was looking at how many signature/high level spell slots would be taken up with "mandatory" picks to be a complete healer, I decided I would rather play a cleric instead.
That's fair. My overall point remains the same, but I concede that particular point. Succor clerics don't gain much in-combat utility compared to a sorcerer, but they still gain those 4 spells to cast any time for a much, much lower investment than 4 signature spellsand has channel succor which is a great way to become a versatile in-combat condition remover without sacrificing power. Cleric wins out by a long shot.Channel Succor only have Remove Paralysis as combat remover, all the other conditions in the feat take 1 or 10 minutes of casting time...
Restauration doesn't need to be a Signature Spell.
At level 8 my Divine Sorcerer will have Dispel Magic as Signature Spell, Neutralize Poison as level 4 spell and Restauration at level 2, which will put him on par with a Channeled Succor Cleric in terms of condition removal (poison is a killer, Dispel Magic as Signature Spell is awesome). So, I strongly disagree.Also, I think you have a very flawed idea of Divine Sorcerers. You don't play a Divine Sorcerer if you don't care about condition removal, as its one of their main strength over everyone (Cleric included).
My point wasn't that divine sorcerers don't learn condition removal at all, it was that you sacrifice too much if you start picking up every condition removal spell, or even most of them. Therefore, using that when comparing sorcerers and divine clerics is simply not reasonable.
Your setup seems alright, dispel as signature is a great pick and restoration is a good use of a 2nd level spell.
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Clerics don't have condition removals out of the long duration ones. If you start picking things like Neutralize Poison or Dispel Magic as your higher level spells you sacrifice as much as a Sorcerer sacrifices when taking all condition removal spells. So, Clerics are not better at condition removal than Sorcerers. That's my point. At level 8, my Sorcerer will be equivalent to an 8th level Cleric with Channeled Succor. We will just remove different conditions.
Something being overlooked is alchemists. Despite their bad reputation, they're actually excellent at being support healers. Dark vision elixirs can be insanely useful, elixirs of life of course, juggernaut mutagen etc. Not to mention being able to poison their allies weapons for them.
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Something being overlooked is alchemists. Despite their bad reputation, they're actually excellent at being support healers. Dark vision elixirs can be insanely useful, elixirs of life of course, juggernaut mutagen etc. Not to mention being able to poison their allies weapons for them.
Interesting enough Alchemist with Merciful Elixir may actually be the best condition remover right now, because of sheer amount of reagents they have and all of them high lvl for the counteract.
They can't remove curse though.