I recently came to the conclusion that Oracles are hands down my favorite pf2 class. The curses are thematic, the different stages all do something interesting, and each mystery feels unique within the class. It scratches my resource management itch, gets the refocus boosts for free, and just feels powerful, though if found that things can go.from fine to dangerous very quickly (though indont mind it).
What about everyone else?
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Champion, they specially the good ones, they change the entire party dynamic by just existing with their reaction.
And Wizard, love the thesis and how most of them affects your prepared casting.
Kind of a tossup between rogue, investigator and/or bard: all of them have enough combinations in class to be taken in a bunch of different directions.
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Great Question; I think the LG Champion has been my favorite. It's dynamic.
Although the Oracle has been fun to play. I never gave the Oracle a second look in PF1 for some reason and it has been the best surprise for me in the APG2E.
In PF1 it was the magus, and I cannot wait to give that a go later in the year when it is released.
That said, I find all the 2E PCs a lot more interesting to play with fun contributing features.
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None/all of them. I look at each class for its 'thing'. I could make a fun character (both mechanically and thematically) out of any of them.
So far I have enjoyed a wizard, oracle, monk, investigator, rogue, and cleric. Each of them unique due to their class's possibilities.
PF1: Occultist
PF2: Investigator
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Sorcerer. I can cover so many amazing concepts, themes, and old characters with just this one class. Crazy fun to play now too since it no longer lags behind other spellcasters.
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I usually GM games and the one I'm in is only level 5, but... Fighter has been super fun. I've always loved the simplicity of the Fighter class in PF1, even if it was weak, and in PF2 it's been great.
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My favorite class to play in games is the charismatic Wizard that is good at deceptive spell casting. It doesn't look like much on paper, but conceal spell is such a cool feat and the way it interacts with silent spell was incredibly well written. I love how a charismatic wizard is still such a completely different character in play than a sorcerer too.
I also love how much incredibly powerful but completely different ways their are to synergize different characters together and to make parties that are much stronger than the sum of their parts.
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Hard to pick one, but thematically the Outwit Ranger speaks to me.
Probobly the rogue, the huge number of skill feats give you soooooo many options. After that I would say snare ranger.
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Sorcerer for me, with druid as a close second. Sorcerer needs nothing to work (no items), has no anathemas, cool themes, awesome focus spells, and spontaneous casting is the way to go for me.
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Investigator. My favourite class of all time is Wizards, but these ones feel like underpowered Sorcerers instead.
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My favorites are ranger and monk bc coming from 5e and having both of these classes not only work right out of the box but also have fun, flavorful, and mechanically powerful builds was enough to bring a tear to my eye. Extra credit for beast master ranger actually functioning, lol
I would say either Bard, Rogue or Fighter.
I always liked high charisma classes, I enjoy social encounters a lot in RPGs and adding spellcasting into the mix is the nicest plus ever. It is also a top 3 class IMO, and I like being effective. I also prefer them over sorcerers because I prefer to focus on being a support type of caster.
You can fill any role with a Rogue. You can be half spellcaster, party face, skill monkey and medic of the group, all at the same time. You can also take whatever feat you want, any archetype you feel like taking and your character will still function due to sneak attack being as good as it is and the myriad of skill feats you get.
For a class as apparently simple as Fighter they are very intricate and fun to optimize. They also hit like a truck.
The Fighter and Rogue are very near and dear to my heart, and I love their implementation in 2e; something about being the absolute best at a field (or multiple fields, for the Rogue) speaks to me.
For Fighters, Combat Versatility has to be the standout feature, while you're amazing at one weapon group, you can quickly adapt to situations with a bit of prep time because every other weapon in the game is still deadly in your hands; a skilled warrior that isn't pigeonholed into their choice of specialization and can utilize tactics, preparation and battlefield control (because maneuvers and teamwork are just that good) to gain an edge is exactly the strategic approach that the fighter class should embody.
The Rogue is just a doozy, so many skill increases and feats make them an undisputed specialist and the answer to any "I know a guy/gal" questions your party might have; changing sneak attack to a slower progression that can be proc'd multiple times is also an interesting change that incentivizes creative thinking and setup from the team to get the Rogue the upper hand for devastating turns and possibly crits.
The honorable mention from the APG is the good'ol Swasbuckler, that I initially thought would be redundant but ended up a very flavorful class with significant differentiation from the core options, hopefully the same sort of care and creativity spills to the release Gunslinger, that IMO didn't do nearly as much to find its niche and differentiate itself from "Fighter with a firearm" in the playtest incarnation; for another positive example, the Investigator is similarly a "familiar face" with significant differentiation from the Rogue that makes both classes feel distinct and deserving of being separate, and I'm hoping for an "adding Devise a Stratagem" level breakthrough in design for the 'Slinger from playtest to release.
Designer
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Monk, except for the days when it's ranger or investigator. I expect that list will end up looking pretty different once all the recently playtested classes reveal their final forms, but I have a suspicion monk will still retain a top 3 spot for awhile yet.
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Monk, except for the days when it's ranger or investigator. I expect that list will end up looking pretty different once all the recently playtested classes reveal their final forms, but I have a suspicion monk will still retain a top 3 spot for awhile yet.
Monk pretty much became my favorite class too after playing one. I really like the class in general but Whirling Throw gotta be the most fun feat in the game for me. I hope to Sarenrae we see more things like it in the future. And I mean that both as in more grappler support and more feats that let martial characters do absurd things and battlefield control.
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English has usually been my favorite. But I find that History can also be fun to attend.
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Whirling Throw gotta be the most fun feat in the game
Have to agree with this.
I used it for a single encounter in a One-Shot and even so it became one of the fondest memories I have playing Pathfinder Second Edition.
Unfortunately I have only been able to GM 2E not play.
Barbarian, Druid and Bard have been super fun to GM tho a d Bard may just be the best designed class in 2E.(in fact if there was a way to use dex for maneuvers they would easily be the best class imo)
In 1E I would say Magus>Ranger>Chained Summoner>Alchemist>Any Prepared Caster>the rest.
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I liked beginning with a Paladin and I enjoy my Barbarian. As I did my Bards. In fact anytime I take a deep dive in a class, I find much to enjoy, whether Investigator, Swashbuckler, Sorcerer or Fighter these days.
I guess only Witch and strangely Rogue does not inspire me so much. Likely for Rogue because I dived into Investigator first.
Ranger also feels so-so whereas it was my favorite class in PF1.
Maybe I just need to dive there to appreciate them better.
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I liked beginning with a Paladin and I enjoy my Barbarian. As I did my Bards. In fact anytime I take a deep dive in a class, I find much to enjoy, whether Investigator, Swashbuckler, Sorcerer or Fighter these days.
I guess only Witch and strangely Rogue does not inspire me so much. Likely for Rogue because I dived into Investigator first.
Ranger also feels so-so whereas it was my favorite class in PF1.
Maybe I just need to dive there to appreciate them better.
Funny enough, it wasn't until I started looking really closely at the Outwit ranger that I realized that the class might be a lot of fun to play. I haven't done a deep dive, but it would be interesting to really look closely at how differently the two play from each other.
Investigator, probably. It's got a fun chassis and a unique concept that executes itself pretty well. Rogue is a close second.
Most other classes feel like they end up being compromises and let downs because of PF2's class design rules.
I liked beginning with a Paladin and I enjoy my Barbarian. As I did my Bards. In fact anytime I take a deep dive in a class, I find much to enjoy, whether Investigator, Swashbuckler, Sorcerer or Fighter these days.
I guess only Witch and strangely Rogue does not inspire me so much. Likely for Rogue because I dived into Investigator first.
Ranger also feels so-so whereas it was my favorite class in PF1.
Maybe I just need to dive there to appreciate them better.
Funny enough, it wasn't until I started looking really closely at the Outwit ranger that I realized that the class might be a lot of fun to play. I haven't done a deep dive, but it would be interesting to really look closely at how differently the two play from each other.
Ironically, I think the first time I REALLY took a look at Outwit was when NN was going off on one of his rants about how much they suck, and I realized that Outwit was halfway to being an Urban ranger.
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In PF1, I really liked the Witch and occult classes. I always avoided full martials and pretty much exclusively always wanted to play a class with some form of spell casting with the exception of the Bard (didn't care for the artistic bent) and Inquisitor and Summoner (hated their spell lists).
With PF2, I find it very impressive that now with the balance between martials and casters, the more occult and toned down artsy flavor of the Bard and how the 4 spell lists cover multiple classes, I find myself often wanting to choose a martial as base class, Bards are actually attractive to me now and I will now likely want to play other classes that were once off putting to me. The only thing Paizo needs to do now is make evil Champions PFS legal, and I'll actually want to play a Champion for once as well.
TL;DR - Um...hard to tell. Nearly half of them?
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I suspect PFS will never make evil champions legal. They have had a pretty consistent stance on evil character in PFS from the beginning.
The good champion reactions are at the very least good. My main high level PFS crew has two peeps with glimpse of redemption, a champion and my wizard.
Champion is definitely a class that I plan to play at some point.
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It's sort of a bummmer, imo, that champion reactions are tied to alignment. One step forward by replacing the paladin with a more alignment flexible class... then a big step back by just tying your combat mechanics to alignment anyways.
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Have only been GMing 2E and for that played a bunch of classes for short bursts but have enjoyed just theorycrafting builds.
The class I keep coming back to is the wizard. I just really like the thesises and how they play with available spell slots. Staff Nexus Wizard is my latest obsession.
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It's sort of a bummmer, imo, that champion reactions are tied to alignment. One step forward by replacing the paladin with a more alignment flexible class... then a big step back by just tying your combat mechanics to alignment anyways.
Well, the same could be said about the Cleric where, if you don't pick certain (often less prominent) deities, a felt half of your class feats permanently become invalid choices. And while I neither request nor expect all choices being equal, character creation should not boil down to a boolean search by alignment, e.g. if grants True Strike AND grants both heal/harm AND grants a decent weapon AND/OR grants decent focus spells = true, choose deity.
Apart from that and regarding the original question I can only make observations based on our current party in which both Warpriest (Font & focus spells) and Barbarian (Rage & Intimidation) look fine mechanically as well as fun to play. Our Ranger while looking fine mechanically does not look very fun to play, mostly because of his "never" changing routine of Mark Prey, Hunted Shot, Command. Runners up are Fighter and Wizard, both suffering from bad class feat choices / character setup. The fighter is a defensive sword & board type suffering from not having picked up many mobility or offensive feats, trying to improve PF2's lackluster character defenses instead and the Wizard chose Universalist school and Meta Magic thesis which did not do much during our low level play.
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Da wun dat hits fings best o' kourse, da FOYTA
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For as much as I wished for a bit of an update on it, my favorite class is alchemist. I don't find it an overly powerful class, but advanced and quick alchemy are honestly just so much fun to play around with, imo. Being able to look at my whole freakin formula book and wish an item into existance in an instant is just so cool to me, and in the last game I played, saved my whole party's life. Half of my party uses my mutagens; the witch opting for the drake heart mutagen for a bit of a durability boost, and the swashbuckler occasionally using a silvertongue mutagen for boosts to Bon Mot and One For All, and I myself use Silvertongue and Quicksilver, both as an in combat boost and out of combat utility.
While my damage is usually pretty low unless I crit, the fact that I alway have something I can do out of combat, and that I always have an ace up my sleeve is immensely fun
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While I haven't had a chance to play all the ones I'm interested in, Druid so far has been amazingly fun all the way from level 3 up to 16 (playing AoA). Being able to have a wild shape build that's still a full caster instead of cutting out the majority of the class has worked very well, and the tradeoff in feat choice and actions to get in/out of form seems fair so far (haste is your friend!). I do wish there was a little more wiggle room in feats as you're constantly deciding what forms to give up, but the versatility in play makes up for the tough choices on paper.
I've been itching to play, haven't had a chance yet.
From the Core rulebook, I've had a goblin wizard in mind, as well as either human or elven monk. Because elven monks are known for their use of Mountain Stance, right? And of course a crossbow precision ranger for funsies.
Also wouldn't mind taking a gymnast swashbuckler for a whirl, tho not sure if that's ... you know, effective ...
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To me, the essence of an RPG is not "how effective a character can I build" but "how effectively can I play the character I've built".
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To me, the essence of an RPG is not "how effective a character can I build" but "how effectively can I play the character I've built".
That sure is a weird way to answer "what's your favorite class?"
Well, my favorite class is probably Ranger. Followed by Magus, though I haven't had a chance to play one yet in 2E.
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I am super excited to play a PF2 Magus. I know that the core striking spell mechanic is going to change, but I am still excited to play a martial with full casting. Having been playing a couple of PFS characters that are martial MC casters and pretty much only cast spells from scrolls, I am more excited than ever about seeing how the casting on Magi has sorted out.
I am super excited to play a PF2 Magus. I know that the core striking spell mechanic is going to change, but I am still excited to play a martial with full casting. Having been playing a couple of PFS characters that are martial MC casters and pretty much only cast spells from scrolls, I am more excited than ever about seeing how the casting on Magi has sorted out.
I’ve been playing an elven slide Magus in my friends Ruins or Azlanti campaign. We just finished book two and reached 7th level. I’ve been having a blast with the class. Having access to magic while also being a good combatant is a dream for me. Due to the crit mechanic of Striking Spell, when I crit, I hit super hard, which can make for flashy turns. Things got more fun at 5th level when I could haste myself. We are using free archetype so I have witch feats for some extra spells.
Of the other class I’ve seen and tried, cleric can be a powerhouse due to heal being so good and clerics having free heals. Champion reaction is game changing but I’m not of a fan of the class being so alignment restricted. Swashbuckler seems super fun to always have diverse turns.
I GM a lot of games for Pf II, but have managed to play a Human female Rogue Red Mantis Assassin in Age of Ashes. Still alive and kicking at level 14 at the end of module 4.
Cheers, I would like to see the Rogue and Red Mantis get some more feat love as it still seems a bit empty for really cool options at higher levels, but otherwise, my next build will probably be a Cleric or one of the new classes
Tom
Just for Fun is Druid. At the moment I'm thinking Sprite Storm Druid with a Corgi, and Order Explorer Wild
But in terms of effectiveness
Something like this
Great:
* Fighter
* Barbarian
Very Good:
* Bard
* Champion
* Druid
* Rogue
* Sorcerer
* Swashbuckler
OK:
* Investigator
* Cleric
Flat:
* Monk
* Ranger
* Witch
* Wizard
Problematic:
* Oracle
* Alchemist