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Spirit instinct is so bad you forgot it existedThe Witch to me is a class with too much of a difference between their best and worst builds. On one hand, you have cantrip like Stoke the Heart, Evil Eye, and Nudge Fate which can be used every single encounter, and on the other hand you have ones like Shroud of Night, Wilding Word, and Discern Secrets which many witches will struggle to ever use effectively. From experience with a few different witches, hex selection will be the biggest factor on if a Witch enjoys their character or not.There are very few classes that are like the Druid where all four of the orders work reasonably well. Lets see if they can keep that up with Secrets of Magic
Only half of the Sorcerers Bloodline magic spells are good, 3 of the Barbarians Instinct are much better than the others (Draconic, Animal, Giant) (Fury is terrible, and Superstition is almost unplayable). Almost nothing in Wizard Schools is worth taking at all - many are so bad even if you had them you wouldn't waste the action on using them. Three of the Oracle Mysteries are massive negatives (Ancestors/Bones/Lore).
Be thankful that you like a few witch builds. I haven't found one I like yet. The flavour is good, I'm just not seeing the mechanics that make me want to try it.
I guess I'm trying to say if I like half the options in a class then I'm happy, my expectation is met.
? not sure what your thinking but the spirt barbarian is excellent
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many options require a lot of effort to make functional and that takes away from the fun of using the option.One of the reasons why PF2 is a better game than other RPGs is the unbelievable number of options. With that, inherently, is the problem of multidimensional optimization.
It's the reason poker is more durable than Go Fish and Settlers of Catan is more durable than Life - the struggle in navigating the uncertainty makes for good replay value.
So you don't build a witch perfectly - there's nothing wrong with that in PF2. In PF1, the gaps between optimized and unoptimized were huge; the gaps have closed in PF2. Play a divine witch if you want, it'll be mechanically worse than a cleric, but it will be fine.
How a player plays a character matters a lot. If you're going to play a witch with the idea that you're going to stand back and just blast for damage, there will be way fewer options than if you consider borderline heresy like grabbing a whip and flanking (seriously ... consider it). On the plus side, fewer options means easier optimization, but the local maximum you find through a limited optimization is going to be much worse than the global maximum from complex, multidimensional optimization.
It won't even be worse in every way, even if you accept its base features were, unless we got intelligence clerics when I wasn't paying attention. For me, I think the Witch turned out fine because it seems like familiars are actually quite useful overall. Most of the Hex Cantrips are surprisingly good, especially because they're single action spells that fit in well if you recast every turn along with your actual casting--
Clinging Ice can just be recast every turn instead of sustained, at the risk of not getting to keep the penalty, but damage for an action is always nice, or you can let the penalty stand, which in some situations is going to actually cost the foe actions.
Nudge Fate is good because it applies to multiple things and you can decide when the spend the bonus and just keep the bonus there until its needed, which it seems fair to think it would come up at least once per round.
Stoke the Heart is lovely, especially if you have the right teammate-- say a flurry ranger or double slice fighter, or a monk who makes good use of flurry of blows, and so forth. You'll add a lot of extra damage keeping them stoked for a combat.
Evil Eye is fabulous because frightened is just that good a condition to inflict.
Spirit Object is neat, and can save you on slots and other resources, though its not quite as strong as the others due to the need for a two action to do any damage and not being able to park it to one action attack.
Discern Secrets *is* good, but mostly out of combat, since apparently many GMs nerf Recall Knowledge and such pretty hard.
Shroud of Night is sadly a little too dependent on the enemy not having darkvision.
Wilding Word is also unfortunately niche.
Without going into every proper focus spell they have, I love Elemental Betrayal as a damage booster for the party, if you coordinate at al, we used it to great effect in a recent campaign. Cackle has neat tactical uses, especially given some of the cantrip buffs. Life Boost is a good source of healing, especially since it only costs focus points. Blood Ward is fine by virtue of only being an action, and choosing the creature type when they cast it.
The familiar is super nice, I'm more partial to Master Abilities, particularly Spell Battery and Focus Point recharge.
Ultimately beyond that, you have the same number of slots as a Druid does, and they're pretty good, so you're not bad either, you're also intelligence based which means you fill a little bit of a different niche than the other 3 slot casters in the first place. They're really good at filling holes in the party, like if you need healing but also intelligence coverage.
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I'm seeing a lot of choices but they don't seem to expand the way you play a class tactically. It's usually ... Repeat until the end of the encounter.
Very fundamentally, what you posted is the exact problem with the witch (plus the alchemist, plus every other class that doesn't fit in a neat box). Everyone wants to come up with a set of 3 actions that can be repeated regardless of whether you're fighting a single 80 XP enemy or four 20 XP enemies, whether you're ambushed or setting up an ambush, etc.
Some classes are going to be amenable to that - if you want to Stride-Stride-Strike on Round 1, then Strike-Strike-Step on Round 2, it is both easier to optimize and very limiting.
If you go in with the mindset of "I want three actions I can repeat for the rest of the encounter," I agree there some classes that will just not optimize well.
I think that wegrate want to say that the most options require a lot of effort to make functional compared to other spellcasting classes.
I agree with that, in the sense that there are simply some classes that will take longer to find a rhythm.
And it's not just the witch class - a lot of things got an early reputation for sucking, when the reality is the optimal builds were just non-obvious.
People thought alchemists would suck without touch AC. They're okay. People thought archery sucked. It's okay. People thought the divine spell list sucked. It may be the best.
It's no problem if people don't want to put in the effort to find a decent build. But it's not a flaw of the class. Sooner or later people will figure it out and everyone can copy and paste the optimized build. No biggie.
The Witch to me is a class with too much of a difference between their best and worst builds. On one hand, you have cantrip like Stoke the Heart, Evil Eye, and Nudge Fate which can be used every single encounter, and on the other hand you have ones like Shroud of Night, Wilding Word, and Discern Secrets which many witches will struggle to ever use effectively. From experience with a few different witches, hex selection will be the biggest factor on if a Witch enjoys their character or not.There are very few classes that are like the Druid where all four of the orders work reasonably well. Lets see if they can keep that up with Secrets of Magic
Only half of the Sorcerers Bloodline magic spells are good, 3 of the Barbarians Instinct are much better than the others (Draconic, Animal, Giant) (Fury is terrible, and Superstition is almost unplayable). Almost nothing in Wizard Schools is worth taking at all - many are so bad even if you had them you wouldn't waste the action on using them. Three of the Oracle Mysteries are massive negatives (Ancestors/Bones/Lore).
Be thankful that you like a few witch builds. I haven't found one I like yet. The flavour is good, I'm just not seeing the mechanics that make me want to try it.
I guess I'm trying to say if I like half the options in a class then I'm happy, my expectation is met.
You can build some interesting characters with Ancestor oracle. I don't think it is too bad.
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How easily we slip into the langauge of "bad", "useless", "garbage" when in PF1 we had archetypes that literally did nothing.
At worst, things in PF2 are niche or campaign dependent. Even witches can be shined up and function well in the right circumstances.
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My criticisms, have been couched in the language that I don't like the builds. I often express that this is what I have found or this is my opinion. I freely acknowledge that classes like the alchemist and oracle have excellent flavour and can be fun to role play. But they are weaker classes in general. It is right to criticise the effectiveness of some builds or to say some are mechanically superior to others.
Yes PF2 is so strongly dominated by level over everything else that no class is actually useless, but the language is relative and has meaning.
We still have archetypes and schools which do almost nothing. May I present the Wizards Summoning School. Augment Summoning is so poor a choice of action I would never cast it if I had it. Its not actually useless. I'm just sure I would have a better option available.
The Witch class can be Ok. It depends if you like the hexes and cantrips or not. I have very mixed fealings on them. Most of them are very middle of the road to me. I'm not seeing the synergies, so I'm not a fan of the class.
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If the witch had better feats, the class wouldn't be too bad. The feats are role-play feats that are useless in real play or just useless and not worth taking. They may be the most terrible feats of any class in the game. The only feats that are somewhat ok are the lessons.
The hex cantrips can be pretty good. You have some flexibility in build.
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...
Ultimately beyond that, you have the same number of slots as a Druid does, and they're pretty good, so you're not bad either, you're also intelligence based which means you fill a little bit of a different niche than the other 3 slot casters in the first place. They're really good at filling holes in the party, like if you need healing but also intelligence coverage
Good comments. But for me the use of the Witches powers can often be very strongly tied to other PCs. If you have the right build in the group, then certain powers work OK. But if that sort of PC is not there they don't make much sense. Whereas say a Druid its powers are much more general and you can adapt them day to day to have a different role and fit into a new party.
Intelligence has its role, but I still see it as not as good as Wisdom or Charisma for casters. Personally I'd like to see a few more skill options added to Intelligence to give those characters a boost.
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You can build some interesting characters with Ancestor oracle. I don't think it is too bad.
I'm glad you like it. But for me the action choice limits or action failure chances are crippling. I can't imagine a build I'd like, where I'd be prepared to live within those restrictions. The powers I'd have to have to balance it for me, would be considered broken if used outside the build.
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It is what it is...
I don't know much about the people who see no issue with this class but if you compare it with the other classes from APG like Swashbuckler, Investigator, Oracle and how well these classes were design then you'll start to see that Witch is kinda off.
But is not the "end of the world problem" like some d20 classes of other games... hahaha We have SoM coming soon although is not focus on witch class certainly we'll find something good for our witches there.
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I have yet to find someone that's happy with a bomber
Then you haven't looked very hard. They're in every alchemist thread.
Not exactly fulfilling for a mad scientist focused on destruction.
Just like you've done with the witch, you've set what you want to be the outcome first, and tried to cram a complex class into that cookie cutter outline.
That's why you're disappointed.
Ever hear the saying, "When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"? That's what happens when you decide what the purpose is of a class first, and then optimize the class to solve the problem you think it should solve.
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That's why you're disappointed.
That's also why there's a problem.
Repeatedly telling people to temper their expectations, settle for what they've got because it's not that bad and make sure they're building it properly isn't necessarily bad advice, but it does more to highlight the problem than indicate there isn't one.
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I'm glad you like it. But for me the action choice limits or action failure chances are crippling. I can't imagine a build I'd like, where I'd be prepared to live within those restrictions. The powers I'd have to have to balance it for me, would be considered broken if used outside the build.
You can build some interesting characters with Ancestor oracle. I don't think it is too bad.
They do come up. But it also creates some interesting choices that certain characters can use well. My buddy made an oracle-monk multiclass of Irori. He tends to view his ancestors as providing good advice as to round to round tactics. So he tries to do the action his ancestors encourage for that round. He has built up his athletics where he is pretty good at tripping and the like when skill comes up.
I've seen that you can build an interesting and effective ancestors character. It's one of those classes where you should have a plan for all aspects of your character's abilities: casting, martial, and skills.
So you don't build a witch perfectly - there's nothing wrong with that in PF2. In PF1, the gaps between optimized and unoptimized were huge; the gaps have closed in PF2. Play a divine witch if you want, it'll be mechanically worse than a cleric, but it will be fine.It will be mechanically different than a Cleric. Better or worse depends on the rest of the party.
I think that is the problem that I see with people in analyzing the Witch. Witch is a very subtle class, not a big flashy powerful one. It takes a bit of coordination with the other characters in the party. And it takes some coordination with the GM on the theme for the game too.
Someone else was ragging on Flame Oracle earlier. How about a Fervor Witch with a Flame Oracle. Stoke the Heart on the Oracle (the bonus damage should apply to spell damage rolls too). Elemental Betrayal on an enemy the next round. That is going to be a very non-trivial amount of damage caused by a couple of focus spells that look weak when doing a whiteroom DPR calculation. Especially if the Oracle adds in Incendiary Aura and lights the Elemental Betrayal target on fire. Sure fire immunity exists, but every build can be countered. This particular build can be had as early as level 2. Not many things are immune to fire at level 2.
Are you talking multi-classing or 2 characters?
Going from sub-par to very strong with a single build or party composition is very limiting, especially thematically.
Yes, that is two characters. It might be possible using Oracle archetype to get all of that on one character, but not at level 2. I think dual class could do it by then, but those are OP characters anyway, not a standard character that I would use as an example here.
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The things that I am missing include:
This seems to be a re-post of what this thread was resurrected with, so I am guessing you want specific answers to these.
Ride Broom Feat - Being skilled at riding a flying animated broom created by a witch. Guide with Knees, Fight on Broom, etc.
You can create an animated broom, but it doesn't fly. Any feats to allow flying permanently have minimum character levels to keep them in line with the other permanent flight abilities of other classes. Maybe there will be some feats for this later. But no, there are none currently.
Witch Sense - Natural Ability for granting the witch the ability to detect other spell casters (witches, sorcerers and wizards) within 60 feet and via concentration getting an idea of how powerful they are.
Sounds like Recall Knowledge (society). That is what identifies and gives information about humaniod creatures. Bonus, it is INT based.
Predict Weather
Recall Knowledge (Nature) includes knowledge about weather.
Future Site - Fate Feat - allowing to see into momentarily into someones past of future. Brief use seeing 10 sec but concentrating using a focus item to create a ritual using something like a crystal ball to see further gaining only images of their future or past.
For stuff that is mechanically impactful (such as knowledge about the plot of the campaign) there is Augury. For things that are not mechanically impactful, just work with your GM to make it happen. That is what flavor is for.
List of Patrons is so limited - esp for someone wanting to go for the Occult like FATE which gives me TRUE STRIKE - are you kidding me! Is this the only option for a FATE Witch. I need more options for the granted spell for FATE or other FATE Patrons. Why not allow a choice with Patrons to select Nudge Fate, Guidance or Discern Secrets. Making the Granted Spell ONLY True Strike - a spell that does NOT help for a witch who doesn't attack.
You can homebrew your own Patrons. Cobble one together from the available pieces.
Also, True Strike does also affect spell attack rolls.
Circle magic - rituals that the witch can do that are defined (yes I read rituals but they are extremely under developed in my option).
That should get better with time. You can also homebrew your own.
Candle Magic - the ability to place spells in candles created and release the spell as it is burned - ending when the candle is fully burned out.
That sounds way too powerful to ever happen. You might look at Glyph of Warding to reskin to something similar.
Craft Charms - To both protect and benefit characters - including covering them with illusions, improving their abilities or protecting them from evil and other forces.
Sounds similar to Talismans.
Crafting seems totally setup for ARCANE expert casters only vs Expert OCCULT casters.
Not sure what you are meaning with this.
Rules for a Coven
Yes. Witch coven rules would be cool.
Types of Witches are differentiated well enough through the patrons.But the options are very limited for NON Occult witches.
Yes. This should get better with time.
Familiars - while I am good with Familiars and Patrons concept - I am not going to put more and more feats into a familiar. They are there to be friend, guide, spells mentor and protector when needed. A friend who holds your spells - but the witch gets so few feats that putting them into a familiar is just a waste. The familiar should advance on his own as the witches level increases. In my option as a witch increases in level - they should get a Familiar ability every couple levels as part of the class.
They do. At 6th, 12th, and 18th level.
A divine witch is NOT a Cleric - if they want a cleric play one but a divine witch or White Witch - should be defined as such - I think the problem there is there are a ton of things a white witch should be able to do that a cleric cannot - but those options are just not present in PF2. They need a Earth Mother Patron - that provides a Divine Spell List Patron Skill Nature who is focused around Life (not a Druid)
The granted skill needs to match the spellcasting tradition. Otherwise an inexperienced player might accidentally create a character that doesn't work correctly.
Other than that, here is what I have cobbled together. Tweak to your tastes.
Patron: Earth Mother
Spell List: Divine
Patron Skill: Religion
Hex Cantrip: Wilding Word
Granted Spell: Anticipate Peril
Life Witch (not just healing -follower of Mother Earth and enemy to all
From this and a few other things you have mentioned, I am also thinking of a primal witch with an archetype.
Wild Witch with Blessed One archetype would fit rather well. Lots of earth magic. Lay On Hands for both healing and fighting undead.
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One issue that afflicts the witch, I think, is that "you are the best at familiars" is supposed to be part of the draw of the class and occupies some of the power budget, but it just doesn't seem that appealing.
For sure, familiars can be made useful, but if you come up with the concept first shopping for familiar abilities that are useful but don't contradict the concept is kind of a pain.
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One issue that afflicts the witch, I think, is that "you are the best at familiars" is supposed to be part of the draw of the class and occupies some of the power budget, but it just doesn't seem that appealing.
For sure, familiars can be made useful, but if you come up with the concept first shopping for familiar abilities that are useful but don't contradict the concept is kind of a pain.
And the witch is only marginally better than the wizard anyway.
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For readers of the thread wondering what can be done for Witches at their own tables, I'll just repost this. Haven't gotten any feedback for good or ill so I'm going to assume it's not objectionable ¯\_('v')_/¯
Just homebrew it, I say. Witches are perfectly playable and pretty understandably on the underpowered side, but that just means you probably won't break things too much if you mess with the power here and there.
Deadmanwalking's homebrew, which I will shill forever for its measured approach, offers some chassis upgrades to Witch and other extra-frail casters, alongside many other nice-to-haves and sensible boosts. Since it doesn't touch most of the hexes, I made some buff proposals for those which I will link despite being on the opposite end of the fanfare/polish spectrum.
Darksol's version of Evil Eye probably works fine too.
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I wouldn't mind see a rework in this class. I'm not familiar with how paizo handles these issues and if there's ever been a rework on classes before. I've said it before, but the Witch class structure works Ok and it certainly has flavor in it, but that's just it Ok compared to any other preparer class it's easily overshadow. My fear is that with the arrival of SoM the distance between Witch and the other classes will only increase. The feats of this class are really nice in the roleplay part, but they drop a lot when you need to use them mechanically. With the trend towards new classes balancing between mechanical and flavor aspects like the new magus recharge mechanics or the future gunsliger reload the Witch class would need a boost to compete for attention against any other class.
is this something to worry about or am i just being paranoid? hahaha to be rework, or not to be rework? That is the question!
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If Alchemist is anything to go by, they'll add some patches to classes that aren't working as intended as long as it's relatively minor.
Since the problems with Witch can be fairly easily addressed by new feats, class archetypes, new patrons, or a combination of those, I don't think we'll see a "rework" as the phrase is commonly used.
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Almost literally no Witch that saw play in the first ed can faithfully be recreated in PF2, they lost all of their punch and utility being locked into just a couple Hexes even at max level.
Until they find a way to make more Hexes available to any given Witch (I'm sorry, one or two Hexes at most is not good enough) then I don't see anything substantially changing about my feelings on the Witch Class. It's like they overvalued the utility and benefits that the slightly improved Familiar has...
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Almost literally no Witch that saw play in the first ed can faithfully be recreated in PF2
Isn't this also kind of true of other classes though and thus not necessary a bad thing?
Like the enormous majority PF1 swashbucklers got dex-to-damage via feats and thus didn't need much strength, while all PF2 swashbucklers value strength.
Almost every PF1 oracle had a curse that was basically never inconvenient, but now every oracle curses gets in the way sometimes.
We haven't seen secrets of magic yet but the standard finesse scimitar dex-to-damage with free metamagic on shocking grasp magus is almost certainly gone.
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Since the problems with Witch can be fairly easily addressed by new feats, class archetypes, new patrons, or a combination of those, I don't think we'll see a "rework" as the phrase is commonly used.
I don't really agree. The witch's chassis doesn't really get fixed by those. New patrons can help, but only within the existing framework so they don't really address any concerns with the framework itself.
Feat based solutions are potentially the most effective, but also the most problematic as feats are a cornerstone of customization and class-agnostic feats are such a big part of the game. It's already a criticism I've seen mentioned more than once that Witches feel prohibitive to take archetypes on and doubling down on that isn't a good thing.
Almost literally no Witch that saw play in the first ed can faithfully be recreated in PF2Isn't this also kind of true of other classes though and thus not necessary a bad thing?
From a mechanical perspective, yes, depending on how tightly you hew to it.
But I think it's still fair to say that there's a bit lost in translation for the PF2 witch. Arguably some of its most defining features in PF1 were its arsenal of unique at-will magical powers and the eclectic collection of spells at its disposal and those features are largely gone in PF2, with only one hex cantrip that also has use and target limits, especially problematic if you have a more situational hex.
Lessons can admittedly get you some off-list spells, though (patrons generally don't, except for the rare one).
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It's already a criticism I've seen mentioned more than once that Witches feel prohibitive to take archetypes on
Not sure that I agree with this. Level 2 Basic Lesson is usually too powerful to pass up. But Level 4 is wide open.
If you are going for Hexes, that will fill up the level 6, 10, and 12 feat slots with Lessons and Hex Focus. Probably the level 18 for Hex Wellspring. But like has been mentioned, the Hexes aren't overpowering. So that might not be the direction that a player wants to build in.
Similarly for familiar. There are really good 4th, 8th, and 12th level familiar feats for a player wanting to go that route. But it doesn't make sense for all character builds.
So yeah, if you are building a Witch with as many hexes as you can get your hands on and a super powerful familiar, there isn't room for much else. But that isn't a problem unique to Witch.
My favorite Witch character has only Lesson of Life and has put the 4th, and 6th level feats into Alchemist multiclass.
I'm running Extinction Curse and one of my players is playing an occult witch. The only reason the character isn't dead is a combination of defensive spells and the fact that the other players love the character and are constantly protecting him.
That said, the character has missed a bunch of witch feats to take the ritualist archetype. I'm bending over backward to make this character useful besides great roleplaying by the player. Hoping higher levels pay off.
The game really needs some stronger occult magic. Looking at you secrets of magic...
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But I think it's still fair to say that there's a bit lost in translation for the PF2 witch. Arguably some of its most defining features in PF1 were its arsenal of unique at-will magical powers and the eclectic collection of spells at its disposal and those features are largely gone in PF2, with only one hex cantrip that also has use and target limits, especially problematic if you have a more situational hex.
I think the issue is less that "the witch has changed from PF1" (which is a thing that's going to happen to many classs, and will sometimes be a good thing) and more that "the witch class itself is a bit underbaked."
Like I keep coming back to comparing the occult witch to the bard, in that the witch gets exactly one focus cantrip at first level (much like the bard) the bard basically has the option to get another one every time they get a class feat and can even bypass muse requirements with a feat. So I fundamentally don't see why hex cantrips are so limited.
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The game really needs some stronger occult magic.
What?!? Occult is the second largest and second strongest of all magic Traditions. Arcane is the best for its pure flexibility but unless you're constantly fighting stuff with reflex save as its only weakness, Occult is absolutely amazing.
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I’d say occult is the best list. It’s focuses are in what the game wants magic to do (buffs and debuffs) but it also has healing and even damage if you want it. Reflex isn’t really a problem - blast spells are kind of bad anyway, AoE incapacitation spells (sleep 4, calm emotions, etc.) are much better at doing what blast spells want to do, and occult has a very strong reflex targetting debuff in Resilient Sphere. The only thing I really miss from Arcane is wall spells - most other juicy things you can get with Trick Magic Item and a wand (e.g. longstrider, contingency).
The edge it has over arcane (to me) is the inbuilt decent healing spell in Soothe. Arcane is going to struggle to get a good combat healing spell, although the edge in that regard is pretty minor - just enough to push it slightly over arcane in my opinion.
Both are much better than primal/divine though.