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First of all, don't listen too much to what everyone says (including me). I really like spiritualist, it's very flavourful but it is indeed not very strong. You may need to optimize your character more than the other players to be as effective as them. Summoner for example will almost always be stronger.
On the other hand you don't always have to care about how powerful something is. As long as it's consistent with what you decided with the DM and the other players.
I think priest of the fallen is almost an unchained spiritualist as it gives you a lot of interesting stuff with few drawbacks if you want a combat oriented spiritualist. It is also compatible with fractued mind (and scourge but it's highly optionnal).
When you combine everything, you'll see that some foci are more effective at lower levels while others are stronger later. Being able to totally customize your phantom twice a day provides an incredible flexibility at the cost of a ton of research and bookkeeping.
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As a final note, a lot of the guides you will find on the internet are terribly outdated and paint a very negative image of the spiritualist as it was before it received some deserved buffs (e.g. the priest of the fallen).
And what about the Phantom? Can it stay viable in combat?
Looking at the progression table, I don't think it's intended to replace a martial PC (which the eidolon accidently did). At level 1 you are at AC 14, 6 HP (can't die from HP damage), +2 AB and 9 damage. That's roughly the equivalent of a 3/4 BAB PC not built for melee combat, even though the damage is good.
The eidolon pretty much uses the same progression table, with two key differences: It also gets a Str boost and a lot of evolutions. Lacking that, a phantom has to work with slowly scaling slam damage and some powers from its emotional focus. Looks like it scales way too slow to keep up with the monsters - so either you throw an increasing amount of buffs and magical items at the phantom or you look for alternatives.
I guess the spiritualist is supposed to switch its phantom between full manifestation, confined in consciousness and bonded manifestation, depending on the situation. The first gives you an expendable pet with some special powers, the second boosts skills and saves somewhat, the third improves the spiritualist's melee prowess.
It seems like Anger is the best emotional focus for combat, But can other emotional focus work too? What can you do with your phantom other then combat?
While Anger patches up damage output, it's appearantly not enough to keep up with monsters, and it comes at the expense of AC. Personally I find Despair and Fear more attractive, with their debuffs on hit and debuffing auras.
So, I'v been looking at the Spiritualist and think it seems like a realy cool class but I'v heard a lot of people say it is a horribly bad and weak class... Is this true..? It seems cool...
Another third of its class features are spell-like abilities of spells you already have on your class list. A clear sign that they simply ran out of time and sloppily padded the class progression table. The worst offender is getting a once per day use of See Invisibility at level 9. That lasts 10 minutes.
The rest is the Phantom, and Bonded Manifestation.
Now Bonded Manifestation is not just bad, but it's in clear conflict with the design intention of the rest of the class. You're a d8 character with no bonus feats and poor armor/weapon proficiency. The phantom's whole shtick is that it allows you to cast touch spells from relatively safety. You have absolutely no business being in melee and Bonded Manifestation doesn't change that. Not to mention that you can only use this ability for a few rounds per day, and never when your phantom is out.
You're effectively playing a Summoner without Summon Monster and a weaker Eidolon, which is why the Spiritualist needed strong and interesting class features to bridge that gap. They didn't get that. You'll just feel like you don't have any real class features beyond "phantom" and "spells".
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And what about the Phantom? Can it stay viable in combat? It seems like Anger is the best emotional focus for combat, But can other emotional focus work too? What can you do with your phantom other then combat?
It can stay useful but never "viable" as in "noticeable damage dealer". What you do is you hope your party has a frontliner your phantom can help out through its abilities, like Greater Spiritual Interference and the Kindness focus's Opening Strike/Lay on Hands.
Its main use lies in allowing you to cast touch spells from a distance and scouting through walls. Pretty much no adventure path or module expects you to be able to the latter, so it can be very strong/disruptive in certain circumstances.
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I strongly recommend the Priest of the Fallen archetype brought up by Spenson as a straight upgrade to the base class. You don't need to feel guilty taking this archetype as the strongest Spiritualist is still a Spiritualist, so it won't be OP. Another good archetype is the Totem Spiritualist that grants you Phantom Animal Companions, but it loses the Emotional Focus which makes it more bland.
If you want to make a melee Spiritualist then I'd multiclass into something like UnRogue for four levels and take the Phantom Ally feat. You need a solid base to attempt melee, and the class itself lacks that.
There's a bunch of things that aren't straight-up combat that you can do with a phantom. They don't look so good for straight-up combat, but if you do go that path then hatred may be as good or better for DPR.
For the class, I think the phantom blade archetype makes a better meleer and it loses the phantom. That tells you how good the phantom is.
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A character I'd like to try one day if we play a CE campaign is priest of the fallen+fractured mind (maybe also scourge, which is compatible, because you can do some cool stuff with priest of the fallen) spiritualist 8 / antipaladin 2 / elder mythos cleric 1 / evangelist X (you don't miss any phantom level if you pick phantom ally as your feat at level 7)
Basically I see the character as the heir of a family of worshipers/zealots of an elder god who all channel the power of their ancestrors. Oh look, this is uncle Johnny, he poisoned 92 people and 3 dogs. This one is my great grandmother Bertha, she killed a duchess and pretended to be her for 3 years in order to further the cause of our god. Etc etc.
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Sadly, I think the best use for spiritualist might be as a one level dip with a Dedicated phantom that never leaves your head to shore-up will saves:There's a bunch of things that aren't straight-up combat that you can do with a phantom. They don't look so good for straight-up combat, but if you do go that path then hatred may be as good or better for DPR.
For the class, I think the phantom blade archetype makes a better meleer and it loses the phantom. That tells you how good the phantom is.
- Base Will save +2,
- Iron Will bonus feat for another +2,
- +4 bonus versus mind-affecting powers, and
- The ability to shunt a mind-affecting power off on your phantom
I'v heard a lot of people say it is a horribly bad and weak class... Is this true..? It seems cool...
The important thing to realize is that power level evaluations are, per their very nature, relative. So when people talk about the strength or weakness of a class, they almost alwas mean that in comparison to similar classes - Spiritualist, natutrally, usually gets compared to other 6/9 casters.
Spiritualist is still a 6/9 caster, with a pretty good spell list, which means in an objective evaluation of what impact the class can have on combat, or the narrative power it can have, the Spiritualist is actually looking rather good. That said, it is one of the weakest 6/9 casters, and thus it compares poorly to it's peers - and especially when the most similar class, the Summoner, is the most powerful 6/9 caster.
In general, you shouldn't loot at the phantom as something like a Fighter - it's more akin to a Bard, meaning it's more of a supporter than a stand alone combatant.
If you want to make a melee Spiritualist then I'd multiclass into something like UnRogue for four levels and take the Phantom Ally feat. You need a solid base to attempt melee, and the class itself lacks that.
I think you can do much better than Rogue: Four levels of Weretouched Shifter gives you five primary natural attacks plus pounce, that's probably the best four-level-martial-package in the game.