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I always favor buffs because they're not prone to fail, so I set up them first because it's a guaranteed benefit and martial characters can use their debuffs to help mine later. Much better to try your debuffs after the frontline tried a Demoralize.
I remember fighting a Gelugon and i managed to land a Stun with Stunning fist, it was one of the 5 or so times that a critical failure happened (which made me realize that the feat isn't as good as it seems, certainly not mandatory), the Gelugon lost 1 action (Incapacitation) and it was enough to avoid a domino effect that would've likely ended up in a TPK, since every frontliner was really low on HP, it was just a single action to start our downfall since the backline would certainly not be able to withstand a single round against the creature (it was landing crits on us on a 15+, imagine against a wizard or alchemist?). Sometimes the difference is small, sometimes it's huge, the trick is that it's hard to quantify directly because there are no pluses or minuses involved. The same goes for difficult terrain.
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Getting everything exactly right with all factors in my favor shouldn't be the expected bare-minimum break-even point; it's a a rare and lucky occurrence that should result in extremely high likelihood of success.
Except it isn't rare or lucky, it's something that you as players have the ability to do. Also, if you're level 7 at that point in AoA, your GM has done you a disservice in not either:
A) Giving you enough XP to be at level 8 for that encounter.
or
B) Not just using milestone leveling.
At level 8, that's a severe encounter for a group of four. With a group of six level 7 characters, if the GM made zero adjustments, then it's still going to be a severe encounter for you. Your post here is pretty confusing, but it seems to read that there were four priests? Which makes it look like the GM added two priests putting it way over the extreme side of things. Not to mix these threads (but they all share a common theme, it seems), but you also note that the priests were able to cast fireballs and use their breath weapons in the same turn, which isn't possible as both of those activities take two actions each.
Personal note: 50% is a much different standard than "impossible." If you feel like the ruleset isn't working for you as presented, talking with you GM about playing with a variant ruleset could make this easier for you. As it stands, this is more of a "Working As Intended" thing than it is a problem.
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...the odds of beating him should be around 75%, not 50/50.The usually are.
For a specific example, let's talk spell DC 25, and the "boss" has a +14 to their save. This looks like 50/50 "odds of beating him"
But that's only the case if the spell results say "success: the target is unaffected" which the vast majority don't.
This is, by the way, a common talking point. I personally have gone with the idea that "sucessfully saved" is the default effect, and both "failed save" and "critically failed" are increasing bonus states.
Helps me see my spellcasts as impactful even when they don't transform the encounter.
Edit: this doesn't apply to attack spells, of course, though I do want a stance that allows half damage on a miss for attack spells.
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This is, by the way, a common talking point. I personally have gone with the idea that "successfully saved" is the default effect, and both "failed save" and "critically failed" are increasing bonus states.
Helps me see my spellcasts as impactful even when they don't transform the encounter.
I disagree on this view point.
Spells are a limited resource, not just terms of casts per day, the number of spells one can have actual access to. For spontaneous casters this is obviously rather limited, it's not so bad for prepared, but its unrealistic to expect access to all spells.
When I'm evaluating which spells I'm preparing for the day, and taking that against all my options, I have to ask myself how effective I see this spell being.
If the default state were to be considered "successfully saved", then an awful lot of spells simply won't make the cut. I'm going to pick things which are more impactful / don't have as many save conditions / just do something else.
An awful lot of the "saved" conditions for spells are simply too weak to justify taking the spell is that's the presumed default.
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This is, by the way, a common talking point. I personally have gone with the idea that "successfully saved" is the default effect, and both "failed save" and "critically failed" are increasing bonus states.
Helps me see my spellcasts as impactful even when they don't transform the encounter.
I disagree on this view point.
Spells are a limited resource, not just terms of casts per day, the number of spells one can have actual access to. For spontaneous casters this is obviously rather limited, it's not so bad for prepared, but its unrealistic to expect access to all spells.
When I'm evaluating which spells I'm preparing for the day, and taking that against all my options, I have to ask myself how effective I see this spell being.
If the default state were to be considered "successfully saved", then an awful lot of spells simply won't make the cut. I'm going to pick things which are more impactful / don't have as many save conditions / just do something else.
An awful lot of the "saved" conditions for spells are simply too weak to justify taking the spell is that's the presumed default.
Yes, that's correct, and how I approach picking spells. I'm sure we'd disagree on the exact specifics of what is and is not too weak, but that mindset of "if the enemy succeeded their save, will I feel like I wasted a turn?" is absolutely how I choose what spells to prepare.
I should make clear, at this point I'm not talking about if a spell is or is not balanced. I'm sure they mostly are. I'm talking about how I'd feel as a player, in order to maximize my enjoyment. This approach is necessary for me to do so.
Edit: Odd, you say you disagree, but I actually fully agree with everything you say in your post, even if we come to different conclusions. Life is weird sometimes.
Edit2: In full fairness, there is one implied point of yours I disagree with. I do think my approach might be better for newer players to PF2 in order for them to enjoy it. Once players are more familiar with the system and how to maximize their success chances, yours may be more optimal. But until that point, if they see every succeeded save as a success on their part, however minor, and every failed/crit failed save as a bonus that deserves cheering, they're probably going to have a little more fun. And the spells that we'd both agree are too weak on a success, those I'd advise are "for more advanced players" and guide them to stuff like Fear.
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There are a lot of spells that are situationally dependent in PF2, and even more complicated my, dependent upon the rest of your party’s build focus.
Like spell attack roll spells are mostly turned pretty high on what they can do when the hit, but if the rest of your party is melee focused, blocking your lines of sight and providing cover, spell attack roll spells are pretty terrible, even if you are using truestrike.
Spells that push an enemy might be completely useless in many situations, but grabbing an edge takes a free hand, something some creatures don’t even have any of, not to mention humanoids carrying things.
-10 movement can be meaningless, or 3 wasted turns, far more effective than slowed 1 for a round.
What PF2 doesn’t do very much of, compared to many other games, is give you obvious spell and action combos that will be equally effective every round of every combat. Wizards, by level 3, but certainly by level 7, should be frequently finding opportunities to do something really interesting, creative and situationally dependent. At a minimum, this should be happening once a session. If it is not, there is a good chance that the gm and player are not communicating effectively with each other.
If the player is mostly interested in overwhelming big damage with a couple of different spells, they might want to consider switching to a sorcerer, or at least MCing into the sorcerer as there are not nearly enough feats in class to try to specialize so.
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What Is the 2E Wizard's Job?
To allow another amazing class option for players. ;P
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To allow another amazing class option for players. ;PWhat Is the 2E Wizard's Job?
Isn't that the alchemist job? ;)
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They really messed up the crit effects in this game - having an instant win on a crit fail for spells definitely makes it so that you can’t have them land with any reasonable degree of accuracy. You could rewrite all the spells to have much fairer crit/fail effects and therefore much higher accuracy, but I imagine people wouldn’t be satisfied with that either. Something like
Slow
CS: No effect
S: Slowed 1 for 1 round
F: Slowed 1 for 3 rounds
CF: Slowed 2 for 1 round then slowed 1 for 1 minute
But with the base accuracy for level+0 creatures boosted from the ~45% failure rate it currently is to about 80%.
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I look forward to seeing how this pitch about rewriting the math to make spellcasters weaker goes over.
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This is, by the way, a common talking point. I personally have gone with the idea that "sucessfully saved" is the default effect, and both "failed save" and "critically failed" are increasing bonus states.
I see spells like that and for me it just makes them all look pretty underwhelming slowing someone for a single round really doesn't feel like it should be limited to 2 or 3 times a day.
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I see spells like that and for me it just makes them all look pretty underwhelming slowing someone for a single round really doesn't feel like it should be limited to 2 or 3 times a day.
This is, by the way, a common talking point. I personally have gone with the idea that "sucessfully saved" is the default effect, and both "failed save" and "critically failed" are increasing bonus states.
The only creature consistently likely to make their save against a spell is a higher level creature, most likely facing a full party of heroes by themselves. Stealing one action from a powerful enemy that may only get 12 or 16 if it is lucky is a pretty decent trade off. Especially since the party is getting 12 actions a round unless the monster lays concentrated damage down fast.
Against a horde of enemies with a more equal encounter distribution, it is a big waste. But honestly, slow on a failure is kind of a waste against equal level opposition.
There is no spell that is just always going to be the best option in every situation.
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I see spells like that and for me it just makes them all look pretty underwhelming slowing someone for a single round really doesn't feel like it should be limited to 2 or 3 times a day.
This is, by the way, a common talking point. I personally have gone with the idea that "sucessfully saved" is the default effect, and both "failed save" and "critically failed" are increasing bonus states.
The only creature consistently likely to make their save against a spell is a higher level creature, most likely facing a full party of heroes by themselves. Stealing one action from a powerful enemy that may only get 12 or 16 if it is lucky is a pretty decent trade off. Especially since the party is getting 12 actions a round unless the monster lays concentrated damage down fast.
Against a horde of enemies with a more equal encounter distribution, it is a big waste. But honestly, slow on a failure is kind of a waste against equal level opposition.
There is no spell that is just always going to be the best option in every situation.
I'm not sure anyone's saying there's one spell for every combat situation (except maze that spell is the best). Instead, Paper is pointing out that if you evaluate spells based on their success effect, you wind up only picking spells with a near guarenteed chance of being useful in a wide range of combat situations. I don't know about you, but for me, reliability and covering a wide number of use cases is more important than being able to do something great in a very specific situation and only if the enemy is weak to that save.
It also has the added benefit of making spell selection pretty linear for each spell list with the most diversity of useful combat spells happening in the 4th and 5th level slots if I'm remembering right.
As for hordes, that's what staves and wands are for. Giving you extra low level slots so you don't waste game time or prepared spells on fodder.
@thunder: The best effects are never the flashiest. Think of slow 1 as forcing an auto-miss on a big melee boss or locking a caster in place. Hideous laughter is good for that too, turning off reactions on a success, as is level 1 fear if the importance of every +/-1 hasn't been impressed on you yet.
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@thunder: The best effects are never the flashiest. Think of slow 1 as forcing an auto-miss on a big melee boss or locking a caster in place. Hideous laughter is good for that too, turning off reactions on a success, as is level 1 fear if the importance of every +/-1 hasn't been impressed on you yet.
THAT is probably my favorite spell to cast. I have no idea why turning off reactions feels so satisfying when I pull it off, but it really is.
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Usually because reactions are generally the most effective way to cheat out more actions. They don't take MAP, and monster reactions are also pretty vicious with their unique qualities (Twisting Tail and Wing Rebuff being ones that immediately come to mind).
Add to that the fact that you can reliably do it, with it working on a success, and it's a really good feeling.
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That statement would, at best, only make sense in a game where creatures only have basic Strikes, used in sequence, and no other abilities. Doesn't make much sense in this game.
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One job a wizard has is having high intelligence. That might not seem like much because any class can technically do it. But the thing with intelligence is it has a lot of pretty important skills but it will probably be the most common dump stat for most classes. Having someone who can be good at Arcana, Crafting, Ocultism, Society, and whatever Lores covers a lot of ground, and successful knowledge checks are pretty clutch in and out of combat.
They also have the most spell slots and the best spell list, as far as their class specific stuff goes, but I assume that's already been mentioned in this enormous thread.
One job a wizard has is having high intelligence. That might not seem like much because any class can technically do it. But the thing with intelligence is it has a lot of pretty important skills but it will probably be the most common dump stat for most classes. Having someone who can be good at Arcana, Crafting, Ocultism, Society, and whatever Lores covers a lot of ground, and successful knowledge checks are pretty clutch in and out of combat.
They also have the most spell slots and the best spell list, as far as their class specific stuff goes, but I assume that's already been mentioned in this enormous thread.
Wizards do not have the best spell list. It cannot fulfill the most roles or do the most. It is an obsolete idea in 2E. All the spell lists are good with Divine the least versatile of them all.
The most versatile role-wise spell lists are Occult and Primal because they can heal on top of everything else they bring.
The Arcane list is mostly good for direct damage with maybe some situational utility.
If I were during a role-versatility list, I would rate the spell lists as follows:
1. Occult
2. Primal
3. Arcane
4. Divine
The main wizard advantages are:
1. Most spell slots and ability to cast spells matched only by the sorcerer.
2. Most ability to change out spells when given sufficient time.
3. Best at intel-based skills.
4. Most languages due to intel.
5. Most offensive versatility in terms of damage types. Energy, mental, force, negative, positive. Not like this is very necessary, but it is something.
6. Best crafters along with intel-based classes like witch and alchemist.
7. Best class to multiclass. Doesn't have a lot of high value feats, so can multiclass easily.
8. Best at metamagic, which will likely be pretty powerful once more books are released.
a tank, standing without taking actions has a good chance of consuming more actions from a boss, just by having more AC, any third wasted attack has exactly the same effect and having more HP to consume damage. Doing nothing, standing still and raising shield.
This seems like a good way to get someone with even the highest AC they can pull off for their level... very much hurt. While a shield ally champion can definitely mitigate a lot of the incoming damage, this is assuming that a boss (assuming a level + 2 opponent fits the bill here) is going to Strike, Strike, Strike. Tactically, while a higher level creature has the advantage fighting down, it's likely the opponent has better options.
Not to mention trading actions with inefficient combat healing. Playing this way requires one or more PCs to dedicate their actions to healing and not keeping up with the damage still. While this is to discuss wizards, a champion who even spends a turn Tripping their opponent, Stepping back, and then Raising a Shield is going to mitigate more damage by denying their opponent the ability to hit them at all. This is something that slow does from the safety of range and without having to hit Reflex DCs (and potentially able to stick much longer with a low save).
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I look forward to seeing how this pitch about rewriting the math to make spellcasters weaker goes over.
That doesn’t make them weaker at all, it makes them more consistent - probably stronger in fact. Yeah, you don’t have a fight winning effect when they roll a natural 1 anymore, but you basically get the same effect as before with a slightly lower chance (with 80% failure rate, CF is 30% and my proposed CF is slightly stronger than slow’s current F to make up for that) but a much higher chance to get an effect in between the current S and F effects.
The constraint of “critically failed saving throw wins fight” absolutely makes it so that spellcasters aren’t allowed to have any accuracy above 55-60% at best because of the capability of no-selling encounters. Reserving that solely for incapacitation spells, boosting accuracy and introducing a middle tier between current S and F effects, then making all the current F effects CF effects would allow you to feel like you’re succeeding more often, and upgrading your consistency.
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2. Most ability to change out spells when given sufficient time.
Only if you take that one thesis.
3. Best at intel-based skills.
4. Most languages due to intel.
Neither of this is true, since Investigator and Int-based Rogue can easily outclass wizards on both these accounts. And by a wide margin, by the virtue of having extra Skill feats and a bunch of other skill-related features.
8. Best at metamagic, which will likely be pretty powerful once more books are released.
First of all, this is not something they're good at, this is something they might be good at if any half-decent metamagic feats come out AND they give Wizards access to them.
And there hasn't been any clues that they are looking into doing this.
Also, not really. I guess they can lean into changing one metamagic feat every day? Yay?
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Only if you take that one thesis.
With a day, you don't need the thesis.
Neither of this is true, since Investigator and Int-based Rogue can easily outclass wizards on both these accounts. And by a wide margin, by the virtue of having extra Skill feats and a bunch of other skill-related features.
No one is making an intel-based rogue in an optimal campaign. Investigator pales in comparison to the wizard. They one of the least effective classes in the game.
Playing investigator would be like playing a "wizard" version of a martial. I played an investigator for a few levels. That class was mostly made for role-playing and group support games with some mystery.
But yeah sure, if all you want to do is intel-based stuff, I guess an Investigator is the best.
Intel-based rogue would also pale compared to a wizard at everything else by focused on intel.
First of all, this is not something they're good at, this is something they might be good at if any half-decent metamagic feats come out AND they give Wizards access to them.
And there hasn't been any clues that they are looking into doing this.
Also, not really. I guess they can lean into changing one metamagic feat every day? Yay?
Having a free metamagic feat and an extra flexible one is being best at metamagic.
As someone playing a mastermind rogue, there is absolutely no reason to have an 18 in INT and not DEX unless you are certain that you are going to be using it as your attack stat every round.
And even if you do go eldritch trickster, arcane, and INT based, Cantrips are just not better than starting with an 18 in your Dex and a 16 in INT so that you can still use your spells pretty effectively and can reliably hit with a finesse weapon to trigger sneak attack at least once or twice a round. Maxing out Arcana and picking up the associated feats in identifying spells and knowing what magic does is really hard for any character to justify doing that is not a wizard who also benefits from being able to cast those spells themselves.
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As someone playing a mastermind rogue, there is absolutely no reason to have an 18 in INT and not DEX unless you are certain that you are going to be using it as your attack stat every round.
And even if you do go eldritch trickster, arcane, and INT based, Cantrips are just not better than starting with an 18 in your Dex and a 16 in INT so that you can still use your spells pretty effectively and can reliably hit with a finesse weapon to trigger sneak attack at least once or twice a round. Maxing out Arcana and picking up the associated feats in identifying spells and knowing what magic does is really hard for any character to justify doing that is not a wizard who also benefits from being able to cast those spells themselves.
If monsters are saving against legendary casters, they making saves even easier against Master proficiency casters. When I get a multiclass caster archetype tacked on, I do so for utility or defense spells that don't need to make saves against. The proficiency system does not work great for attack casting for multiclass casters at all.
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Investigator pales in comparison to the wizard. They one of the least effective classes in the game.
Playing investigator would be like playing a "wizard" version of a martial. I played an investigator for a few levels. That class was mostly made for role-playing and group support games with some mystery.
I'm sorry? I played both Wizard (7, almost 8 levels) and Investigator (level 4 I think? haven't been playing PFS for some months now) in PFS and Investigator blows the Wizard out of the water in usefulness and fun. Investigator is effective in combat, and absolutely rocks out of combat. Wizard is... Meh? Does well with stuff any other class would do well?
Having a free metamagic feat and an extra flexible one is being best at metamagic.
That's a very low bar, especially given that now, Wizards don't even get access to the best metamagic feats.
Regarding notes on Mastermind Rogue, you don't need to max-out Int to beat Wizard at Int stuff. You can do 14 or 16 in Int and still equal or beat them due to all the extra skill increases, skill feats, and just plain better class.
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Relating this conversation back more to the meta question “what is a wizards job?” I think the answer is to know about and be the master manipulator of arcane magic.
Now a fair question might be, “is that a necessary role in a PF2 party anymore?” But even other intelligence based classes are not very likely to want to prioritize the class choices, skill boost choices and skill feat choices to be able to claim that title.
In PF2, there are just so many skills that feel more essential than arcana to boost and parties rarely have more than one skill monkey or INT based character. If you are not using Arcana to learn new spells, it is a very difficult skill to justify boosting over Society, Occultism, Medicine, Athletics, Acrobatics, stealth, or Thievery. Not to mention religion and nature if you are the party’s primary source of recall knowledge. How many rogues or investigators are boosting arcana to Expert before level 6 or 7, when the might be thinking about doing so for some kind of spell casting dedication investment?
Now, the reason the answer to this question is “none” is because “how valuable is arcana as a skill?” Has taken a major hit with the introduction of occult magic eating a huge portion of arcana’s lunch, but there are definitely APs where Arcana will be a centered magical tradition: Age of Ashes, probably strength of Thousands, but there are also going to be many APs where an occult caster is going to be more connected with the plot.
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You forget Unicore that boosting Arcana lets Investigators and Rogues skip boosting other skills quite as much, thanks to Unified Theory. So a strong case can be made for them scaling up Arcana if they need to.
But, even beyond that, "but they wouldn't though" style arguments don't actually answer the question of what is the Wizards role. Having your role be "you can be the best at this... as long as the classes who can do it better don't want to" isn't a good pitch.
The Wizard isn't a knowledge class. It has no mechanic or abilities which help with Recall Knowledge, other than being an Int class - but for that, they actually have less base skills than other Int classes.
The Wizard is riddled with subpar oddies like that. Paizo just made a mistake.
You forget Unicore that boosting Arcana lets Investigators and Rogues skip boosting other skills quite as much, thanks to Unified Theory. So a strong case can be made for them scaling up Arcana if they need to.
But, even beyond that, "but they wouldn't though" style arguments don't actually answer the question of what is the Wizards role. Having your role be "you can be the best at this... as long as the classes who can do it better don't want to" isn't a good pitch.
The Wizard isn't a knowledge class. It has no mechanic or abilities which help with Recall Knowledge, other than being an Int class - but for that, they actually have less base skills than other Int classes.
The Wizard is riddled with subpar oddies like that. Paizo just made a mistake.
It's more insulting when you consider that hypercognition, the recall knowledge spell, isn't even on the arcane list.
As a side note, religion does a ton more in Age of Ashes than arcana. It's not even a contest. It also doesn't help that creature ID aside, just about every arcana check also lets you use occultism if not any of the 4 magic skills.
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In my experience GMing for a wizard, wizards are the rogues of casters in PF2. They trade out some combat effectiveness by not having the amazing focus spells of other classes in exchange for unparalleled out of combat utility. Some of that comes from skills due to being an Intelligence class, but most of it comes from the sheer number of spell slots, the ease of swapping out spells, and having a great spell list for utility. And a Spell Blending wizard can tip the balance back towards combat effectiveness if they so choose.
I've seen that wizard enable the party to go on missions that they would completely be unable to go on otherwise due to her sheer ability to plan and prepare. This was in a homebrew campaign though, and I understand a very large portion of Pathfinder players only play Adventure Paths, which are designed to be completed by just about anyone.
All that said, I agree with the consensus that wizards are on the weak side, they certainly have a niche that is only really approached by the arcane witch. And personally, I would play a wizard over an arcane witch any day.
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No one is arguing that wizards will be good at all the types of magic, No one who is not getting skill boosts at every level is going to be able to keep up with even 2 of them and still be competent at anything else. Add that to the fact that most magic can be identified with one skill, and the return on trying to boost multiple magic tradition skills for most classes is incredibly diminishing. I would highly recommend most characters only invest in 1 magic tradition skill and if INT based, occultism is probably the better skill until 15th level, with Society being the far more valuable knowledge skill than either arcana or occultism, outside of very, very specific campaigns.
I could see a rogue retraining at 15th level to focus in to arcana, and picking up unified theory but that is 3/4ths of the game that has gone by where, as @Gesalt points out, occultism, religion or nature is going to be the vastly more superior magical tradition skill to have specialized in, as it includes a lot more useful monsters within it, especially at lower levels.
I think that is part of the problem. Arcane specialist don't really start standing out until the second half of the game (levels 10-20). So most people playing a wizard are going to have to wait a long time before they even start encountering magics that their specialization in Arcane Magic will allow them to start to show the value of their niche (which includes knowledge about how it works, and the ability to cast lots of spells per day to counter it and bypass it).
With occultism and primal magic occupying a lot of the more physically tangible magics and the divination/knowledge magics, it really leaves Arcane magic in a bit of bind of only having a narrative niche space in countering other magics and bypassing the magical resistances of other people and creatures.
It is a little weird that wizards only really stand out niches in PF2 are in counterspelling, overcoming spell resistance, and in secret casting. I do think that the schools of magic system is not very compatible with splitting spells into a 4 traditions of magic, and I do hope to see more ways for wizard specialists to poach spells from other traditions. There are just too many schools who's best spells are all on other lists.
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I've seen that wizard enable the party to go on missions that they would completely be unable to go on otherwise due to her sheer ability to plan and prepare. This was in a homebrew campaign though, and I understand a very large portion of Pathfinder players only play Adventure Paths, which are designed to be completed by just about anyone.
APs aside, please enlighten the rest of us as to what the wizard was doing/able to do that others couldn't. I've found that there's nothing the Wizard can do that can't be replicated by another caster unless you solely mean their ability to learn and prep obscure 1-off spells for certain obstacles.
It is a little weird that wizards only really stand out niches in PF2 are in counterspelling, overcoming spell resistance, and in secret casting
They have one other niche as the best illusionists in the game solely due to access to convincing illusion which can turn a success into a fail on a reaction. Combine with gnome for that classic ad&d feel. Although, bard humans can do the usual 9-10-12 for less painful access and a better deception check.
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a tank, standing without taking actions has a good chance of consuming more actions from a boss, just by having more AC, any third wasted attack has exactly the same effect and having more HP to consume damage. Doing nothing, standing still and raising shield.This seems like a good way to get someone with even the highest AC they can pull off for their level... very much hurt. While a shield ally champion can definitely mitigate a lot of the incoming damage, this is assuming that a boss (assuming a level + 2 opponent fits the bill here) is going to Strike, Strike, Strike. Tactically, while a higher level creature has the advantage fighting down, it's likely the opponent has better options.
Not to mention trading actions with inefficient combat healing. Playing this way requires one or more PCs to dedicate their actions to healing and not keeping up with the damage still. While this is to discuss wizards, a champion who even spends a turn Tripping their opponent, Stepping back, and then Raising a Shield is going to mitigate more damage by denying their opponent the ability to hit them at all. This is something that slow does from the safety of range and without having to hit Reflex DCs (and potentially able to stick much longer with a low save).
you are escaping from the argument.
The argument is to spend two actions for and slots to cast slow and possibly consuming a third action from a boss is not very strong.
it is very likely that a second tank will consume more actions from a boss without even spending resources.
If the "boss" is doing a third melee strike, then yes, slow is not worth casting on that. It is not worth casting slow on them even if you could guarantee they'd fail the save, as "slowed 1 for 1 minute" isn't great if they're just going to do a bunch of 3rd strikes anyways. Slow is best used on a creature that has a 2-3 action attack, forcing them to choose between attacking or moving and letting your tank kite, making their AC investments even more valuable.
And given the action economy, robbing a boss of a 3 action attack, even for 1 round, might well be worth that slot.
As others have said, no spell is universally useful, and no One Weird Trick is going to win any combat.
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APs aside, please enlighten the rest of us as to what the wizard was doing/able to do that others couldn't. I've found that there's nothing the Wizard can do that can't be replicated by another caster unless you solely mean their ability to learn and prep obscure 1-off spells for certain obstacles.
I've seen that wizard enable the party to go on missions that they would completely be unable to go on otherwise due to her sheer ability to plan and prepare. This was in a homebrew campaign though, and I understand a very large portion of Pathfinder players only play Adventure Paths, which are designed to be completed by just about anyone.
For the record, I actually do think their ability to learn and prep obscure spells is one of their big strengths! The Arcane list is full of spells like that, and the wizard (along with the witch) have the biggest advantage at making those spells useful.
But I digress. It's been months since this happened and I no longer run that campaign, so I might get some details fuzzy (though I managed to find the written version of the wizard's plan). The party had decided to perform an assassination of one of the primary antagonists up to that point. The party was 8th level and consisted of a wizard (spell blending universalist), barbarian (dragon instinct), sorcerer (diabolic, investigator multiclass) and a champion (paladin).
During downtime, the wizard crafted two things: A basic bag of holding as well as four invisibility scrolls. The bag of holding was because they needed to take his body with them so he wasn't resurrected, and being in a bag of holding would prevent most divination magic from finding it (since the body would be on another plane). The invisibility scrolls were primarily as a backup escape tool.
She then bought the scrolls for Silence, Darkvision, Invisibility Sphere, and Dimension Door. Thanks to the Magical Shorthand feat, she was able to learn them all in a day, and used her Hero Point to reroll the one check she failed (interestingly, Learn a Spell is an Exploration activity, not Downtime, so you can use fortune effects).
The day of the assassination, she also changed her familiar's abilities to Share Senses, Manual Dexterity, Darkvision, and Skilled (Stealth) to optimize him for scouting for guards. I don't recall entirely what her prepared spells were, but her top level spells were Stone Shape, Veil, Lightning Bolt, and Dimension Door. Her lower level spells were a mix of the other spells I had mentioned the party purchased as well as Pest Form and Feather Fall, maybe something else that I'm forgetting.
I won't go over the uses of all the spells, but I'll go over how she used her top level ones. Stone Shape was for after they killed their target. It would be used to open a hole in the wall to the outside, and then she would Drain Bonded Item to cast it again and seal it back up, blocking anyone who might follow. Veil was because the party was overall garbage at stealth. She as the wizard was the only one with expert, and the two martials weren't even trained. However, both the barbarian and sorcerer had +4 charisma and were master in deception, so they figured it would be best to use Veil to disguise themselves as guards and lie their way in. Plus, they all had recognizable faces to the people there, so magical disguises were useful. Lightning Bolt was to take advantage of the fact that you take a -4 to reflex saves while unconscious. And Dimension Door was to get to the top of the city's walls for their escape due to the city gates being closed at night.
And she was able to have a completely different spell list the next day.
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And she was able to have a completely different spell list the next day.
I know they took a bat to the Divine spell list but a Cleric knows all the common spells on their list and can change things up every day. Compared to that the Wizard doesn't feel especially cool for being able to do the same but with added hoops to jump through.
Also, if the Wizard was already purchasing scrolls any class could have done the same just by using the scrolls instead of learning them. They'd have an efficiency hit as they don't learn the spell, but on the day they also wouldn't need to devote spell slots to the spells they have in scroll form.
This doesn't exactly sell me on the Wizard.
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And she was able to have a completely different spell list the next day.I know they took a bat to the Divine spell list but a Cleric knows all the common spells on their list and can change things up every day. Compared to that the Wizard doesn't feel especially cool for being able to do the same but with added hoops to jump through.
Also, if the Wizard was already purchasing scrolls any class could have done the same just by using the scrolls instead of learning them. They'd have an efficiency hit as they don't learn the spell, but on the day they also wouldn't need to devote spell slots to the spells they have in scroll form.
This doesn't exactly sell me on the Wizard.
As you said, "they took a bat to the Divine spell list". Just looking over both lists (divine and arcane) from a quick glance, arcane has way, way more spells to choose from. Yes, the cleric knows all their spells, but the wizard can potentially learn enough spells to know more than the cleric. More importantly, they can be selective and learn only the useful spells (not all spells are balanced equally sadly). Learning spells is really easy with hero points, Assurance, and making sure to increase arcana when possible.
On scrolls, yes any arcane caster could do the same, but not any non-arcane caster (like your cleric example). Not the biggest distinction, but I think one worth noting.
Otherwise, I do think wizards are on the weaker side of casters, but that mostly comes from lackluster focus spells and some meh feats IMO. I don't think the arcane spell list is bad outside of perhaps occult stealing a bit too much from arcane.
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While the cleric gets a pretty strong percentage of their spell list for free (only needing to use Learn a Spell for Uncommon, Rare and non-CRB common spells), the Spell Substitution wizard does have a certain leg up in actually having the right spell prepared to deal with less standard obstacles.