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Your instinct is correct, the Witch lags behind other classes in the features and strength department. It's not bad enough to make them unplayable, but their main claim to fame, the Hex Cantrip, currently takes a lot of effort to fully utilize.
Long story short, if you pick the right spell list and Hex Cantrip combo, the class can be a powerful debuffer. However, if a single Hex Cantrip doesn't make you happy, then you're not going to like the class until they introduce options for acquiring more.
I’d quibble a little about what features you line up with each other, but more or less, you’re correct.
I wouldn’t stress to much about “why?” either. It’s just the way it is.
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Are we underestimating how valuable 1d4 damage/round from Clinging Ice is?
First of all, the damage only happens once. If you sustain the spell so it lasts longer than one round, the target only suffers the Speed penalty.
In general, the druid is the stronger class of the two. Also the one with th better overall design but that doesn't factor into the class's power level too much.
The witch (as a class) lives and dies by two things: Flavor and Focus spells.
There's not much point in arguing about flavor. And I'm including the familiar here since every character can get one by various means and it's not too much investment to get a familiar to 4 abilities, which will usually be enough for whatever you want to get from it. The witch is the best choice if you want one of the Specific Familiars, but those are mostly a flavor option as well, in my opinion. At least they are not a significant power boost over a regular familiar.
That basically leaves Focus Spells. Phase Familiar is a very poor free focus spell to base a class around. I'd would much rather have seen Cackle in it's place (or even in addition to it).
The Hexes aquired via the "Lesson" feats are mostly good, but few of them outstandingly so. The Focus Cantrips are hit or miss and many players seem to agree that Evil Eye is the best one - but that locks you into Occult spells, so it's not an option if you want Primal.
A Primal witch is weaker than a Druid in most ways. The mising Armor Proficincy isn't too big of a deal and if you want to be a pure caster, you probably won't need those extra HP too much. But the spells known really hurt the class. Having to pay for all spells from a tradition while another class gets most of them for free is a huge drawback. It doesn't help that the witch can't even use her key ability score to learn thse spells, so the chance to a cost-reducing crit on the check are rather slim.
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The Shield Block on druid does probably need an asterisk next to it, though. The anathema against metal shields, which quickly become the only shields actually useful for blocking, leaves druids in a pretty bad position for using that reaction after the earliest levels.
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One of the biggest issues with the Witch is that it's got a stark contrast between which hex cantrips are very good and which ones are very bad... Clinging Ice and Wilding Word are both pretty bad so Primal Witches get screwed. Compare the effects of these cantrips with the much better Evil Eye or Stoke the Heart.
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I suppose you're right but PF2 has been touted as and for the most part seems like a game where the balance decisions are fairly meticulous. So I presume there is some thoughtful balance consideration as to why the level 3 druid has expert perception, expert fortitude and, almost septuple the spells known over a Witch and I'm just not seeing it.
The hard truth is that it was a hotly debated class during the playtest, was pretty drastically changed after, and the designer in charge of it left the company so I imagine other developers didn't want to do too much editing of that person's baby.
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I suppose you're right but PF2 has been touted as and for the most part seems like a game where the balance decisions are fairly meticulous. So I presume there is some thoughtful balance consideration as to why the level 3 druid has expert perception, expert fortitude and, almost septuple the spells known over a Witch and I'm just not seeing it.The hard truth is that it was a hotly debated class during the playtest, was pretty drastically changed after, and the designer in charge of it left the company so I imagine other developers didn't want to do too much editing of that person's baby.
The playtest witch had spell slots like a wizard or sorcerer (i.e. 3-4/day/level instead of 2-3) and had a chassis pretty much like the wizard or sorcerer too (better weapons than the wizard though).
When they got bumped down to a 3 slot caster the only change their chassis got was an extra trained skill which sort of makes them look weird next to the druid, cleric or bard. Incidentally OP mentions focus spells at level 1, the playtest witch got those (though a lot of those ended up getting weakened and repurposed into hex cantrips).
I’d quibble a little about what features you line up with each other, but more or less, you’re correct.Can I ask which? I admit Shield Block and Hex Cantrip don't really have much in common, but I put them together since neither has a real equivalent on the other side. Feat - Familiar made sense to me since one of the druid feat options is a slightly worse familiar and then focus spell to focus spell felt logical too.
I’d swap the cantrip and phase familiar spell. The hex cantrip is your special focus spell (even if it doesn’t use focus), and so equivalent to your order spell. Meanwhile, phase familiar is primarily a defensive action, similar to how the shield block reaction is intended.
I actually don’t even count Shield block when I’m examining the Druid chassis, but if it is to be compared to anything, phase familiar is closest.
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I suppose you're right but PF2 has been touted as and for the most part seems like a game where the balance decisions are fairly meticulous. So I presume there is some thoughtful balance consideration as to why the level 3 druid has expert perception, expert fortitude and, almost septuple the spells known over a Witch and I'm just not seeing it.The hard truth is that it was a hotly debated class during the playtest, was pretty drastically changed after, and the designer in charge of it left the company so I imagine other developers didn't want to do too much editing of that person's baby.
Hopefully we see something in Secrets of Magic. Witch makes me sigh.
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I've seen two witches in play for a significant amount of time (and a third for a short period of time). The first was an arcane witch that ended up switching to wizard and enjoyed it a lot more, while the other is an occult witch who really enjoys her character, but most of the stuff she enjoys isn't really uniquely "witchy", meaning she primarily enjoys the prepared occult spellcasting more than the hex and familiar mechanics.
Would it be bad to homebrew buffing the witch (8 HP, better proficiencies, etc)? The class seems really behind the curve compared to other casters
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So far the witch hex cantrips that seem to attract play are evil eye and stoke the heart. All the other hexes are meh. The feats are meh.
Druid chassis and options much, much better.
Evil eye is a sustainable intimidate usable once per battle per target.
Stoke the heart is a great damage boosting hex.
There's not much point in arguing about flavor. And I'm including the familiar here since every character can get one by various means and it's not too much investment to get a familiar to 4 abilities, which will usually be enough for whatever you want to get from it. The witch is the best choice if you want one of the Specific Familiars, but those are mostly a flavor option as well, in my opinion. At least they are not a significant power boost over a regular familiar.
A familiar with four abilities is generally going to cost you two low-level class feats, though there are a few ways to try to finagle it with ancestry feats instead. That may not be "too much investment", but it's certainly not nothing. The best way to get it cheaper than that, ironically, is to go with the Witch multiclass archetype, where two feats can get you a 4-ability familiar plus a free cantrip.
I'll agree that Specific Familiars are not in general particularly more powerful than a standard familiar of the same number of abilities.
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I love the Witch for being an any-tradition prepared casting class. Currently that is the only way to get a prepared caster with occult spell list. I also see it as a fantastic example of how to do a pick-a-tradition class well. Sorcerer ends up with a large pile of feats as tradition locked, which makes the class take up a lot more room to print and a lot more confusing to sort through.
However, I agree that some of the things about Witch are ... well, bad. I can't think of a better way of describing it.
The hex cantrips are generally less useful than regular cantrips. Most are niche use - would be cool in a particular campaign, but not useful generally. Phase Familiar is terrible.
Personally I don't like being forced into having a familiar either. But that is part of the class flavor, I guess. Maybe a class archetype at some point...
As for having fewer spell slots than other casters, I think that is a bit of a misinterpretation. All other classes also only get 2-3 spell slots for each level. Wizard and Sorcerer have ways to increase that by one per level, so they end up with 3-4 per level in total. I don't see that for the other classes though. Unless I am missing something.
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Didn't the Witch also eat a big old nerf sandwich when the whole finesse doesn't work with maneuvers ruling came down and made her hair basically useless as a 3rd action ability?
That's not a yes/no question. That's a "depends on the witch and also on what they're fighting" question. And since using living hair for maneuvers frequently was already niche, having it be niche for other specific builds isn't a huge change to the class as a whole.
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Reasons to play the witch over any other caster is pretty much just their focus spell selection, that is:
- Life Boost
- Elemental Betrayal if you can convince your party to all buy the same damage rune
- Curse of Death
- IMO, the biggest spell, Glacial Heart (but it’s rare, so i’d ask in advance and if disallowed probably wouldn’t play a witch)
Stoke and Evil Eye are ok, but they’re not competing with what cleric/bard get (despite those classes also getting higher hp, armor, better saves...)
So that leaves primal and arcane. I think because arcane sorc and wizard have such absolute trash focus spells, arcane witch has a niche even if its hex cantrip is awful. Primal witch... yeah I don’t think it stacks up to druid well.
There’s also the thing that it’s an INT based caster, and INT is probably the worst stat in the game.
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Witch MC is fantastic though.
We can go for quite a while listing faults and missed opportunities, but the crux of the matter is here:
Your instinct is correct, the Witch lags behind other classes in the features and strength department. It's not bad enough to make them unplayable, but their main claim to fame, the Hex Cantrip, currently takes a lot of effort to fully utilize.
Emphasis mine.
If you are looking for a sturdy, solid caster, and being new to the game there's a lot of value in picking exactly that for your first foray, then the witch is probably not your top pick. You can play it, contribute, even enjoy yourself, but all of that will be slightly harder with the witch than with the druid or bard.
All comes down to what you want out of your game.
A familiar with four abilities is generally going to cost you two low-level class feats, though there are a few ways to try to finagle it with ancestry feats instead. That may not be "too much investment", but it's certainly not nothing. The best way to get it cheaper than that, ironically, is to go with the Witch multiclass archetype, where two feats can get you a 4-ability familiar plus a free cantrip.
Familiars are - for me at least - mostly useful on a caster. A non-caster can probably get what he wants even with only 2 abilities. And most caster feats are really not THAT great, especially at low levels. I don't think I'd have any trouble fitting in a Familiar and Enhanced Familiar into any caster build. I usually end up picking Archetype feats for at least half of my feats anyway. YMMV, of course.
But anyway, even if you go all out caster support with your witch familiar (i.e. pick up Cantrip Connection, Spell Battery, Familiar Focus and Spellcasting), the sum of those abilities is still worse than what other classes get instead. The two closest would be a familiar thesis wizard - who still gets more spells and better free focus spell - and a Leaf Druid, who definitely gets a much better free focus spell (and an additional Focus point).
Come to think of it, the Wizard's first level focus spells are mostly weak, but the Witch's free first level focus spell is somehow even worse. Not a good sign for a class that is basically defined by "Familiar and Hexes".
As for the Hex cantrips... Even the best one (Evil Eye) isn't in fact THAT much better than a Demoralize check. It uses Int, which is good for the Witch. But even a Witch can easily make Demoralize more reliable if you build her around it since skills are easier to increase than spellcasting proficiency. And compared to the Demoralize of a Charisma-based character, I'm not even sure it's better at all. The ability to sustain it is nice, but most fights are decided within 2-3 rounds anyway. In many situations, you're probably better off casting Forbidding Ward instead - which literally anyone can pick up by various means - and that doesn't even require any roll. The effect is significantly weaker, of course, but it also "stacks" with Demoralize.
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.
Have the player play a Witch if he likes the flavor, make adjustments as needed to make it feel better for your home table. Conversations on this forum are ultimately just to get the developers to make changes or to inform other players — since you know that a number of people think they're missing a bit of love, it's up to you to decide what that means in your game.
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Fingers crossed for a secrets of magic glow up
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Apart from good first lessons in primal and other lists, and even more cool familiar stuff, the problems people have with the witch kind of require an errata because we can't fix proficiencies otherwise for the most part. Still my fingers, toes, and internal organ's are crossed for more cool witch feats and focus spells in Secrets.
Similar to the nudges the Alchemist got. I think that's unlikely, so Alfa/Polaris' suggestion is a very good one. I also like DMW's homebrew more than most, because it tends to be even handed, and not as interested in re-writing the fabric oft he rules to suit a specific play-group (a totally valid reason to homebrew, but not always useful to other groups/people).
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I think an easy buff for witches would be hex cantrip upgrade feats and witch specific familiar abilities....strong ones
Reasons to play the witch over any other caster is pretty much just their focus spell selection, that is:
- Life Boost
- Elemental Betrayal if you can convince your party to all buy the same damage rune
- Curse of Death
- IMO, the biggest spell, Glacial Heart (but it’s rare, so i’d ask in advance and if disallowed probably wouldn’t play a witch)Stoke and Evil Eye are ok, but they’re not competing with what cleric/bard get (despite those classes also getting higher hp, armor, better saves...)
So that leaves primal and arcane. I think because arcane sorc and wizard have such absolute trash focus spells, arcane witch has a niche even if its hex cantrip is awful. Primal witch... yeah I don’t think it stacks up to druid well.
There’s also the thing that it’s an INT based caster, and INT is probably the worst stat in the game.
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Witch MC is fantastic though.
Evil Eye doesn't compete. But it's good since it is a sustainable fear rather than a 1 or 2 round fear you can use once per target all day long without expending a spell slot. And it combines with the Occult spell list, which is a very good debuffer spell list.
Stoke the Heart is very competitive. It's end up as +6 status bonus to any kind of damage roll. Cantrips, AoE spells, ranged, melee, unarmed, persistent damage, and it's 1 action you can put on a few party members each. It works for casters or martials. Stoke is very cool.
You can make a real great witch healer with Stoke and Lesson of Life that can buff and heal real well.
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I think an easy buff for witches would be hex cantrip upgrade feats and witch specific familiar abilities....strong ones
I'd love to see it!
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Stoke is ok, it descales pretty badly though, and measured up against heal font... I don’t think its an equal exchange at all.
I don't much agree. Heal Font is pretty useless is as you level up. It's healing overkill. A well built and coordinated party doesn't need a lot of healing as you gain levels. All they need is a medicine skill specialist to survive.
Whereas a few stokes can add up to a lot of aggregate damage over the course of a fight, especially for classes with lots of multiattack or AoE potential.
A fireball or chain lightning hitting 6 targets would be an extra 24 damage per spell at 11th level. Every single attack hit would be an extra 4 damage. You put that on two martials you're probably averaging an extra 8 or more damage per round not including crits or multiattack hits.
We ran with heal font a single time. It was great at low level, then became progressively less useful as PCs had more hps, better saves with avoidance of damage on a successful save, did more damage, and were able to kill enemies faster. The higher level game became more about a party buffing, debuffing, and killing faster.
I prefer stoke over a healing font. Stoke is one of the highest and most versatile damage buffs in the game. You can use it as a single action once a battle shifting it around at least once per character as needed. It works for persistent damage which can double its usefulness if you have characters that can do bleed dice damage.
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Stoke is definitely nice. Kinda makes sense it's one of the better hexes since Divine is arguably the most limited list.
Doesn't do much for the OP who seems to be looking at primal witches though.
Or arcane witches... which trade 1 spell/level, arcane bond, and a school focus power for, uh, +1 to recall knowledge and a couple uses of perception (that doesn't stack with heroism)... and better weapon proficiencies, yay.
Clinging Ice is perfectly servicable as a cantrip, since it's 1d4/spell level as a single action. It's filler, you throw it out because you have a spare action. And it's a save based spell, so it's likely to get some chip damage in. There's no real reason to ever sustain it, but the scaling means that it compares quite well to offensive cantrips at higher levels (it's 10d4 vs 10d4+7 damage compared to Ray of Frost at 20, and the expected damage improves since it does half damage on a save)
It would be way too strong if it wasn't once per enemy (although a 1m immunity is short enough it might come back up for a second hit)
You know, you are right. Clinging Ice is actually better than an evocation wizard's force missile for the same action cost except you can do it once per enemy per battle with no focus cost. And with the primal spell list, you can make a good blaster witch.
Wow. I did not realize that.
Force Missile does a maximum of 5d4+5 at 9th level for 1 focus point with no alteration in damage.
Clinging ice does up to 10d4 damage with a save that can half it or double it with no focus cost but only works once per enemy per battle.
That's pretty damn good. You can make a good primal blasting witch.
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I think because arcane sorc and wizard have such absolute trash focus spells,
Genie bloodline says whaaaat?
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Genie bloodline says whaaaat?I think because arcane sorc and wizard have such absolute trash focus spells,
In terms of encounter based impact, the best arcane sorc can muster is Dragon Breath
Genie
- Veil is a pretty minor ability for a focus point. It’s only a reaction, but the value is basically equivalent to nimble dodge (20% chance to do something) unless the target is attacked multiple times. The difference is that veil costs FP and dodge costs nothing.
- Heart’s desire is ok but teamwork based, seeing as it costs 2a you can’t really capitalise on the stupefied 2 yourself - need team mates who can.
- Wish-twisted form is basically just slightly better elemental betrayal but 8 levels later and costs 2 actions. It scales slightly better and isn’t sustained, but it also has a saving throw where betrayal doesn’t. And the jump from 1a to 2a is huge. Does have other penalties but they’re all pretty minor.
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You could fill a fountain with all of those caveats and undervalued benefits. I forgot that Genie was cool until you reminded me. ~w~
Heck, I didn't realize from your description that Genie's Veil can apply to anyone nearby. Even better!
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All it needs are more hex cantrips and possibly unbinding spell tradition and the first hex cantrip.
Yea witch should stay a 3 slot caster. It just needs more juice in it's cantrip hexes. Either upgrade feats or feats to choose a second/third one. That and witch specific familiar stuff. Amplify the witch's schtick and it'll look competitive to the other classes
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If they are buffing the witch, I rather not put more into the familiar. I don’t want the class’s strength to be too dependent on a familiar. I rather increase its base features or improve hexes (and get more of them)
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If they are buffing the witch, I rather not put more into the familiar. I don’t want the class’s strength to be too dependent on a familiar. I rather increase its base features or improve hexes (and get more of them)
Like it or not the familiar is part of the reason witch is lacking in other features. If that's the case I want my witch familiar to do wild things a wizard familiar cant
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Disagree. The familiar is as fine as any familiar in PF2 can be. The Witch just feels like they overestimated some of the hex cantrips and forgot to do anything with its chassis when it stopped casting like a wizard.
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If they are buffing the witch, I rather not put more into the familiar. I don’t want the class’s strength to be too dependent on a familiar. I rather increase its base features or improve hexes (and get more of them)Like it or not the familiar is part of the reason witch is lacking in other features. If that's the case I want my witch familiar to do wild things a wizard familiar cant
I don’t want the class about making pacts and gaining magic from a patron to be so mechanically and thematically tied to its familiar. Because personally I don’t care much for familiars and I don’t want the class budget to be taken too much by a feature I have little interest in. I also think it’s a mistake to focus too much on familiars because hexes seem more thematic to witches, and therefore should have more of a focus.