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wizards are not underpowered, they are just incredibly bland, they really lack anything to point to as "the wizard thing" their feat list is mostly generic while not bad, largely flavorless. The arcane spell list is much the same, arcane has a huge pool of good spells but has the smallest number of unique spells so there is very little that feels distinct, you have a ton of good options but very little that is unique, and compared to the other classes, it is very lacking in identity or distinct mechanics
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Balanced against what?
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Balanced against what?
Are wizards in pf2 balanced or underpowered?
Yes.
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I saw a lot of gripe about wizard and decided to play one.
I play an evoked specialist kobold with spell substitution.
So far I would say that I outperform most people in my party most of the time in what I bring to the game.
At level 3 only, with spell substitution, in exploration mode I can:
-Have access to all of my utility spells outside of combat for riddles and puzzles.
-Splooge my spell slots on defense and utility effects when setting up camp such as alarm, lock and such (eventually glyph of warding)
-Change my spells to reflect the theme of the dungeon on a dime (oozes and undead ? Let me get the appropriate spells! Thieves Guild? I'm all about them fort saves now)
In combat I can:
-reliably target the weakest of the ennemy saves
-Park and bark with demoralize/bon mot + cast in order to maximize my efficiency
-Have access to some of the best party buffs in the game (even at low level, magic weapon and enlarge provide much value)
-Summon flanking buddies. (At level 3 they're not as terrible as others)
-Do the damages efficiently with cantrips that are always appropriate or big slot conservera like horizon thunder sphere.
Wizard is a well designed, efficient class. But it's the class that rewards the most the investments the player makes into it. If you always prepare the same spell list every day and just enjoy chucking that magic missile every round, don't play a wizard, play a draconian or génie sorcerer.
Wizards have to think, and they have the resources and tools to be the best spellcasters in the game. No other class has the same amount of magical flexibility, and no other class gets near as much highest level spell slots, save the cleric (and they have to cast heal/harm with them)
Feats are a bit sucky, but hey, that just means you have a lot of options to archetype into! Archer for shoot+spell, sentinel for defense, dandy or loremaster for bardic lore. I actually don't mind the lackluster feat list at low levels !
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It has also been my experience that casters of all sorts have been way stronger in practice than people have been giving them credit for.
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As someone who has played a Wizard all the way up to 18th level (and is still playing as of this post), I can say that a Wizard is as good as the spell lists they create and work with on the adventuring day, and your feat choices matter, despite most of them being relatively unimpactful, as most feat choices are hinged on other character choices.
I too made an Evoker specialist Wizard, but instead of Spell Substitution (which I felt wouldn't have been adequate for the campaign we are in), I initially chose the Familiar thesis, and honestly, it felt extremely underwhelming, since a lot of bonus options were not available until way later, and even the initial options were not very helpful or fun. Most of the time, my Familiar was forgotten about, as it should be, but not in all respects like it was. It was basically like I was playing without a Thesis at all. Which, being able to defeat encounters with a gimped character was enjoyable, in a sense, it defeated the whole purpose of the Thesis choice.
Thankfully, the GM let me retrain my thesis to Spell Blending by 11th level, which is far more what I expect a Wizard thesis to accomplish. Being able to sling more higher level spells at baddies is really nice to have, especially in a game where higher level spell slots are a necessity, not a luxury.
The school spells could use quite a bit of work though. I understand that they can't be very powerful for 1 action 1st level focus spells, but some are very situational or just plain stink. Like, the Evoker spell is one of the better ones out there, since it's basically a free 1 action Magic Missile Focus Spell, which is nice to lay out some extra pain on the baddies, but even the Advanced school spell feats are extremely lackluster, combined with an already boring feat list that's extremely generic or just gives number boosters, like Spell Penetration, or are plain bad for the class, like Bespell Weapon. Some class feats are cool and useful, like Scroll Savant and Quicken Spell, but they aren't enough to warrant separate "build paths".
Did I also mention Wizards have the worst proficiencies in the game compared to any other class? You get equal or less perception, equal or less saves, equal or less armor, and the worst weapon proficiencies from any class ever. And yet, we get a feat that lets us enhance our already bad weapons that can't hit anyway.
Really, a lot of stock went into the Arcane spell list. Which has uses, but a Bard can do most anything a Wizard can do with spells, but better. Other than having more Trained skills and potentially more useful class skills, a Bard will trounce any Wizard in all respects.
So yeah, I think Wizards are underpowered. I believe that if some proficiencies were brought in line with others and the Wizard had more interesting feats, school spells, and theses, they'd be a much more worthwhile class than what they are, and I don't think it would overstep any boundaries.
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It has also been my experience that casters of all sorts have been way stronger in practice than people have been giving them credit for.
i think the issue is one of perception based on how save spells are balanced. Save spells are designed to fail more than attacks and skill checks, but still get value on a failure. in terms of contibuting to any given combat this is fairly effectivly balanced, but the perception is that your spells are failing all the time, even if you are still getting value and contributing to the fight, the fact that your contributions are so often framed as a failure case makes a lot of people feel like their char just isnt functioning.
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It has also been my experience that casters of all sorts have been way stronger in practice than people have been giving them credit for.i think the issue is one of perception based on how save spells are balanced. Save spells are designed to fail more than attacks and skill checks, but still get value on a failure. in terms of contibuting to any given combat this is fairly effectivly balanced, but the perception is that your spells are failing all the time, even if you are still getting value and contributing to the fight, the fact that your contributions are so often framed as a failure case makes a lot of people feel like their char just isnt functioning.
I agree with this. Having cast Slow on enemies several times, my only hope is that it's not critically succeeded, and my spell does it's job in my eyes. But perhaps not in the eyes of others.
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wizards are not underpowered, they are just incredibly bland
This. They play fine but could use a big injection of 'interesting'.
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In combat I can:
-reliably target the weakest of the ennemy saves
This has not been something I've seen wizards pull off in actual games as often as white-room analysts tend to suggest they do.
The combination of needing the right proportion of spells prepared, at the time you're fighting the right enemy and also having to know which save to correctly target all at once is a fairly large number of things that have to all go right for the Wizard to do this reliably.
From my experience, sorcerers are much better at this, Wizards are fairly mediocre at it.
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It has also been my experience that casters of all sorts have been way stronger in practice than people have been giving them credit for.i think the issue is one of perception based on how save spells are balanced. Save spells are designed to fail more than attacks and skill checks, but still get value on a failure. in terms of contibuting to any given combat this is fairly effectivly balanced, but the perception is that your spells are failing all the time, even if you are still getting value and contributing to the fight, the fact that your contributions are so often framed as a failure case makes a lot of people feel like their char just isnt functioning.
Honestly it's been so hard trying to convince my Witch player that she IS contributing when enemies roll success after success after success. She looks at the Swashbuckler and Champion and wonders why they get it so much easier than she does when she's spending resources in combat and they aren't, and saying "half damage on a success is more than they get on a failure (excluding Confident Finisher)" or "But it still lowers their AC" doesn't help when by the measure of the game, she's failing to land her spells.
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In combat I can:
-reliably target the weakest of the ennemy savesThis has not been something I've seen wizards pull off in actual games as often as white-room analysts tend to suggest they do.
The combination of needing the right proportion of spells prepared, at the time you're fighting the right enemy and also having to know which save to correctly target all at once is a fairly large number of things that have to all go right for the Wizard to do this reliably.
From my experience, sorcerers are much better at this, Wizards are fairly mediocre at it.
I'd refer you to my further point about wizards being potent in the hands of people that know what they're doing.
With spell substitution as an available thesis, as well as a broad and diverse spell list like arcane, there's really no reason for you to not make an educated guess on saves in all fights.
I think I've targeted strongest save once in 20 encounters so far, and it was because I was targeting a weakness (scatter scree vs skeletons)
As for having the right s, spell blending or generalist is also clutch at this, since you can prepare different spells targeting different saves across all your levels and you have more spell slots than anyone.
Meanwhile, sorcerers have an effective repertoire of 3+predetermined and their signature spells.
Not to mention into vs charisma, with int favoring a skill monkey character more.
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With spell substitution as an available thesis, as well as a broad and diverse spell list like arcane, there's really no reason for you to not make an educated guess on saves in all fights.
Spell Substitution only helps here if you know what monsters you're fighting in advance (and know their saves well enough).
If your GM is hand feeding you that information, a spell substitution wizard is going to look pretty good, but that's far from typical either.
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Depends on level, depends on adventuring day length.
I’d say they’re a little weak 1-6, fine 7-14 and pretty broken (owing to the strength of high level buff/debuff spells) at 15+.
Their chassis could use some work though - why are sorcerers, wizards and witches so terrible at Will saves? Having equal will to a fighter or ranger for 75% of the game…
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With spell substitution as an available thesis, as well as a broad and diverse spell list like arcane, there's really no reason for you to not make an educated guess on saves in all fights.
Spell Substitution only helps here if you know what monsters you're fighting in advance (and know their saves well enough).
If your GM is hand feeding you that information, a spell substitution wizard is going to look pretty good, but that's far from typical either.
Hmm... My (full disclosure: theorycrafting) thoughts on Spell Substitution is that I would keep my combat spells prepared and substitute in utility spells as the need arises.
And yeah, if a prepared spellcaster of any class can learn what they are going to be fighting when preparing spells for the day, they are going to do a lot better. But that isn't something that can be expected in most encounters.
Honestly it's been so hard trying to convince my Witch player that she IS contributing when enemies roll success after success after success.
Blaster caster Witch is probably the hardest style of Witch to build. Compared to Wizard and Sorcerer they are paying that 4th spell slot per level to get freely chosen focus spells. And while those focus spells are powerful, most of them are not blasting spells.
And compared to other 3-slot casting classes, Witch has lower armor proficiency and HP.
Witch is in an odd place - not gonna lie.
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AFAIK ever since the "Great HP Inflation of 3E" blaster spellcasters were never the same as before (in a bad way, of course). Well, every archetype which relies on reasonably high damage (so no 3E and beyond abominations like those "dungeoncrasher" thingies), TBH...
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Now that I know how to build and play casters in PF2, I made a Conjuration Wizard. I'm finding the wizard isn't so bad. They aren't what they were in PF1 and are pretty bland. If you build them to their strengths, they can be as potent as any other caster.
I still rate them lower than the druid or bard, but on par with the sorcerer and most other casters with spell versatility and casting endurance as their primary strengths.
I don't see them as weak any longer. They are a class that requires building them to their strengths around intelligence, casting versatility, and endurance.
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AFAIK ever since the "Great HP Inflation of 3E" blaster spellcasters were never the same as before (in a bad way, of course). Well, every archetype which relies on reasonably high damage (so no 3E and beyond abominations like those "dungeoncrasher" thingies), TBH...Blasting before 3e was "bad" because you'd do half damage most of the time because of how saving throws worked. Blasting in 3e falsely appeared to be worse than before because enemy HP had increased significantly... but the change to how saving throws work made it a lot more likely to manage good odds of failed saves and thus full damage.
What made damage dealing spells actually seem "bad" in 3e was that the other spell type options were even more impressive as a result of the saving throw changes because the designers took "this spell instantly kills you, but that's fine because by the time it features you've got great odds to save against it" and turned that into "this spell instantly kills you"
Blasting before 3e was pretty good, your average enemy in AD&D 2e had extremely low HP (to be fair, everything did), so a blast spell was likely to kill or severely injure whatever you threw it at, even if they passed the save, whereas Save or Suck/Die spells would definitely kill them but if they passed the save it often did nothing.
For instance, at the end of Temple of Elemental Evil, we would be routinely fighting giants - the scariest threat we had run into at this point in time. The wizard, at this point, could have been about level 8 (they were multiclassed Wizard 7//Cleric 7) and I, as a Fighter/Thief/Bard had 10th level druid casting.
A frost giant has 14HD+1d4 health, or on average about 65 hitpoints. These were threats you were meant to run away from at this point, because they did 2d8+9 damage when our average HP was something like 25. A 3rd level fireball or lightning bolt would have done 8d6 (28) on the wizard, or 10d6 (35) on myself, taking out half of a frost giant on a failed save. With a good rebound on the lightning bolt, you could kill a whole set of frost giants with a single lightning bolt.
Most enemies we fought were far less tough than that though - often rooms full of cultists which would have one or two hit dice (4-9 HP) and would die even if they passed the save. Even the boss level cultists rarely went above 20-30 HP. I think the toughest thing we fought (in terms of health) that wasn't a boss before making it to nearly the end of the temple was an ogre, which only has 4+1 hitpoints, or an average of 19 - definitely within instant death range of a blast spell.
3e inflated all HP by a factor of 4-6x, but kept the damage the same, so blasts have been pretty terrible relative to save or suck/dies ever since.
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It is so heartening to see the posts in this thread. Having been a staunch defender during the 'wizards are terrible' threads a year or so back, it is awesome to see wizards being recognized for their strengths.
You're happy people think they're bland and weak early, but bland and balanced mid to late levels? Doesn't seem like a win for Wizards to me. Especially given we're post-Secrets of Magic, where people had hoped (and argued that) the interesting feats would come.
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It is so heartening to see the posts in this thread. Having been a staunch defender during the 'wizards are terrible' threads a year or so back, it is awesome to see wizards being recognized for their strengths.You're happy people think they're bland and weak early, but bland and balanced mid to late levels? Doesn't seem like a win for Wizards to me. Especially given we're post-Secrets of Magic, where people had hoped (and argued that) the interesting feats would come.
Yes.
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that in no way should affect the way the class is designed because making me interested in it would almost definitely cause people currently interested in it to lose interest
So your position is that if the Wizard had access to a wider variety of feats or more options for starting focus spells or whatever that people such as yourself would lose interest in the class and quit playing it?
Can't really wrap my head around that.
You could build a very powerful blaster in 3E with metamagic and the Orc Sorcerer Bloodline. It was a very focused and built around one blasting spell that you tricked with various metamagics as needed. Standard blasting was just ok in PF1/3E unless you did that hyper-focused metamagic build. Then again PF1 was a highly specialized game where you usually built around some single spell or weapon.
PF2 a more varied game. You don't need to build around a single weapon or spell.
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I am with Leomund here. It's a massive win that people are admitting their problem isn't with the mechanical performance of the class but with that they aren't into what it can do.
Just like I find some classes to be "bland" and that in no way should affect the way the class is designed because making me interested in it would almost definitely cause people currently interested in it to lose interest, people that think "wizard is bland" should not be counted as a reason to significantly alter the design going forward because there are already folks (me as an example) that think it's one of the most interesting classes in the game.
There's a point at which a person is bored not because there's nothing interesting for them to do, but because they are boring them self.
I mean I definitely think there is a problem with the mechanical performance of the class, it's just at low levels (1-7ish) and it affects most other casters, and a lot of people like it because it's traditional to the genre. I'd say Wizards are affected more due to having less power in their chassis vs. spells, but I may be wrong.
Some people don't have an issue with this as it is sort of tradition, but I would have preferred if martials and casters were more balanced in the early game and late game rather than martials starting stronger and then switching around for the later levels when high HP and exotic challenges makes damage less effective than control and versatility (broad strokes, I know). In the early levels you get less spells and they do less, it only makes sense that a class that relies on their spells more will be less powerful than those that rely on their abilities/chassis, like Bards/Druids.
I think if you go back to those Wizard hate threads you'll find that many of its detractors were already talking about the first half of the levelling experience, if only because that's what most people had played earlier into the game's life.
Personally, even if the early levels are actually balanced, I think bland and balanced is a much worse problem than interesting but underpowered. It is a lot easier (and quicker) to buff an interesting class than it is to add a variety of interesting but balanced feats/features.
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I am with Leomund here. It's a massive win that people are admitting their problem isn't with the mechanical performance of the class but with that they aren't into what it can do.
Just like I find some classes to be "bland" and that in no way should affect the way the class is designed because making me interested in it would almost definitely cause people currently interested in it to lose interest, people that think "wizard is bland" should not be counted as a reason to significantly alter the design going forward because there are already folks (me as an example) that think it's one of the most interesting classes in the game.
There's a point at which a person is bored not because there's nothing interesting for them to do, but because they are boring them self.
I mean I definitely think there is a problem with the mechanical performance of the class, it's just at low levels (1-7ish) and it affects most other casters, and a lot of people like it because it's traditional to the genre. I'd say Wizards are affected more due to having less power in their chassis vs. spells, but I may be wrong.
Some people don't have an issue with this as it is sort of tradition, but I would have preferred if martials and casters were more balanced in the early game and late game rather than martials starting stronger and then switching around for the later levels when high HP and exotic challenges makes damage less effective than control and versatility (broad strokes, I know). In the early levels you get less spells and they do less, it only makes sense that a class that relies on their spells more will be less powerful than those that rely on their abilities/chassis, like Bards/Druids.
I think if you go back to those Wizard hate threads you'll find that many of its detractors were already talking about the first half of the levelling experience, if only because that's what most people had played earlier into the game's life.
Personally, even if the early levels are actually...
I believe this at first. But once you accept that a low level caster should be using a weapon of some kind, generally a ranged weapon and that option has been easy to take due to ancestry feats then you see that most people aren't building to use a weapon as they should.
A caster that uses a weapon along with cantrips and spells is quite competitive at low level with damage. A weapon is a 1 action attack option that does decent damage when used in conjunction with a cantrip.
You will note that at early levels when the caster is supposedly weak, their weapon skills are similar to the weapon skills a martial. They start with trained and can usually have at least one decent physical statistic.
This was one my mistakes early when building casters because in PF1/3E was unaccustomed to a caster being effective with a weapon even at early levels. But that isn't the case in PF2. In PF2 caster versus martial proficiency differences with weapons is negligible. A caster that doesn't use a weapon as a 1 action attack option in conjunction with spells is self-sabotaging their ability to contribute at early levels.
Once you accept this paradigm change and build accordingly, you find the low level caster is on par with the low level martial.
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Once you accept this paradigm change and build accordingly, you find the low level caster is on par with the low level martial.
That may be your experience, it hasn't been mine. I am actually already aware that they have only slightly worse to hit levels 1-5, I just came to a different conclusion than you on their effectiveness.
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I believe this at first. But once you accept that a low level caster should be using a weapon of some kind, generally a ranged weapon and that option has been easy to take due to ancestry feats then you see that most people aren't building to use a weapon as they should.
I mean 'make sure you're playing the right ancestry so you can sidestep the problems with your class features and just hit things' sounds kind of like a red flag.
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I believe this at first. But once you accept that a low level caster should be using a weapon of some kind, generally a ranged weapon and that option has been easy to take due to ancestry feats then you see that most people aren't building to use a weapon as they should.
This is actually more of an issue for the wizard because of it's awful [for no reason] weapon proficiencies: most ancestry feats make martial weapons simple weapons and advanced martial for proficiency but that is 100% meaningless when you don't even get simple weapon proficiency... This means that that simple fix requires you to take Weapon Proficiency before you actually get any use out of an weapon ancestry feat for a martial weapon and you have to take Weapon Proficiency twice for an advanced. The only fix that doesn't involve multiple feats is to take a Warrior Android or a humans Unconventional Weaponry that only nets a single weapon [that has an ancestry trait or common for another culture].
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Once you accept this paradigm change and build accordingly, you find the low level caster is on par with the low level martial.That may be your experience, it hasn't been mine. I am actually already aware that they have only slightly worse to hit levels 1-5, I just came to a different conclusion than you on their effectiveness.
It is not my experience. My experience as I explained was based on my experience coming from PF1 where as a wizard or caster you toughed out sucking at low levels until you reached a point where your spell abilities were so powerful that challenges became trivial. Casters didn't much worry about weapons at low level because they were substantially worse than a martial character, so it wasn't worth the investment.
My conclusion for P2 is based on recorded numbers. If you want to contribute equally to martials at the early levels, then you use a weapon. It appears to be by design.
If you don't want to use a weapon and self-sabotage your ability to contribute, then have at it. But don't complain that you're not contributing when the PF2 designers have built the game for a caster to use a weapon to provide an equal contribution to combat at the early levels. I don't believe the PF2 game designers intend to change their base design choice to have a casters use a weapon.
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I believe this at first. But once you accept that a low level caster should be using a weapon of some kind, generally a ranged weapon and that option has been easy to take due to ancestry feats then you see that most people aren't building to use a weapon as they should.I mean 'make sure you're playing the right ancestry so you can sidestep the problems with your class features and just hit things' sounds kind of like a red flag.
Every single base ancestry allows improved access to a weapon at 1st level. That is what clues someone in to the idea that even as a caster you should be able to use a weapon. Martials do not need access to these feats. They mainly benefit casters.
I think this is intentional. It is meant to allow an early level caster the ability to use a weapon as a 1 action option very easily.
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I believe this at first. But once you accept that a low level caster should be using a weapon of some kind, generally a ranged weapon and that option has been easy to take due to ancestry feats then you see that most people aren't building to use a weapon as they should.This is actually more of an issue for the wizard because of it's awful [for no reason] weapon proficiencies: most ancestry feats make martial weapons simple weapons and advanced martial for proficiency but that is 100% meaningless when you don't even get simple weapon proficiency... This means that that simple fix requires you to take Weapon Proficiency before you actually get any use out of an weapon ancestry feat for a martial weapon and you have to take Weapon Proficiency twice for an advanced. The only fix that doesn't involve multiple feats is to take a Warrior Android or a humans Unconventional Weaponry that only nets a single weapon [that has an ancestry trait or common for another culture].
And they just make you trained in some specific weapons with the option to become expert with a higher level feat. You don't need to be trained in simple weapons save if you are wanting to use something like an Elven Curve Blade. Something like Elf Weapon familiarity makes you trained in longswords and bows. Goblin weapon familiarity makes you trained in dogslicer and horsechopper. No simple weapon proficiency required.
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I am with Leomund here. It's a massive win that people are admitting their problem isn't with the mechanical performance of the class but with that they aren't into what it can do.
Just like I find some classes to be "bland" and that in no way should affect the way the class is designed because making me interested in it would almost definitely cause people currently interested in it to lose interest, people that think "wizard is bland" should not be counted as a reason to significantly alter the design going forward because there are already folks (me as an example) that think it's one of the most interesting classes in the game.
There's a point at which a person is bored not because there's nothing interesting for them to do, but because they are boring them self.
I don't really think it's okay, much less "a massive win," for a large majority of Wizard feats to be pretty bad and otherwise uninteresting, especially when a lot of those feats have mechanics that are in and of themselves uninteresting. For example, school powers. Most every school power from a Wizard is bad, which consequently makes their School Power Feats bad, and a lot of the school powers (advanced ones included) aren't very interesting either. 1 Action Magic Missile effect is useful in a handful of situations, but it's by no means a very interesting ability. Consequently, the Elemental Tempest power is interesting, but it's usefulness is quite limited, even with the ability to affect enemies without a save. Because of this factor, feats which give extra Focus Points are consequently useless, and feats which give extra Points while Refocusing are consequently useless, since this is essentially a feature that's just...there. It just seems backwards design that a class that has the most worthless Focus Spells has the most ways to generate Focus Points.
Maybe if they had actually interesting school powers, such as, for example, the Admixture School from PF1, which let you literally alter the damage type of the spell you're casting as well as a future power which let's you change the damage type of a magical affect you're being affected by in an area, there would be some abilities that are now both interesting and useful to have, with consequences in choice and validity in increased Focus Pools and Refocus capability. Now we have a Wizard with flexibility in damage types (which still require making the correct decisions with spell choices) and a useful defensive reaction that's not seen basically anywhere else in the game, but still definitely feels Wizardly to do.
And it's not like they can't create interesting Wizard feats that are functional separate from such features; Scroll Savant is one of the coolest and most interesting Wizard feats simply because its usefulness is tied both to your overarching spell list as well as your ability to know what emergency spells to prep in advance. Even the Silent/Conceal Spell feats are interesting, the only real problem I have with them is that a Wizard is almost always no good at utilizing a Deception skill since they have no Charisma; it would make far more sense for a Bard or even Sorcerer to have those kinds of feats. If they weren't so Charisma-dependent, they'd be some awesome feat choices to make, depending on the character. But with monster's Perception being so high, and the tight math assuming you're keeping absolute parity, the odds of you making an enemy gullible to your spellcasting is pretty low without having to make big sacrifices in a saving throw of some kind.
Compared to a Fighter that can be built any number of different ways with so many feats that your choices actually carry consequences, and aren't just a simple case of "weed out the bad feats to narrow down the good feats." The feats of the class have far more weight depending on your build, and some feat levels actually contend with one another, which is healthy feat design, even if some players feel like they should have them all.
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Something like Elf Weapon familiarity makes you trained in longswords and bows. Goblin weapon familiarity makes you trained in dogslicer and horsechopper. No simple weapon proficiency required.
So... 1 ranged option and 1 finesse option... Goodie? I don't see many wizards taking up a longsword or a horsechopper [or really a dogslicer for that matter as 6 hp/level isn't conducive to melee]. So instead of 'take an ancestry feat for a weapon', it really boils down to 'take an elf for a bow' if you want a good weapon for your wizard. :P
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Something like Elf Weapon familiarity makes you trained in longswords and bows. Goblin weapon familiarity makes you trained in dogslicer and horsechopper. No simple weapon proficiency required.So... 1 ranged option and 1 finesse option... Goodie? I don't see many wizards taking up a longsword or a horsechopper [or really a dogslicer for that matter as 6 hp/level isn't conducive to melee]. So instead of 'take an ancestry feat for a weapon', it really boils down to 'take an elf for a bow' if you want a good weapon for your wizard. :P
Agreed! Melee wizards are terrible. I have yet to see one successfully pulled off.
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My conclusion for P2 is based on recorded numbers.
? Is this white room maths or your experience? Is this a representative sample of optimal play? You seem extremely confident that you have the Objective Truth of how good Wizards are at low level, why is that? If all you're doing is accurately recording what's happened in your games then I'm sorry but all you've done is made it less likely that your personal biases are affecting your conclusions, your group's style of play and GMs are still going to prevent your data from being representative. Sorry if I've made incorrect assumptions about how you've collected your data, but unless you've been sampling different games then I don't see this as particularly useful for drawing conclusions on how balanced the game is in general. You can definitely draw meaningful conclusions about your group though.
Regardless, let's assume you're correct and martials are no more effective than casters at lower levels. We're now looking at basically two ways of playing casters at low levels effectively: supporting martials with magic weapon and similar spells, or playing a sort of gish. Many people (including myself) would strongly prefer more options than that.
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Paizo forums, why does it only take a poorly worded "poll" from an in-and-out poster to turn you into this again? There's a reason this exact thing got laughed off Reddit and the OP pulled everything and ran. Why is it that this forum is ao easy to bait into a flame war?
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Why is it that this forum is ao easy to bait into a flame war?
I don't really see the "flame war" here. I don't think saying wizards have awful weapon proficiencies or mostly super-bland feats is the least bit controversial.
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Just wait, we're still on page one.
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My conclusion for P2 is based on recorded numbers.? Is this white room maths or your experience? Is this a representative sample of optimal play? You seem extremely confident that you have the Objective Truth of how good Wizards are at low level, why is that? If all you're doing is accurately recording what's happened in your games then I'm sorry but all you've done is made it less likely that your personal biases are affecting your conclusions, your group's style of play and GMs are still going to prevent your data from being representative. Sorry if I've made incorrect assumptions about how you've collected your data, but unless you've been sampling different games then I don't see this as particularly useful for drawing conclusions on how balanced the game is in general. You can definitely draw meaningful conclusions about your group though.
Regardless, let's assume you're correct and martials are no more effective than casters at lower levels. We're now looking at basically two ways of playing casters at low levels effectively: supporting martials with magic weapon and similar spells, or playing a sort of gish. Many people (including myself) would strongly prefer more options than that.
It is recorded data during gameplay. I wanted to see how weapons affected caster damage at low level. A weapon provided a 1 action option for doing additional damage. One of the primary complaints of the low level wizard is their combat contribution was weak. Once you add in a weapon attack, it generally reaches a relatively equal level to martials.
Ideally you want to use a ranged weapon of some kind with a zero reload such as a bow. But you can use any one-handed weapon and it will provide an additional 1 action option that can add some damage to your spellcasting. This is usually sufficient to enhance your combat contribution at lower levels.
It usually smooths over the weak damage at low levels until you reach a point where casting becomes the primary activity you should do. Generally humans and elves are the best ancestry for a wizard. Other casters have more flexibility due to better weapon choices innately.
I wouldn't recommend melee for a caster at low level. A good additional ranged weapon attack is generally best due to the downsides of being in melee range.
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If you don't want to use a weapon and self-sabotage your ability to contribute, then have at it. But don't complain that you're not contributing when the PF2 designers have built the game for a caster to use a weapon to provide an equal contribution to combat at the early levels. I don't believe the PF2 game designers intend to change their base design choice to have a casters use a weapon.
Potent third actions is definitely a core design choice of PF2 and a strong optimization question. But you can play casters without weapons as there are other available third actions, the most classical one for Charisma-based casters being Intimidation.
Intelligence-based casters have Recall Knowledge, but it's situational, so the question of this third action is a complex one to solve. Taking a ranged weapon can be a solution, but there are others.