So I've been looking a bit at Repulsion which creates a 40-ft aura around you and enemies that are in the aura must make a save. On fail the enemies cannot move towards you while in the aura and on success enemies treat the aura as difficult terrain if moving towards you.
This seems like it has the potential to either default-kill melee only enemies as they are completely unable to approach you while you can use ranged attacks. This does affect your party but as long as they are further away than they can reach they don't need to move towards you.
I do understand that this is counterable with ranged attacks but still seems like an extremely potent spell effect.
I have it on my Sorcerer and haven't used it much. You need a lot of party coordination to get the most out of it. First, a lot of fights start closer than 40ft. and because casters are not very good at initiative chances are high that the melee enemies are already at melee range when you get to cast the spell. Second, most melee enemies at level 11+ have big reach (when it's not massive ones) allowing them sometimes to chip at your allies while being out of the spell range. Third, you force your melee martials to switch to ranged attacks, so it needs to be very efficient to be valuable. And fourth, it affects your teammates and controls that affect your teammates are always hard to handle in a party (they can easily spiral out of control).
So, a very big impact but also a very situational use.
It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks? Are your enemy primarily ranged attacks. Thats all you need. If your party is mostly melee specialists it is harder to get it to work.
Can you cast it before your enemy closes within 40 feet? Irrelevant. It doesn't matter if they are closer. You can always move back and it works fine. Just so long as your allies move first. Your team has to cooperate, or the spell is going to be useless.
So what if half the enemy make their save and can close in - that is perfect. That is the optimal result for any control spell - to enable you to deal with the enemy in a piecemeal fashion.
I feel like many spells it is better when used by enemies, expecially bosses. In the hands of a party member it is way too disruptive for your team
It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks? Are your enemy primarily ranged attacks. Thats all you need.
edit
It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks? Is your enemy primarily melee. Thats all you need.
It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks? Are your enemy primarily ranged attacks. Thats all you need.edit
It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks? Is your enemy primarily melee. Thats all you need.
At the level where you get Repulsion, that's an oversimplification. The last enemy I fought on monday in Night of the Grey Death was attacking at a melee range of 100ft. And teleportation works, Dimension Door is pretty common at that level.
Also, you can't ignore initiative in Repulsion. If an enemy grabs one of your teammates before you act, you can cast Repulsion as much as you want, the fight will happen at melee range.Some enemies have the ability to move characters (often through some forms of pull), the enemies who succeed at the save can then snatch characters to put them at melee range of those who failed.
Small areas are also common, where you can't move back if the enemies are close.
And a strategy I already used was just to move away from the characters and wait for the spells to end (I must admit, my players got crazy about this move but that's life, guys).
For me, it's an extremely circumstantial spell. Very strong when properly used, but not something you will use often.
It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks? Are your enemy primarily ranged attacks. Thats all you need.edit
It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks? Is your enemy primarily melee. Thats all you need.At the level where you get Repulsion, that's an oversimplification. The last enemy I fought on monday in Night of the Grey Death was attacking at a melee range of 100ft. And teleportation works, Dimension Door is pretty common at that level.
Also, you can't ignore initiative in Repulsion. If an enemy grabs one of your teammates before you act, you can cast Repulsion as much as you want, the fight will happen at melee range.
Some enemies have the ability to move characters (often through some forms of pull), the enemies who succeed at the save can then snatch characters to put them at melee range of those who failed.
Small areas are also common, where you can't move back if the enemies are close.
And a strategy I already used was just to move away from the characters and wait for the spells to end (I must admit, my players got crazy about this move but that's life, guys).For me, it's an extremely circumstantial spell. Very strong when properly used, but not something you will use often.
I disagree. Its a massively disruptive spell like Wall of Stone. It can win certain types of encounters all by itself. Its also not a large investment. Its just a tactic that can work very well against a moderate number of opponents
There are always going to be enemies that can defeat any particular tactic. Its not that large a portion of monsters that have forced movement or teleport even from level 13 up.
The party is preparing for it. They can have their own forced movement effects and escape options. Just giving all those options to monster is rubbish. The party is the side that knows its going to happen the enemy is not normally going to be tailored to defeat one tactic.
If the enemy runs away then you can run after them. The effect goes with the caster. Which makes it easy for the party to sort their movement and placing out, even when some of them fail. Typically PCS have movement 40+ at that level, monsters are not going to generally get away.
I disagree. Its a massively disruptive spell like Wall of Stone. It can win certain types of encounters all by itself.
I fully agree with that.
Its just a tactic that can work very well against a moderate number of opponents
But I disagree with that. I don't know if you have used it a lot? My Sorcerer has it, in a party of 4 with 2 melee martials (what I consider a basic party). And I always think about using it and nearly never do because even if it's super strong the stars need to be aligned for it to work. More often than not, the situation or the enemies have something that just straight up invalid it.
Sure, if you have a Liberator and a Whirling Throw Monk it becomes extremely valuable. But not every party will be built around this tactic. For most of them, it's disruptive. So it needs to be extremely disruptive to the enemies to be worth casting.
I think it is a reasonably strong spell. It has a lot of benefits, but it does have some drawbacks too.
I don't think it is going to be terribly disruptive to my allies. First, they are able to attempt the Will save. Even if they fail, they are still able to approach enemies just fine as long as they are not moving towards me at the same time. I can adjust my positioning to prevent that from being a problem most of the time. They may have more difficulty retreating unless I retreat first, but that is also something that I can be aware of and mitigate myself.
The bigger problem is if I go down and need assistance. If no one in the party is able to approach me for the remainder of 1 minute, that could be a serious problem.
I think it is a reasonably strong spell. It has a lot of benefits, but it does have some drawbacks too.
I don't think it is going to be terribly disruptive to my allies. First, they are able to attempt the Will save. Even if they fail, they are still able to approach enemies just fine as long as they are not moving towards me at the same time. I can adjust my positioning to prevent that from being a problem most of the time. They may have more difficulty retreating unless I retreat first, but that is also something that I can be aware of and mitigate myself.
The bigger problem is if I go down and need assistance. If no one in the party is able to approach me for the remainder of 1 minute, that could be a serious problem.
That is potentially a problem. There is a chance all your allies will have failed their save. But you can always choose to be situated next to an ally by moving there on your own turn. The casters movement is not affected by Repulsion, so if you don't want to be in a that position, don't be. If your champion fails their save, go and stand near him on your turn in a place that gives him some freedom of movement or just lets him protect you. Yes you have to think about your allies turns not just your own.
Heal is a ranged spell, there are longer ranged options too.
Yes you can completely stuff it up. Its under your control and your parties, so don't stuff it up. It requires the party to understand it. As a tactic it just won't suit a lot of parties at all.
Its not a Panancea. But it is a spell that will outright decide some encounters. To me that is the ideal sort of spell for a controller. It is what I want to see in the game. I don't want to have spells that just break the game in 90% of encounters.
I've seen many games where each player optimises their actions according to what is best for them or most fun for their character. Repulsion requires team work and team thinking. If that is never going to be your team, then OK this spell is not for you.
I disagree. Its a massively disruptive spell like Wall of Stone. It can win certain types of encounters all by itself.I fully agree with that.
Its just a tactic that can work very well against a moderate number of opponentsBut I disagree with that. I don't know if you have used it a lot? My Sorcerer has it, in a party of 4 with 2 melee martials (what I consider a basic party). And I always think about using it and nearly never do because even if it's super strong the stars need to be aligned for it to work. More often than not, the situation or the enemies have something that just straight up invalid it.
Sure, if you have a Liberator and a Whirling Throw Monk it becomes extremely valuable. But not every party will be built around this tactic. For most of them, it's disruptive. So it needs to be extremely disruptive to the enemies to be worth casting.
Well you have disqualified your experience by your party composition. It is melee focused.
My current party has a fighter eldritch archer and a gunslinger in it. Even the cleric has a lot of lightning bolts. Ranged combat for that party is fine.
Well you have disqualified your experience by your party composition. It is melee focused.
Please, avoid saying that I "disqualified my experience" as it is as valid as yours. I even think ranged heavy parties are the minority and I'm ready to bet it's been your experience, too. As a side note, I'd love to know how a ranged-heavy party fares in PF2, I've always been interested in playing in one but players who are ready to follow in that direction are rare.
Now, I agree with you that if you build a party around it (or have by chance a very compatible party) Repulsion can become the backbone of your party tactics. On a ranged heavy party, it certainly solves a few issues. But there are also lots of party compositions where it's hard to use.
As a side note, you haven't answered my question: Have you used it a lot? How did it go?
Well you have disqualified your experience by your party composition. It is melee focused.Please, avoid saying that I "disqualified my experience" as it is as valid as yours. I even think ranged heavy parties are the minority
My very first statement in this thread was It depends. Does your team have good ranged attacks?
Everything else depends on that.You keep saying it is not good. Well it depends.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One of the things that excites me about the Kineticist class coming to PF2, even though I was not much of a fan of it in PF1, and still feel like it needs better lore connections to the world of Golarion (although I still feel the monk needs that too), is because it is going to encourage flexible builds that are competent at range.
I think melee focusing in PF2 very, very often leads to sub-optimal tactics where players win initiative and then spend their first round doing minimal effective control of the battlefield and a lot of moving into positions to help the enemy gain the action economy advantage. Seriously, I cannot count how many times players seem to think it is so necessary to get one attack in (myself included) that they spend 2 actions moving into a position where one enemy (often a higher level one) is going to get three relatively accurate attacks in back, or multiple enemies are going to have to spend one action between them moving to attack with flanking.
For parties willing to set up battle lines in tactically advantageous positions instead of "wherever the enemy is," repulsion is a very effective spell. As the game keeps adding options to make the "charge in and attack as much as possible" less attractive as a tactic, I think spells like repulsion will gain in popularity.