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"at-will" is very much not a term I'd ever apply to a daily resource.I haven't found a better term. But I'll replace it with anything you suggest.
The standard term is "daily". It's a resource that refreshes every day. It's a daily resource.
As I've said, this build is archetype feat hungry. I would hesitate to play it without FA. And considering how FA is common, I prefer to compare FA to Dual Class as you should have easy time finding a game allowing it.
What I posted was intended to be for FA. Specifically, it was the FA side of the tree - not addressing what you did with your class feats at all. Similarly, I didn't bother to discuss the other side fo the dual class for the dual class option.
With FA, the build would be:
1: Hunted Shot
2: Alchemist archetype, Animal Companion (or Quick Draw retrained to Animal Companion at level 4)
4: Far Shot, Quick Bomber (slightly worse than Quick Draw but consumes a mandatory Archetype feat)
6: Expert Alchemy, Mature Animal Companion
8: Demolitionist Archetype, Calculated Splash
10: Specialized Animal Companion
12: Expanded Splash, Master AlchemyThis build is closer to your Dual Class build. There's still a 2 level delay because most feats are available 2 levels later, but that's not overwhelmingly annoying.
...and here you have replicated that FA-side feats list pretty much exactly... except that you're spending feats from your base class in a few places to accelerate things. It doesn't actually matter all that much, though - I wasn't particularly bakign in teh effects fo perpetual bombs on my build, and Master alchemy doesn't really do a whole lot for you at that level on yours. The level 12 comparison looks very similar to the level 14.
<stuff about WBL and backfire mantles>
Good to know. I'd say that the mantles are probably more valuable to the full-class alchemist side than the archetype, though, given how they crank the value of that extra 5 foot radius.
I'd say something about backfire mantles and PFS, but PFS has that level soft-cap, so....
<stuff about bird companion>
Bird companion has... a few issues that you're not takign into account.
- You have to keep the thing current. That costs feats (which you were, admittedly, paying).- The bird support action isn't nearly as user-firendly as you make it out to be. In particular, the animal companion autoaction for Ranger is "Stride toward or Strike your prey". That means that if you want it to provide its support effect in a given round, your'e going to have to spend one of your own actions that round commanding it... and by the rules of support actions, it won't be makign any attacks with the second action either. Debilitating Bomb takes no additional actions, past that necessary to brew the stuff yourself.
- Your bird can be attacked and killed. It's actually relatively fragile... and once it goes down for good, it's going to take you a week of downtime to get it back.
- Debilitating (especially after you get a few feats in) has a variety of effects that you can add on. Bird only has the one option. It's a pretty solid option, but there's no flexibility.
So... I'd say *not* strictly better. Of course, I wasn't using debilitating as my primary example anyway.
- gets 2-per on quick alchemy and perpetual alchemyNot really a thing. Maybe my main gripe to your theorycrafting: Using Double Brew asks for a lot of conditions:
- Level 9
- 3-action sequence (so no need to move, Hunt Prey or whatever)
On the other hand, having a bow helps you a lot during all the rounds where you have a limited number of actions. With one action, Hunted Shot is vastly better than using Bombs. Even with 2 actions, you can choose to use a Bomb and then Hunted Shot for nice results (the Bow is free, unlike your Bombs). Also, for long ranged combat, the bow is definitely a better idea.
So there's an actual advantage of having a bow at hand that you need to leverage against your perpetual Bombs. Hint: Perpetual Bombs will end up bad, they always do. As your build has access to more Bombs (by being a full Alchemist) and always at level Bombs (without having to pay for them) just forget about Perpetual Bombs.
You keep asserting strongly that perpetual bombs are useless and should be ignored. Well, I'm getting there. I think I demonstrated adequately in my last post that they do a reasonable level of damage, at least, and I'll be looking to address the action sequence soon. As far as requiring three actions? well, yes. Largely that's true - and when you have a round where you only want to spend one action on attacks, then instead of doing anything with a longbow, you pull out one of the many, many bombs that you crafted with infused reagents that morning, and you throw it with quick bomber. If you're dual-classing it, the longbow is really unnecessary.
Past that, you seem to be arguing from the POV of "well, of course you're a ranger", which is something I've been largely disputing from the beginning... and we're now running into some of the reasons why. I'll pull it together more coherently in a bit.
I do note, for the record, that you're sitting there saying "perpetual bombs are useless" and the guy who's actually *playing* an alchemist is talking about how perpetual bombs are great. So that's a thing.
Like, that's a *lot* of feats to spend, and a not trivial amount of money, to get to the point where you can sometimes be worth using instead of a bow... and that's before any of the bow feats are really taken into account.Welcome to PF2. This build is on par with a bow Ranger, and that's the good thing about PF2.
Still, saying that it doesn't have assets against a Bow ranger is wrong. The main drawback of bows are resistances. A simple resistance to Piercing (a common one on top of it) really hampers archers. Also, you can abuse weaknesses with Bombs. And you can even choose to debuff. So it's a different build than a Bow Ranger, but not a worse one.
My point is that is is a bow ranger... and then on top of that it blows effectively all of the resources you get with FA to get... not much. I suppose that being able to fiddle with damage types is useful. It just seems like if you're going to sink that many resources, you should be trying to get more.
My personal Conclusions:Mine: Obviously, you'll get a better build with Dual Class than with FA. But the difference in power is not really significant (compared to other cheated Dual Class builds like Fighter/Barbarian). It's not really a build that shines with Dual Class, it's a build that shines with FA.
Also, I think you'll have easier time finding an FA game than a Dual Class one. So it's really a build one can play, not a theoretical build that asks for the most liberal optional rule in the game.
...but talking about Dual Class is kind of the point, here. That's literally what this thread is for. The challenge of "I can do almost as good as you're doing with just FA" is pertinent, because a martial/martial Dual Class should be doing significantly better than a FA build, but an argument of the type "why would you bother playing Dual Class" is missing the point of the discussion entirely.
...and I'm very not convinced that it "shines" with FA. Where is this shining of which you speak?
Also, don't judge the Dual Class build until you've seen the entire dual class build, eh?
So... the build that I was actually describing for from the beginning:
Human Dragon Barbarian/Bomber Alchemist dual class.
Alchemist feats: (and a tip of the hat to @ottdmk)
1: Quick Bomber, Far Lobber (Ambition)
2: Revivifying Mutagen
4: Calculated Splash
6: Debilitating Bomb
8: Sticky Bomb
10: Expanded Splash
12: Uncanny Bombs
14: Perpetual Breadth
Barbarian Feats:
1: Raging Thrower
2: Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication
4: Dual Thrower
6: Dragon's Rage Breath
8: Renewed Vigor
10: Dual-Weapon Blitz
12: Dragon's Rage Wings
14: Dual Onslaught
...and here's where you get a bunch of the reasons why barbarian and perpetual bombs and a dedicated bomber (rather than a bomb-and-bow build) just work together. Bombs have relatively few attack abilities that actually work with them. Dual-weapon warrior actually offers a couple of good ones, but they require that you have a bomb in each hand to use them... which is something that takes two actions if you're pulling them out of your bag, but only one action with quick alchemy. So at level 14 (which, admittedly, takes a while to get to) you're spending three actions for the full cycle, sure, but what you get out of it is an attack at full, an attack at -2, and then if both of them miss you get to pick on that hits anyway... and the base range of 60 makes three-action attack cycles the sort of thing that can happen sometimes. Alternately, Dual-Weapon Blitz means that if what you wanted to do was move and make two attacks, then your quick brew action is free. In the meantime, you don't need to spend actions on hunting, because you're not a ranger... and if you hit twice (as you'll be attempting to do with some regularity) you get full damage on both.
Then there's the sidebar stuff. Quicksilver mutagen means that instead of being half a point down (from dex), you're half a point up (because the mutagen tracks on +1 above standard gear) and you can use Revivifying mutagen to have it heal its own damage when you're done with it. You're not spending money on goggles or weapons or extra bombs... or consumables of any variety, really... and, just like all good alchemists everywhere, you can also save your teammates a fair amount of money on their consumables. You can afford to spend your entire cash inflow on gear upgrades (without having to pay anything for weapons) and plot coupons... and money does matter, in the quantities we're talking about here.
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...
Let me first dismiss a feeling: I have the impression I'm annoying you. If it's the case we can just call it a day and stop there.
...Let me first dismiss a feeling: I have the impression I'm annoying you. If it's the case we can just call it a day and stop there.
Nah. I wouldn't put nearly this level of effort and attention into something if the only thing I was getting out of it was annoyance.
...but I do appreciate you reaching out to check. You're doing okay on your side?
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As I stated previously, you two are having a conversation that is intriguing, educational and fun!
That is what I see.
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So, looking at my build from above...
- Level 1, you're generally goign to be running around with a finesse weapon, doing standard barbarian things in melee. Your bombs are going to be something that you use when the situation calls for them (you need a ranged option, you have a bomb that hits the enemy's weakness, or you want to rake advantage of the splash damage). You probably want to spend at least half of your (relatively few) reagents on things that are not bombs. Easy access to Juggernaut mutagens in particular can help out quite a lot while you're in rusty dagger shank town mode.
- Level 2: Very similar to level 1, except now you can metabolize them your mutagens for the heals after the enemy has chewed through their temp HP. It might be worth trying to juggle in an offhand weapon to take advantage of double slice, but it's possible that this is more trouble than it's worth.
The next few levels get kind of awkward, mostly because you're investing feats into being ready to be really good at bombing, but you don't have enough infused reagents to be able to bomb full-time. It's still functional - at worst you're a barbarian who's also an item dispenser, plus a decent ranged option - but you're lagging behind. You'll want to invest in a standard returning throwing weapon that is *not* a bomb, and switch over to using quicksilver, with bomb throwing still being a sometimes food, and somewhat limited use of double slice. The awkward phase doesn't really end until level 9, with double brew. At that point, you can have your default three-action rotation be to perpetual brew two bombs (one sticky, the other debilitating) and throw them both with double slice, or (at level 10) move and throw them both with Double Blitz. On turns where that's not preferred, you can use quick lobber to just dump a daily bomb for one action, but by that point you'll have enough bombs that it shouldn't be a problem to keep that going all day. "one bomb per round, some rounds" is rather more workable than "one or more bombs per round, every round".
As dual-classers go, then, he's closer to a martial/caster mix than martial/martial for the first half of his career. Not really what I'd been expecting. After that, I think he shapes up quite nicely.
Nah. I wouldn't put nearly this level of effort and attention into something if the only thing I was getting out of it was annoyance.
...but I do appreciate you reaching out to check. You're doing okay on your side?
I wanted to be sure as I felt a change of tone. I'm fine, I love to speak about the Alchemist, my first PF2 love (and first PFS character, ootdmk is not the only one to play one here, next time check my resume ;) ).
To answer your long post:
What I posted was intended to be for FA. Specifically, it was the FA side of the tree - not addressing what you did with your class feats at all. Similarly, I didn't bother to discuss the other side fo the dual class for the dual class option.
Sorry, I didn't undertand that. But unlike Dual Class where you can't take an Alchemist feat with your Ranger ones, you can combine them for FA, so it's interesting to see the actual build, not only half of it.
Bird companion has... a few issues that you're not takign into account.
But 4 times the success rate of Debilitating Bomb. And Debilitating Bomb also costs an action. So before level 20 and Perfect Debilitation, the Bird Animal Companion is better hands down.
I think I demonstrated adequately in my last post that they do a reasonable level of damage
Perpetual Bombs are not working during 40% of your career (I could even say 70% as I don't think many players play regularly above level 15). They are really bad out of the gate, and it's only through an important use of feats that you can get them to competitive levels around level 11 (but never better than normal bombs). And their only use is to gain Reagents, which is nice but Reagents are a low level issue. At level 10+, Alchemists have the ability to last.
From my experience, players overvalue at will options. Of course, at will is better than limited. But I often find that players are not really getting the most out of limited abilities by fear of lacking them (something that can easily be handled by buying a few extra ones for dire times). I've often faced comments on how much resources I was using with my casters, things like "You cast such a spell on such a weak mook?!!?" or "A Lightning Bolt on a single target?!!?" or "Another scroll?!!??". Truth is, I've only exhausted my options once and because we got a 10-round near TPK.
And when it comes to Perpetual Bombs, it's really the at will part of it that makes them so appealing. Considering that they had to play during 8 levels without this option never cross the players' mind. Still, it raises questions: Have you struggled that much during 8 levels (then why)? Or are you overvaluing an ability you learned to play without?
About your Barbarian build:
Before level 12, you only have a range of 30 feet, compared to the Ranger 40 to 80ft (before or after Far Shot). So you'll need to move more, and you'll need to Rage (always at round 1) when the Ranger may start with a Prey (highly uncommon but at least it happens). Having to Hunt Prey is a drawback, but the Barbarian will also use a lot of actions. The Barbarian has an edge, still.
Before level 9, your Barbarian struggles with its at-will options. Before level 3 you can't even get a Returning Rune so you'll be ridiculously weak. Even once you get a Returning Rune, your efficiency will be really subpar. That's a lot of levels. The Ranger starts with a bow and is a full grown Precision Ranger out of the gate.
So the Ranger is better before level 10 and the Barbarian after. For me it's a wash, both builds are just not focusing on the same level brackets.
Then there's the sidebar stuff.
I fully agree. If what you want to build is a real Alchemist on top of being a competent Bomber then Dual Class is way better than FA. But I was focusing on the Bomber build and for this one Dual Class doesn't add much. That's why I say it's not a Dual Class build but an FA one. It's more of a difference in perspective that we have.
My point is that is is a bow ranger... and then on top of that it blows effectively all of the resources you get with FA to get... not much. I suppose that being able to fiddle with damage types is useful. It just seems like if you're going to sink that many resources, you should be trying to get more.
Allow me to disagree on that. Bombs slightly outdamage bow. Bombs ignore lesser cover. Switching damage types is at least 10% extra damage between the resistances you avoid and the weaknesses you trigger. Splash damage is a solution for groups, something that bow rangers lack before very high level (and it's subpar). And you can switch for top notch Bombs when oomph is needed for even more damage. There's also all the debugging abilities of Bombs that have to be considered. And then at high level you get all the fancy Alchemical Items (because you still have nearly as many Reagents than a full blown Alchemist).
Of course, the bow Ranger can do things with its feats and grab other abilities so I would never say that the Bomber is strictly superior, but it's definitely competitive. For me, it's a wash.
Bird companion has... a few issues that you're not takign into account.But 4 times the success rate of Debilitating Bomb. And Debilitating Bomb also costs an action. So before level 20 and Perfect Debilitation, the Bird Animal Companion is better hands down.
No. It doesn't cost an action. The additive itself is a free action. It comes with the quick alchemy action... but there are a number of things that come with the Quick Alchemy action. As an action by itself, it's obviously not worth it. As a rider on an action that has other benefits as well, it's a lot more worthwhile.
I think I demonstrated adequately in my last post that they do a reasonable level of damagePerpetual Bombs are not working during 40% of your career (I could even say 70% as I don't think many players play regularly above level 15). They are really bad out of the gate, and it's only through an important use of feats that you can get them to competitive levels around level 11 (but never better than normal bombs). And their only use is to gain Reagents, which is nice but Reagents are a low level issue. At level 10+, Alchemists have the ability to last. So, yeah, they are bad and I never consider using them. I hardly see how they can be salvaged.
Prior to level 11, your perpetual bombs are T1, and your standard bombs are T2. At level 11, your perpetual bombs go up to T2 at exactly the same time as your standard bombs go up to T3. You're losing a single tier regardless... just as you do again when both of them rank up at 17.
The things that drag them up are the additives. Now, if you have the infused reagents to burn, and you're sitting a couple of levels above the bare minimum for your bomb tier, you can do the same thing just fine spending a reagent per bomb with standard quick alchemy... but then the cost is "one action, and one reagent per bomb" rather than "one action".
As far as "ability to last" goes... depends. Depends on how many elixirs you want to hand out to your friends, and how many you want to drink yourself, and how many fights you're going to get in, and how much time each of them is going to take. If your GM hands you one fight a day of no more than four rounds then yeah. You're golden regardless. That's not all games, though. Other than that, blowing two reagents a round is going to burn through your stockpile pretty darned quick.
And yeah, its' true that you don't get them to start with, but we're discussing how useful they are when you have them. I've already acknowledged how slow they come online.
About your Barbarian build:
Before level 12, you only have a range of 30 feet, compared to the Ranger 40 to 80ft (before or after Far Shot). So you'll need to move more, and you'll need to Rage (always at round 1) when the Ranger may start with a Prey (highly uncommon but at least it happens). Having to Hunt Prey is a drawback, but the Barbarian will also use a lot of actions. The Barbarian has an edge, still.
Before level 9, your Barbarian struggles with its at-will options. Before level 3 you can't even get a Returning Rune so you'll be ridiculously weak. Even once you get a Returning Rune, your efficiency will be really subpar. That's a lot of levels. The Ranger starts with a bow and is a full grown Precision Ranger out of the gate.
So the Ranger is better before level 10 and the Barbarian after. For me it's a wash, both builds are just not focusing on the same level brackets.
Before level 3, you're not ridiculously weak. You're just a melee barbarian with an alchemist chaser.
Before level 9, you're using a returning throwing weapon as your at-will option. It's not amazing, but it's not terrible.That said, I'm willing to acknowledge and agree with the before/after level 10 assertion, in at least a rough sense (if you're talking about dual class on both sides). It's not what I'd expected to be the case initially, but it does appear to be true. I was honestly surprised at how long some of the barbarian's stuff took to come online.
but there are a number of things that come with the Quick Alchemy action.
Additives, and that's all. Without Additives, you'd never use Quick Alchemy for Bombs.
So Debilitating Bomb costs half an action (at level 9+), has 4 times less chances to work than the Bird Support Ability and lasts 3 times less on average, so it's 6 times less action efficient.The comparison is quite clear, Debilitating Bomb:
- Comes online at level 9 instead of level 2.
- Is 6 times less action efficient.
- Doesn't come with an Animal Companion.
- Costs one feat instead of 4.
Bird Animal Companion wins hands down.
The issue is that Bird Animal Companion is not compatible with Perpetual Bombs... It's sinking cost fallacy all over again.
As far as "ability to last" goes... depends.
Not really. If at level 9+ you still need Reagents to the point of sinking 5 feats into Perpetual Bombs, then your very first levels were pure torture (and I'm not masochistic enough to go through that). If your very first levels were at least ok then by the time you are level 9 you have far enough reagents to do whatever you want with them and won't sink 5 feats to gain more. Especially considering that you will gain more without doing anything but levelling.
And to finish bashing Perpetual Bombs: Paying 5 feats to create a strong routine around Perpetual Bombs is going against the design philosophy of the class. The Alchemist is strong because of its versatility, it's an opportunist. You are supposed to compensate your overall weakness by your ability to seize opportunities. But by paying 5 feats to do one specific routine you don't take feats to seize more opportunities and on top of it breaking your routine may be hard because your whole build revolves around that. Normal Alchemists don't have such issues and will jump on every opportunity and end up being both more efficient and more fun to play (at least for me, but if you like routine play I strongly discourage you to play an Alchemist anyway).
Before level 3, you're not ridiculously weak. You're just a melee barbarian with an alchemist chaser.
A melee Barbarian that does half the damage of a melee Barbarian (8.5 instead of 14.5 with also a -1 to hit). So ridiculously weak.
Before level 9, you're using a returning throwing weapon as your at-will option. It's not amazing, but it's not terrible.
Your rage compensates your lack of strength so before level 7 you play the equivalent of a martial with no offensive ability. That's quite terrible, actually.
I think we have covered all the points. We have the right to disagree, after all.
How about Thaumaturge/Lore Oracle?
Fits thematically. Dread secret could very well be a thaumaturge ability. Plus, if you do happen to be suffering from your moderate curse, you have esoteric lore to use. Certainly a Tome implement.
It'd play like any other martial/caster except that you'd be eating a -4 to initiative, flatfooted at moderate, be stuck with the divine list instead of arcane or occult, and fail to take advantage of split key ability scores.
Thematic it might be, but effective it is not.
I'm thinking more in terms of how would you pair a lore oracle with dual class for a good combo rather than the other way around. Thaumaturge fits the bill for its suggested gameplay. I'd still avoid the curse until dread secret though. I like dread secret. Thaumaturge makes it simple to find weaknesses for its purpose.
Problem is that dread secret is really bad. 2 action focus spell (off a 12th level feat) for abysmal damage and a save for frightened 1. Maybe one of the six mooks you target will get that frightened 3. It's probably better used to strip a resist off for a round if the party's having an issue with that.
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it's only through an important use of feats that you can get them to competitive levels around level 11 (but never better than normal bombs).
I'd have to disagree here. To be exact, it's *one* Feat. Sticky Bomb. The rest (Calculated Splash, Expanded Splash, Uncanny Bombs) you'd be taking anyways, or why bother use Bombs?
At 8th level, Sticky Bombs will make any Lesser d6 Bomb (which is most of them) competitive with its Moderate counterpart. Now, an argument can be made that Persistent isn't as good as doing the damage up front, but I've found it quite effective in play. And having a Bomb that doesn't normally do Persistent gain that damage is definitely a net plus.
I use Acid Flasks and Bottled Lightning for my Perpetuals. At 8th, I was doing 1 Acid + 4 Splash + 1d6+4 Persistent. Average damage, 12 HP. Moderate Acid Flask: 1 Acid + 4 Splash + 2d6 Persistent. Average damage, 12 HP. The Moderate is ahead on Max Damage by 2 points, and behind on Min Damage by 3.
Same story with the Bottled Lightning, only reduce the numbers by 1. Difference remains the same between Max Damage and Min. However, the Lesser Bottled Lightning is now doing 4 Persistent, and the odds are good it'll last two rounds, and decent that it'll last three. That's another 4-8 damage from a single Bomb, which is not an insignificant amount.
Now, I'm 10th, and the numbers have changed again due to Expanded Splash. 1+6 Splash Acid, d6+6 Persistent. 1d6 + 6 Splash Electricity, 6 Persistent. Average damage shifts to +1 for the Sticky Bombs, with the Max Damage deficit shrinking to +1 for the Moderate Acid over the Sticky Lesser, and disappearing for the Sticky Lesser Bottled Lightning.
The Minimum Damage is now +4 in favour of the Lesser Stickies, and the Average Damage is still +1 in their favour. (Expanded Splash lifts all Bombs, after all.)
However, that Bottled Lightning is doing 6 Persistent now, so it'll do, over time, around 6-12 more damage then it's Moderate counterpart. Maybe more, maybe less. I've seen more GMs be unlucky with a DC 15 flat check then lucky.
I critical'ed with a Lesser Sticky Bottled Lightning last night. Wish I'd thought to note the damage, but it was decent. Critical on a Moderate, and it's 21 pts damage on average. Critical a Sticky Lesser, and it's 24 pts... with 12 Persistent often carrying over into more rounds. I know which one I prefer.
And then there's the fact that Sticky Bomb adds to your flexibility. If you're QA'ing a Bomb to go after a Weakness, why not make it Sticky? Doesn't cost anything more, and can be potentially devastating. One of my favourite Bomb Strikes was QA'ing a Moderate Alignment Ampoule and hitting a BBEG with Weakness Good 10. GM failed the flat check three times at least.
So in summary, I can't accept your premise that Perpetual Bombs aren't worth it. I can trade an Action to make a Bomb that is as effective as the next tier up, but more reliable, or more effective period. And they never run out. Meaning I can use more of my daily resources elsewhere. (Still Advance Alchemy around 15 Bombs per day though. Just in more varieties.)
It's true that if I'm throwing two Bombs, the second one will not be as good... but I don't *have* to use a Perpetual for the 2nd one. I can still QB one of my many AA Bombs. Often though, I'll still stick with the Perpetuals. -5 MAP is -5 MAP, and the Splash difference is only 1 pt.
To be exact, it's *one* Feat. Sticky Bomb.
Not really. Sticky Bomb allows your first Bomb to be at the level of a non Perpetual one, I fully agree with that. But the second Perpetual Bomb is bad (well, before level 11, it's really bad actually). So without much feat support but Sticky Bomb you can pay 2 actions to throw one Bomb. I don't think anyone is impressed. If you use your 3 actions to throw 2 Bombs, then you're at the level of just shooting with a Bow (for a Ranger) or a Returning Trident (for a Barbarian).
If you add all the other feats (Dual Weapon Thrower, and maybe another Additive even if in that case there's not much choice) your second Bomb can be roughly ok (higher accuracy but lower damage than a second non-perpetual Bomb). I don't think it's really valuable as you are supposed to have far enough reagents by the time you get there. But at least it looks like a valid option.
but there are a number of things that come with the Quick Alchemy action.Additives, and that's all. Without Additives, you'd never use Quick Alchemy for Bombs.
So Debilitating Bomb costs half an action (at level 9+), has 4 times less chances to work than the Bird Support Ability and lasts 3 times less on average, so it's 6 times less action efficient.The comparison is quite clear, Debilitating Bomb:
- Comes online at level 9 instead of level 2.
- Is 6 times less action efficient.
- Doesn't come with an Animal Companion.
- Costs one feat instead of 4.
Man, your argument is so twisty I can barely make sense of it. Let me see if I can parse it out.
- Bald assertion, without adequate support: without additives, you'd never use Quick Alchemy (on bombs)- Implied derived assertion, unstated: and therefore there are no other advantages worth mentioning, and we can and should ignore all other reasons there might be for doing this.
- Implied derived assertion, stated but glossed over: and therefore Debilitating Bomb is worth half of the additive budget, and therefore has to pay for half an action by itself.
- Implied bald assertion, without adequate support: having a young bird companion out there being the source of your debuffs is pure advantage. Surely the Gm would never have anyone attack the adorable little bird that was clawing out their eyes
- Downright bizarre assertion: the bird's save-ends ability can be assumed to last, on average, three times as long as that of debilitating bombs (after you yourself asserted that ongoing damage in general should be assumed to be worth one tick of damage, total - maybe less).
- Result of what I must assume is somehow bad math: debilitating bomb is six times less action efficient than the bird
- Conclusion: Bird Animal Companion wins hands down.
- Attempt to undermine opponent credibility: Broad implication that the only reason why I'd be opposed to the obviously superior bird would be that it is not compatible with quick alchemy, which I cling to for what must surely be illogical reasons.
I mean, you're twisting yourself in knots here. Are you doing this deliberately?
For me, I said that there were multiple reasons for using quick alchemy bombs, and I'm going to back that up.
First, I want to make clear that I do not believe that it is particularly worthwhile, overall, prior to level 9. Prior to the point where you can quick alchemy two bombs in one action, I don't believe that it *is* worthwhile. You're better off with a sack of bombs you made at the beginning of the day. I suppose it might be worth doing quick alchemy if you just straight-up ran out of those, or if you desperately needed a bomb type that you hadn't prepped or didn't have any more of, or maybe if you literally didn't have anything to do with your third action and you didn't want to waste a bomb on MAP -10, but these are all largely edge cases. Level 9 is the point where it actually starts being a reasonable go-to strategy.
So... given that, the advantages are as follows:
- Enables use of Dual-Weapon Warrior abilities fairly efficiently by allowing you to fill both hands with bombs in a single action. By contrast, when using the bag of daily prepped bombs, you basically don't have any viable action options other than quick bomber/quickdraw.
- Additives - primarily Sticky Bombs, with Debilitating as a second option, which you mostly buy because you have two bombs coming, and might well want additives on both. Hey - flat-footed isn't terrible.
- Allows for use of perpetual bombs. Perpetual bombs mean that you can do this at-will, without expending daily resources. That allows you to continue being a full-time bomber while dedicating a larger fraction of your available reagents to mutagens, elixirs, and alchemical tools, and for gifts to the rest of the party. Also just generally handy to have as an option if it looks like your adventuring day is going to go longer than you'd planned for in the morning.
- When not using perpetual bombs, allows you to pick any bomb from the recipe book, rather than just aby bomb that you'd thought to prepare at the beginning of the day.
Now, you could point to any one of those and say "that's not worth the action cost". You'd even be right. No single one of them *is* worth the action cost. Taken together, though, it starts being pretty viable.
As far as "ability to last" goes... depends.Not really. If at level 9+ you still need Reagents to the point of sinking 5 feats into Perpetual Bombs, then your very first levels were pure torture (and I'm not masochistic enough to go through that). If your very first levels were at least ok then by the time you are level 9 you have far enough reagents to do whatever you want with them and won't sink 5 feats to gain more. Especially considering that you will gain more without doing anything but levelling.
And to finish bashing Perpetual Bombs: Paying 5 feats to create a strong routine around Perpetual Bombs is going against the design philosophy of the class. The Alchemist is strong because of its versatility, it's an opportunist. You are supposed to compensate your overall weakness by your ability to seize opportunities. But by paying 5 feats to do one specific routine you don't take feats to seize more opportunities and on top of it breaking your routine may be hard because your whole build revolves around that. Normal Alchemists don't have such issues and will jump on every opportunity and end up being both more efficient and more fun to play (at least for me, but if you like routine play I strongly discourage you to play an Alchemist anyway).
It's... not the only thing this alchemist does, though? Let's look at the options.
- Can quick bomb one of the daily-prep bombs from the sack. Should have at least a decent number of options there, especially early on before the stash gets depleted. Then has two actions for whatever.
- Can pull out and use whatever elixirs/tools/whatever he prepped at the beginning of the day.
- If he desperately needs a specific tool Right Now, he can craft it with Quick Alchemy and then use it - and at level 9, brew whatever it is that he wants for his other hand and possibly use that too. He'll be keeping back a small pile of infused reagents for flexibility just like any other alchemist.
- At level 6, he has dragon breath. At level 12, he gets flight.
- He can quick brew up a pair of bombs and then Double Slice, giving his second bomb improved accuracy. Once he gets to 10, he also has the option to do this and move, with dumping off the bombs at any point along the move, as long as he's willing to give up said accuracy. At level 14, the accuracy stuff becomes significantly stronger. It becomes almost vanishingly unlikely that he'll miss on both. When he does this, he's got a bit of flexibility on which bombs he's making, and a tiny bit more on which debilitation he picks for the debilitating additive.
That's... not looking *to me* like it's locked into a routine. Sure, it is the cast that "brew perpetual, launch both with an attack out of Dual Weapon Warrior" is the default turn for when you want to contribute meaningfully but don't want to burn resources, but the point of that is to have ore to spend elsewhere, not to just do that all fight every fight... and even with that most baseline default turn, there's still options.
On the matter of running out of reagents... it matters what you're doing with them.
Let's say you have 15 reagents - level 10 with a 20 int. You set aside 4 of them for quick alchemy because you never know what might happen, and you want options when it does. You spend 2 on getting 4 quicksilver elixirs for yourself because you're going to guess you won't need more than that (and if you do, you can use quick alchemy). You have three fellow party members - two martial/martials and an Oracle/Bard caster/caster. The two martials also have a favorite mutagen that they'd really like four of each, so that's four more reagents spent. You spend two more on healing potions, because having everyone have a healing potion on hand just seems like a really good idea. Now you have three left to spend on bombs, for a total of nine bombs in three sets of three. That's... not a huge number... and I guarantee that the party could keep coming up with handy things to spend them on if you had more to spend. Its not that you don't have enough reagents for bombs. It's that there's so many more things that you could be spending them on that aren't bombs. And yeah, if all of your fights for the day are gong to take place during a single hour, then you can save a few... but there are campaigns that aren't like that.
Your rage compensates your lack of strength so before level 7 you play the equivalent of a martial with no offensive ability. That's quite terrible, actually.
Again, though, that's not true. You play the equivalent of an alchemist, except that your backup non-bomb attack is notably more effective than the crossbow, and your bomb attack is *also* more effective, with both a +2 to hit and a barbarian feature bonus to damage over and above what normal alchemists have to deal with at that level. Oh, and you're also way tankier. the fact that you're fairly good at throwing a trident doesn't remove your alchemist class features.
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Let's say you have 15 reagents - level 10 with a 20 int. You set aside 4 of them for quick alchemy because you never know what might happen, and you want options when it does. You spend 2 on getting 4 quicksilver elixirs for yourself because you're going to guess you won't need more than that (and if you do, you can use quick alchemy). You have three fellow party members - two martial/martials and an Oracle/Bard caster/caster. The two martials also have a favorite mutagen that they'd really like four of each, so that's four more reagents spent. You spend two more on healing potions, because having everyone have a healing potion on hand just seems like a really good idea. Now you have three left to spend on bombs, for a total of nine bombs in three sets of three. That's... not a huge number... and I guarantee that the party could keep coming up with handy things to spend them on if you had more to spend. Its not that you don't have enough reagents for bombs. It's that there's so many more things that you could be spending them on that aren't bombs. And yeah, if all of your fights for the day are gong to take place during a single hour, then you can save a few... but there are campaigns that aren't like that.
I got to play my L10 Bomber for the first time in a while Friday night (not a lot of 7-10 Scenarios around in PFS.) What you've come up with here is not that far off from what I used in play.
Let's see now... 2 Batches for four Quicksilver? Dead on. After that, for Mutagens I spent a Batch on 2 Cognitive and another on 2 Silvertongue. Recall Knowledge and Social rolls are both really big in PFS. So that's four Batches. Darkvision Elixers, Bravo's Brews and Eagle-Eye Elixers took up another 3.
For Bombs, I went kinda broad. Six Moderate Alchemist's Fires for that up-front damage. 3 Frost Vials. 2 Bottled Lightning (sometimes you really want a BL when there's not time to Quick Alchemy one.) A Crystal Shards, an Alignment Ampoule, a Ghost Charge, a Dread Ampoule and a Tanglefoot Bag to round it off.
Three Batches for Alchemical Rabbits if needed.
Had my colleagues wanted any support items, I would have adjusted to do so, but it didn't come up. (Although I did end up using one of the Silvertongues on the guy who decided he wanted to do Social Skill checks as a Dwarf with no Proficiency and a Charisma of 8. Love that "no Critical Fail" ability of Silvertongue...)
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To be exact, it's *one* Feat. Sticky Bomb.Not really. Sticky Bomb allows your first Bomb to be at the level of a non Perpetual one, I fully agree with that. But the second Perpetual Bomb is bad (well, before level 11, it's really bad actually). So without much feat support but Sticky Bomb you can pay 2 actions to throw one Bomb. I don't think anyone is impressed. If you use your 3 actions to throw 2 Bombs, then you're at the level of just shooting with a Bow (for a Ranger) or a Returning Trident (for a Barbarian).
If you add all the other feats (Dual Weapon Thrower, and maybe another Additive even if in that case there's not much choice) your second Bomb can be roughly ok (higher accuracy but lower damage than a second non-perpetual Bomb). I don't think it's really valuable as you are supposed to have far enough reagents by the time you get there. But at least it looks like a valid option.
Ah, so your objection to Perpetual Infusion Bombs is that the second Bomb is lackluster?
Yeah, I suppose I can see your point there. Although I don't see it that way myself. I look at the 2nd Bomb as kinda a bonus if I can spare the third action that round.
I'm strongly in the habit that multiple Bomb strikes in a single round is pretty wasteful. Guess it got ingrained into me playing the lower levels.
Even in a good level, like, say, 11 (man, I'm looking forward to 11th) against an on-level opponent with High AC (the most common AC rank) that 2nd Bomb needs a 14 on the roll to hit it. On a 1-4 you'll Crit Miss and absolutely nothing will happen.
Under those circumstances, I prefer using free resources. Yeah, the damage will be 3-6 less, on average, then the full-Tier Bomb, but the Splash is only 1 less. (Amount of average damage deficit depending on die size of the Bomb, and then -1 Splash.)
The main thing, I think, is to go with something that will inconvenience the target should you roll high enough to hit. When I have a chance to throw two free Bombs, the second is always a Bottled Lightning.
As far as the notion of "supposed to have far enough reagents"... no such animal, in my experience. I can always think of more uses for my Reagents then I have Reagents.
For grins and giggles I decided to take a look at what the fighter/alchemist dual class might look like, and yeah... Rebounding Toss is simply too good to be true... especially for something that you can pick up via two feats off an archetype.
Meanwhile, Ricochet Stance with a piercing and/or bludgeoning bomb is simply absurd on the face of it.
Once you've gotten past that, there's not all that much left.
- Point-Blank Shot (1) is handy early on. No scaling at all, though, which isn't great.
- Assisting Shot (2) is potentially useful, but I find it difficult to imagine situations where I would use it preferentially. Maybe when producing a bomb through quick alchemy prior to level 9? I mean, the use case is pretty thin, here.
- Incredible Aim (8) is potentially worthwhile, but suffers from the tendency of bombs to get more out of misses and less out of crits than most attacks. It also effectively goes from a two-action attack to a three-action attack, while only using up one MAP which doesn't help it any.
- Debilitating Shot(10) is actually decent against sufficiently scary boss monsters. How valuable it is is going to depend on how often you go up against boss monsters of that variety
- Two-Weapon Flurry (14) is potentially helpful. Between that, quick bomb, and perpetual bombs, you can fire off three bombs in a turn at the cost of one bomb from the sack. I can think of situations where that might be useful, especially if you're dealing with something that has a nice, hefty vulnerability to a damage type that you have a perpetual bomb that splashes. Still more niche than the intended use, though.
- If you go Dual Weapon Warrior, then Graceful Poise (16) sort of applies, but it's real hard to make it actually useful. Sadly, you can't even get value out of taking Double Slice as a fighter, since that's the thing that comes free with the Dual-Weapon Warrior archetype, and double slice is useless to you without it.
- Even Weapon Supremacy (20), while useful, isn't as useful as you might like. I suppose it lets you turn your Quick Bomb into a Quick Alchemy followed by a hasted strike, so it's not nothing, but it's not as much as other folks tend to get.
So... basically the fighter feats it's a combination of "too good to be true" on the one side and "less useful than they feel like they should be" on the other, with a bunch of empty space in between... on a class that gets more class feats than normal. There's a few options in teh mix that are close enough to decent that you might want to take them, but you're definitely going to be digging for archetypes. On the flip side, just the chassis gets you between +2 and +5 to hit, plus better damage bumps from weapon specialization, and notably improved defenses, so....
Not needing many class feats is ideal though. When most of your power is in your chassis you can afford to keep stealing stuff with archetypes. Dread striker, focus spells, utility casting, etc, etc.
Makes you both more powerful and more versatile while others keep playing catch-up
Man, your argument is so twisty I can barely make sense of it.
Please, let's stay civil.
I may have jumped too fast to the conclusions, I'll explain you more.
So, first, your "advantages" of Perpetual Bombs are no advantages, it's the bare minimum you can expect from them to be competitive.
For example, if you compare a basic Trident Dragon Barbarian with Raging Thrower with basic Perpetual Bombs (with all the Bomb feats but no specific feat for Perpetual Bombs): the Trident Barbarian outdamages Perpetual Bombs by 20%. Considering that all the advantages of Perpetual Bombs (Splash, elements) are already covered by your daily Bombs, Perpetual Bombs is not even niche, it's just ink on your character sheet.
Once you add both Dual Weapon Thrower and Sticky Bomb, Perpetual Bombs manage to outdamage the basic Trident Barbarian by 10%. So, these 3 feats are no advantages, they are necessary to make Perpetual Bombs work.
That's why I criticize Perpetual Bombs. Before even speaking of advantages, try to make them worth it. Then you'll realize that the only thing left is Additives.
Now, speaking about optimized sequences, if you take Dual Weapon Thrower and an Independent/Dexterous Familiar and choose to go for Double Slice (Bomb + Trident) + Trident attack, you outdamage the Perpetual Bomb build by 10%. It costs one daily Bomb every time you use the combo, but Perpetual Bombs force you to use daily Bombs on your first round anyway. Also, you can maintain it during 3 rounds before needing a round off every 2 rounds.
Let's go for a bit more optimization: Bird Animal Companion Support Ability + Double Slice (Bomb + Trident). Now, it starts to get costly in terms of feat, but at least you get what you expect: 10% extra damage over Perpetual Bombs + the enemy is Dazzled for at least one round 95% of the time. It's more expensive than the Perpetual Bombs one in terms of feats but superior in damage, vastly superior in debuff and way more versatile (as the Perpetual Bomb one asks for 3 actions or crumbles when this combo can be modified as needed).
having a young bird companion out there being the source of your debuffs is pure advantage. Surely the Gm would never have anyone attack the adorable little bird that was clawing out their eyes
About the Companion: I've put all of these advantages into a big bag that I called "You have an Animal Companion". So it's an extra bunch of hit points on the table, it can provide flanking, makes weak attacks when you don't have actions to command it and things like that. Trying to paint the Animal Companion bad so it may look better to not have an Animal Companion won't really convince me. Yes, the Animal Companion sucks hits, and that's great (one of it's best free assets with Flanking).
Again, though, that's not true. You play the equivalent of an alchemist, except that your backup non-bomb attack is notably more effective than the crossbow, and your bomb attack is *also* more effective, with both a +2 to hit and a barbarian feature bonus to damage over and above what normal alchemists have to deal with at that level. Oh, and you're also way tankier. the fact that you're fairly good at throwing a trident doesn't remove your alchemist class features.
I was speaking of at-will options, when you don't have daily options available or want to save on them, something that happens during the beginning of your career.
Also, in a Dual Class perspective, "being an Alchemist" is not at all an asset. If all you manage to get with Dual Class is to "be an Alchemist" when you are sick of being a "basic martial with no class feature" you should stop calling that a "good Dual Class combo".Let's see now... 2 Batches for four Quicksilver? Dead on. After that, for Mutagens I spent a Batch on 2 Cognitive and another on 2 Silvertongue. Recall Knowledge and Social rolls are both really big in PFS. So that's four Batches. Darkvision Elixers, Bravo's Brews and Eagle-Eye Elixers took up another 3.
For Bombs, I went kinda broad. Six Moderate Alchemist's Fires for that up-front damage. 3 Frost Vials. 2 Bottled Lightning (sometimes you really want a BL when there's not time to Quick Alchemy one.) A Crystal Shards, an Alignment Ampoule, a Ghost Charge, a Dread Ampoule and a Tanglefoot Bag to round it off.
Three Batches for Alchemical Rabbits if needed.
There's something off with your numbers, especially when you start speaking about bombs. Do you mean 6 batches of Alchemist's Fire, 3 of Frost Vials, etc... or 6 Alchemist's Fire, 3 Frost Vials, 2 Bottled Lightning, etc... Because in the first case your have an abnormally big reagent allocation and in the second case you manage to get 1 or 2 Bombs out of Advanced Alchemy.
Also, why so many conditional Bombs? Alignment Ampoile, Crystal Chards, Frost Vials and Tanglefoot Bag are not useful every day. Why don't you just buy a few of them and grab something else with your daily resources?
I personally use 5-6 reagents on Bombs, and 2 on Elixirs of Life. It allows me to go through an entire adventuring day without issues (that's 4 fights before having to use my crafted bombs, PFS adventuring days nearly never have more than 4 fights).
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So, first, your "advantages" of Perpetual Bombs are no advantages, it's the bare minimum you can expect from them to be competitive.
For example, if you compare a basic Trident Dragon Barbarian with Raging Thrower with basic Perpetual Bombs (with all the Bomb feats but no specific feat for Perpetual Bombs): the Trident Barbarian outdamages Perpetual Bombs by 20%. Considering that all the advantages of Perpetual Bombs (Splash, elements) are already covered by your daily Bombs, Perpetual Bombs is not even niche, it's just ink on your character sheet.
Okay. Let's look at that. We'll assume that we're using Quicksilver Elixir so at least we don't have to deal with working *that* into the math. Happily, we can also blithely ignore the various barbarian damage adders, as they're the same on both sides.
- Trident: 1d8 damage, range 20. You don't have access to any feats that extend that range for you, so it's going to stay at 20. Extra damage dice at levels 4, 12, and 19. You can add property runes at 2, 10, and 16, each of which (if taking the simplest default runes) is worth 1d6 damage of various damage types plus various crit effects. In general, the result is expensive but doable if you get it at-level, and entirely manageable if you let it lag by a level or two. The trident also get strmod, which in this case is starting at a 16.
So... leaving aside rage effects and weapon mastery, and not bothering with anything before level 7:
07: 2d8+1d6+4 (avg 16.5)
10: 2d8+2d6+4 (avg 20)
12: 3d8+2d6+4 (avg 24.5)
15: 3d8+2d6+5 (avg 25.5)
16: 3d8+3d6+5 (avg 29)
19: 4d8+3d6+5 (avg 33.5)
Again, all of this is at range 20.
Meanwhile, the progression for perpetual bombs... depends on the bomb, and the bomber feats you've taken. For simplicity's sake, I'll use the feat progression I'd laid out before, and assume that we are not playing a goblin.
Available bombs:
- Acid Flask: xd6 persistent + x splash
- Alchemist's Fire: xd8 + x splash and x persistent
- Bottled Lightning: xd6 + x splash and flat-footed until start of your next turn
- Frost Vial: xd6 damage + x splash and a -5/-10/-10/-15 move penalty
- Tanglefoot Bag: non-damaging. We'll just ignore this one for now.
- Thunderstone: xd4 damage + x splash (sonic) and a chance to deafen. I'm not sure why you'd pick this one. It seems niche at best, and that's really *not* what you want with your perpetual bombs.
I'll note here that the comparison of acid flask versus alchemist's fire indicates that Paizo's numbers count a point of persistent damage as worth more than a point of standard - actually almost twice as much (though that's potentially confounded by he fact that they might be valuing the damage types differently and/or allowing for some flex). Even so, I'm willing to go with your (rather conservative) estimate of it being worth one-to-one for the sake of argument.
So, just going for raw damage, we'll compare to the Alchemist's fire, as it is both the simplest comparison, and not blatantly wrong. It is worth noting, though, that you get a bit more in-the-moment flexibility with your perpetual bombs than you do with your trident.
Again, the feat set is...
1: Quick Bomber, Far Lobber (Ambition)
2: Revivifying Mutagen
4: Calculated Splash
6: Debilitating Bomb
8: Sticky Bomb
10: Expanded Splash
12: Uncanny Bombs
14: Perpetual Breadth
...and, for the purposes of this argument, we're leaving out the effects of Debilitating Bomb and Sticky Bomb. So... the rack up of effects pertinent to perpetual bombs, from feats and alchemist levels:
level 7: x=1, range is 20, splash damage is actually int modifier (+4)
level 9: double brew (not that it matters for this analysis)
level 10: intmod becomes 5. Splash damage becomes base splash +intmod. Splash radius becomes 10.
level 11: x=2
level 12: range becomes 60, autosucceed on flat check vs concealment, target AC bonus from cover reduced by 1
level 13: splash radius becomes 15
level 14: get two more bomb options.
level 15: triple brew (not that it matters for this analysis)
level 17: x = 3
...and the resulting numbers for Alchemist's Fire:
level 7: 1d6 damage +4 splash (rad 5) +1 persistent (avg damage 8.5)
level 10: 1d6 damage +6 splash (rad 10) +1 persistent (avg damage 10.5)
level 11: 2d6 damage +7 splash (rad 10) +2 persistent (avg damage 16)
level 12: range 60, boosts vs cover and concealment
level 13: splash radius 15
level 17: 3d6 damage +8 splash (rad 15) +3 persistent (avg damage 21.5)
So, if we're going with white-room assumptions about no vulnerabilities or resistances, then...
- at level 7, the perpetual bomb has to hit two additional enemies with the splash in order to break even with the trident. At radius 5, that's not going to be particularly common.
- At level 10, hitting two extra enemies with the splash actually pulls you ahead, and you have 10 feet of radius to do it in - significantly more plausible.
- Level 11 is a bit of a hiccup in favor of the alchemist. At this point they only have to catch one enemy in the splash radius in order to get ahead.
- at level 12, it's back to needing to hit 2 to get better than the trident, but just getting one is at least close.
- at level 13, the alchemist with the perpetual bombs gets 15 foot radius to play with to pick up their extras.
- at level 15 the trident gets another damage bump (from strength) but it's small enough that it doesn't do much.
- At level 16 there's a somewhat more significant trident damage bump... but it's still the case that the bomb deals more overall damage if it catches two extra foes, and less if it catches one or none.
- At level 17, the perpetual bomb gets a damage bump good enough that it's pretty much neck and neck with just one extra target.
- At level 19 it's back to "loses at one, wins at two"
Then, too, there's the fact that bombs deal a decent chunk of damage even if they miss. On the flip side, the trident (for various reasons) is doing a lot better on crits. Even so, in your average fight, you're much more likely to miss than to hit with a crit... and, again, that's all prior to sticky/debilitating... and after level 12, the bombs have a lot more range.
TL:DR - there are absolutely going to be situations where you'd rather throw a perpetual bomb than a trident, especially as you get up in levels.
As for daily prepped bombs... well, yes. Daily prepped bombs *do* generally have advantages over the free ones you get with perpetual. That's true. They also cost infused reagents. We've already talked about how a party can have an almost limitless thirst for alchemical supplies that are not bombs, if you put a bit of thought into it. The fewer standard bombs you make, the more of everything else you can afford to make... and perpetual bombs are the key to beign effective as a bomber while not sinking all that many of your regents into making daily bombs, so that you can have the healing potions and also the combat mutagens and also the noncombat mutagens and also the alchemical tools. Now, if you don't want to play that way (and it seems that you do not) then that's fine. You can indeed make enough daily bombs that a reasonable adventuring day will not expend them all, with a few reagents left over for other things, you can skip out on additives entirely (and thus save those feats) and for you, perpetual bombs really will just be ink on your character sheet. There are other playstyles, though, where they'd rather spend as few reagents on bombs as they reasonably can, where perpetual alchemy is a vital and necessary part of the build. Those playstyles are not wrong.
That's why I criticize Perpetual Bombs. Before even speaking of advantages, try to make them worth it. Then you'll realize that the only thing left is Additives.
Okay. Did that. I did not come to the same conclusion. I'd miss additives if they were gone, certainly, but I don't agree that they're the only reason. "Does not consume reagents" is enough of an advantage (for some playstyles) that the comparison to daily bombs is not compelling. In comparison to bought weapons, it has an advantage in saving money, in attacks where crits are unlikely and misses are common, and when you can catch a meaningful number of enemies in the splash (especially if you happen to have enemies that are weak to one of your damage types)
Now, speaking about optimized sequences, if you take Dual Weapon Thrower and an Independent/Dexterous Familiar and choose to go for Double Slice (Bomb + Trident) + Trident attack, you outdamage the Perpetual Bomb build by 10%. It costs one daily Bomb every time you use the combo, but Perpetual Bombs force you to use daily Bombs on your first round anyway. Also, you can maintain it during 3 rounds before needing a round off every 2 rounds.
Let's go for a bit more optimization: Bird Animal Companion Support Ability + Double Slice (Bomb + Trident). Now, it starts to get costly in terms of feat, but at least you get what you expect: 10% extra damage over Perpetual Bombs + the enemy is Dazzled for at least one round 95% of the time. It's more expensive than the Perpetual Bombs one in terms of feats but superior in damage, vastly superior in debuff and way more versatile (as the Perpetual Bomb one asks for 3 actions or crumbles when this combo can be modified as needed).
Okay. Let's talk about this. Suppose that you're dedicated to the bomb+trident+trident attack cycle, and you prep accordingly, with the familiar technique, including training your familiar accordingly.
- battle is joined. You're holding a bomb. Your familiar is holding a bomb. You must know before you kick down the door what both your first and second bombs are going to be.- Round 1: you throw, and the familiar hands you a bomb.
- Round 2: you throw, and your familiar grabs a bomb. Your familiar is going to have to guess which bomb you'll want for round 3 at this point.
- Round 3: your familiar hands you a bomb, you throw a bomb.
So yeah, it works, in a broad sense. You do need to walk around with your hands full of stuff, though, with a familiar who's holding a bomb at all times... and, again, you need to know which bombs you want to use in which order.
For bird companion... well, yes. The bird *is* a bit pricey in terms of feats. In particular, you can't just come with the young bird - you have to keep it updated, or it'll die entirely too easy. That said, animal companions are an eminently reasonable place to spend feats if you're willing to burn through enough feats to keep the beasts current, and bird is pretty nice as animal companions go... but between the feat for the familiar and the four for the animal companion, you're ponying up five class feats over the course of your career (one of which can be an ancestry feat for some ancestries). Also, critically, your animal companion cannot wear a backfire mantle, meaning that you're suddenly adding a target to the field that you don't want to splash on. A plan that centers around having them flying right next to targets that you're throwing bombs at is not going to go well for them unless you're constraining your splash damage. I can at least see the argument that damage dealt to the bird is damage not dealt to the rest of the party (though that's a lot of feats to lose access to if it drops) but when you're the one dealing that damage....
Beyond that, I haven't run the numbers on this particular setup... and it's going to be a bit before I'm ready to, if that's important to you. I also don't know a lot about animal companions in general. I just know that I occasionally see people complaining that they die too easily, especially at higher levels, and that's before you're doing things like bombing them out of the sky yourself.
Also, in a Dual Class perspective, "being an Alchemist" is not at all an asset. If all you manage to get with Dual Class is to "be an Alchemist" when you are sick of being a "basic martial with no class feature" you should stop calling that a "good Dual Class combo".
I'll admit that the synergy gains here are a lot thinner than I'd expected them to be when I started working through this process. I do still think that they are real - I think that a well-built martial/alchemist dual is going to be generally more effective than a well-built martial/caster - but I'd expected more than I got. Also, as we've noted, it's thinner still right at the beginning. If I were told to play a dual-class character for a campaign running from 1-10, this is not the dual-class character I would pick.
Okay. Let's look at that.
I got this numbers from Citricking's tool. For such complicated attack sequence it makes everything much clearer.
Also, I've used 12 Strength on my Barbarian because I assume you can't have all the stats high. With 16 Strength, Trident becomes more interesting. And I've considered a Returning Rune as first Property Rune.
TL:DR - there are absolutely going to be situations where you'd rather throw a perpetual bomb than a trident, especially as you get up in levels.
Yes, but all these situations are fully covered by your daily bombs. So ultimately you'll have hard time finding a situation where Bombs are clearly better than a Trident but where at the same time you don't want to use any of your daily ones despite the situation being ideal for them. That's why I say that calling them niche is an overstatement.
In comparison to bought weapons, it has an advantage in saving money
Remember that you have to buy a weapon up to level 8 and then Alchemist's Goggles to keep your bonus at its maximum with Perpetual Bombs. So the money advantage is not that big.
So yeah, it works, in a broad sense. You do need to walk around with your hands full of stuff, though, with a familiar who's holding a bomb at all times... and, again, you need to know which bombs you want to use in which order.
Same with your Perpetual Bomb build. You have to choose your Perpetual Bombs types at level 7 and it sticks during your whole career and if you don't have bombs in both of your hands at round 1 you can't benefit from Dual Weapon Thrower and will start with an off round.
Also, it's a routine in a character with a lot of other options, so it doesn't have to cover anything but raw damage. If you need anything else you'll drop out of your routine to benefit from the best course of action.And remember that, unlike your Perpetual routine, it's a 2-action routine, something that you fit very easily in a normal fight and that you can adapt depending on the situation.
you're ponying up five class feats over the course of your career
We are in a Dual Class context, so 7 class feats (I count 7 of them) to get a lot of value is an acceptable tradeoff. Your Perpetual Bombs feat sequence is also high: 5 feats. So it's actually a difference of 2 feats, with an actual difference in the battlefield that goes way beyond 2 feats in my opinion (becoming a very valid debuffer, having an Animal Companion and gaining 10% damage on your main routine, that's more valuable than 2 feats).
you can have the healing potions and also the combat mutagens and also the noncombat mutagens and also the alchemical tools. Now, if you don't want to play that way (and it seems that you do not) then that's fine.
Don't jump too fast to conclusions. I definitely help my teammates, actually more than Ottdmk according to its reagent allocations (I value poison a lot, it's nearly half of my reagent allocation). In my opinion, you vastly overvalue how many reagents you'll use on your teammates and non-combat encounters. Nearly no one will accept Mutagens. Elixirs of Life are not easy to use, even more if you come up with a build that has nothing to help them (you at least need a Familiar with some grabbing ability to alleviate the cost of drawing them, that's an extra "tax" feat to add to your build). And use of other Elixirs is a rarity, I have crafted a few with my Alchemist that I use when needed (Cat's Eye, Darkvision, Bloodhound Masks, things like that) but it doesn't honestly happen often. As a Chirurgeon, I also maintain everyone under Antidotes and Antiplagues, not incredible but the bonuses are always on. Overall, I don't think you can use much more of them, there are very quick diminishing returns on how many reagents you'd be able to use.
So unless you have chosen a campaign with a lot of combats (and in that case your first 8 levels have been a nightmare) you'll never really feel the Perpetual part of Perpetual Bombs.
Okay. Let's look at that.I got this numbers from Citricking's tool. For such complicated attack sequence it makes everything much clearer.
Also, I've used 12 Strength on my Barbarian because I assume you can't have all the stats high. With 16 Strength, Trident becomes more interesting. And I've considered a Returning Rune as first Property Rune.
Barbarian is going to force a +2 str on you whether you like it or not. After that, you've got dex and int as your two top, and con's always handy, but I'm not seeing str lose to either wis or cha, so it's at least going to get one of your four pick-stats, for 14. I'd assumed that you were pulling three stats out of your ancestry, and figured I'd be generous. Still, if you are planning on making trident a meaningful part of your build, I'm not sure why it would be below 14.
Still, it's a good point about returning. Dropping initial strength to 14 and losing one of the d6...
07: 2d8+3 (avg 12)
10: 2d8+1d6+4 (avg 16.5)
12: 3d8+1d6+4 (avg 20)
16: 3d8+2d6+4 (avg 24.5)
19: 4d8+2d6+4 (avg 29)
20: 4d8+2d6+5 (avg 30)
So by those numbers...
- level 7 just needs to splash 1 to match.
- level 10 likewise
- level 12 is starting to pull ahead meaningfully with only one splash
- level 16 needs 2 splashes to make up the distance, but by that point they've been in radius 15 for a while, so that shouldn't be too hard.
- level 17 is back to one splash to match.
- level 20 doesn't actually change enough to matter.
Basically, any time you've got a reasonable number of creatures on the board, the bombs are going to be doing more overall damage per hit than the tridents. They're going to be doing a lot[/o] more overall damage per miss. This isn't "special case". This is "in most cases, one perpetual bomb is going to do more than one trident throw, even if you don't take additives into account." Also, again, range is a thing. If they're standing 50 feet away, and you're level 12 or higher, then the bomb is going to be a [i]lot more effective on average.
So that's a point on which you were incorrect.
TL:DR - there are absolutely going to be situations where you'd rather throw a perpetual bomb than a trident, especially as you get up in levels.Yes, but all these situations are fully covered by your daily bombs. So ultimately you'll have hard time finding a situation where Bombs are clearly better than a Trident but where at the same time you don't want to use any of your daily ones despite the situation being ideal for them. That's why I say that calling them niche is an overstatement.
Again I'm going to point out that this depends on how many daily bombs you have, and how niche they are. If you're stacking a bunch of bombs for primary use then yeah, that's true. If your daily bombs are mostly there for things like ghost charges and other special case bombs, or you don't have all that many of them, then you maybe don't want to be spending them every turn of every fight.
In comparison to bought weapons, it has an advantage in saving moneyRemember that you have to buy a weapon up to level 8 and then Alchemist's Goggles to keep your bonus at its maximum with Perpetual Bombs. So the money advantage is not that big.
Not true. Quicksilver Elixir is worth daily-crafting anyway (it's +1 to hit above anything else you could use) and it renders the goggles largely irrelevant. If you also have Uncanny Bombs and aren't doign alchemical crafting in downtime, it's entirely irrelevant.
So yeah, it works, in a broad sense. You do need to walk around with your hands full of stuff, though, with a familiar who's holding a bomb at all times... and, again, you need to know which bombs you want to use in which order.Same with your Perpetual Bomb build. You have to choose your Perpetual Bombs types at level 7 and it sticks during your whole career and if you don't have bombs in both of your hands at round 1 you can't benefit from Dual Weapon Thrower and will start with an off round.
Also, it's a routine in a character with a lot of other options, so it doesn't have to cover anything but raw damage. If you need anything else you'll drop out of your routine to benefit from the best course of action.
And remember that, unlike your Perpetual routine, it's a 2-action routine, something that you fit very easily in a normal fight and that you can adapt depending on the situation.
You have to pick two perpetual bombs types at level 7, and if/when you take Perpetual Breadth, you get to pick two more. Round 1, if you're within 60 of the foe at the start of your turn (not unlikely) and your hands are empty, then you can absolutely have a standard round of alchemy/double slice just like normal. (yes, this is only starting at level 9. That's true.)
As for two-action vs three action? Yes. That's true... and you keep going back to that well. Please be fair about this.
- You say "the only reason to Quick alchemy is the additives. Therefore the additives have to bear the entire weight of the quick alchemy action."
- I say "that's not true. Look how well they perform even without additives. You can get a lot of little benefits from that action."
- You say "well, yeah, but don't forget that it's costing you an extra action to get that performance."
We are in a Dual Class context, so 7 class feats (I count 7 of them) to get a lot of value is an acceptable tradeoff. Your Perpetual Bombs feat sequence is also high: 5 feats. So it's actually a difference of 2 feats, with an actual difference in the battlefield that goes way beyond 2 feats in my opinion (becoming a very valid debuffer, having an Animal Companion and gaining 10% damage on your main routine, that's more valuable than 2 feats).
I'm going to reserve judgement on this one for the moment. You keep making assertions about the numbers, and then I go back in and actually run the numbers out where everyone can see them, and it turns out that things aren't nearly as clear-cut as you'd suggested. Anyway, you still haven't addressed the "applying splash damage to your own bird" issue. How do you plan to address that?
Don't jump too fast to conclusions. I definitely help my teammates, actually more than Ottdmk according to its reagent allocations (I value poison a lot, it's nearly half of my reagent allocation). In my opinion, you vastly overvalue how many reagents you'll use on your teammates and non-combat encounters. Nearly no one will accept Mutagens. Elixirs of Life are not easy to use, even more if you come up with a build that has nothing to help them (you at least need a Familiar with some grabbing ability to alleviate the cost of drawing them, that's an extra "tax" feat to add to your build). And use of other Elixirs is a rarity, I have crafted a few with my Alchemist that I use when needed (Cat's Eye, Darkvision, Bloodhound Masks, things like that) but it doesn't honestly happen often. As a Chirurgeon, I also maintain everyone under Antidotes and Antiplagues, not incredible but the bonuses are always on. Overall, I don't think you can use much more of them, there are very quick diminishing returns on how many reagents you'd be able to use.
So unless you have chosen a campaign with a lot of combats (and in that case your first 8 levels have been a nightmare) you'll never really feel the Perpetual part of Perpetual Bombs.
How many reagents you use on teammates and non-combat encounters is going to be seriously campaign-dependent. It's going to depend on how many noncombat encounters you're likely to have, how important they are, and how willing your fellow party members are to chug mutagens for the cause. How much they want mutagens is going to depend on their personal preferences, and how well you've sold them on the idea. You can always find more ways to use consumables, especially if you actually know what you're up against, and you have a robust recipe book.
Now if you're going to say that the people you meet in PFS PUGs don't generally understand/trust/want proper alchemical support, then I'm prepared to just take you at your word on that, but that's a far cry from saying "all PF2 games everywhere are like this."
Again I'm going to point out that this depends on how many daily bombs you have, and how niche they are. If you're stacking a bunch of bombs for primary use then yeah, that's true. If your daily bombs are mostly there for things like ghost charges and other special case bombs, or you don't have all that many of them, then you maybe don't want to be spending them every turn of every fight.
Why would you use your daily bombs for special cases? Your daily bombs are for things that generally happens daily. Special cases are either for Quick Alchemy (for the really unexpected) or crafting (for the things that happen every once in a while).
I'm going to reserve judgement on this one for the moment. You keep making assertions about the numbers, and then I go back in and actually run the numbers out where everyone can see them, and it turns out that things aren't nearly as clear-cut as you'd suggested. Anyway, you still haven't addressed the "applying splash damage to your own bird" issue. How do you plan to address that?The numbers are the ones I've given (or, to be hyper accurate, it's 7.5% extra damage between your Perpetual build and the Trident 3 attacks and 9% extra damage between the Trident + Bomber Dual Thrower and the Perpetual build).
Not true. Quicksilver Elixir is worth daily-crafting anyway (it's +1 to hit above anything else you could use) and it renders the goggles largely irrelevant. If you also have Uncanny Bombs and aren't doign alchemical crafting in downtime, it's entirely irrelevant.
I agree, but then that's even more constraints to your build (remember that if you're caught up off guard, you need 2 actions to get under Quicksilver Elixir). So I'd personally upgrade the Goggles "in case of" instead of assuming I'll always have a Quicksilver Elixir at hand.
if/when you take Perpetual Breadth, you get to pick two more.
An extra feat for not much. I was mostly stating that the drawback of having a bomb at hand was not really that much of a problem as you have the same with your build.
Round 1, if you're within 60 of the foe at the start of your turn (not unlikely) and your hands are empty, then you can absolutely have a standard round of alchemy/double slice just like normal.
No, you need to Rage. And also imbibe a Quicksilver Mutagen if you don't have the Goggles. So if you start with your hands empty you actually waste an entire turn to buff yourself.
- I say "that's not true. Look how well they perform even without additives. You can get a lot of little benefits from that action."
And I said that the "little benefits" are offset by the -20% in damage. The little benefits are what compensates the -20% in damage. Overall, the only benefit is Additives, the rest are just number fixers.
Now if you're going to say that the people you meet in PFS PUGs
Please don't. I don't insult your fellow players, don't insult mine. I've played in a lot of environments (PFS doesn't necessarily mean strangers, it's just that my gaming group prefers PFS). And even with my massive knowledge of the Alchemist, I'll rarely ask a Mutagen if I end up teamed up with an Alchemist, because Mutagens are super niche.
How many reagents you use on teammates and non-combat encounters is going to be seriously campaign-dependent.
All niche abilities are campaign-dependent. If you end up in a campaign where you absolutely need an Alchemist to perform a specific task repeatedly then obviously play an Alchemist. But there's enough material released, from PFS to APs, to know that it's not a common expectation. Also this is not the first conversation about the Alchemist here.
You question my numbers and I prove myself. I personally really question your knowledge of the class. What is your experience with an Alchemist (that you played or played with, even if playing one is better than seeing one played)?
Why would you use your daily bombs for special cases? Your daily bombs are for things that generally happens daily. Special cases are either for Quick Alchemy (for the really unexpected) or crafting (for the things that happen every once in a while).
Hmm...
Okay. Fair - and since in general what you're looking for on those is unusual damage types, you could even afford to let them lag by a few levels, so the overall price doesn't need to be particularly high.
An extra feat for not much. I was mostly stating that the drawback of having a bomb at hand was not really that much of a problem as you have the same with your build.
Well, that's certainly true. I mean, the drawback isn't really much regardless. I was just noting that it's *there*.
It's a fair point about the elixir and rage. I'd probably walk around with elixir in hand, and spend the first time with a rage/drink/quick bomb. but that's just my current thoughts.
The numbers are the ones I've given (or, to be hyper accurate, it's 7.5% extra damage between your Perpetual build and the Trident 3 attacks and 9% extra damage between the Trident + Bomber Dual Thrower and the Perpetual build).
That... doesn't tell me what I need to know.
Please don't. I don't insult your fellow players, don't insult mine. I've played in a lot of environments (PFS doesn't necessarily mean strangers, it's just that my gaming group prefers PFS). And even with my massive knowledge of the Alchemist, I'll rarely ask a Mutagen if I end up teamed up with an Alchemist, because Mutagens are super niche.
That's entirely fair. I want to be clear, though - that's really notat all how I meant it. I'm actually working through this at least in part in an attempt to understand the alchemist better. By nature, I am one of the people who basically never uses consumables, and would be a lousy teammate for an alchemist. Proper consumable use is a skill that I'm trying to develop, and so I was ready to take you at your word because it made perfect sense that the average player who had not dug into that side of things would not have those skills.
I mean, I've been learning and correcting myself as I go, right? I've admitted that I was wrong when it became clear that I was wrong? I've been pretty open about that, right?
...and I don't think I can agree with you that mutagens are super niche.
- War Blood Mutagen is basically +1 to hit (plus some little niche things) for any melee weapon-using martial who doesn't use concentrate abilities and doesn't weapon swap.
- Quicksilver Mutagen is basically a +1 to hit for every dex-based martial out there, plus some other smaller but still meaningful benefits. The damage isn't entirely fun, but it's manageable, especially if you fight at range.
- Energy Mutagen is a straight-up damage bonus for people with melee weapons, plus some other stuff. The downside is in (smallish) elemental vulnerabilities. If you've got a basic idea of what's coming, that's almost no disadvantage at all.
That's way more than super niche. There's also silvertongue, which only requires that you have an important social encounter and you see it coming. Now, there are also mutagens out there that are pretty niche, but that's not all of them.
You question my numbers and I prove myself. I personally really question your knowledge of the class. What is your experience with an Alchemist (that you played or played with, even if playing one is better than seeing one played)?
Also fair. I haven't got any. I'm literally figuring some of this out as I go along. At the same time, I haven't made any real assertions about the way things are in play experience except to make assertions about different campaign styles calling for different things, and I'm basing that on stuff that I've read from other alchemists here on the boards, who've had very different experiences than you have.
...and I question your numbers because you've made solid assertions, and then I've gone back and checked and done the math where everyone can see it, and the assertions that you've made have been simply incorrect in meaningful ways. I've been ready to be wrong. Whenever I run numbers like that, I'm always ready to discover that I was incorrect in my initial assumptions (and sometimes it happens). It's just that according the analyses I've posted, the assertions of yours that I've been testing have been wrong in some meaningful ways, and you haven't come back to tell me how I got those analyses wrong.
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Poor action economy is definitely something that alchemists deal with a lot, but when we're talking about mutagens we're talking about items that last 10 minutes to an hour after early game, so I'm not sure why you're fixated so much on trying to use them in combat.
That... doesn't tell me what I need to know.
I have a fully automated tool to calculate damage at every level with the ability to switch monster statistics to see how they evolve based on them. On top of it, the current calculation is super complicated with weapons that are behaving very differently between critical hits and misses, I don't see myself getting into the maths in detail.
Also, the conclusion to your calculation always seems to be "Perpetual deal as much damage as the Trident if". And having enemies in the splash is not highly common (I'm not level 10 with my Alchemist, so I haven't tried large splash areas). And as I said before if you are in a situation where enemies are clumped together then go for your daily bombs, it's your time to shine.And you calculate damage to multiple enemies as having the same value than single target damage, which is not a good measure of multi target damage. In general, I value it at half the value of single target damage. If you do that, your bombs suddenly lose a lot compared to the trident.
By nature, I am one of the people who basically never uses consumables, and would be a lousy teammate for an alchemist.
I am the exact opposite. I'm using consumables extensively (my Starfinder Mystic spent more than half of its money on consumables that she actually used... to save the party from 2 TPKs and one character death. Since then I consider consumables very positively).
Also, daily Alchemical Items are not exactly consumables, as they get renewed every day. In general, people dislike the feeling of "losing money" every time they use a consumable, feeling that you don't have when imbibing a daily Mutagen.- War Blood Mutagen is basically +1 to hit (plus some little niche things) for any melee weapon-using martial who doesn't use concentrate abilities and doesn't weapon swap.
- Quicksilver Mutagen is basically a +1 to hit for every dex-based martial out there, plus some other smaller but still meaningful benefits. The damage isn't entirely fun, but it's manageable, especially if you fight at range.
- Energy Mutagen is a straight-up damage bonus for people with melee weapons, plus some other stuff. The downside is in (smallish) elemental vulnerabilities. If you've got a basic idea of what's coming, that's almost no disadvantage at all.
Careful, 2 of these Mutagens are Uncommon AP content, and one has already been reported as broken with Persistent Mutagen. I'd be wary of allowing the War Blood Mutagen around my table as it's really a new power level for Mutagens (I wait for the new Alchemical Items to see if Paizo has decided to rebalanced Mutagens entirely or if it's just a broken Mutagen).
Also fair. I haven't got any.
I like the Alchemist, my first PF2 love. I've studied it extensively (and I'm quite proud of my Bomb + Bird Companion combo as PF2 doesn't have many). Still, when someone says it's the worst class in the game, I keep quiet. The class is broken in many ways, asks for a lot of micromanagement to get an efficiency any properly built character gets without even thinking about it. Overall, it's not a good class. In proper hands, it works, and that's certainly the best you can expect from it. If, like I do, you love complicated classes then it's a really funny class with tons of (small) moments. But if you love simple classes, or specialized ones, or ones with obvious moments, then forget about it, Alchemist is not made for you.
Poor action economy is definitely something that alchemists deal with a lot, but when we're talking about mutagens we're talking about items that last 10 minutes to an hour after early game, so I'm not sure why you're fixated so much on trying to use them in combat.
Before level 11, I don't bother with Mutagens. Once at level 11, it's true it changes with the new duration. But I consider level 11 to be quite late, I rarely speak about level 10+ powers of a class because I've rarely played at such high levels (I've reached level 15 at most in D&D3, got a few characters above 10 in PF1 but level 11+ are always the very last levels I play in).
Yeah, War Blood has no drawback despite giving a massive bonus. Clearly, as of now, a ban. But maybe Paizo wants to revitalize Mutagens. If it's the case, I'm just sad they did it in such an ugly way. I find War Blood Mutagen to be uninspiring, it's just a +1 with the drawback of being unable to do much but keep your weapon at hand when under the effect.
I don't think it has no drawback, I've noticed barbarians have a very hard time using items because envision and command are concentrate and interact requires a free hand.
Dc5 is pretty low so the drawback could indeed be too low perhaps but I think you use concentrate more than one thinks.
That's why I find it bad. It's a flat bonus with no drawback as long as you only do only one thing: Wielding your weapon. It forces specialization in a game that managed to get rid of it.
There's something off with your numbers, especially when you start speaking about bombs. Do you mean 6 batches of Alchemist's Fire, 3 of Frost Vials, etc... or 6 Alchemist's Fire, 3 Frost Vials, 2 Bottled Lightning, etc... Because in the first case your have an abnormally big reagent allocation and in the second case you manage to get 1 or 2 Bombs out of Advanced Alchemy.Let's see now... 2 Batches for four Quicksilver? Dead on. After that, for Mutagens I spent a Batch on 2 Cognitive and another on 2 Silvertongue. Recall Knowledge and Social rolls are both really big in PFS. So that's four Batches. Darkvision Elixers, Bravo's Brews and Eagle-Eye Elixers took up another 3.
For Bombs, I went kinda broad. Six Moderate Alchemist's Fires for that up-front damage. 3 Frost Vials. 2 Bottled Lightning (sometimes you really want a BL when there's not time to Quick Alchemy one.) A Crystal Shards, an Alignment Ampoule, a Ghost Charge, a Dread Ampoule and a Tanglefoot Bag to round it off.
Three Batches for Alchemical Rabbits if needed.
Simple really... I was going from memory and I was in a hurry, so I didn't double-check my count. Going over my notes from that session I didn't actually AA a Tanglefoot Bag.
It was six Alchemist's Fires (two batches), 3 Frost Vials (1 Batch) 2 Bottled Lightning, 1 Crystal Shards, 1 Ghost Charge, 1 Alignment Ampoule and 1 Dread Ampoule. 15 Bombs, 5 Batches total.
Also, why so many conditional Bombs? Alignment Ampoile, Crystal Chards, Frost Vials and Tanglefoot Bag are not useful every day. Why don't you just buy a few of them and grab something else with your daily resources?A couple of reasons, really. The mission was pretty vague, so I went with a variety. I mean yeah, you're correct, I could Craft some of those to have on hand... I've been taking that approach with various Elixirs for ages now. But I spent 1 Batch on those 3... and I'm in a position now when I can spend a Batch like that if I want to.
I personally use 5-6 reagents on Bombs, and 2 on Elixirs of Life. It allows me to go through an entire adventuring day without issues (that's 4 fights before having to use my crafted bombs, PFS adventuring days nearly never have more than 4 fights).
Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. It's why I've standardized on four Quicksilvers (2 batches) a day.
There are a few fundamental differences in how I play an Alchemist compared to how you play an Alchemist. Firstly, I don't do poisons. It's an old, old prejudice of mine dating back to my D&D days thirty years ago. It is completely illogical but it's part of how I approach RPGs and it's baked into me at this point.
Secondly, I appear to be a bigger fan of Elixirs than you are, and definitely a bigger fan of Mutagens. You've stated that you don't bother with Mutagens, for example, until 11th level. I can't even imagine what playing my Alchemist would be like without Quicksilver, and I've used most other Mutagens at one time or another in Society play. Mostly Cognitive and Silvertongue though... those have come up a lot.
Third, I don't usually AA Elixirs of Life. It's extremely rare that I've had a need to heal during combat, and outside of combat they're virtually pointless. I keep a few Batches around for Alchemical Rabbits... if I need an Elixir of Life I'll use one of those. I suppose I should consider adding a Batch of L9 EoLs to my growing collection of "just in case" elixirs.
Fourth, I like using my Perpetual Infusions, largely because of Sticky Bomb. Inflicting Persistent Damage is a huge part of the fun for me, and table results have proven very effective. Ideally, I'll open up with a Sticky Lesser Acid Flask, follow up the next round with a Sticky Lesser Bottled Lightning, and then if the flat checks have been kind to me (and not the GM) I'll move on to Alchemist's Fires. Of course, that's if I'm up against something generic where a specific energy type doesn't really matter.
Finally: I have a conversation with my party, whosoever they may be, at the start of every Scenario. I mention I'm playing an Alchemist, I ask if anyone has any Alchemical Items they'd like to have access to. Most of the time, there isn't. Sometimes folks will ask what I would suggest, so I make suggestions. Again, most of the time, after my suggestions there are no takers.
If there *are* takers, I'm happy to oblige. PF2e is a team sport and I'm happy to be a team player. (There is a reason my 2nd Perpetual is Bottled Lightning.) Most of the time though, nope. Which is fine. Even when the only user is myself, there's always more uses for my Reagents than there are Batches.
Also, the conclusion to your calculation always seems to be "Perpetual deal as much damage as the Trident if". And having enemies in the splash is not highly common (I'm not level 10 with my Alchemist, so I haven't tried large splash areas). And as I said before if you are in a situation where enemies are clumped together then go for your daily bombs, it's your time to shine.
And you calculate damage to multiple enemies as having the same value than single target damage, which is not a good measure of multi target damage. In general, I value it at half the value of single target damage. If you do that, your bombs suddenly lose a lot compared to the trident.
You asserted that a trident strike was simple better than a perpetual bomb strike without additives... so that's the numbers that I ran. It's true that I did count splash damage to secondary targets as equivalent to primary damage, but I also didn't include the splash damage on miss on the one side, or the crit on the other (mostly because it makes the math quite a lot more complicated to run by hand).
I'm also hearing that you're heavily focused in on effectiveness prior to (or at least no later than) level 10. For a primary PFS player, that makes a whole lot of sense. Also, I admit that in the level range you care about, my assessment isn't all that much different than your own. Expanded Splash (10), Uncanny Bombs (12), and the bomber Greater Field Discovery (13) are all really important ingredients for the bomber/martial dual class value proposition... as are sticky bombs at 8 and even double Brew at 9. Before that... well, I'd expected it to be worthwhile, and I discovered over the course of this discussion that it was kind of not.
It was six Alchemist's Fires (two batches), 3 Frost Vials (1 Batch) 2 Bottled Lightning, 1 Crystal Shards, 1 Ghost Charge, 1 Alignment Ampoule and 1 Dread Ampoule. 15 Bombs, 5 Batches total.
Man, you made me realize I never really read Field Discovery. As I play a Chirurgeon, I can only make Elixirs of Life, so I never thought much about the other Research Fields. I never realized it was making the rules more lax about what you could craft. So, sorry, it's on me, your numbers were quite fine.
I use slightly more batches on Bombs but I produce less of them each time.It's an old, old prejudice of mine dating back to my D&D days thirty years ago. It is completely illogical but it's part of how I approach RPGs and it's baked into me at this point.
I definitely get it, I had to fight it (and that's why I play my Alchemist only within my gaming group and not with strangers). I personally love Poison, it sometimes mess up so much with the monsters (I managed to poison a Dragon Turtle once, for 2 rounds, lots of laugh, and in another game we had our archer making a ranged duel with an enemy archer, with the poisoned arrows making the enemy Flat-Footed and Clumsy... it was an easy win for our archer).
Third, I don't usually AA Elixirs of Life.
Without the Familiar, it's unusable. But with it, it's very nice. A round of Bomb + Elixir of Life is basic and actually quite satisfying.
Finally: I have a conversation with my party, whosoever they may be, at the start of every Scenario. I mention I'm playing an Alchemist, I ask if anyone has any Alchemical Items they'd like to have access to. Most of the time, there isn't. Sometimes folks will ask what I would suggest, so I make suggestions. Again, most of the time, after my suggestions there are no takers.
If there *are* takers, I'm happy to oblige. PF2e is a team sport and I'm happy to be a team player. (There is a reason my 2nd Perpetual is Bottled Lightning.) Most of the time though, nope. Which is fine. Even when the only user is myself, there's always more uses for my Reagents than there are Batches.
I'm a bit more direct in my approach. If you ask people, there's never anything satisfying to them. Still, besides Poison, I've only managed to fill the Monk hands with Elixirs of Life (and we really love to play together as the Monk becomes then a healer which is super handy and once even saved some dying NPCs). But yeah, I got the same experience: There's not much help you can provide in basic situations. It's better to react to situations and provide your fellow teamplayers with what they need during combat.
Secondly, I appear to be a bigger fan of Elixirs than you are, and definitely a bigger fan of Mutagens. You've stated that you don't bother with Mutagens, for example, until 11th level. I can't even imagine what playing my Alchemist would be like without Quicksilver, and I've used most other Mutagens at one time or another in Society play. Mostly Cognitive and Silvertongue though... those have come up a lot.
I've recently started to keep a spot for Quick Alchemy, that I often use for Mutagens. But it's more because I haven't other better opportunities than because I really like them.
At level 11, I think the skill bonuses get really high with a duration you can use. But before... it's hard to use.I don't use Quicksilver. I find the actions to take it are not worth the bonus. And then you have to deal with the hit point loss (I'm, surprisingly, very often the medic of my parties despite being just Trained in Medicine, so I avoid dealing with HP loss too much).
You asserted that a trident strike was simple better than a perpetual bomb strike without additives... so that's the numbers that I ran. It's true that I did count splash damage to secondary targets as equivalent to primary damage, but I also didn't include the splash damage on miss on the one side, or the crit on the other (mostly because it makes the math quite a lot more complicated to run by hand).
If you are not already familiar with Citricking's tool, you should really get used to it. The learning curve is not that steep and after that you really model whatever you want with ease. The graphs I made took me ten minutes to do despite the absolute complexity of the attack sequences we are comparing. Doing with a pen and paper would take ages.
I'm also hearing that you're heavily focused in on effectiveness prior to (or at least no later than) level 10.
I really don't think I'm that focused on early levels. Most people don't care about level 15+ abilities as they are used so rarely they don't matter. And when you speak of a build that is getting online at level 9 a lot of people are screaming that its way to late for them. Your Barbarian build is definitely a late game build.
If you are not already familiar with Citricking's tool, you should really get used to it. The learning curve is not that steep and after that you really model whatever you want with ease. The graphs I made took me ten minutes to do despite the absolute complexity of the attack sequences we are comparing. Doing with a pen and paper would take ages.
Yeah... my problem is that the stuff that comes out of that is *very* white-room. You're literally boiling everything down to a single number. I'm not going to pretend that that's not useful (it is) but it makes it notably harder to consider other aspects (like, say, "how does this compare once you start getting people into the blast radius?") or notice other important implications (like, how much of the damage of a perpetual bomb is in the splash damage, and, by extension, how little it cares about either missing or critting).
Prior to working through the math on it, for example, I'd always thought of the splash damage as this little nice-to-have on top of things that would maybe sort of matter if you were up against a vulnerability you could trigger, but it's actually a pretty hefty chunk of the total overall damage... which means that, if you can get backfire mantles (again, thank you SuperBidi) for everyone, then the splash area expansions you get at 10 and 13 are a really big deal... and adding friendlies to the battlefield who can't get appropriate resistance can reduce your effectiveness significantly. It also makes high-MAP bomb strikes (if you can find ways to throw them) worth more than you might expect, because you can deal out semi-decent damage on anything better than a crit-fail. That's the sort of stuff I wouldn't ever have noticed using Citricking's tool... and finding out stuff like that is a lot of the reason I run these analyses.
I don't use Quicksilver. I find the actions to take it are not worth the bonus. And then you have to deal with the hit point loss (I'm, surprisingly, very often the medic of my parties despite being just Trained in Medicine, so I avoid dealing with HP loss too much).
My Alchemist's version of "Weapons Out" is to have a flask of Mutagen in hand. That way, it's one Action at the start of the fight and done. As for the HP loss... Yeah, it can be annoying, but it's manageable. My Bomber is a Hillock Halfling... They may be the best there is at healing up between fights. But if you take Revivifying Mutagen (mostly for the fantastic ability to end a Mutagen early) and can spare a couple of Batches for an Elixir of Life or four, it's fairly trivial. (I generally don't bother because a 10 minute Treat Wounds is almost guaranteed to fix my Bomber up.)
On the topic of Citricking's tool: I'm not a fan, because it is perhaps the epitome of White Room mathematics. The math behind it is based on an infinite number of rounds per level spent performing the combat routine being performed, and the thing is, it's never going to work out that way. If my Bomber makes 20 Strikes against an at-level high AC opponent, he is never going to evenly Critical Miss once, miss 8 times, hit 10 times and Critical Hit once. The game is streakier than that.
I find it much more interesting to look at what happens when you actually hit. A simple hit (on a first Strike) is usually the most common at 50% of the possible outcomes.
Please, guys, could we avoid calling Math "white-room"?
The model we build our math on can be white-roomy, but the math itself is just telling us what we should expect by taking luck aside.
I agree that nominal situations are hard to define, but PF2 is strongly supported by a mathematical model. As a matter of fact, 70% of monsters have high AC. So comparing damage against high AC is not that white-roomy.
And Citricking's tool allows you to play with numbers (monster's ones, or yours) so it gives in general a lot more information than what you could get by hand (well, you can get them by hand but it takes ages).
I'm fine if you tell me that you don't want to use the tool. But I don't think there's much of a drawback in using it once you know how it works.
My Alchemist's version of "Weapons Out" is to have a flask of Mutagen in hand.
And mine is to have an Elixir of Life in hand. That's why I say it costs actions, either directly (by drinking it) or indirectly by adding actions to my uses of Elixirs of Life. So, overall, it's between 1 and 2 actions to use it. That's not negligible, especially because you have to drink it during the first round, which is the most action intensive round of the fight.
Please, guys, could we avoid calling Math "white-room"?
The model we build our math on can be white-roomy, but the math itself is just telling us what we should expect by taking luck aside.I agree that nominal situations are hard to define, but PF2 is strongly supported by a mathematical model. As a matter of fact, 70% of monsters have high AC. So comparing damage against high AC is not that white-roomy.
And Citricking's tool allows you to play with numbers (monster's ones, or yours) so it gives in general a lot more information than what you could get by hand (well, you can get them by hand but it takes ages).
I'm fine if you tell me that you don't want to use the tool. But I don't think there's much of a drawback in using it once you know how it works.My Alchemist's version of "Weapons Out" is to have a flask of Mutagen in hand.And mine is to have an Elixir of Life in hand. That's why I say it costs actions, either directly (by drinking it) or indirectly by adding actions to my uses of Elixirs of Life. So, overall, it's between 1 and 2 actions to use it. That's not negligible, especially because you have to drink it during the first round, which is the most action intensive round of the fight.
I don't know. It is white room. There are so many variables.
When I was tracking damage, even something like initiative could decide who did the most damage. If you went first or higher in the order, you got to hit the creature and kill it before the other PCs even had a chance to act. So your damage appeared higher over the course of battles by virtue of winning initiative more often.
Then you have critical hits and critical failed saves. Then different types of spells. Then ranged versus melee which can affect number of actions you can dedicate to attacking, then abilities like Hunt Prey which action tax the ranger to do their damage. It can also come down what a creature's resistance is too and what type of runes you have.
A lot of variables. Ctricking's tool gives you white room math against a particular AC without many of the variables you deal with in game.