Druid and the bard are top tier in our group.That is not what we are discussing. We aren't comparing Clerics to Druids, just Witches to Clerics.
Cleric is considered reasonably powerful, but boring.Becuase you are doing it wrong. You are seeing the uber healing path to build Clerics and have come to conclusion that that is the best way to build them. Then you have found that in a lot of situations healing isn't that useful and can be done out of combat.
Do your Clerics differently. They can get reasonably offensive focus spells. They can cast offensively with Calm Emotions. They have more options.
I have one guy who plays witches. It's his preferred healer.Yes part time healers are good enough for a lot of situations. So you might as well take something with other options, I'm a hundred percent with you there. In a lot of groups the Rogue or the Monk is the healer as they have free hands and can afford the skill feats to take Battle Medicine.
We built plenty of clerics a variety of ways early on. They aren't that fun for our group. We stopped the uber healing focus very early on once we saw it was overkill. Clerics have a lot of boring feats very focused on undead or outsiders. They aren't that interesting to us to make. Only a handful of domains have good powers and often just one good power.
Even Channel Smite we tried and we felt why not play a magus over a channel smite cleric.
Cleric isn't a very fun or interesting class with all the options available.
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Familiars are only as useless as you choose for them to be.Or how much the GM requires them to be.
All of those things listed are purely in the realm of GM fiat to allow or deny without any rules citations available to sway their opinion on the matter.
Yeah, this. The game has built the familiar as an ability/item and not a creature that actively does anything: almost everything Ravingdork lists/mentions just isn't anything that the familiar feature explicitly allows. Minions are presented as drones not an extra PC as something like Act Together is required for separate exploration activities.
Now the ones that do work, like triggering traps and being an emergency food supply, just aren't active uses: I could as easily eat a monster we killed as I could toss a dead goblin [or a 1st level summons] on a trap. So while you a DM COULD allow a familiar to do a great deal the actual game doesn't give you, he could do the same with just about anything in the game with issues. I could just as easily say that Strikes can hit objects but that doesn't alter how the actual game runs.
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Yeah familiars are great if your GM treats them as sapient creatures capable of holding a conversation, and far less good with an overly strict reading of RAW.
There are sapient familiars that have been published in 2nd Edition Paizo products, so we know that they exist, at least in the Lost Omens setting.
Just look at Griftyglim of Absalom, Omira’s raven familiar who perches in her shop's rafters to engage customers in idle banter, seeking information and rumors and pushing wares.
Artokus Kirran has a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.
Or any of the other familiars at Kitten's Slumber in the Grand Bazaar that interact with customers and help to maintain the place all the time.
In ALL past editions, they had intelligence scores. Point is, sapient familiars are clearly intended to exist and any GM claiming otherwise has either houseruled it for their own home setting, or are deliberately being obtuse.
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Yeah familiars are great if your GM treats them as sapient creatures capable of holding a conversation, and far less good with an overly strict reading of RAW.There are sapient familiars that have been published in 2nd Edition Paizo products, so we know that they exist, at least in the Lost Omens setting.
Just look at Griftyglim of Absalom, Omira’s raven familiar who perches in her shop's rafters to engage customers in idle banter, seeking information and rumors and pushing wares.
Artokus Kirran has a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.
Or any of the other familiars at Kitten's Slumber in the Grand Bazaar that interact with customers and help to maintain the place all the time.
In ALL past editions, they had intelligence scores. Point is, sapient familiars are clearly intended to exist and any GM claiming otherwise has either houseruled it for their own home setting, or are deliberately being obtuse.
The way you allow familiars to be used is strictly GM fiat. You don't have them using opposed rolls and allow them to do things way beyond what the system describes in the ruleset.
That can vary from table to table. Which is why you're one of the only people making this claim because your table or GM tends to give you a lot of latitude to do what you want where at a lot of tables your familiar would be making a lot of opposed rolls or not allowed to do certain things like burning down forts.
Those of us that want familiars to be better want clear rules that make them more useful in combat along with clearer rules for exploration and the like.
We stopped the uber healing focus very early on once we saw it was overkill. Clerics have a lot of boring feats very focused on undead or outsiders. They aren't that interesting to us to make. Only a handful of domains have good powers and often just one good power.
Even Channel Smite we tried and we felt why not play a magus over a channel smite cleric.
So the Cleric has some bad options. So do many other classes. 80% of the Wizard or Champion or Cleric feats/options are situation at best. They doesn't mean they are bad classes.
The domains Fire, Lightning, Luck, Pain, Sun, Earth, Time, Might, Zeal all have a least one widely applicable good focus spell. Then there are several domains that are good for specific builds. You get to pick your domain and can take another via feats. I would expect most clerics to get themselves 2 good focus spells.
We stopped the uber healing focus very early on once we saw it was overkill. Clerics have a lot of boring feats very focused on undead or outsiders. They aren't that interesting to us to make. Only a handful of domains have good powers and often just one good power.
Even Channel Smite we tried and we felt why not play a magus over a channel smite cleric.
So the Cleric has some bad options. So do many other classes. 80% of the Wizard or Champion or Cleric feats/options are situation at best. They doesn't mean they are bad classes.
The domains Fire, Lightning, Luck, Pain, Sun, Earth, Time, Might, Zeal all have a least one widely applicable good focus spell. Then there are several domains that are good for specific builds. You get to pick your domain and can take another via feats. I would expect most clerics to get themselves 2 good focus spells.
I didn't say the cleric was a bad class. It's just boring and doesn't stand out very well with other available options.
I don't think the Fervor witch is a bad build for the witch.
I do think the overall witch class is weak and could use some work, but the fervor witch healer/support is one of its few decent builds. It's not an optimizer build or anything. I can understand why a player would prefer a witch support/healer role over a cleric support healer role.
I've built a few clerics. They don't have many bells and whistles compared to other class. I've had more fun building oracle, sorcerer, and druid emergency healers and casters.
Yeah familiars are great if your GM treats them as sapient creatures capable of holding a conversation, and far less good with an overly strict reading of RAW.There are sapient familiars that have been published in 2nd Edition Paizo products, so we know that they exist, at least in the Lost Omens setting.
Just look at Griftyglim of Absalom, Omira’s raven familiar who perches in her shop's rafters to engage customers in idle banter, seeking information and rumors and pushing wares.
Artokus Kirran has a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.
Or any of the other familiars at Kitten's Slumber in the Grand Bazaar that interact with customers and help to maintain the place all the time.
In ALL past editions, they had intelligence scores. Point is, sapient familiars are clearly intended to exist and any GM claiming otherwise has either houseruled it for their own home setting, or are deliberately being obtuse.
The way you allow familiars to be used is strictly GM fiat. You don't have them using opposed rolls and allow them to do things way beyond what the system describes in the ruleset.
That can vary from table to table. Which is why you're one of the only people making this claim because your table or GM tends to give you a lot of latitude to do what you want where at a lot of tables your familiar would be making a lot of opposed rolls or not allowed to do certain things like burning down forts.
Those of us that want familiars to be better want clear rules that make them more useful in combat along with clearer rules for exploration and the like.
Eh I don't see the need for familiars to be useful in combat, personally. That's the role for animal companions. Familiars are fine if they can function as exploration tools. If we wanted to make familiars feel relevant in combat, then general rules and familiar abilities would be the wrong way to do it from a balance perspective. I'd rather use spells. Stuff like Final Sacrifice without the evil sacrifice.
You could turn use spells to charge your familiar up with enough magical energy to use it like a blast spell, or you could transform it into something closer to Summon spell. That actually would be a cool niche for hexes. You could create a cantrip that's somewhat more powerful than normal because of the increased risks of making your familiar a target.
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Eh I don't see the need for familiars to be useful in combat, personally. That's the role for animal companions. Familiars are fine if they can function as exploration tools. If we wanted to make familiars feel relevant in combat, then...Yeah familiars are great if your GM treats them as sapient creatures capable of holding a conversation, and far less good with an overly strict reading of RAW.There are sapient familiars that have been published in 2nd Edition Paizo products, so we know that they exist, at least in the Lost Omens setting.
Just look at Griftyglim of Absalom, Omira’s raven familiar who perches in her shop's rafters to engage customers in idle banter, seeking information and rumors and pushing wares.
Artokus Kirran has a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.
Or any of the other familiars at Kitten's Slumber in the Grand Bazaar that interact with customers and help to maintain the place all the time.
In ALL past editions, they had intelligence scores. Point is, sapient familiars are clearly intended to exist and any GM claiming otherwise has either houseruled it for their own home setting, or are deliberately being obtuse.
The way you allow familiars to be used is strictly GM fiat. You don't have them using opposed rolls and allow them to do things way beyond what the system describes in the ruleset.
That can vary from table to table. Which is why you're one of the only people making this claim because your table or GM tends to give you a lot of latitude to do what you want where at a lot of tables your familiar would be making a lot of opposed rolls or not allowed to do certain things like burning down forts.
Those of us that want familiars to be better want clear rules that make them more useful in combat along with clearer rules for exploration and the like.
I'd like a major class feature to be useful in combat myself. Exploration and Downtime are variable by table as to how much is put into them and as a person that often GMs you're never really going to make an adventure fail because Exploration or Downtime didn't go well.
I handwave a lot of Exploration and Downtime or make some skills checks and be done with. It's a bookkeeping feature.Combat is the majority of rules focus. If a familiar is going to be part of a class's major abilities, it should be combat focused. Otherwise, it's a tack on role-play feature.
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Yeah familiars are great if your GM treats them as sapient creatures capable of holding a conversation, and far less good with an overly strict reading of RAW.There are sapient familiars that have been published in 2nd Edition Paizo products, so we know that they exist, at least in the Lost Omens setting.
Just look at Griftyglim of Absalom, Omira’s raven familiar who perches in her shop's rafters to engage customers in idle banter, seeking information and rumors and pushing wares.
Artokus Kirran has a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.
Or any of the other familiars at Kitten's Slumber in the Grand Bazaar that interact with customers and help to maintain the place all the time.
In ALL past editions, they had intelligence scores. Point is, sapient familiars are clearly intended to exist and any GM claiming otherwise has either houseruled it for their own home setting, or are deliberately being obtuse.
There is also a published familiar for an NPC that specifically isn't a minion and is an actual separate creature and not a class ability: what does any of this have to do with the actual rules for PC's? None that I can see. Now if you want to argue how they SHOULD be run, then fine but that just isn't how it is without DM fiat. The current rules just don't allow for all the things you mention: heck, I can't even point to a specific level of intelligence for them as they don't have stats and you can't point to what NPC's can do as any evidence about what a PC should be able to do because NPC's aren't constrained by PC rules.
Familiars are fine if they can function as exploration tools.
LOL. There are even LESS rules about what they can do in those modes. You are limited to either you or it doing things and nothing drops it's minion status of needing commanded constantly... I think they have MORE combat uses than exploration tools.
That can vary from table to table. Which is why you're one of the only people making this claim because your table or GM tends to give you a lot of latitude to do what you want
Well, to be fair, my GM allows a lot of latitude as well - at least on out of combat stuff. But I am aware that it is because the GM is being nice - not because the rules demand it.
I do find the familiar master ability that allows you to target spells from the familiar interesting for combat. I haven't built for it yet, but it seems like you could do some fun things with a familiar that acts as the starting point for a spell.
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I have brought this up quite a few times. The Witch is a very important class to me and the current state of it is one of my only problems with Pathfinder as a whole. I feel like I've given whole dissertations on the topic before, so here is the shortened version of that, again.
The Witch is a 3-slot caster who is built like a 4-slot caster. It has the HP and saves like the Sorcerer or Wizard, and only really gets two "things" outside of their spellcasting and other basic class stuff, the Improved Familiar and the Hex cantrip (and Phase Familiar, but that isn't actually a thing to do that adds to the party's capabilities, just a way to stop your familiar from dying as quickly).
Wizard gets 3 things, but also only two that really advance your party's progression very well, the Thesis and the Arcane School (And Drain Bonded Item but that ability seems to be making up for the limitations of the Wizard's 4th slot) Sorcerer also gets 2 things really, the Initial Bloodline Spell and the Blood Magic.
Meanwhile, other 3-slot casters have much better chassis, and more things that they get outside of their spellcasting. Druids get their Order's Focus spell, a level 1 feat, Shield Block, and Wild Empathy. Bards get Counter Performance, Inspire Courage, and a level 1 feat from their Muse. Cloistered Clerics kind of break this mold by only getting 2 things, Divine Font and the Domain Spell, but Divine Font is so insanely powerful that I think it can safely be counted as worth two abilities from the other classes.
Now, I don't want Witch to be a boring, alt-flavored Wizard with 4 spells per day, so the answer seems to be, improve their Chassis and give them more things to do/have as part of the core of the class.
To this end, I'd replace Phase Familiar with a Basic Lesson of their choice, not tied to their Patron (since the Witch is supposed to be flexible in their flavor). Turn Phase Familiar into a level 1 feat. Add a level 2 feat that lets them take a second Hex Cantrip (the Bard can do it, so why not the Witch?).
And since the Witch has 3-slot casting, give them a 3-slot casting body. 8 HP per level, and better saves. I am partial to Fortitude getting Expert at 3 and Master at 17. Reflexes get Expert at 7. Will Gets Master at 9.
And then, while most of the Hex cantrips are fine and, in fact really good, Wilding Word and Nudge Fate should probably be buffed and Shroud of Night should upgrade to advanced darkness at some point.
This would almost entirely bring Witch in line with the other 3-slot casters.
BUT, I also have a build for a 2-slot caster (which is actually my preferred version) that looks a bit more like the Psychic. Since we only have one example of such a caster, it's a lot harder for me to know if these ideas are as balanced, but I figure I'll throw them out here regardless.
2 Hex Cantrips right off the bat, one from your own patron and one other of your choice. Level 2 feat to take a 3rd one.
Basic Lesson right off the bat of course. Phase Familiar would be a level 1 feat.
Patrons would have granted spells beyond just the level 1 ones, similar to the Sorcerer Bloodline granted spells.
Each Patron would also give a Familiar unique ability that would be just a bit better than the normal familiar abilities. Winter would give your Familiar resistance to all cold damage and immunity to cold damage from your own spells, Curse would allow you to cast Evil Eye from your Familiar as if it was the one casting it, ect.
And then You'd get a free level 1 feat depending on your Patron's spell list. Cackle for Occult, Wortwitch for Primal, Counterspell for Arcane, and Phase Familiar for Divine. Neither Phase Familiar, nor Cackle would give an extra Focus Point when given in this manner, but the Witch would start with 2 regardless.
And then, the Witch would also have the enhanced chassis of the 3-slot casters like I laid out before.
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As a separate point, I am very curious if any of the Paizo team has ever addressed the general sense of discontent that the community has expressed for the Witch? I know that it is very rare that the developers address things like this, and I agree with that idea that they really probably shouldn't most of the time.
But I have seen them weigh in on balance issues before, so it isn't out of the ballpark that they could comment on this, but I haven't seen anything of the sort.
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while most of the Hex cantrips are fine and, in fact really good
It is positively baffling to me how anyone can look at hex cantrips and say most of them are fine, let alone "really good".
Cleric is typically considered top tier by optimizers
A lot of people in this discussion can be considered optimizers. My experience has been quite different past the first levels (Cleric is definitely the best low level caster).
The main issue of the Cleric is that the class basic abilities won't get you very far. You need Electric Arc like any Divine caster, and a Good aligned god to get the most of your spell list. But your god also needs to give you good spells, that get old quite fast unless you choose a god with 9 spells. And you need a good Focus spell, certainly through Psychic Dedication.
Once you have all of that you start having a solid character, but one can argue that it's not exactly "any Cleric" (and I don't even speak of Warpriest or Harming Font).
My experience with my Angelic Sorcerer in regards to Cleric is that Cleric is better before level 5 but at level 7+ it starts getting way behind and every level makes it worse compared to the Sorcerer.
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I would never argue that "any cleric" deserves to be called great. You do need to make specific build choices the same as with bow magus or thief rogues. Yes, this includes choosing a "strong" deity.
For focus spells, yes, your main choices will probably be from psychic or bard archetypes. Taking blessed one on a divine caster is overkill after all.
For deity, you don't actually need a good-aligned deity unless you plan to blast. Blasting, as always, is pretty awful with the way hp scales vs damage, but if all you want is an anti fiend/undead blast, holy cascade is deity agnostic and scales at 3d6 per level (which I think makes it stronger than all the aligned blasts anyway) though it costs 3gp per cast for the holy water.
If you're only choosing deity for aligned damage purposes, your best choices are FINDELADLARA (CG, allows N followers) and TSUKIYO (LG, allows N followers). Great for using aligned damage while being immune yourself, but they're not great for clerics because of mediocre spells granted. Maybe we'll get an evil equivalent eventually. Perfect for magi stealing divine lance.
And while I'll whole heartedly agree that divine sorc crushes the witch, I'll continue to disagree that anything beats cleric so far in the divine caster niche.
Cleric is typically considered top tier by optimizersA lot of people in this discussion can be considered optimizers. My experience has been quite different past the first levels (Cleric is definitely the best low level caster).
The relative value of things change a lot. More of my play experience is up to level 10 than after level 10. Spell slots are very important early, but really only your top level slots are important after a while as you can back fill with items.
At high level the cleric really doesn't need all the heals they have. That is unless your game has long adventuring days. Does your GM run 1-2 encounters per day or 6+ ?
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Blasting, as always, is pretty awful with the way hp scales vs damage,
My Sorcerer is always among the top damage dealers, easily on par with the most optimized martials. So I vastly disagree on that.
Does your GM run 1-2 encounters per day or 6+ ?
I've played Fall of Plaguestone, the Slithering, Night of the Grey Death, a lot of PFS, the first books of Age of Ashes and I've DMed Abomination Vaults. 6+-encounter adventuring days are such a rarity that I can't even remember one.
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I never could follow the anti blaster rhetoric. Seems fine to me.
the issue with blasters is two-fold, they just fall apart against severe solo bosses that they ap's love throwing at you, and two, they lack staying power; if you want blasting to be your game plan you will run out of relevant spell slots alarmingly quick and be forced to fall back on low-level utility and control spells which are precisely the sort of spells people who want blasters don't care to use.
I would never argue that "any cleric" deserves to be called great. You do need to make specific build choices the same as with bow magus or thief rogues. Yes, this includes choosing a "strong" deity.
For focus spells, yes, your main choices will probably be from psychic or bard archetypes. Taking blessed one on a divine caster is overkill after all.
For deity, you don't actually need a good-aligned deity unless you plan to blast. Blasting, as always, is pretty awful with the way hp scales vs damage, but if all you want is an anti fiend/undead blast, holy cascade is deity agnostic and scales at 3d6 per level (which I think makes it stronger than all the aligned blasts anyway) though it costs 3gp per cast for the holy water.
** spoiler omitted **
And while I'll whole heartedly agree that divine sorc crushes the witch, I'll continue to disagree that anything beats cleric so far in the divine caster niche.
I'm surprised you would take this stance.
I really like the Time and Cosmos oracle. Not a big fan of Divine sorcerers as the Divine spell list seems weakest to me in general play. But the Cosmos oracle with the physical damage resistance and the Time Oracle with the increased movement are pretty nice divine options. Their curses aren't so terrible you never want to use their cursebound spells.
The oracle has some fun builds and a few, "Damn that is good" abilities. I built a Cosmos divine build that uses a shield and you can really endure a lot of physical damage. That oracle focus spell Debilitating Dichotomy is pretty brutal as you level.
When I want to play a divine caster, I definitely look at the oracle.
Besides the oracle, I don't care for the divine spell list. I prefer primal healers. It's more fun to be a healer and blaster together. If I want to debuff, I prefer the Occult list with phantasmal killer, synesthesia, true target, with soothe if you just gotta heal someone. Soothe is a nice spell because it works on undead or someone with negative affinity since it is not positive energy healing.
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I never could follow the anti blaster rhetoric. Seems fine to me.the issue with blasters is two-fold, they just fall apart against severe solo bosses that they ap's love throwing at you, and two, they lack staying power; if you want blasting to be your game plan you will run out of relevant spell slots alarmingly quick and be forced to fall back on low-level utility and control spells which are precisely the sort of spells people who want blasters don't care to use.
There's this, but there's also an issue with scaling and the impact of the damage. You can throw out a big AoE blast and hit a group of enemies, but it does nothing to reduce the threat of those enemies and the amount of damage you do relative to their total hp pool goes down with level. The numbers when you're mowing down mooks look good, no doubt about that, but your overall impact on the fight is negligible compared to other options.
An enemy that fails a fireball takes a few d6 of damage and will continue to try and kill you. An enemy that fails a calm emotions is no longer capable of taking hostile action against you until hostile action is taken against it. Enemies trapped in a corner behind a wall of stone or force are stuck beating on it until they punch through it. Two of these cut enemy offense, turning severe or extreme encounters into moderates that can be cleared without further resource expenditure. The other does damage. And this is an issue with most blasting spells. Even the ones with rider effects rarely have the impact that simply removing opponents does.
Now for damage scaling. This is pretty easy to look at. Average level 3 hp is 45 and a failed fireball will do 21 damage, a little less than 50% before any damage bonus. Average level 7 hp is 115 and a failed cone of cold will do 42 damage, about 37%. Level 9, 135. Chain lightning, 52, 39%. Level 11, 195. Eclipse burst, 64, 33%. Level 15, 275. Meteor swarm, 82, 30%. Eclipse burst has a blindness rider at least but the rest are just pathetic. Level-2 enemies can fail saves against top slot spells 2-3 times and keep on trucking if you're using blasts so why even bother?
I never could follow the anti blaster rhetoric. Seems fine to me.the issue with blasters is two-fold, they just fall apart against severe solo bosses that they ap's love throwing at you, and two, they lack staying power; if you want blasting to be your game plan you will run out of relevant spell slots alarmingly quick and be forced to fall back on low-level utility and control spells which are precisely the sort of spells people who want blasters don't care to use.There's this, but there's also an issue with scaling and the impact of the damage. You can throw out a big AoE blast and hit a group of enemies, but it does nothing to reduce the threat of those enemies and the amount of damage you do relative to their total hp pool goes down with level. The numbers when you're mowing down mooks look good, no doubt about that, but your overall impact on the fight is negligible compared to other options.
An enemy that fails a fireball takes a few d6 of damage and will continue to try and kill you. An enemy that fails a calm emotions is no longer capable of taking hostile action against you until hostile action is taken against it. Enemies trapped in a corner behind a wall of stone or force are stuck beating on it until they punch through it. Two of these cut enemy offense, turning severe or extreme encounters into moderates that can be cleared without further resource expenditure. The other does damage. And this is an issue with most blasting spells. Even the ones with rider effects rarely have the impact that simply removing opponents does.
Now for damage scaling. This is pretty easy to look at. Average level 3 hp is 45 and a failed fireball will do 21 damage, a little less than 50% before any damage bonus. Average level 7 hp is 115 and a failed cone of cold will do 42 damage, about 37%. Level 9, 135. Chain lightning, 52, 39%. Level 11, 195. Eclipse burst, 64, 33%. Level 15, 275. Meteor swarm, 82, 30%. Eclipse burst has a blindness rider at least but...
It depends on how you set up. If you're operating always from 30 feet easy melee range, then sure blasters look like they don't do much. This is a bad idea tactically, but I understand from reading these boards that a lot of GMs operate in this fashion.
My group uses blasting like you would in a real tactical situation. You hit them from range softening the target from several moves away, so the enemy is having to spend several rounds moving while taking damage. This makes blasting a highly effective tactic as by the time they reach you, they are softened enough for your martials to finish them fairly quickly eliminating threats.
I think the value of blasting comes down to how your GM allows you to set up just as ranged is based on standard starting encounter range. As a player I dictate to the GM encounter range not vice versa barring surprise or unforeseen circumstances. I've found many players passively allow the GM to start the encounter within a very short range not engaging in scouting or any type of intelligent tactical play using ranged superiority.
Thus I value blasting much higher than many on this forum. When you using blasting against multiple low level targets while invisible or in a superior mobility position like flying where they can't reach you, it's an easy group of kills for minimal resources and healing. You are untouchable and they die.
It can be boring for the party and I know most play with people they don't know so well who may not like sitting around while the magic blasters level an entire group, but I have the luxury of playing with a long time group of friends who don't mind playing in this fashion. They in fact encourage this type of play and use it themselves.
You can level a lot of enemies with waves of AoE by scouting and setting up a kill zone where the opponent is spending most of their actions to move to your martials, while taking heavy blasting damage. Then the martials mop up the leftovers. The encounter is over much faster than using a calm emotions while the martials kill them piecemeal.
I understand if your GM and group prefers to start from melee martial range for the fun of the players. I think most on here do that. We're probably one of the few groups that uses ranged superiority to our advantage and has players that even the martials patiently sit back while we wipe them out until the half-dead enemies reach them.
I would like to point out that the whole damage debate is a side track to the witch as a class.
The class was known for being the best debuff who could debuff an enemy seven ways from sunday to follow with a devastating removal (usually the sleep hex). Damage for the witch while nice, was never why people played the class.
The reason was always being able to evil eye saves then use sleep, or evil eye saves then evil eye AC then a curse to hammer things home. Sometimes you would get the defensive hexes, but damage was usually just an after thought. Exception being havocker and evoker witch both of which were regarded as poor because they lost hexes.
Now best debuff is Occult spell list caster of any kind, then the bard who has the occult spell list as well.
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I'm surprised you would take this stance.
I really like the Time and Cosmos oracle. Not a big fan of Divine sorcerers as the Divine spell list seems weakest to me in general play. But the Cosmos oracle with the physical damage resistance and the Time Oracle with the increased movement are pretty nice divine options. Their curses aren't so terrible you never want to use their cursebound spells.
The oracle has some fun builds and a few, "Damn that is good" abilities. I built a Cosmos divine build that uses a shield and you can really endure a lot of physical damage. That oracle focus spell Debilitating Dichotomy is pretty brutal as you level.
When I want to play a divine caster, I definitely look at the oracle.
Besides the oracle, I don't care for the divine spell list. I prefer primal healers. It's more fun to be a healer and blaster together. If I want to debuff, I prefer the Occult list with phantasmal killer, synesthesia, true target, with soothe if you just gotta heal someone. Soothe is a nice spell because it works on undead or someone with negative affinity since it is not positive energy healing.
Ultimately oracles end up as a worse version of a sorc with a better base list and crossblood heal. Fewer slots, smaller repertoire, several feat slots lost on divine access.
Nor do they match a cleric. They don't have cleric's bonus slots. They can't change up their spells like a prep caster. They need to spend feats on divine access twice or more just to match what a cleric gets for free.
They end up with the worst of both. Limited access to a list that functions best when you have all the spells available to prep. Trying to augment the list through feats instead of just starting with the superior list to begin with and getting further ahead with good feat choices.
Divine access puts them ahead of the divine witch just by virtue of the augmented spell list, but neither are good classes.
I'm surprised you would take this stance.
I really like the Time and Cosmos oracle. Not a big fan of Divine sorcerers as the Divine spell list seems weakest to me in general play. But the Cosmos oracle with the physical damage resistance and the Time Oracle with the increased movement are pretty nice divine options. Their curses aren't so terrible you never want to use their cursebound spells.
The oracle has some fun builds and a few, "Damn that is good" abilities. I built a Cosmos divine build that uses a shield and you can really endure a lot of physical damage. That oracle focus spell Debilitating Dichotomy is pretty brutal as you level.
When I want to play a divine caster, I definitely look at the oracle.
Besides the oracle, I don't care for the divine spell list. I prefer primal healers. It's more fun to be a healer and blaster together. If I want to debuff, I prefer the Occult list with phantasmal killer, synesthesia, true target, with soothe if you just gotta heal someone. Soothe is a nice spell because it works on undead or someone with negative affinity since it is not positive energy healing.
Ultimately oracles end up as a worse version of a sorc with a better base list and crossblood heal. Fewer slots, smaller repertoire, several feat slots lost on divine access.
Nor do they match a cleric. They don't have cleric's bonus slots. They can't change up their spells like a prep caster. They need to spend feats on divine access twice or more just to match what a cleric gets for free.
They end up with the worst of both. Limited access to a list that functions best when you have all the spells available to prep. Trying to augment the list through feats instead of just starting with the superior list to begin with and getting further ahead with good feat choices.
Divine access puts them ahead of the divine witch just by virtue of the augmented spell list, but neither are good classes.
How often do you need to change your list? Are you changing it up often? I'm not finding a need to change the list too often. I'm not understanding what you're doing in a game with the cleric that requires the advantages you are highlighting.
If you could illustrate encounter examples of why this is necessary, I could understand it more. In play, the high value spells are so limited I can't imagine many situations where you need to change out too much. So it's better to have play a class with fun abilities.
Hence why my very first step to fixing the Witch being to remove pick-a-list.
Paizo has stated that they see the spell lists as being equivalent in power. Broadly speaking I agree (yes arcane is best). I don't see it as being part of the power budget of the Witch Class. Thematically the different lists make sense.
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Personally I think that the class that does pick a tradition the worst is Sorcerer because there are so many feats that require a specific tradition as a prerequisite.
Which actually isn't any worse than Champion that has feats with prerequisites of a specific tenet, or Bard that has feats dependent on Muse, or Druid that has feats dependent on Order.
But that is what gives pick a tradition the stigma of diluting the class - the Sorcerer and their large number of tradition locked feats.
The reason the Witch is a pick-a-list is that your patron could hypothetically be an angel, a fae, a dragon, or whatever all of whom would teach you different magic.
This is a thematic list since there's no reason a devil would teach you occult magic or an elemental would teach you arcane magic.
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I argued it should be Occult baseline then patrons offer spell list poaching opportunities to better emulate the PF1 witch. I loathe the concept of witches have zero personal power outside the patron anyway, and would love a patronless or patron-demphasized witch. Hexes and the weird spell list were my favorite parts.
I don't think there's sufficient textual evidence to show that gaining access to divine magic is inherently more difficult than any other tradition, only that the nature of divine magic (intangible and intuitive) lends itself to clerics and oracles by thematic synergy. Witches studying divine magic through the tutelage of a mysterious otherworldly patron makes no more or less sense than any other tradition.
Incidentally, I feel like most people agree that Arcane is the best spell list overall, so I'm not sure where the idea arrives that it gets shafted by the inherently three.
I think Occult and Primal are the best spell lists.
Any spell list that allows you to heal and do just about everything else allows for more party variation. With Occult and Primal casters, you can often stack two healers while having two or more martials without need for a focused healer in the group. Occult and Primal list together cover everything you need in the game.
Whereas one Arcane and one divine caster still leaves you with one healer. If that healer goes down, it can lead to a TPK.
Our games are pretty brutal in combat. If we had had one healer in the party, we probably die a lot given the difficulty level of the encounters.
I like a witch with variable spell lists because it allows more variation in builds. As a group that plays mostly with emergency healers focused on doing something else, we like being able to construct Primal or Occult casters that act as emergency healers within the group dynamic.
Arcane cannot heal. That makes party composition more limited if someone makes an Arcane caster.
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How often do you need to change your list? Are you changing it up often? I'm not finding a need to change the list too often. I'm not understanding what you're doing in a game with the cleric that requires the advantages you are highlighting.
If you could illustrate encounter examples of why this is necessary, I could understand it more. In play, the high value spells are so limited I can't imagine many situations where you need to change out too much. So it's better to have play a class with fun abilities.
Do you not normally spec into more focused setups when you have the advantage of foreknowledge? Dimensional anchors to prevent all the innate dimension doors and such from working, spell immunity to beat, or at least give a chance to beat, any troublesome magic (good for giving someone with an actual shot at not getting blown out by superior monster level or chain failing against massed casters), glyph of warding trap setups (easy way to store niche offense without impacting your actual loadout for the day or store hostile effects you resist or are immune to and just go for a big detonation), removing conditions at the start of the day so they don't affect combat later (not being blind, cursed, diseased, petrified, etc is pretty useful when it comes up), preparing raise dead the next day so you have a full party for combat later, battle forms when one of the martials is off on a cruise, to name a few. Bonus points for not being shackled to signature spells when it comes time to heighten stuff.
And that's ignoring the non-combat benefits like the eye spells, dream message and sending, rewind step, etc. Not sure how you afford to take any of that on something like an oracle.
It's very similar to druid too, but with 2-5 extra top slots for healing, better non-combat utility and the ability to steal a better combat spell or 2 via deity but weaker blasting outside of fiends and undead. No big loss there seeing as it can take 3 or 4 failed saves vs blasts to kill mooks assuming they fail every save. That's just an egregious waste of resources except when those resources were spent a week ago making glyphs. Unless you're killing off entire armies of level-4 fodder I suppose. Can't say that's anything I ever bothered with since you can probably just kill them without expending any resources at all even if it is technically an extreme encounter.
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Like others, I've probably written a dissertation on why I dislike the P2e Witch at this point. It's my biggest disappointment in the system, next to Alchemist.
I've homebrewed it for my table, with the quick and dirty being:
1. Remove pick-a-list. Witches are Occult prepared casters.
2. Phase Familiar becomes a level 1 feat rather than automatic (though its power budget could be seen as negligible), Witches get the equivalent of Basic Lesson at level 1, with the feat itself still being an option at level 2. Some lessons have been modified.
3. Patrons are redesigned like Cleric domains. They grant a Patron Skill, a Patron Skill Feat (mostly minor things like Terrain Expertise or Student of the Canon), and a bonus spell at each spell level matching their theme. The spells are largely chosen from other traditions. These spells can be cast in bonus spell slots that the witch gets for each spell level. For example, Baba Yaga gets chilling spray at 1st but also gets cast into time as a 6th level bonus spell to reflect the differences between it and the Winter Patron. The idea here is that the Patron brings a full suite of abilities that let them provide a thematic core for the Witch on top of Occult casting regardless of the bonus spells' tradition while still allowing for the Patron to be whatever the player wants (devil, dragon, fae, etc.). Spell slots are still 2 + bonus slot.
4. Hex Cantrips have been buffed and reworked where appropriate, with better heightened scaling on many. For example, evil eye is largely the same but adds scaling d4 mental damage if the target is affected by a misfortune effect while the hex is sustained.
5. More than one hex can be cast a turn.
6. A bunch of feats have been modified to be actually attractive over the higher level Lessons. I didn't give out the Lesson feats for free because I wanted that to be a thematic choice to expand spellcasting and hexes rather than automatic, with other feats offering strong alternatives.
7. "Order Explorer" feat allowing Witches to choose other hex cantrips from other Patrons as desired.
Because it's my table I don't officially homebrew familiar stuff, just make reasonable rulings to let people have fun with them. But familiars should be addressed officially.
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How often do you need to change your list? Are you changing it up often? I'm not finding a need to change the list too often. I'm not understanding what you're doing in a game with the cleric that requires the advantages you are highlighting.
If you could illustrate encounter examples of why this is necessary, I could understand it more. In play, the high value spells are so limited I can't imagine many situations where you need to change out too much. So it's better to have play a class with fun abilities.
Do you not normally spec into more focused setups when you have the advantage of foreknowledge? Dimensional anchors to prevent all the innate dimension doors and such from working, spell immunity to beat, or at least give a chance to beat, any troublesome magic (good for giving someone with an actual shot at not getting blown out by superior monster level or chain failing against massed casters), glyph of warding trap setups (easy way to store niche offense without impacting your actual loadout for the day or store hostile effects you resist or are immune to and just go for a big detonation), removing conditions at the start of the day so they don't affect combat later (not being blind, cursed, diseased, petrified, etc is pretty useful when it comes up), preparing raise dead the next day so you have a full party for combat later, battle forms when one of the martials is off on a cruise, to name a few. Bonus points for not being shackled to signature spells when it comes time to heighten stuff.
And that's ignoring the non-combat benefits like the eye spells, dream message and sending, rewind step, etc. Not sure how you afford to take any of that on something like an oracle.
It's very similar to druid too, but with 2-5 extra top slots for healing, better non-combat utility and the ability to steal a better combat spell or 2 via deity but weaker blasting outside of fiends and undead. No big loss there seeing as it can take 3 or 4 failed saves vs blasts to kill mooks...
The Divine list is not big enough for prep to be useful, you can just know all the important spells and bring scrolls for the utility spells you'll need once in your career. I've never met a situation where my Sorcerer or my Oracle needed a spell they weren't able to cast immediately.
First thing I'd want to see is adding more meat to Patrons. They're a huge thematic component of what makes a Witch a Witch, but are mechanically kinda vapid. For example, granting a trained skill isn't interesting when all of them just add whichever of the 4 skills is associated with your casting tradition and nothing else. Also end up meaningless under Witch Dedication since many Patrons end of being mechanically identical as a result.
Also, regarding Patron granted spells - these should be of a different tradition than the Patron grants! Paizo deliberately did this with Cleric Deities in 2e to avoid being a useless feature, but should consistently apply the same reasoning across any major spellcaster feature granting spells like this.
Need option to trade out the familiar increases for something else.
Speaking of Familiars, locking inanimate familiars behind a single rare Patron is pretty terrible. Numerous Witch archetypes in PF1 had some type of inanimate familiar, really need a more general option to do this.
Pick-a-List is fine and thematic. But what pick-a-list classes need is a meaty standout feature which differentiates themselves from casters of whatever tradition they end up picking. Summoners did this right with their Eidolons, but Bloodlines/Patrons/Hexes are a bit lacking to carry their own weight.
How often do you need to change your list? Are you changing it up often? I'm not finding a need to change the list too often. I'm not understanding what you're doing in a game with the cleric that requires the advantages you are highlighting.
If you could illustrate encounter examples of why this is necessary, I could understand it more. In play, the high value spells are so limited I can't imagine many situations where you need to change out too much. So it's better to have play a class with fun abilities.
Do you not normally spec into more focused setups when you have the advantage of foreknowledge? Dimensional anchors to prevent all the innate dimension doors and such from working, spell immunity to beat, or at least give a chance to beat, any troublesome magic (good for giving someone with an actual shot at not getting blown out by superior monster level or chain failing against massed casters), glyph of warding trap setups (easy way to store niche offense without impacting your actual loadout for the day or store hostile effects you resist or are immune to and just go for a big detonation), removing conditions at the start of the day so they don't affect combat later (not being blind, cursed, diseased, petrified, etc is pretty useful when it comes up), preparing raise dead the next day so you have a full party for combat later, battle forms when one of the martials is off on a cruise, to name a few. Bonus points for not being shackled to signature spells when it comes time to heighten stuff.
And that's ignoring the non-combat benefits like the eye spells, dream message and sending, rewind step, etc. Not sure how you afford to take any of that on something like an oracle.
It's very similar to druid too, but with 2-5 extra top slots for healing, better non-combat utility and the ability to steal a better combat spell or 2 via deity but weaker blasting outside of fiends and undead. No big loss there seeing as it can take 3 or 4 failed saves vs blasts to kill mooks...
No. We don't do much of that. We haven't needed to.
The main spells we've found you use to win:
1. Slow
2. Synesthesia
3. Wall spells when you need to limit a battlefield
4. Heal of some kind to mitigate extreme crit rounds
5. Haste can be nice. Make moving or a regular strike free
6. Blasting to lower hit point threshholds for martials to kill faster when moving from target to target.
7. True Target to land a killing round.
8. See Invis/Faerie Fire
9. Fly or some similar mobility spell if you don't have ranged firepower
Combats last about 3 to 10 rounds depending on number of targets.
Given 3 action rounds, you don't have much time to do much else but focus on high value spells and hammer fast and hard to win.
We don't die enough to need raise dead or resurrect.
We use Stealth for scouting. We consider Stealth a very high value skill and we always have a few characters that build it and almost everyone in the group gets it. Stealth has a low resource use cost, so it's worth building up and uses a high value stat like Dex.
We don't mind if casters want to use other spells for fun. We understand that sometimes you don't want to use the same boring tactics over and over again. So sometimes players experiment with other tactics for fun. The might enjoy switching out spells to experiment with, but it's not necessary or optimal most of the time.
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The building out the patrons to provide more abilities like other caster classes seems like a great idea, a real missed opportunity in the witch design space. The Patron feels like some thing you pick at first level and then it has meaningful impact on your character for the rest of your levels.
Even the Oracle mystery has a meaningful class impact as you level with choices and abilities. Same with the sorcerer. But the witch patron is pretty much forgotten after first level.
I seem to recall that people were very divided how much impact the patron should have in the class chassis. Unfortunately I almost wonder if those discussions couldn't have used a clearer distinction between game play and narrative impact; many people opposed to patron influence seemed to be most concerned with being able to play a witch who didn't know and never had to learn who their patron was. In some if these cases there were those who desired the oatron gave next to no influence over the char, mechanical or otherwise.
I don't know how it actually happened, but it seems like patrons could have been a lot more mechanically relevant especially knowing how flexible and generic the categories ended up going.
Those examples seem pretty weak. There's nothing wrong with pick-a-list, it just opens up more concepts for people to play, that's fine.
If the Witch could only cast Occult spells they'd still be bargain bin bards.
So actually answering the original question. While trying to be minimal. I'd like to build on the Witchiness of the class.
1) Make Cackle a class feature. Improve it in two ways.
a) Remove the limit from being a Hex spell (once per round and clashes with other Hex spells).
b) Make it not cost a focus point if it has beem more than a minute since you last Cackled.
2) Create a new feat that grant a hex cantrip from another Patron. But make it level 8 to reduce it's availabilty via an archetype.
To me that is enough to give the Witch an edge which removes its mathematically inferiority to other classes. It also doubles down on a fun roleplaying mechanic.
Other things they could do:
3) Create some sort of Living Hair feat that grants concealment.
4) Remove the non magical restriction from Murksight
5) Drop the level of Temporary Potions to level 4 not level 10. Maybe add a followup feat as well so a potion Witch makes sense instead of them becoming Alchemists instead.
6) Create some sort of ranged or reach Eldritch Nails feat - so it is actually useful.
7) Create a second Arcane Patron.
8) Make Familiars a bit more useful.
9) Maybe it is not in the PF2 concept of the class but where is my broom? Maybe a level 8+ feat???