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I hear quite frequently that the witch class leaves a lot to be desired. What pitfalls do you perceive in the class, and what fixes would you apply given the opportunity?
Personally, I would simply add several new witch-only familiar abilities that make it more combat viable, remove the 1 hex per round limitation, and call it a day.
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What pitfalls do you perceive in the class
The biggest problem with the Witch as I see it is it kind of is stuck with a worst of all worlds approach to magic, while lacking a headlining feature of their own that really stands out.
It has the spell slots of a druid or cleric, but the chassis and preparation system of a wizard. They also have probably the worst starting focus spell of any spellcaster. So an arcane witch can kind of feel like a wizard without as many spells and a primal witch can feel like a squishier druid with like 10% of the spells known without spending money.
Familiars also kind of suck, but I think it's best to just treat it as mostly a ribbon feature. Many of the Witches I've seen in actual play more or less treat their familiar as nonexistent outside a couple helpful master abilities and RP. Some of them even forget they have a familiar at all.
As for fixes... turn Phase Familiar into a level 1 feat and give them Basic Lesson for free instead so they can have an actual focus spell (while preserving Basic Lesson so they can grab a second if they want).
remove the 1 hex per round limitation
I'd prefer to change it to restricting the same hex to once per round. I can understand when they were writing it why they didn't want someone just casting Evil Eye three times in a round, but having your core options be mutually exclusive with each other is kinda lame.
I'd also like to see an option somewhere (a feat? A freebie at level 5 or 6?) to give Witches access to more hex cantrips. This would broaden a witch's options and help them lean into the idea that Hexes are their thing. It feels wrong to me that Bards get so many excellent class cantrip options, while Witches just get one and a lot of them are kind of mediocre tbh.
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In my opinion, the core of the Witch are the Hex cantrips and they are kind of meh. Being able to cast more of them per round wouldn't change things much as they have a built in 1-minute immunity so very quickly you'll end up with all creatures immuned.
Allowing to cast multiple (different) Hexes in a round wouldn't help much either as you need to Sustain them so you end up very quickly with a dearth of actions.
When I compare Evil Eye to Dirge of Doom, I feel that both effects are extremely similar but Dirge of Doom affects all enemies when Evil Eye affects only one. So what I'd do is to increase the number of targets of your Hexes by one every spell level. So by the time you get Dirge of Doom you can nearly affect all enemies. And your Sustain action would be really worth it.
You'd also start every fight with a general debuff, which feels like the aim of the class.
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What pitfalls do you perceive in the classThe biggest problem with the Witch as I see it is it kind of is stuck with a worst of all worlds approach to magic, while lacking a headlining feature of their own that really stands out.
It has the spell slots of a druid or cleric, but the chassis and preparation system of a wizard. They also have probably the worst starting focus spell of any spellcaster. So an arcane witch can kind of feel like a wizard without as many spells and a primal witch can feel like a squishier druid with like 10% of the spells known without spending money.
Familiars also kind of suck, but I think it's best to just treat it as mostly a ribbon feature. Many of the Witches I've seen in actual play more or less treat their familiar as nonexistent outside a couple helpful master abilities and RP. Some of them even forget they have a familiar at all.
As for fixes... turn Phase Familiar into a level 1 feat and give them Basic Lesson for free instead so they can have an actual focus spell (while preserving Basic Lesson so they can grab a second if they want).
remove the 1 hex per round limitationI'd prefer to change it to restricting the same hex to once per round. I can understand when they were writing it why they didn't want someone just casting Evil Eye three times in a round, but having your core options be mutually exclusive with each other is kinda lame.
I'd also like to see an option somewhere (a feat? A freebie at level 5 or 6?) to give Witches access to more hex cantrips. This would broaden a witch's options and help them lean into the idea that Hexes are their thing. It feels wrong to me that Bards get so many excellent class cantrip options, while Witches just get one and a lot of them are kind of mediocre tbh.
Much of what you mention here, including starting with a Basic Lesson and having Phase Familiar as a feat instead (and possibly also easier access to more hex cantrips, I can't quite remember), is done by the very popular* Pathfinder Infinite book, Witches+.
* - as far as PF2 3pp stuff is concerned anyway, it ain't outselling Paizo probably.
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As for fixes... turn Phase Familiar into a level 1 feat and give them Basic Lesson for free instead so they can have an actual focus spell (while preserving Basic Lesson so they can grab a second if they want).
That is the big one for me. Though getting a second Basic Lesson isn't something I would want to allow for the class, but leaving the feat as a feat allows it to be gotten from the Witch Archetype - which is pretty much the only reason to go for Witch Archetype.
And yes, the Hex Cantrips need looked at for balance. Since they are single target, they should be a bit more impact than the Bard cantrips that affect everyone on the battlefield. Like, Evil Eye could be Frightened 1 on a success, Frightened 2 on a fail, Frightened 2 and Stunned 1 on a critical fail. Shroud of Night could do Concealed on a success, and Hidden on a fail.
I would also bump their armor proficiency and HP up to the level of a normal 3-slot caster like Bard or Oracle.
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Above all, I'd turn the witch into a class with a strong focus on focus spells. Her focus cantrips are subpar on average and having a almost completely useless focus spell at level 1 doesn't help either.
Some ideas:
- Give them a free focus spell hex from the basic lesson list at first level. And/or cackle for free. Remove Phase Familiar or not. (I doubt anyone will notice either way.)
- Give her the improved refocus stuff for free. Probabaly also additional focus points for free (somewhat similar to the psychic).
- Buff ALL hex cantrips except buzzing bites. Make Evil Eye frighten an enemy even on a successful save but set the duration to instantaneous, for example. I think I have a rough draft of some homebrew buffs for those cantrips somewhere. I'm not sure it's balanced across the board but at least I didn't have too mich trouble coming up with buffs for all of them.
- Make additional hex cantrips available via feats so we're not stuck with a single one for all 20 levels.
- When you improve the hex cantrips, you probabaly want to improve the hex spells as well to make them not fall back too hard. Many of them are ok at best.
Maybe not necessarily all of the above, but some of these pretty much need to happen to make the witch closer in power to the other casters. Only downside: It might take the witch dangerously close to the design space of the psychic.
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Heavily lean into Focus Cantrips, all existing ones receiving substantial buffs and new ones being added that compete with or exceed bard cantrips, and eventually being able to have at *least* three hex cantrips available in a day, and even more if you switch out for the next day.
The main change I would make is to give basic lesson at least as a bonus feat (maybe the other lessons) and to create something like "Order Explorer" or "Multifarous Muse" to get a second focus cantrip.
Clearly everyone has given this a lot of thought. XD
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I actually kind of love witches, even though I am really frustrated at their slightly subpar mechanics. My love for witches may be rooted in their familiars, and I do think that cackle is a pretty great ability when combined with sustainable spells. I have added witch multiclass to two separate characters and played a full-Witch detective in Agents of Edgewatch for multiple levels. If we could get better hex cantrips, I think that I would have no complaints with the class.
I would also love the addition of an order explorer or Multifarious Muse feat to pick up other hex cantrips.
Still... I am sort of considering shifting my level one Witch in PFS into a psychic (and maybe just putting Witch multiclass on it) because the psychic's cantrips are so interesting.
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I feel like the thing that's more keeping me from liking the Witch more is "familiar abilities that can be combined for a neat trick." Like the Witch I really want to play has Baba Yaga as his patron and his familiar is based on the "Extraordinary Hat" from Fallen London, but if you just pick master abilities and either bat wings or spider legs for your hat, it's not that exciting.
But the thing about "you should be able to minor in another patron theme" like druids and bards do is that it bugs me that If I'm a Baba Yaga witch I can't get the Winter patron hex cantrip ever.
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I like some of the ideas given above, but would add:
Cackle becomes a built-in, free, class ability from level 1. It can be used once per round, but is not a hex so doesn't get in the way of you using more hexes.
Basically, I really dislike designs that seem intent on locking you down to "do a 2 action thing like cast a spell" + "do a 1 action busywork thing like sustain a hex/recharge spellstrike".
It results in you being made soooo immobile. Especially since once you stop sustaining a hex, it goes away while the target is immune to re-castings.
It could be resolved in different ways. Maybe enemies shouldn't become immune to hexes unless they critically save against them? Then you can safely drop a hex for one round, and re-cast it a round later.
I think having sustaining hexes be a ball and chain sucking out your mobility needs to change.
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Mostly covered in greater detail by others, but:
-Make basic lessons a level feature, and maybe other lessons to boot.
-Give access to more hex cantrips.
-Buff hex spells/cantrips.
-Clarify familiar scouting mechanics. The only way I can justify playing a witch is if the GM allows the respawning familiar to scout. We need some clearer rules around this.
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-Clarify familiar scouting mechanics. The only way I can justify playing a witch is if the GM allows the respawning familiar to scout. We need some clearer rules around this.
Yes, perhaps in combination with ways to upgrade your familiar's skills in at least certain areas (stealth...) to levels where they're competitive even against bosses.
-Clarify familiar scouting mechanics. The only way I can justify playing a witch is if the GM allows the respawning familiar to scout. We need some clearer rules around this.Yes, perhaps in combination with ways to upgrade your familiar's skills in at least certain areas (stealth...) to levels where they're competitive even against bosses.
Maybe, or even just clarify a little around how different creatures would react. The familiar respawning means the witch has a unique niche of it being pretty ok for their familiar to get eaten. Some predatory monsters might attack a familiar as soon as a human, but certain goes shouldn't particularly react to a raven in a tree, at least without a skill check to establish if they recognize it as a familiar.
I think the witch is mostly ok.
What I think needs improvement?
More balance between the hexes. Some are real nice like Fervor[/b] or [i]Winter or Mosquito. Some are lame like curse or fate.
Familiars aren't that good unless you play in a game with a GM that gives a lot of latitude to familiars throwing out the rules for familiars while doing so. Familiars are a very unattractive option because they have very little combat utility and don't provide much. If you completely forget you have a familiar, you lose no power. That's an overall game design issue and not just with the witch.
Better feats. The feats are undesirable. Very easy to find better archetype feats because the witch feats are built more for NPC witches than for PCs who need on demand powerful abilities for combat.
The witch is more popular than the wizard in my group. Their sorcerer-like ability to choose different spell lists allows for them fill more roles than the wizard. So they get more play because when you compare a healing witch compared to a cleric, the healing witch is more fun to play. The cleric is very bland and a competent, well-played group doesn't need the extra healing as they level up. So the hexes and other abilities are more useful than what the cleric gets.
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I think the witch is mostly ok.
In the sense it is playable yes. It is just objectively worse than equivalent classes.
What I think needs improvement?
More balance between the hexes. Some are real nice like Fervor[/b] or [i]Winter or Mosquito. Some are lame like curse or fate.
That is true of every class though. PF2 is balanced. But there is no question that half the feats for any class are poor and largely useless. So its not really a witch issue.
Familiars aren't that good unless you play in a game with a GM that gives a lot of latitude to familiars throwing out the rules for familiars while doing so. Familiars are a very unattractive option because they have very little combat utility and don't provide much. If you completely forget you have a familiar, you lose no power. That's an overall game design issue and not just with the witch.
Yes familairs are very minor by RAW. We have a lot of fun roleplaying with them, but mechanically they aren't good.
Better feats. The feats are undesirable. Very easy to find better archetype feats because the witch feats are built more for NPC witches than for PCs who need on demand powerful abilities for combat.
They are just too high a level for what they offer, or they should have been free as part of the class.
The witch is more popular than the wizard in my group. Their sorcerer-like ability to choose different spell lists allows for them fill more roles than the wizard.
Yes but they are worse in every case. There are better classes out there.
So they get more play because when you compare a healing witch compared to a cleric, the healing witch is more fun to play. The cleric is very bland and a competent, well-played group doesn't need the extra healing as they level up. So the hexes and other abilities are more useful than what the cleric gets.
Either your GM is just being soft on you, or you don't have enough Barbarians in your group, or you are playing with very few encounters per day.
If you settle for buff, heal and sit back in combat Clerics can get boring. But that is your fault as the Clerics and the Divine spell list are great if you try.
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Not even reading the other replies yet.
No Witch should EVER have to invest Feats in order to advance their Patron benefits by way of the Lesson chain of Feats, and frankly, the fact that they thought it was OK to do so should honestly ring as a blow against whoever was in charge of the final version of the Class, all offence meant. It was a terrible idea and move and this ALONE is what puts the Witch at the very bottom of the pile of the Spellcasting Classes. Even without "nerfing" something else, if you simply gave them Basic/Greater/Major Lesson benefits/Feats they would be a FAR better Class that you could actually reasonably build around and make flexible versus the current state which nearly half of the Class Feats granted to them are essentially absorbed by these practically mandatory "options" which SHOULD BY ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES be boilerplate standard provided for them by selecting a Patron.
I think the witch is mostly ok.In the sense it is playable yes. It is just objectively worse than equivalent classes.
What I think needs improvement?
More balance between the hexes. Some are real nice like Fervor[/b] or [i]Winter or Mosquito. Some are lame like curse or fate.
That is true of every class though. PF2 is balanced. But there is no question that half the feats for any class are poor and largely useless. So its not really a witch issue.
Familiars aren't that good unless you play in a game with a GM that gives a lot of latitude to familiars throwing out the rules for familiars while doing so. Familiars are a very unattractive option because they have very little combat utility and don't provide much. If you completely forget you have a familiar, you lose no power. That's an overall game design issue and not just with the witch.Yes familairs are very minor by RAW. We have a lot of fun roleplaying with them, but mechanically they aren't good.
Better feats. The feats are undesirable. Very easy to find better archetype feats because the witch feats are built more for NPC witches than for PCs who need on demand powerful abilities for combat.They are just too high a level for what they offer, or they should have been free as part of the class.
The witch is more popular than the wizard in my group. Their sorcerer-like ability to choose different spell lists allows for them fill more roles than the wizard.Yes but they are worse in every case. There are better classes out there.
So they get more play because when you compare a healing witch compared to a cleric, the healing witch is more fun to play. The cleric is very bland and a competent, well-played group doesn't need the extra healing as they level up. So the hexes and other abilities are more useful[/i]...
The heal-focused witch has the divine spell list as well and a one action damage boosting hex they can use while healing or buffing. They have a Cackle for sustaining a spell outside the normal action limitation. They can pull a focus point from their free familiar. The only advantage the cleric has is Divine Font. You don't need Divine Font heals past low level or with a group with more than one healer capable caster.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Divine Spell list can be taken by a witch with a one action damage boosting hex that can can boost any type of damage from the caster using electric arc to the archer firing a bow to the melee swinging his blade.
Toss in an occasional Life Boost Hex with a focus point for one action and as you get more slots, you can do quite a bit. From what we've seen the Divine Fervor Witch is one of the best healer support classes in the game. Fervor Hex is very nice and can be shifted around intelligently to boost damage for AOE damage or martial once per battle per character.
We've gotten superior support from the Fervor Witch than a Cleric. They aren't quite as on par with the druid for bringing the pain while healing, but the player who likes playing witches prefers the Fervor Witch over the druid for support healing. They've made a lot of very effective healer witches.
Witches get a lot of skills too due to intel focus.
I'm surprised more don't see the value in a healer fervor witch.
I hear quite frequently that the witch class leaves a lot to be desired. What pitfalls do you perceive in the class, and what fixes would you apply given the opportunity?
Personally, I would simply add several new witch-only familiar abilities that make it more combat viable, remove the 1 hex per round limitation, and call it a day.
Completely agree; the only thing I would add is switching out phase familiar for cackle.
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Not even reading the other replies yet.
No Witch should EVER have to invest Feats in order to advance their Patron benefits by way of the Lesson chain of Feats, and frankly, the fact that they thought it was OK to do so should honestly ring as a blow against whoever was in charge of the final version of the Class, all offence meant. It was a terrible idea and move and this ALONE is what puts the Witch at the very bottom of the pile of the Spellcasting Classes. Even without "nerfing" something else, if you simply gave them Basic/Greater/Major Lesson benefits/Feats they would be a FAR better Class that you could actually reasonably build around and make flexible versus the current state which nearly half of the Class Feats granted to them are essentially absorbed by these practically mandatory "options" which SHOULD BY ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES be boilerplate standard provided for them by selecting a Patron.
While I agree the lessons shouldn't cost feats, pretty much every caster needs to spend feats to advance their focus spells. I think psychics are the only exception. It doesn't feel fair to say someone made a horrible choice when they were just following the same basic design principles as every other class in the game in this regard.*
The only reason the witch should be an exception is because they wound up with such a weak chassis. If they had kept 4 spell slots a level they'd basically be the same as wizards, just limited to one thesis and trading arcane bond for a hex cantrip. Actually, giving them another spell slot each level would probably be the easiest fix.
*Which isn't to say I like that basic design principle; I just don't think it is fair to single out the witch designer for it. I think most casters should get their bloodline/mystery/domain/school/order spells progressing for free, and barbarians should get their instinct feats for free too. I think Paizo got a little over fixated on modularity and minimizing the number of features you couldn't trade out. Kind of like how they turned unburdened iron into a feat. They were so worried about some builds having a dead feature they turned a basic dwarf ability into a feat tax.
We've gotten superior support from the Fervor Witch than a Cleric. They aren't quite as on par with the druid for bringing the pain while healing,
Currently playing Fervor Witch through Age of Ashes. That has been my experience with it too. At level 3 our Cleric player rebuilt their character as a Redeemer Champion because they were having too much trouble figuring out what to do when no one needed healed yet. My Witch and the party's Druid could take care of the emergency in-combat healing as well as his character could, but had better options for contributing to the fight otherwise.
But that doesn't mean that I don't agree with Gortle that Witch is still a sub-par class.
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Completely agree; the only thing I would add is switching out phase familiar for cackle.I hear quite frequently that the witch class leaves a lot to be desired. What pitfalls do you perceive in the class, and what fixes would you apply given the opportunity?
Personally, I would simply add several new witch-only familiar abilities that make it more combat viable, remove the 1 hex per round limitation, and call it a day.
Trading Cackle for Phase Familiar would also be pretty good. I don't think creating new familiar abilities is the way to go, however. Familiars already have too many good options for abilities and you need to take the improved familiar feats to get enough of them early on.
You could make witch unique abilities even better, but I don't like the idea of cluttering up the already overly long familiar list with options only one class can take. I'd rather the witch just get more abilities without spending the feats.
Lessons incorporated into Patron progression. More Lessons that fit each Patron Theme. If the 1-action niche is to constraining, I don't see why not move on to 2-actions+Sustain.
Patron-related Familiars. Only Witches get these. They work similarly to Eidolons.
Adding Feats such as: Recall Knowledge+Sustain a Spell, something Patron-Related, either a demand or a cry for help with some RP-related penalty attached. Witch-Specific Pact Feats, similar to Thaumaturge. Maybe even allowing it to share the same pool with them.
All the Nail Feats are removed, they become a Witch Class Archetype, that trades off some spellcasting and their familiar for proficiencies that allow a melee Witch to function (whether its armor proficiency and less reliance on INT or using INT to augment the Nail attacks).
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The heal-focused witch has the divine spell list as well and a one action damage boosting hex they can use while healing or buffing. They have a Cackle for sustaining a spell outside the normal action limitation. They can pull a focus point from their free familiar. The only advantage the cleric has is Divine Font. You don't need Divine Font heals past low level or with a group with more than one healer capable caster.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Divine Spell list can be taken by a witch with a one action damage boosting hex that can can boost any type of damage from the caster using electric arc to the archer firing a bow to the melee swinging his blade.
Toss in an occasional Life Boost Hex with a focus point for one action and as you get more slots, you can do quite a bit. From what we've seen the Divine Fervor Witch is one of the best healer support classes in the game. Fervor Hex is very nice and can be shifted around intelligently to boost damage for AOE damage or martial once per battle per character.
Like I said it does work. Really all the Witch has is their hex cantrip and stoke the heart is OK. but when you look at the other options Cleric just crushes it. There are other ways of getting effective damage boosts. Like Bless, Heroism, Demoralise or Aid. The limit is really your actions more than anything else.
Clerics just get all their spells they don't have to find them. They probably have 3+ heals for free straight out so they can actually use all their slots and not reserve a few for heals. They can do 1 action heals. If they want a focus point heal it is one feat to pick up. They have 8 hit points not 6. They can get a few non divine spells to spice things up. They are using Wisdom not Intelligence.
On any reasonable mechanical analysis the Cleric is just better. Likewise for every other full caster.
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I'd give just about anything for an option to trade out the Familiar's assumed power budget for something else.
Currently playing Fervor Witch through Age of Ashes. That has been my experience with it too. At level 3 our Cleric player rebuilt their character as a Redeemer Champion because they were having too much trouble figuring out what to do when no one needed healed yet. My Witch and the party's Druid could take care of the emergency in-combat healing as well as his character could, but had better options for contributing to the fight otherwise.
But that doesn't mean that I don't agree with Gortle that Witch is still a sub-par class.
To be fair, that is a lot of healing characters, more than an average group will usually have. Emergency healing can be done by a lot of classes (all of them even, if you count battle medicine) and if you bring too much of it, having a cleric drops in value very fast. Unlike with damage, it's entirely possible for a party to have too much healing.
I'm surprised more don't see the value in a healer fervor witch.
Stoke the Heart is one of the few acceptable Hex cantrips. And it's still only acceptable. I'd personally rather have the Psychic's Glimpse Weakness (to avoid the unfair comparison to Inspire Courage).
As breithauptclan pointed out, the Witch is a decent emergency healer, but that's true for a lot of classes. Pretty much any non-arcane caster, for starters. Anyone with Battle Medicine, Lay on Hands, Soothing Mist, Searing Restoration... The list goes on. Life Boost is nice, but too slow for healing in an actual emergency. Other than to pick someone up from dying, I guess. And even then it leaves them prone (pun intended) to going back down to dying if hit by a stiff breeze.
As a big fan of int-based characters, having a non-wisdom healer is a nice change of pace. Wisdom is still the mechanically vastly superior ability score, though. Getting skills to trained is easy enough to accomplish via various other means. It's much harder to improve your perception and will saves.
Then there's spells known. A 20th level Cleric who never sat down to learn an additional spell knows about 220 spells (give or take, depending on their deity). And this number grows frequently with new books being released. The Witch in the same situation has 44 (plus maybe a few more from lessons). Even if we assume that half of the divine spells are useless, the cleric is still ahead. By over 100%.
Come to think of it, I should have added "3 spells known per level instead of one." to my suggested Witch improvements. And Wizards need the same treatment, of course.
So anyway, even if Fervor is one of the better Witch option, it's still only barely standing out of a very sub-par pool of choices. Given the opportunity, I'd rather play nearly any other caster, even more so when I'm looking for a healer. All this from a purely mechanical point of view, of course.
I'm with Deriven on that. Not that Cleric is a bad class, but the specialization on healing is just too big for the need once you go after the first few levels. I've seen Clerics twiddling their thumbs or using cantrips far beyond their due date too often to know that the class lacks some easily usable ability when the party is still at full hp. And even if you can cast spells from your spell slots, you don't have much of them so it's hard to start with a good spell.
I don't find the Witch good either, but I can understand why someone would prefer a Fervor Witch over a Cloistered Cleric in a party with multiple emergency healers (the best combination of healing in my opinion).
Anyone with Battle Medicine, Lay on Hands, Soothing Mist, Searing Restoration...
That's just not true. When you need emergency healing, you need a lot of hit points suddenly. The only acceptable forms of emergency healing are Heal, double potions/Elixir (hard to pull out due to action economy issues) and Double Battle Medicine (thanks to Medic Dedication). Soothe kind of works if you are lucky on the dice roll or if it's not that much of an emergency. Double Lay on Hands or Searing Restoration work too but they are rather uncommon (and resource hungry).
But overall, you can't just take Battle Medicine and expect to save the day. Being an emergency healer is opened to few classes by default (Primal and Divine casters mostly) and asks for a serious Dedication on the other classes.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That's just not true. When you need emergency healing, you need a lot of hit points suddenly. The only acceptable forms of emergency healing are Heal, double potions/Elixir (hard to pull out due to action economy issues) and Double Battle Medicine (thanks to Medic Dedication). Soothe kind of works if you are lucky on the dice roll or if it's not that much of an emergency. Double Lay on Hands or Searing Restoration work too but they are rather uncommon (and resource hungry).
But overall, you can't just take Battle Medicine and expect to save the day. Being an emergency healer is opened to few classes by default (Primal and Divine casters mostly) and asks for a serious Dedication on the other classes.
Depends a bit on how exactly you define "emergency" and how the situation looks like, I guess. Heal is of course by far the best option in an emergency (until the emergency becomes so dire that Breath of Life becomes the best option, I guess).
But even if you include only classes with access to heal in the comparison, Witch is still not outstanding in any way. Life Boost is even less impactful than Battle Medicine and other than spell slots it's the only healing option the class got. I'd even say a druid is more useful since he can at least try to interpose between the endangered ally and the enemies thanks to superior armor proficiency and HP.
The heal-focused witch has the divine spell list as well and a one action damage boosting hex they can use while healing or buffing. They have a Cackle for sustaining a spell outside the normal action limitation. They can pull a focus point from their free familiar. The only advantage the cleric has is Divine Font. You don't need Divine Font heals past low level or with a group with more than one healer capable caster.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Divine Spell list can be taken by a witch with a one action damage boosting hex that can can boost any type of damage from the caster using electric arc to the archer firing a bow to the melee swinging his blade.
Toss in an occasional Life Boost Hex with a focus point for one action and as you get more slots, you can do quite a bit. From what we've seen the Divine Fervor Witch is one of the best healer support classes in the game. Fervor Hex is very nice and can be shifted around intelligently to boost damage for AOE damage or martial once per battle per character.
Like I said it does work. Really all the Witch has is their hex cantrip and stoke the heart is OK. but when you look at the other options Cleric just crushes it. There are other ways of getting effective damage boosts. Like Bless, Heroism, Demoralise or Aid. The limit is really your actions more than anything else.
Clerics just get all their spells they don't have to find them. They probably have 3+ heals for free straight out so they can actually use all their slots and not reserve a few for heals. They can do 1 action heals. If they want a focus point heal it is one feat to pick up. They have 8 hit points not 6. They can get a few non divine spells to spice things up. They are using Wisdom not Intelligence.
On any reasonable mechanical analysis the Cleric is just better. Likewise for every other full caster.
We have not found the cleric to be more useful in play. I think a mechanical analysis can show for a variety of reasons a witch is on par or better in quite a few circumstances compared to a cleric in the healer/support role. But it's not like that is setting the bar very high as clerics are a super boring class no one plays as a main character in our campaigns any more due to the boring feats and overall limited and boring feel of the class.
Also the cleric doesn't get high value high level caster feats like Effortless Concentration. At least a high level Divine Witch can summon some cool outsiders and sustain them without wasting an action leading to better action economy.
I'm not looking to claim the witch doesn't need to be reworked some as I think it does. Very few people want to play a witch to be a healer. It's really the only somewhat fun and effective build we've found just because the cleric is so boring and some don't like the druid, bard, or sorcerer.
Curse witch generally sucks. Nearly every other witch sucks. Thus the witch ends up with one somewhat fun and effective build as a healer role. That's it.
When a class has one decent role they play that isn't even really the best, it could use a rework.
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I'm with Deriven on that. Not that Cleric is a bad class, but the specialization on healing is just too big for the need once you go after the first few levels. I've seen Clerics twiddling their thumbs or using cantrips far beyond their due date too often to know that the class lacks some easily usable ability when the party is still at full hp. And even if you can cast spells from your spell slots, you don't have much of them so it's hard to start with a good spell.
Then your problem is the way you are building your Cleric. You don't have to invest any feats in healing features as a Cleric - if what you get base is enough don't do any more. The bonuses you can get for healing are options. Don't take them if you don't really want them.
Yes I've seen Clerics that have over invested in healing and have screwed up the basics by not having a resonable attack options. Take a bow, an actual attack cantrip, work on a Charisma skill that is useful in combat.
There is nothing wrong with Bless as a spell. It is almost always useful ( a Bard can diversify if you are clashing). That is a first level spell you shouldn't run out of. Wands and scrolls are cheap.
If you are finding yourself without options as a Cleric, then it is a failure of your design. You are stuck in a mindset that belongs in another edition.
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I'm with Deriven on that. Not that Cleric is a bad class, but the specialization on healing is just too big for the need once you go after the first few levels. I've seen Clerics twiddling their thumbs or using cantrips far beyond their due date too often to know that the class lacks some easily usable ability when the party is still at full hp. And even if you can cast spells from your spell slots, you don't have much of them so it's hard to start with a good spell.Then your problem is the way you are building your Cleric. You don't have to invest any feats in healing features as a Cleric - if what you get base is enough don't do any more. The bonuses you can get for healing are options. Don't take them if you don't really want them.
Yes I've seen Clerics that have over invested in healing and have screwed up the basics by not having a resonable attack options. Take a bow, an actual attack cantrip, work on a Charisma skill that is useful in combat.
There is nothing wrong with Bless as a spell. It is almost always useful ( a Bard can diversify if you are clashing). That is a first level spell you shouldn't run out of. Wands and scrolls are cheap.
If you are finding yourself without options as a Cleric, then it is a failure of your design. You are stuck in a mindset that belongs in another edition.
My wife plays a sarenrae cleric and she's rarely finding herself defaulting to a cantrip; she takes advantage of all the free max heals and preps blasts and support spells instead of more heals and blows prople up when she doesn’t need to heal. She consistently contributing to the battle both with clutch healing and with pressing offensive advantage, so I cant really understand all these "cleric often sit twiddling their thmubs if there's no one to heal" people unless they are just not playing correctly.
Even in pf 1e, the cleric was at it's best supporting with spell and mixing it up in combat, although the 1e cleric did this with Righteous Might and attacking/AoO spammingbor summoning while the 2e cleric is not so martially inclined and instead relies more on spells. There was never a time in pf where it was best, or even good, to hyperfocus on healing. I've noticed that people really underestimate the divine list; the core spell list is pretty restrictive, but SoM and other released added a lot of nice additions that patched a lot of holes
an actual attack cantrip
Which cantrip is that? Divine Lance - that only works sometimes? Disrupt Undead that works even less often? Or Daze that does miserable damage?
There is nothing wrong with Bless as a spell. It is almost always useful
It has terrible range. You have to be in the front line adjacent to the brawlers in order to have the effect available on the people who need it when it is actually relevant. By the time you can get the range high enough to be useful, the battle is in mop-up stage.
Assuming that you run the spell as an aura and can move it around.
an actual attack cantripWhich cantrip is that? Divine Lance - that only works sometimes? Disrupt Undead that works even less often? Or Daze that does miserable damage?
Daze is reasonable versus one or two opponents, especially if you are Bon Motting. Forbidding Ward is good.
But just take Electric Arc. It is not hard, one 1st level human ancestry feat.There is nothing wrong with Bless as a spell. It is almost always usefulIt has terrible range. You have to be in the front line adjacent to the brawlers in order to have the effect available on the people who need it when it is actually relevant. By the time you can get the range high enough to be useful, the battle is in mop-up stage.
Assuming that you run the spell as an aura and can move it around.
Now you are being paranoid. You are a Cleric with 8 hitpoints per level, why are you thinking like an old edition Wizard with 4? You don't have to be point, but there is nothing wrong with being close. Heck you might even need to use a Heal. Fixing up your armour is easy enough.
Sustaining Bless once is probably enough.
Daze is reasonable versus one or two opponents, especially if you are Bon Motting. Forbidding Ward is good.
Not entirely sure what you mean by reasonable against one or two opponents. There are one or two enemies in the monster manual that Daze is effective against? I can certainly believe that. Daze is reasonable if you are only fighting one or two enemies at a time? That still doesn't get around the fact that Daze doesn't do much damage. You are effectively crit-fishing for the stun effect.
Forbidding Ward is not terrible, but it comes with an action cost to sustain in addition to the cost to cast. It only affects one target. And the bonus is not great.
But just take Electric Arc. It is not hard, one 1st level human ancestry feat.
So... the only good way to play a Cleric is to be Human and not use the Divine spell list. Just eat the hit to your spell attack bonus and save DC and use an off-tradition cantrip as part of your standard combat routine.
Though if you want to go this route, you should use a Spellheart instead. At least then you can use your full Divine tradition attack bonus and save DC with the cantrip that you get. And it is easier to change out which cantrip you have available.
But that doesn't do anything to answer for the complaint that the Divine list isn't good for combat - that there isn't much in the Cleric class itself to do when not healing.
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But ancestral cantrips improve with spellcasting expertise, just like divine ones.
I will admit that I multiclassed Witch onto my Ancestral Oracle in order to get a decent attack cantrip. Well, that and the familiar. Because I have a thing for familiars.
I really want to see more divine attack cantrips. We finally got Haunting Hymn but it only increases in damage every other level which made me so sad.
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Cleric is typically considered top tier by optimizers, together with the bard.
1) Better proficiencies and hp
2) More slots because of font and (optional) channel succor
3) RAW access to uncommon spells depending on deity
3a) or filling holes in coverage
4) WIS key stat allowing dex/con/wis/cha
4a) high cha opening up bard and/or swashbuckler dedication
4b) high cha enables cha skill actions
5) full access to the spell list
5a) the good downtime/non-combat spells don't conflict with knowing the combat spells
5b) not spending money learning spells means getting math items on time or faster
6) cast down doesn't require using font slots which turns lower level slots into easy knockdowns
There are more I'm sure, but that should be more than enough to bury the divine witch since they have nothing but fervor and a 16th level feat going for it which isn't nearly enough to overcome the above.
So... the only good way to play a Cleric is to be Human and not use the Divine spell list
There's really no mechanical reason to play anything other than human/half-elf/aasimar in this edition (maybe the psychic rhinos but rare lol). Especially on casters who need electric arc to function passably and really like having a first level feat. Even if innate spells didn't scale with your best magic proficiency, adaptive cantrip straight up adds the spell to your tradition.
But that doesn't do anything to answer for the complaint that the Divine list isn't good for combat - that there isn't much in the Cleric class itself to do when not healing.
Magic weapon, calm emotions, roaring applause, silence, fear, harm KDs, the usual buffing. Plus whatever your diety gets you be it earlier blasting, walls of force or whatever. Even bless and running in is good because it means you're actually getting some value out of your hp if you get targeted while buffing your allies. The burst healing allowing you to ignore strategy and tactics to some extent is the cherry on top.
Is it better when you supplement your class with good build choices? Obviously. Electric arc is basically required and an arcane or occult dedication or adaptive adept to use a staff for illusory object is great fun.
But ancestral cantrips improve with spellcasting expertise, just like divine ones.
Yes, but you are using your Charisma bonus instead of Wisdom.
You all seem to have VERY different experiences with familiars than I. I positively love them.
It's true their abilities were reduced in this edition, particularly in encounters. Even so, my familiars have successfully acted as messengers, scouts, spies, saboteurs, trackers, night watch, shoppers, and a variety of other useful roles.
My wizard's bird familiar (with touch telepathy) would make use of my comprehend languages spell to eavesdrop on people's conversations, then report back to me what they heard simply by landing on my shoulder.
My cat familiar would trail suspects and perform stake outs while my witch rested for the night. When morning came, she would grant it speech so that it could tell her about the suspect's lair and/or plans.
My sorcerer's mouse familiar would sneak into the enemy camp at night and wittle the hours away nibbling on bow strings, backpack straps, belts, ropes, and tack in preparation for the party's pre-dawn ambush.
In other games I've used my familiar to...
...case a joint.
...spy on enemy operations.
...follow suspects.
...keep watch and raise an alarm if need be.
...guard the prisoners.
...trigger potential traps (they hate this; works best with witch).
...keep me from starving (for better or worse, they never look at you the same way thereafter; and quite frankly, neither does the party).
...start fires (typically by knocking a torch or lantern over).
...distract the guards (more difficult than it sounds).
Familiars are only as useless as you choose for them to be.
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I'd give just about anything for an option to trade out the Familiar's assumed power budget for something else.
A weapon proficiency?
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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 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.
I just want to be able to make a familiar feel useful when that familiar mostly stays on my head because it is a hat.
So far I've got "Master Abilities" and "Partner in Crime to help me do magic tricks."
Cleric is typically considered top tier by optimizers, together with the bard.
1) Better proficiencies and hp
2) More slots because of font and (optional) channel succor
3) RAW access to uncommon spells depending on deity
3a) or filling holes in coverage
4) WIS key stat allowing dex/con/wis/cha
4a) high cha opening up bard and/or swashbuckler dedication
4b) high cha enables cha skill actions
5) full access to the spell list
5a) the good downtime/non-combat spells don't conflict with knowing the combat spells
5b) not spending money learning spells means getting math items on time or faster
6) cast down doesn't require using font slots which turns lower level slots into easy knockdownsThere are more I'm sure, but that should be more than enough to bury the divine witch since they have nothing but fervor and a 16th level feat going for it which isn't nearly enough to overcome the above.
So... the only good way to play a Cleric is to be Human and not use the Divine spell listThere's really no mechanical reason to play anything other than human/half-elf/aasimar in this edition (maybe the psychic rhinos but rare lol). Especially on casters who need electric arc to function passably and really like having a first level feat. Even if innate spells didn't scale with your best magic proficiency, adaptive cantrip straight up adds the spell to your tradition.
But that doesn't do anything to answer for the complaint that the Divine list isn't good for combat - that there isn't much in the Cleric class itself to do when not healing.Magic weapon, calm emotions, roaring applause, silence, fear, harm KDs, the usual buffing. Plus whatever your diety gets you be it earlier blasting, walls of force or whatever. Even bless and running in is good because it means you're actually getting some value out of your hp if you get targeted while buffing your allies. The burst healing allowing you to ignore strategy and tactics to some extent is the...
Druid and the bard are top tier in our group.
Cleric is considered reasonably powerful, but boring.
I'm not sure why you think the witch can't build for Charisma. I still rarely understand in these discussions people who bring up stats as some kind of limiter. You a bunch of boosts to start the game. Then you get four total boosts to four abilities every five levels. Anyone can be good with Charisma skills. That isn't a feature of the cleric. It's a feature of anyone that wants to build up Charisma, which is easy to do with the number of ability boosts.
I have tons of experience with players using clerics and witches. We gave up on the cleric as a main a long time ago. It's not an interesting class. It's not more powerful than someone who can heal and drop AoEs that hurt anything, not just undead or fiends. Cleric is a very limited class with feats that don't come up often enough for people to want to play them.
I have one guy who plays witches. It's his preferred healer. Action economy gets tossed around a lot on this forum and witches have superior action economy to a cleric.
8 hit points versus six hit points isn't very noticeable without some kind of damage resistance or what not. Clerics max out at expert in armor and weapons just like the witch. So they get smashed just as easily. It's pretty easy to get an armored witch now if you so choose.
Cleric isn't an optimizer class in our group. It's an ok class with the standard divine list buffs which you can get from a fervor witch, a divine oracle, a bard, or anyone with access to heroism or some other good buff.
A standardly built group with a mix of martials isn't going to be relying very much on cleric damage anymore than they would rely on any caster damage. If you want a caster who is a damage hammer while bringing other utility to the table, you play a druid over a cleric.
I have one player that likes witches. One that likes oracles. Another likes sorcerers. Mainly because they like the feats and abilities inherent in the class whereas the cleric is pretty bland. All of them seem to bring about the same to the table in combats with small variations.
The only top tier casters I see for combat are usually the druid and the bard. The wizard surprisingly has moved up quite a bit for general adventuring because that ability to switch out spells is amazing in adventures where you need it. Some of their feats are really good like the extra spells on scrolls per day and that universalist arcane bond renewal.
Casters in general are kind of a blur as a group with only a couple really standing above the other two. Casting is good. Anyone that can get to Legendary casting will add to a group. Best to use your casting in an efficient fashion. AoE hammer little guys. Debuff and buff bosses while adding a little damage. Heal as needed. Win all the time.
It's not a hard strategy to figure out for any caster. For casters in my group it comes down to interesting feats and abilities they can see themselves using in combat that give them a little bit of joy to use. But the majority of time winning is concentrated into a handful of spells and abilities that are higher value than others like slow or synesthesia with martials beating on the creature.
That is PF2 optimization. Almost everything else comes down to personal preference.
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I'm not sure why you think the witch can't build for Charisma. I still rarely understand in these discussions people who bring up stats as some kind of limiter. You a bunch of boosts to start the game. Then you get four total boosts to four abilities every five levels. Anyone can be good with Charisma skills. That isn't a feature of the cleric. It's a feature of anyone that wants to build up Charisma, which is easy to do with the number of ability boosts.
Because you need 3 ability boosts to keep a character alive. Wis, Con, Dex. A witch needs Int probably at 18. If they take Cha as well they have more survivability problems. Yes you can build a Witch with some Charisma but it costs - a lot.
A Cleric has a lot easier time affording Cha. It is basic maths and an obvious fallacy on your part.
8 hit points versus six hit points isn't very noticeable.
8 verus 6 is the most important hit point boost in the game. Your last hit point is the most important.
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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.
Because 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.