How fix spell attack

[Deriven Firelion]

The Raven Black wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I still remember when some posters were claiming the shadow signet was going to break the balance of the game by making spell attack rolls too good. Here we are still debating spell attack rolls, shadow signet been in the game for a year or more and hasn't broken the game at all.

Paizo needs to accept improving spell attack rolls doesn't break the game. They would be absolutely fine putting an item bonus to spell attack rolls in the game.

We've seen magus in the game.

They play-tested the kineticist and gave them a spell attack item bonus without breaking the game.

They made the shadow signet ring and it didn't break the game or make people happy enough to stop complaining about spell attack rolls likely because the item is high level and doesn't help the low levels where you're using spell attack rolls the most.

The only spell combination I've seen that would worry me as a DM is maybe a maxed out Horizon thunder sphere or mega-horizon thunder sphere or mega-disintegrate.

Basically the biggest danger with spell attack roll spells is a level 20 wizard with Spell Combination using some sick spell attack roll spell to blast someone with a combined spell. Not sure a spell item bonus changes that too much, but if you set a level 20 wizard up with spell combination that is some sickeningly brutal damage.

True Strike and big attack spell boosted by an item bonus.

The Magus does not have that many slots to take both. Much less than full casters.

Also the Magus does not go to Legendary proficiency in their attacks.

Finally, the full caster will be able to also use their KAS (and their Legendary proficiency in the very high levels) for save spells. Not so the Magus.

Not to mention the Magus is often in melee. And even the Starlit Span Magus would be able to do the True Strike +Spellstrike at most every other turn. Compared to the full caster who can do the True Strike + attack Spell on every turn.

There is zero data showing item bonuses to attack rolls makes casters overly strong, none whatsoever.

I doubt you could mathematically prove that a caster with an item bonus to attack rolls would consistently out damage a fighter or martial in battles using real play data and not white room math set up for the caster to perfectly do damage.

I would even be 100% certain that if Paizo added item bonuses to attack rolls, the threads about casters would continue on because it wouldn't have any effect on making casters better at what some want casters to be better at.

Legendary casting which is the only time caster proficiency would be higher than most martials doesn't occur until level 19. So even with item bonuses and Master proficiency for the other 18 levels, casters would only equal martials for to hit roll.

There are still very few attack roll spells that do good enough damage to match martial classes one action attacks, much less match them near as often.

The argument against casters with item bonuses to spell attacks doesn't hold water as the saying goes.

[Unicore]

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

[The Raven Black]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

There is zero data showing item bonuses to attack rolls makes casters overly strong, none whatsoever.

I doubt you could mathematically prove that a caster with an item bonus to attack rolls would consistently out damage a fighter or martial in battles using real play data and not white room math set up for the caster to perfectly do damage.

I would even be 100% certain that if Paizo added item bonuses to attack rolls, the threads about casters would continue on because it wouldn't have any effect on making casters better at what some want casters to be better at.

Legendary casting which is the only time caster proficiency would be higher than most martials doesn't occur until level 19. So even with item bonuses and Master proficiency for the other 18 levels, casters would only equal martials for to hit roll.

There are still very few attack roll spells that do good enough damage to match martial classes one action attacks, much less match them near as often.

The argument against casters with item bonuses to spell attacks doesn't hold water as the saying goes.

I merely posted a few reasons showing that Magus and full casters are not comparable as far as spell attacks go. And in fact as far as the possibilities to hurt enemies and to affect the game go. Full casters feel head and shoulders above Magus.

Building a blaster caster on Pathbuilder to check how the math works definitely made me want to play one. I am not even sure an item bonus would be needed to feel great. Sadly I almost only play PFS, so I will not be able to play it at higher levels, where I think it should be even more awesome.

[Angwa]

The Raven Black wrote:

True Strike and big attack spell boosted by an item bonus.

The Magus does not have that many slots to take both. Much less than full casters.

Also the Magus does not go to Legendary proficiency in their attacks.

Finally, the full caster will be able to also use their KAS (and their Legendary proficiency in the very high levels) for save spells. Not so the Magus.

Not to mention the Magus is often in melee. And even the Starlit Span Magus would be able to do the True Strike +Spellstrike at most every other turn. Compared to the full caster who can do the True Strike + attack Spell on every turn.

Nah, Magus adds weapon damage so they don't really need spell slots as much as regular casters. Besides, magus can easily have 3 juicy focus spell attacks per encounter (mostly starlit, but okay) before they even need to touch their spell slots. They also have hero points and true strike when setting up a big nuke.

So, spell attacks with proficiency progression matching AC bumps and not lagging them by at least 2 levels, item bonuses and adding weapon damage on top of that apparently do not break the game. Well, guess what, just item bonuses without the faster progression and adding weapon damage won't either? I really can not comprehend what there is to argue about this?

[Easl]

Angwa wrote:

So, spell attacks with proficiency progression matching AC bumps and not lagging them by at least 2 levels, item bonuses and adding weapon damage on top of that apparently do not break the game. Well, guess what, just item bonuses without the faster progression and adding weapon damage won't either? I really can not comprehend what there is to argue about this?

The argument 'for' is that full casters can't contribute enough damage to combat/miss too much and therefore need to be buffed in terms of attack value. Saying 'magus has that buff' doesn't really say much about whether this argument is compelling because the magus isn't a full caster and because it uses a mechanism casters don't have to do plenty of damage. The argument 'against' is that a full caster has many more save attacks and spell utility so doesn't need an item bonus to AC spell attacks to be balanced. Again, a magus is not a full caster, so saying "Magus gets it" does not necessarily settle the 'is wizard balanced' argument.

Personally, I'm ambivalent. I really don't think full casters need it, They have plenty of equvialent-liklihood-to-succeed, high damage save spells. But I also don't think it would be terribly unbalancing if they got it.

But since you asked why folks are arguing about it, that's why...and I don't think bringing up the Magus does much to settle it.

[Temperans]

Unicore wrote:

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

So why shouldn't the SINGLE target spell be the biggest SINGLE target effect?

If you are spending an entire spell slot to target a single target it better be better than something designed to target a group. But that is not how they have set things up and thus all the complaints. Them switching to all spells being saves doesn't solve the issue, just tries to go around it. Heck all spells becoming save based proves that Shadow Signet was just an action tax, while also making that item as currently written entirely useless.

But yes any further speculation on that part has to wait until the remaster rules are out.

[AestheticDialectic]

Temperans wrote:

Unicore wrote:

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

So why shouldn't the SINGLE target spell be the biggest SINGLE target effect?

If you are spending an entire spell slot to target a single target it better be better than something designed to target a group. But that is not how they have set things up and thus all the complaints. Them switching to all spells being saves doesn't solve the issue, just tries to go around it. Heck all spells becoming save based proves that Shadow Signet was just an action tax, while also making that item as currently written entirely useless.

But yes any further speculation on that part has to wait until the remaster rules are out.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Simple as that. Spell casters need to be bad at something and martials good at something. Unless you want to give all these other effects spells do to martials and recreate d&d 5e where everyone multiclasses into a monstrous hybrid that does everything with no weaknesses and team synergies and roles do not exist. I don't know about you but I have no interest in 5e style games where niche protection doesn't exist. I like my team game, I like the role of casters and I like my cool spells. You are at a crossroads. Become good at the only thing martials really have, single target damage, and lose out on all the cool s@@* spells do, or everyone gets everything and we stop having a team game

Or ofc, accept the balance as it is now, which is a fine balance

[Unicore]

Temperans wrote:

Unicore wrote:

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

So why shouldn't the SINGLE target spell be the biggest SINGLE target effect?

If you are spending an entire spell slot to target a single target it better be better than something designed to target a group. But that is not how they have set things up and thus all the complaints. Them switching to all spells being saves doesn't solve the issue, just tries to go around it. Heck all spells becoming save based proves that Shadow Signet was just an action tax, while also making that item as currently written entirely useless.

But yes any further speculation on that part has to wait until the remaster rules are out.

Thunderstrike is more damage than chain lightning…so, mission accomplished? I don’t understand the rest of the argument. “I want spells that do as much damage as possible to a single target” already exists.

[Temperans]

Unicore wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Unicore wrote:

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

So why shouldn't the SINGLE target spell be the biggest SINGLE target effect?

If you are spending an entire spell slot to target a single target it better be better than something designed to target a group. But that is not how they have set things up and thus all the complaints. Them switching to all spells being saves doesn't solve the issue, just tries to go around it. Heck all spells becoming save based proves that Shadow Signet was just an action tax, while also making that item as currently written entirely useless.

But yes any further speculation on that part has to wait until the remaster rules are out.

Thunderstrike is more damage than chain lightning…so, mission accomplished? I don’t understand the rest of the argument. “I want spells that do as much damage as possible to a single target” already exists.

It is better, but that is still not addressing the issue of spell attacks.

Its like saying "This chicken is undercooked" and then instead of fixing it they go "okay fine we are removing all chicken from our menu and only selling ham". Yeah there is no longer undercooked chicken, but you it was done in the worst way possible.

Thunderstrike being good does not diminish the fact that spell attacks are either badly designed and/or under supported.

[AestheticDialectic]

Temperans wrote:

It is better, but that is still not addressing the issue of spell attacks.

Its like saying "This chicken is undercooked" and then instead of fixing it they go "okay fine we are removing all chicken from our menu and only selling ham". Yeah there is no longer undercooked chicken, but you it was done in the worst way possible.

Thunderstrike being good does not diminish the fact that spell attacks are either badly designed and/or under supported.

Being vegan and reading this analogy is amusing to say the least

[Temperans]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Unicore wrote:

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

So why shouldn't the SINGLE target spell be the biggest SINGLE target effect?

If you are spending an entire spell slot to target a single target it better be better than something designed to target a group. But that is not how they have set things up and thus all the complaints. Them switching to all spells being saves doesn't solve the issue, just tries to go around it. Heck all spells becoming save based proves that Shadow Signet was just an action tax, while also making that item as currently written entirely useless.

But yes any further speculation on that part has to wait until the remaster rules are out.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Simple as that. Spell casters need to be bad at something and martials good at something. Unless you want to give all these other effects spells do to martials and recreate d&d 5e where everyone multiclasses into a monstrous hybrid that does everything with no weaknesses and team synergies and roles do not exist. I don't know about you but I have no interest in 5e style games where niche protection doesn't exist. I like my team game, I like the role of casters and I like my cool spells. You are at a crossroads. Become good at the only thing martials really have, single target damage, and lose out on all the cool s#+~ spells do, or everyone gets everything and we stop having a team game

Or ofc, accept the balance as it...

So you like the cutrent situation because it suits your tastes of "people being forced into a role". I hate the current situation because it goes against everything that Pathfinder has stood for until now.

You are bringing in 5e but this is not 5e its Pathfinder and you know what Pathfinder has? Fighters casting spells while the Wizard is wielding a sword and the Cleric is shooting guns and there is a Guy (Mesmerist) that is just making death glares. Who does the most single target damage is meaningless when what matter is that you are able to pick your role and be good at it.

Do you think that shooter games are not teamwork because everyone has to has to use the same gun? How about sports where everyone has to use the same skill sets? Niche protection is not a matter of "teamwork", its all just gatekeeping for thr sake of gatekeeping.

[Temperans]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Temperans wrote:

It is better, but that is still not addressing the issue of spell attacks.

Its like saying "This chicken is undercooked" and then instead of fixing it they go "okay fine we are removing all chicken from our menu and only selling ham". Yeah there is no longer undercooked chicken, but you it was done in the worst way possible.

Thunderstrike being good does not diminish the fact that spell attacks are either badly designed and/or under supported.

Being vegan and reading this analogy is amusing to say the least

Here is an example just for you:

"Hey there is dirt in my vegan meal" and they go "okay fine we are removing all vegan meals, we now only sell tomato slices".

[Aristophanes]

Temperans wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Temperans wrote:

It is better, but that is still not addressing the issue of spell attacks.

Its like saying "This chicken is undercooked" and then instead of fixing it they go "okay fine we are removing all chicken from our menu and only selling ham". Yeah there is no longer undercooked chicken, but you it was done in the worst way possible.

Thunderstrike being good does not diminish the fact that spell attacks are either badly designed and/or under supported.

Being vegan and reading this analogy is amusing to say the least

Here is an example just for you:

"Hey there is dirt in my vegan meal" and they go "okay fine we are removing all vegan meals, we now only sell tomato slices".

Oooh! Fresh tomatoes...off the vine? Maybe with some fresh basil? and some EVOO? YUM!

[Unicore]

Temperans wrote:

It is better, but that is still not addressing the issue of spell attacks.

Its like saying "This chicken is undercooked" and then instead of fixing it they go "okay fine we are removing all chicken from our menu and only selling ham". Yeah there is no longer undercooked chicken, but you it was done in the worst way possible.

Thunderstrike being good does not diminish the fact that spell attacks are either badly designed and/or under supported.

If spell attack roll spells were the only good spells for attacking single targets you might have a point, but they are not, and there are spell attack roll spells that attack more than one target.

Spell attack roll spells CAN be the best way to do significant damage to higher level, single enemies. It takes preparation and set up for them to do so though. Trying to make spell attack roll spells some kind of automatic choice for when you face a single enemy, reliable without any additional measures, is a specialization the game would not benefit from. I thing the shadow signet ring was a rather brilliant way of allowing casters that are not able to do the debuffing necessary to make targeting AC effective (where spell attack roll spells shine) have another option for when it is late in the day and they are relying a lot on cantrips, not to just be stuck casting electric arc over and over again at one target.

That is pretty much the most common use of shadow signet rings I have seen. I think it was pretty intentional that the signet ring was designed around not letting off guard be an additional benefit from what the bonus the item can give you. It isn’t the 1 or 2 point swing that was being avoided, it was the 4 point swing. Giving casters a way to play identically to martials as far as how to do the most damage (debuff AC and get bonuses to attack) would not increase tactical options in the game. It would create mono-strategy.

Most of the complaints about spell attack roll spells I see are people asking for mono strategy to just work the same for casters as it does for martials because parties are building to mono strategy already and leaving casters out.

I want more options in the game for martials to support casters and debuff non-AC defenses, not for casters to just play identically martials

[AestheticDialectic]

Temperans wrote:

So you like the cutrent situation because it suits your tastes of "people being forced into a role". I hate the current situation because it goes against everything that Pathfinder has stood for until now.

Pathfinder had a single edition before and it existed to allow the company to keep publishing 3.x adventure paths, more or less. I'm not sure there is any "everything pathfinder stood for until now" has much to do with your case. To me it seems more like you projected sentiments onto PF1 and feel betrayed that the designers didn't share your personal feelings as to how things should be

Quote:

You are bringing in 5e but this is not 5e its Pathfinder and you know what Pathfinder has? Fighters casting spells while the Wizard is wielding a sword and the Cleric is shooting guns and there is a Guy (Mesmerist) that is just making death glares. Who does the most single target damage is meaningless when what matter is that you are able to pick your role and be good at it.

5e has problems like hexblade warlock which can be combined in such a way to be great at melee and full spellcasting simultaneously. Using the same stat for both with no trade offs. What you complain about here in PF2 is a myriad of feat taxes and action taxes to do what full spellcasters do worse and at a slower progression. The current playtest for the 6e warlock, playtest 7 has a version of the class which is the highest damage melee combatant to exist in the system and still gets spells all the way to 9th with mystic arcanum. It's dire over there. Luckily that is a playtest, but even a fraction of that is too much. That game has no proper niche protection. On the subject Jeremy Crawford has stated base classes don't cross over but subclasses do. Which results in classes getting to do whatever the hell they want and the Multiclassing system exasperates the issue

Quote:

Do you think that shooter games are not teamwork because everyone has to has to use the same gun? How about sports where everyone has to use the same skill sets? Niche protection is not a matter of "teamwork", its all just gatekeeping for thr sake of gatekeeping.

You ever see a swat team breach a room? I see pathfinder as being more like that

At the end of the day a class needs to have things it is good at and things it is bad at and the nature of spells and spell lists makes caster, even in this edition, potentially problem solvers of any kind. They needed to be bad at some things, and one of those is single target damage. I'm not opposed to a magical class which does single target damage with attack rolls, the kineticist is that plus AoE, plus spell like effects, plus the ability to use staves, wands and scrolls built into an optional class feature. This is all fine imo so long as I can have my traditional wizard, which I do. I am protective of the wizard being the way it is and focusing mostly on control and less on being a progress bar filler(damage dealer)

[Easl]

Temperans wrote:

So you like the cutrent situation because it suits your tastes of "people being forced into a role". I hate the current situation because it goes against everything that Pathfinder has stood for until now.

You are bringing in 5e but this is not 5e its Pathfinder and you know what Pathfinder has? Fighters casting spells while the Wizard is wielding a sword and the Cleric is shooting guns and there is a Guy (Mesmerist) that is just making death glares. Who does the most single target damage is meaningless when what matter is that you are able to pick your role and be good at it.

I don't think Pf2E has ever promised, delivered, or designed "pick your role and be good at it" if by that you mean a player can pick any cleass and be guaranteed equivalent-to-best single target dpr role. If that is your expectation, I think it's a case of "you had a wrong expectation" not "Paizo did not deliver me what was promised." Some roles are just plain better served by a subset of classes.

And IMO the 'wizard' archetype, at least in class-based games, has always been associated with things like throwing lightning bolts, fireballs, and magic missile. Those are THE most iconic ttrpg wizardly ways to bring the pain. That goes back to the 1970s. PF2E is still true to that archetype. Unfortunately, the class has also been associated with 'dominating the game in late levels because it's spells do everything the features of other classes do, as well as the other classes do them'. And that, PF2E seems inclined to try and avoid. In part by avoiding the problem of attack spells doing attacks as well as fighters (as a general category) do them.

[Squiggit]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

[Unicore]

It is also true that any caster, from any tradition, can situationally use spell attack roll spells to great effect. So there is cake and everyone can eat it, but some people are asking for the game to support casters that can just eat cake, and that is just not a healthy lifestyle for anyone.

What would be added to the game if any full caster can accomplish martial accuracy with attacks that exceed martial damage numbers, can rotate through damage types easily, just always targetting AC without engaging in the defense rock paper scissors that the game's magic system was designed around, and maybe take up 25%-33% of that classes resources so that they can still be better than any other class at damaging multiple enemies AND debuff better than any martial AND Buff allies?

[The Raven Black]

Temperans wrote:

So you like the cutrent situation because it suits your tastes of "people being forced into a role". I hate the current situation because it goes against everything that Pathfinder has stood for until now.

You are bringing in 5e but this is not 5e its Pathfinder and you know what Pathfinder has? Fighters casting spells while the Wizard is wielding a sword and the Cleric is shooting guns and there is a Guy (Mesmerist) that is just making death glares. Who does the most single target damage is meaningless when what matter is that you are able to pick your role and be good at it.

Do you think that shooter games are not teamwork because everyone has to has to use the same gun? How about sports where everyone has to use the same skill sets? Niche protection is not a matter of "teamwork", its all just gatekeeping for thr sake of gatekeeping.

Are you talking about PF2 or PF1 ? Because IIRC there is no Mesmerist in PF1.

As for "gatekeeping", I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Easl]

Squiggit wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

It's definitely one of the weirder English turns of phrase, and doesn't really apply here becaues a class feature is not a consumable and the choice here is not between "eating" a capability or reserving it for later.

But the gist is completely understandable. The wizard (or full casters in general) can't be 'tied for best' at everything or the game suffers. It's already 'tied for best' at AoE, utility, and varying damage types. It's uncontested best at targeting saves (though maybe we only count that as an extra half a thing, since it overlaps with 'tied at best for AoE'). It doesn't need to also be 'tied for best' at high AC attack and damage, or the game could suffer. (And no, "but Magus!" is not a good response, because the Magus is not as good as a full caster for AoE and utility.)

Moreover, AIUI the majority of folks wanting this imply they are happy to give up some utility to get that single-target damage...so Paizo delivered. They developed the 2E Kineticist specifically to fill the niche of a class that is 'tied for best' for magical attacks AND multitarget, AND gave it some melee stuff for the gish-lovers, and they balanced it by giving up of much of the caster's utility. So it really seems like there is a solutios to the problem, but folks who are complaining don't want to use it because the solution doesn't wear a tall pointy hat and the spells it casts aren't called spells. (I also suspect some of the reason is that the solution can't cast detect magic or all the other really nice utility spells that they are supposedly willing to give up, but really aren't...).

[whew]

Squiggit wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

No, it means that after you eat your cake, you don't still have that cake.

[Aristophanes]

whew wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

No, it means that after you eat your cake, you don't still have that cake.

Exactly! The actual saying, which most people get wrong, is "You can't eat your cake and have it too".

[Temperans]

whew wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

No, it means that after you eat your cake, you don't still have that cake.

You do know this is the insanity that Squiggit was talking about right?

[Temperans]

I love how I never said "spell attack need to be the best" and somehow that is what people are responding to.

Or how about where I never said that wizards need to be the best at everything. Yet once again people acting as if I said that.

Oh would you look at that, limited number of spells per day. What's that I can only 4 spell slots and after that they are gone, finished, gone? Ah yes much versatility when I pick 4 damage spell because I want to make an offensive caster. Much versatility when I have a ~40-50% chance of doing nothing with an ability that is only 4 times a day and no better than a Fighter hitting twice. Oh right I have to spend twice as many 1/day abilities for it to have reads again oh that's right a ~45-55% how impressive for a 20th level character that you are lucky if you see it once every 4 years.

No no I get it, I get it. We have to let the person who only swong their weapon around be able to be the bestest ever at using their infinite use weapons. Now if only the thing you were using was not a weapon and could only be done 4 times a day.... oh wait. I forgot that person swingin a weapon can also cast utility/buff magic, make items, buff/debuff everyone around them, be very agile, punish bad positioning, and have decent defenses.

But you know what carry on talking about having your cake and eating it. I'll be over here watching as this thing called "MaG1k" is roasted and carved out to feed some poor hobos who seem to be in need of some healing.

[AestheticDialectic]

Squiggit wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

The phrase means that you cannot have two things simultaneously which are mutually exclusive. If you eat the cake you cease to possess it

If casters get designed for single target damage they will lose out somewhere else

[Easl]

Temperans wrote:

I love how I never said "spell attack need to be the best" and somehow that is what people are responding to.

Do you want spell attack to have a comparable chance to hit as a martial with a weapon?

Isn't that being equivalent to them in attack chance against AC?

Quote:

Much versatility when I have a ~40-50% chance of doing nothing with an ability that is only 4 times a day

The game affords you a variety of 'vs save' spells that have an impact on a miss. AND they have a higher chance of hitting. AND they are the iconic wizard spells that you are very concerned PF2E is moving away from. So why not use them?

And if limited spell slots is not to your liking, why not try Kineticist instead of asking for a Wizard change? You want higher chance to hit vs. AC? It's got it. Unlimited blasts? It's got it. And you keep claiming a wizard doesn't have any more utility than all the other classes, so losing those utility spells shouldn't be anything you'd care about, right?

Quote:

But you know what carry on talking about having your cake and eating it. I'll be over here watching as this thing called "MaG1k" is roasted and carved out to feed some poor hobos who seem to be in need of some healing.

It may be too early to be sure of this but from what we can tell, the combat spells in general are getting buffed in the remaster. They're all getting some sort of multitarget ability or they're getting extra damage. Basically, "we are all EA now." All the combat spells doing more damage is a far cry from 'magic being carved out to feed healing.'

[AestheticDialectic]

I wonder myself which spells Temperans is upset about missing with, also wonderin' where these percentages came from and I'm also wondering about this:

Quote:

Oh right I have to spend twice as many 1/day abilities for it to have reads again oh that's right a ~45-55% how impressive for a 20th level character that you are lucky if you see it once every 4 years.

At first I thought they meant using true strike and I was going to correct them that if you have a 50/50 chance a success is an 11 on the die which with "advantage" is approximately 80% chance to hit, but the more I read this the less sure I am that I know what the hell he's sayin' here

At the moment you can definitely get good accuracy by expending resources to fire what is effectively a sniper round at a dude with disintegrate. Doing single target burst damage well above the capabilities of a martial, but you can only do this a few times and you gotta work for it. Seems right where it should be

[Dark_Schneider]

There are really few attack spells, filtering by rulebooks and all traditions are only 34:
attack spells

You will always want to have prepared as many True Strike as high level attack spells, don't usually want to waste a Disintegrate without a True Strike. But at the same time you cannot improve other attacks like Scorching Ray, which feels like some kind of incongruity.

After looking all this, I think the best would be remove the True Strike and allowing items to add spell attack bonus, in other words Potency for spell attack and remove True Strike spell.
Instead removing True Strike, an option could be modify taking 2 actions and acting your next round.

[nicholas storm]

I believe they are going to add spell attack items like the gate attenuator to casters (capped at +2). They could add in text to say that it only works if targeting ac, so as not to interact with the shadow signet.

[Easl]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

I wonder myself which spells Temperans is upset about missing with,

Me too! To me, when someone says 'what's the classic ttrpg wizard attack,' my first thought is fireball. 'Vs. Save' spell attacks have always been classicly or iconicly wizard-y. Though I guess a decent argument can be made for the ray spells (enfeeblement, frost, and disintegrate) as being bread and butter wizardly attacks too.

Quote:

At the moment you can definitely get good accuracy by expending resources to fire what is effectively a sniper round at a dude with disintegrate. Doing single target burst damage well above the capabilities of a martial, but you can only do this a few times and you gotta work for it. Seems right where it should be

I agree. In fact I wouldn't mind it being expanded to include friendly targets and last until the end of the round. Makes it more tactically interesting.

[MEATSHED]

Dark_Schneider wrote:

There are really few attack spells, filtering by rulebooks and all traditions are only 34:

attack spells

You will always want to have prepared as many True Strike as high level attack spells, don't usually want to waste a Disintegrate without a True Strike. But at the same time you cannot improve other attacks like Scorching Ray, which feels like some kind of incongruity.

I really don't know why true strike comes up so often when primal is the spell list with 2nd highest amount of spell attacks and it doesn't have access to true strike. I don't think spell attacks were nerfed to account for true strike and if they were primal probably should have got true strike.

[The Raven Black]

MEATSHED wrote:

Dark_Schneider wrote:

There are really few attack spells, filtering by rulebooks and all traditions are only 34:

attack spells

You will always want to have prepared as many True Strike as high level attack spells, don't usually want to waste a Disintegrate without a True Strike. But at the same time you cannot improve other attacks like Scorching Ray, which feels like some kind of incongruity.

I really don't know why true strike comes up so often when primal is the spell list with 2nd highest amount of spell attacks and it doesn't have access to true strike. I don't think spell attacks were nerfed to account for true strike and if they were primal probably should have got true strike.

True Strike was not on the Druid list in PF1. So it did not appear out of the blue on the Primal list in PF2.

But I agree that True Strike is excellent for using spell attacks. Grabbing it if you are Primal is neat.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

I am also glad that people think the existence of a bad mechanic (spell attacks) is entirely justified by another mechanic that may or may not always be present (True Strike), and is considered the deciding factor behind the original mechanic being worthwhile or not.

Nerf True Strike to only affect Strikes and people will stop using it as an excuse to justify a bad mechanic, whose only other solution is to turn it into a save-based effect like everything else is (because the attack roll spells aren't balanced around a non-effect on a failure).

[Raiztt]

Squiggit wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

"You can't have your cake and eat it too" is saying that it cannot be simultaneously true that you ate your cake, but you also didn't eat you cake and are able to admire it/have it.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Raiztt wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder if people realize how facetious this turn of phrase is.

Like the idea that you can have a cake but you're not allowed to eat it is not a commentary on trade off it's a description of insanity.

The whole idea that you need to be 'punished' to somehow counterbalance having something good in your life is absurdly toxic nonsense.

"You can't have your cake and eat it too" is saying that it cannot be simultaneously true that you ate your cake, but you also didn't eat you cake and are able to admire it/have it.

I think we are missing the point behind that comment if we are fixating on the factor that they somehow don't know what it means when them making the kind of comment they are making translates to them understanding exactly what the phrase is intended to mean.

When having cake = eating cake, it is a redundant tautology. Hence why they are saying it is facetious.

[The Raven Black]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

I am also glad that people think the existence of a bad mechanic (spell attacks) is entirely justified by another mechanic that may or may not always be present (True Strike), and is considered the deciding factor behind the original mechanic being worthwhile or not.

Nerf True Strike to only affect Strikes and people will stop using it as an excuse to justify a bad mechanic, whose only other solution is to turn it into a save-based effect like everything else is (because the attack roll spells aren't balanced around a non-effect on a failure).

Don't forget to nerf Hero points too.

[Unicore]

Spell attack roll mechanics are not bad. They are niche. There are demonstrable situations where spell attack roll spells exceed the damage of saving throw spells. This means there are situations where a caster can be more effective casting them. Sometimes it can be good for casters to exploit a situation where targeting AC is most effective.

The problem is people wanting to assume that caster could just focus on one type of spell and be a single target blaster in the same way that martials focus on just one attack, and that would be fine.

The reason it is not fine is because spells are tuned to be so powerful all by themselves that having full access to the rest of your spell list, but also specialize in one type of spell means that you sacrifice nothing for your specialization.

In PF1 specialization was pretty necessary for spells to be effective. The way saves worked you would occasionally meet a foe who had such an abysmal save that you could use an non-specialized spell and still have a decent effect, but that required even more intensive system mastery than in PF2 and was essentially just a waste of time because your specialized spells could beat almost any defense that wasn't some kind of blanket immunity.

PF2 was designed not to let any caster escape the mini-game of learning saves, weaknesses and resistances and using the right spell for the right situation. Right now, Spell attack roll spells have a place in that game. If their accuracy was just flatly the same as martials then there is no reason to play that game.

If you don't want to play that game, then talking to your GM and coming up with some kind of homebrew solution is fine. Spell attack roll spells were never meant to be any kind of bread, or butter, or cake. They are a side dish that you change out every meal.

[Easl]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

I am also glad that people think the existence of a bad mechanic (spell attacks) is entirely justified by another mechanic that may or may not always be present (True Strike), and is considered the deciding factor behind the original mechanic being worthwhile or not.

This is not my reasoning. My reasoning is that the vast, vast majority of wizard 'attack' spells - including the most iconic ones - target saves. Thus this caterwauling about being 1-3 points behind on 'vs AC' spells is much ado about little. It means that right now these spells are best used as 'finishers.' I.e. you don't cast disintegrate in the opening round, you cast it once every party member has added their AC debuff to the fight. This is not a "bad mechanic" because that presumes every spell ought to be equally useful in every circumstance, and that's is not a good design goal in my mind. It is perfectly fine if vs AC spells are more useful in some circumstances than in others. It also means, for me, that if the remaster adds a +2 item for it, I won't think terribly much of it because again, much ado about little.

I don't see TS as a existing to justify anything. Reroll is a completely different mechanic. 1 slot + 1 action for a reroll is very powerful in its' own right, and it adds a very different tactical flavor to the game compared to a straight-up, always on +2.

[Bluemagetim]

Easl wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

I am also glad that people think the existence of a bad mechanic (spell attacks) is entirely justified by another mechanic that may or may not always be present (True Strike), and is considered the deciding factor behind the original mechanic being worthwhile or not.

This is not my reasoning. My reasoning is that the vast, vast majority of wizard 'attack' spells - including the most iconic ones - target saves. Thus this caterwauling about being 1-3 points behind on 'vs AC' spells is much ado about little. It means that right now these spells are best used as 'finishers.' I.e. you don't cast disintegrate in the opening round, you cast it once every party member has added their AC debuff to the fight. This is not a "bad mechanic" because that presumes every spell ought to be equally useful in every circumstance, and that's is not a good design goal in my mind. It is perfectly fine if vs AC spells are more useful in some circumstances than in others. It also means, for me, that if the remaster adds a +2 item for it, I won't think terribly much of it because again, much ado about little.

I don't see TS as a existing to justify anything. Reroll is a completely different mechanic. 1 slot + 1 action for a reroll is very powerful in its' own right, and it adds a very different tactical flavor to the game compared to a straight-up, always on +2.

Would it be constructive for us to put it into context?

I think a level 6 party is a good point to use. One level away from expert for the caster and no other help for spell attack coming from anything else.
How does the level 6 caster in the group fare?
I just picked out some random monsters to compare and yes so many factors matter, are there more enemies, positioning, who has the drop on who. Lets just think if it as how much work does the team including the caster need to put in before the caster has a sufficient chance to succeed at a spell attack in each case and would it be better to have just not used a slot for a spell attack.
Ac fort ref will
Bullet level 8. 30, 20,16,14.
Drider level 6. 24, 13,13,15. +1 saves against magic.
Lamia Matriarch level 8. 27, 13,18,17.
Ogre Boss Level 7. 25, 17,12,15.
Succubus level 7. 23, 15,14,17. +1 saves against magic.
Tick swarm Level 9. 28, 19,19,14.
Ochre Jelly level 5. 12, 15,4,7. Many immunities

[AestheticDialectic]

Easl wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

I wonder myself which spells Temperans is upset about missing with,

Me too! To me, when someone says 'what's the classic ttrpg wizard attack,' my first thought is fireball. 'Vs. Save' spell attacks have always been classicly or iconicly wizard-y. Though I guess a decent argument can be made for the ray spells (enfeeblement, frost, and disintegrate) as being bread and butter wizardly attacks too.

Quote:

At the moment you can definitely get good accuracy by expending resources to fire what is effectively a sniper round at a dude with disintegrate. Doing single target burst damage well above the capabilities of a martial, but you can only do this a few times and you gotta work for it. Seems right where it should be

I agree. In fact I wouldn't mind it being expanded to include friendly targets and last until the end of the round. Makes it more tactically interesting.

Are you making a tongue and cheek joke about how the spell True Target is literally exactly that?

[YuriP]

Unicore wrote:

Spell attack roll mechanics are not bad. They are niche. There are demonstrable situations where spell attack roll spells exceed the damage of saving throw spells. This means there are situations where a caster can be more effective casting them. Sometimes it can be good for casters to exploit a situation where targeting AC is most effective.

The problem is people wanting to assume that caster could just focus on one type of spell and be a single target blaster in the same way that martials focus on just one attack, and that would be fine.

The reason it is not fine is because spells are tuned to be so powerful all by themselves that having full access to the rest of your spell list, but also specialize in one type of spell means that you sacrifice nothing for your specialization.

In PF1 specialization was pretty necessary for spells to be effective. The way saves worked you would occasionally meet a foe who had such an abysmal save that you could use an non-specialized spell and still have a decent effect, but that required even more intensive system mastery than in PF2 and was essentially just a waste of time because your specialized spells could beat almost any defense that wasn't some kind of blanket immunity.

PF2 was designed not to let any caster escape the mini-game of learning saves, weaknesses and resistances and using the right spell for the right situation. Right now, Spell attack roll spells have a place in that game. If their accuracy was just flatly the same as martials then there is no reason to play that game.

If you don't want to play that game, then talking to your GM and coming up with some kind of homebrew solution is fine. Spell attack roll spells were never meant to be any kind of bread, or butter, or cake. They are a side dish that you change out every meal.

Sorry but the only niche I can see is SpellStrike and Eldritch Shot.

[AestheticDialectic]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Would it be constructive for us to put it into context?

I think a level 6 party is a good point to use. One level away from expert for the caster and no other help for spell attack coming from anything else.
How does the level 6 caster in the group fare?
I just picked out some random monsters to compare and yes so many factors matter, are there more enemies, positioning, who has the drop on who. Lets just think if it as how much work does the team including the caster need to put in before the caster has a sufficient chance to succeed at a spell attack in each case and would it be better to have just not used a slot for a spell attack.
Ac fort ref will
Bullet level 8. 30, 20,16,14.
Drider level 6. 24, 13,13,15. +1 saves against magic.
Lamia Matriarch level 8. 27, 13,18,17.
Ogre Boss Level 7. 25, 17,12,15.
Succubus level 7. 23, 15,14,17. +1 saves against magic.
Tick swarm Level 9. 28, 19,19,14.
Ochre Jelly level 5. 12, 15,4,7. Many immunities

This is the roughest area, levels 5, 6, 8 and 9 are probably the roughest levels for spell attacks. What we got +12 to hit? Save DC is 22? We can only hit the level +2 bullet enemy on an 18 before debuffs to their AC. Martials are at +15? So they have to roll a 15 or higher. That's pretty dire for everyone. However hitting will the bullet has to roll 8 or higher, but mon mot really helps here. Lamia Matriarch is 12 for martials and 15 for casters to hit with attack rolls spells, but it has a pretty weak fort save which means it can more easily get hit by slow, which is fantastic

[Unicore]

YuriP wrote:

Sorry but the only niche I can see is SpellStrike and Eldritch Shot.

You are looking for “always useful” as a niche. Almost any monster who is flat footed to you, while you are getting a +2 or 3 total bonus attack rolls is going to be a strong candidate for targeting with a spell attack roll spell instead of a saving throw spell. Especially if you really need to do a significant amount of damage to finish the enemy and half damage from a miss won’t really cut it, and even more so if you have a hero point.

Just to use the cliche example (that might not mater any more) a 50% to do half damage with a lightning bolt and 35 to 40% chance to do full damage vs a wounded but not finished foe has a 60%+ chance of not finishing the fight. A shocking grasp delivered with a hero point or a truestrike could have a 75-90% chance of finishing the job, depending upon bonuses and whether the enemy is flat footed. That is what I mean by the spells having situational superiority to saving throw spells.

Each specific spell attack roll spell has its own unique circumstances where it has additional niche utility beyond just exploiting the advantages of getting to be the one rolling and the ease of debuffing AC. Going into those now though is a waste of time though because we don’t know exactly what the big spell attack roll spell hitters look like anymore, if any are still around (I really hope so!).

[Bluemagetim]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Would it be constructive for us to put it into context?

I think a level 6 party is a good point to use. One level away from expert for the caster and no other help for spell attack coming from anything else.
How does the level 6 caster in the group fare?
I just picked out some random monsters to compare and yes so many factors matter, are there more enemies, positioning, who has the drop on who. Lets just think if it as how much work does the team including the caster need to put in before the caster has a sufficient chance to succeed at a spell attack in each case and would it be better to have just not used a slot for a spell attack.
Ac fort ref will
Bullet level 8. 30, 20,16,14.
Drider level 6. 24, 13,13,15. +1 saves against magic.
Lamia Matriarch level 8. 27, 13,18,17.
Ogre Boss Level 7. 25, 17,12,15.
Succubus level 7. 23, 15,14,17. +1 saves against magic.
Tick swarm Level 9. 28, 19,19,14.
Ochre Jelly level 5. 12, 15,4,7. Many immunities

This is the roughest area, levels 5, 6, 8 and 9 are probably the roughest levels for spell attacks. What we got +12 to hit? Save DC is 22? We can only hit the level +2 bullet enemy on an 18 before debuffs to their AC. Martials are at +15? So they have to roll a 15 or higher. That's pretty dire for everyone. However hitting will the bullet has to roll 8 or higher, but mon mot really helps here. Lamia Matriarch is 12 for martials and 15 for casters to hit with attack rolls spells, but it has a pretty weak fort save which means it can more easily get hit by slow, which is fantastic

Ochre Jelly is such a fun monster for new players.

[The Raven Black]

People really should stop comparing spell attacks to Strikes. Because they are not the same at all.

Spell attacks are one tool in a whole toolbox. They can be the most efficient spells to cast in some situations but not always (and in fact most of the time). Because that is how spells work : no category of offensive spells will always be the best to use. For example, spells targeting Will saves will not always be the best to use. And sometimes they will be awesome. Same for the spell attacks. Though the latter are a bit more complicated because they deal with the martial paradigm of getting your enemies flat-footed to debuff their AC. Save-targetting spells can be used at the beginning of the fight and in later rounds with less variation than spell attacks.

A martial is all about the Strike. Almost every round in every fight, a martial will use the Strike action at least once.

Not so the caster.

The only caster that gets to do something similar is the Magus with spellstrike. And to enable this playstyle, the designers had to nerf the Magus' other offensive tools, aka save spells, very hard.

[Deriven Firelion]

Unicore wrote:

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

Unlikely, save spells are too good. Most attack roll spells don't have great riders like a phantasmal killer and if you miss, you do nothing.

Even with spell attack roll spells, the only concern is Mr. Uber Level 20 wizard with Spell Combination because that's insanely brutal damage. But that's for one level. For all that wizards have to trudge through to get to level 20, letting them have their shining level 20 Spell Combination moments shouldn't be a problem. Let the wizard enjoy one of the best level 20 feats in the game for damage.

[Deriven Firelion]

The Raven Black wrote:

People really should stop comparing spell attacks to Strikes. Because they are not the same at all.

Spell attacks are one tool in a whole toolbox. They can be the most efficient spells to cast in some situations but not always (and in fact most of the time). Because that is how spells work : no category of offensive spells will always be the best to use. For example, spells targeting Will saves will not always be the best to use. And sometimes they will be awesome. Same for the spell attacks. Though the latter are a bit more complicated because they deal with the martial paradigm of getting your enemies flat-footed to debuff their AC. Save-targetting spells can be used at the beginning of the fight and in later rounds with less variation than spell attacks.

A martial is all about the Strike. Almost every round in every fight, a martial will use the Strike action at least once.

Not so the caster.

The only caster that gets to do something similar is the Magus with spellstrike. And to enable this playstyle, the designers had to nerf the Magus' other offensive tools, aka save spells, very hard.

I don't know. Martials are pretty versatile.

My barbarian runs up, brutally trips something automatically on a hit, while doing good damage, then if it stands up I smash it again. I'm ding about 40 damage on a hit at level 13 and 90 to 100 on a crit with auto-damage on the crit from improved knockdown.

The archer in our group does damage and slows any target he hits with 2 actions. His average hit with a strike is 26 and 50 or 60 on a crit.

Fighter is hitting for about 40 a hit with a strike and 80 or so with a crit while lighting something on fire for 1d10 PF, possible slow.

It isn't like martials are as limited as before with strikes. They do a lot of stuff now.

[AestheticDialectic]

The Raven Black wrote:

People really should stop comparing spell attacks to Strikes. Because they are not the same at all.

Spell attacks are one tool in a whole toolbox. They can be the most efficient spells to cast in some situations but not always (and in fact most of the time). Because that is how spells work : no category of offensive spells will always be the best to use. For example, spells targeting Will saves will not always be the best to use. And sometimes they will be awesome. Same for the spell attacks. Though the latter are a bit more complicated because they deal with the martial paradigm of getting your enemies flat-footed to debuff their AC. Save-targetting spells can be used at the beginning of the fight and in later rounds with less variation than spell attacks.

A martial is all about the Strike. Almost every round in every fight, a martial will use the Strike action at least once.

Not so the caster.

The only caster that gets to do something similar is the Magus with spellstrike. And to enable this playstyle, the designers had to nerf the Magus' other offensive tools, aka save spells, very hard.

I think this is evidenced by the fact attack roll spells number in the double digits within a spell list that is in the triple digits. What was it said above, 24 spells maybe? Arcane has something like 600 spells. Clearly spell attack roll spells are not the priority even if the attack rolls were auto hits

[The Raven Black]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

People really should stop comparing spell attacks to Strikes. Because they are not the same at all.

Spell attacks are one tool in a whole toolbox. They can be the most efficient spells to cast in some situations but not always (and in fact most of the time). Because that is how spells work : no category of offensive spells will always be the best to use. For example, spells targeting Will saves will not always be the best to use. And sometimes they will be awesome. Same for the spell attacks. Though the latter are a bit more complicated because they deal with the martial paradigm of getting your enemies flat-footed to debuff their AC. Save-targetting spells can be used at the beginning of the fight and in later rounds with less variation than spell attacks.

A martial is all about the Strike. Almost every round in every fight, a martial will use the Strike action at least once.

Not so the caster.

The only caster that gets to do something similar is the Magus with spellstrike. And to enable this playstyle, the designers had to nerf the Magus' other offensive tools, aka save spells, very hard.

I don't know. Martials are pretty versatile.

My barbarian runs up, brutally trips something automatically on a hit, while doing good damage, then if it stands up I smash it again. I'm ding about 40 damage on a hit at level 13 and 90 to 100 on a crit with auto-damage on the crit from improved knockdown.

The archer in our group does damage and slows any target he hits with 2 actions. His average hit with a strike is 26 and 50 or 60 on a crit.

Fighter is hitting for about 40 a hit with a strike and 80 or so with a crit while lighting something on fire for 1d10 PF, possible slow.

It isn't like martials are as limited as before with strikes. They do a lot of stuff now.

Yes. But they are always Strikes.

The most similar classification for weapons that I feel could compare to the various categories of offensive spells would be Ranged vs Melee. And even that is not as different IMO.

[Temperans]

Did someone say spell attacks should be the best always? Didn't see that.

I have only seen people asking that such spells get something to be worth the slot they are cast from without just making everything into a save.

How you read "make this type of spe3ll the best" from "this type of spell needs better accuracy to be worth it" is beyond me.