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One problem with that assessment is that it's only looking at the number of cantrips and not relevance.
If (completely made up numbers but if the anecdotes here are to be believed it might not be unreasonable) a hundred people are using electric arc, but only a dozen are using spout or gale blast each, then altering electric arc does have a large balancing effect than altering those other spells. "It's just one spell" is willfully disregarding the current realities of how people play the game.
... More importantly it's begging the question, the whole line of thought is predicated on taking "electric arc is overpowered" for granted, when no one has really demonstrated that it's a significant balance issue on its own, only that it's better than some other options (options that many people consider underpowered in the first place) in certain scenarios.
This is a strawman. How is it only looking at the number of cantrips and not the relevance of any given cantrip? I never listed however many cantrips there are being affected because that doesn't matter, as I literally made a three bullet point statement expositing the irrelevance of other similar cantrips, no matter if it's 10 people using a different cantrip or 100 people using a dozen different ones. If anything, it makes those players still relevant at the table while keeping the other majority from making those players feel like they made a bad choice when, honestly, I don't think the spell(s) is/are designed to have players make a bad choice simply because its mechanics are garbage.
Even if we use more accurate/comparable examples, Scatter Scree is only usable against ground-based creatures (since it affects an area with no height, creatures in the air aren't affected), with a slight effectiveness increase against swarm-type enemies, and Spout is only effective against grouped-up enemies or against enemies in water (whom are already at a high advantage against you). Yes, Gale Blast could potentially do more damage, but it puts the spellcaster at risk, puts allies at risk, and requires at least 3 or more desired targets to be within 5 feet of you, an unlikely scenario with how encounters are usually balanced. The attack roll ones technically can be disregarded as a comparison at-best, but even if they are compared, they're just flat-out worse damage unless resistances/immunities/weaknesses come into play.
Again, another strawman. Point here is that it's both less work to edit a single spell entry and seems more in-line with what cantrips are expected to accomplish (at least from a 1st level standpoint), meaning that if there were changes to be made, this would be the far more likely one to be done, given that the alternative I proposed requires editing numerous spells and adjusting all of those to unprecedented levels (no spell does two dice plus double casting modifier), whereas adjusting Electric Arc to have the same overall damage output as Ray of Frost or Produce Flame is setting the cantrip's power to a level already shown to exist in the game (i.e. 1D4 + casting modifier with an additional 1D4 per spell level). If there's another better alternative, feel free to point it out, because as it stands, the meta says "Take Electric Arc or Jolt Coil and eat chips," which doesn't provide a whole lot of engaging play variety (especially compared to the attack roll cantrips).
Disregarding statements instead of debunking them with empirical evidence does not constitute "nobody demonstrated it," all it demonstrates is "I ignored you." I already broke down the math of a 1st level non-optimized bow martial versus an optimized spell caster using an attack roll spell versus an optimized spell caster using a saving throw spell like Electric Arc and Scatter Scree. On its own, the Electric Arc et. al. spellcaster is outpacing both of these in an appropriate setting (i.e. being able to affect two targets instead of one), and still breaking dead even on a non-appropriate setting (targeting only one enemy), and that's not even factoring in the whole "saves still deal half damage" bit that Electric Arc et. al. have, which means it still technically has far better DPR in a setting where even enemies succeeding on the saving throw does infinitely more damage than spells that do absolutely nothing when they miss the attack roll.
At best, we can argue that enemies that have high(er) saves compared to their AC means the DPR of Electric Arc et. al. will be impacted more by the Success/Failure rate than an attack roll spell is to a Strike, but this is also deciding to use a non-optimal saving throw spell against a creature, which calls into question whether this is even a viable tactic to begin with, but honestly, even compared to a Daze spell (another saving throw effect), it still does significantly higher damage, even on a success.
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Honestly I am not at all surprised to see this whole conversation again boil down to a comparison of cantrips. The perception that Electric Arc is the unparalleled best cantrip is very strong because of its ability to hit two enemies, but as has been repeatedly shown in this thread, spell attack roll spells can spike their damage with very little effort.
SO let's look at the Electric arc vs Produce flame situation. When confronted with a single enemy, produce flame (with no accommodation at all for its crit effect) ends up with exactly the same DPR against an equal level enemy as hitting them with electric arc.
Now one camp will say, "see electric arc is as good as a Spell attack cantrip against a solo enemy!" but again, we can very quickly show how the ability to get bonuses (like flank+1 status) to attack are going to very quickly take produce flame to 40% more damage per attack than electric arc.
Blasting away against 1 creature with electric arc because it does damage on a successful save is setting yourself up for disappointment with casting. These self-defeating meta-analyses of casters based on cantrips and not looking at the effect of common modifiers on an encounter very quickly paint pictures that don't match up to a lot of players experiences.
"But I played a caster and it was tough" is a fair thing to think and feel. But if your response to, "did you try making tactical choices that could make your play experience better?" is "I shouldn't have to!" Then you have a fundamental alignment issue with the base premise of the game. Even so, if your GM knows this, the game is very, very easy to adjust for players that feel burdened by the expectation of tactical play. It is a dial for individual GMs to adjust, and without having to rebalance every single encounter ever (which is what happened trying to GM a PF1 AP with players ready for a tactical challenge). This is such an overwhelming improvement from the GM side of play, it is ok for the learning curve for players and GMs to take some time to figure out.
Honestly I am not at all surprised to see this whole conversation again boil down to a comparison of cantrips. The perception that Electric Arc is the unparalleled best cantrip is very strong because of its ability to hit two enemies, but as has been repeatedly shown in this thread, spell attack roll spells can spike their damage with very little effort.
SO let's look at the Electric arc vs Produce flame situation. When confronted with a single enemy, produce flame (with no accommodation at all for its crit effect) ends up with exactly the same DPR against an equal level enemy as hitting them with electric arc.
Now one camp will say, "see electric arc is as good as a Spell attack cantrip against a solo enemy!" but again, we can very quickly show how the ability to get bonuses (like flank+1 status) to attack are going to very quickly take produce flame to 40% more damage per attack than electric arc.
Blasting away against 1 creature with electric arc because it does damage on a successful save is setting yourself up for disappointment with casting. These self-defeating meta-analyses of casters based on cantrips and not looking at the effect of common modifiers on an encounter very quickly paint pictures that don't match up to a lot of players experiences.
"But I played a caster and it was tough" is a fair thing to think and feel. But if your response to, "did you try making tactical choices that could make your play experience better?" is "I shouldn't have to!" Then you have a fundamental alignment issue with the base premise of the game. Even so, if your GM knows this, the game is very, very easy to adjust for players that feel burdened by the expectation of tactical play. It is a dial for individual GMs to adjust, and without having to rebalance every single encounter ever (which is what happened trying to GM a PF1 AP with players ready for a tactical challenge). This is such an overwhelming improvement from the GM side of play, it is ok for the learning curve for players and GMs to take some...
It doesn't seem unreasonable for a player to take both EA and the best single-target cantrip they can. This isn't an either-or scenario just one where a single choice tends to shine brighter, especially in the sorts of encounters where cantrips tend to see the most use.
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This is a strawman. How is it only looking at the number of cantrips and not the relevance of any given cantrip? I never listed however many cantrips there are being affected because that doesn't matter, as I literally made a three bullet point statement expositing the irrelevance of other similar cantrips, no matter if it's 10 people using a different cantrip or 100 people using a dozen different ones. If anything, it makes those players still relevant at the table while keeping the other majority from making those players feel like they made a bad choice when, honestly, I don't think the spell(s) is/are designed to have players make a bad choice simply because its mechanics are garbage.
Even if we use more accurate/comparable examples, Scatter Scree is only usable against ground-based creatures (since it affects an area with no height, creatures in the air aren't affected), with a slight effectiveness increase against swarm-type enemies, and Spout is only effective against grouped-up enemies or against enemies in water (whom are already at a high advantage against you). Yes, Gale Blast could potentially do more...
Your analysis seems to pit an optimized caster against an unoptimized ranged martial. Why should this be the baseline when every other baseline in the game assumes a character with optimal stats and some investment into that strategy?
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...Honestly I am not at all surprised to see this whole conversation again boil down to a comparison of cantrips. The perception that Electric Arc is the unparalleled best cantrip is very strong because of its ability to hit two enemies, but as has been repeatedly shown in this thread, spell attack roll spells can spike their damage with very little effort.
SO let's look at the Electric arc vs Produce flame situation. When confronted with a single enemy, produce flame (with no accommodation at all for its crit effect) ends up with exactly the same DPR against an equal level enemy as hitting them with electric arc.
Now one camp will say, "see electric arc is as good as a Spell attack cantrip against a solo enemy!" but again, we can very quickly show how the ability to get bonuses (like flank+1 status) to attack are going to very quickly take produce flame to 40% more damage per attack than electric arc.
Blasting away against 1 creature with electric arc because it does damage on a successful save is setting yourself up for disappointment with casting. These self-defeating meta-analyses of casters based on cantrips and not looking at the effect of common modifiers on an encounter very quickly paint pictures that don't match up to a lot of players experiences.
"But I played a caster and it was tough" is a fair thing to think and feel. But if your response to, "did you try making tactical choices that could make your play experience better?" is "I shouldn't have to!" Then you have a fundamental alignment issue with the base premise of the game. Even so, if your GM knows this, the game is very, very easy to adjust for players that feel burdened by the expectation of tactical play. It is a dial for individual GMs to adjust, and without having to rebalance every single encounter ever (which is what happened trying to GM a PF1 AP with players ready for a tactical challenge). This is such an overwhelming improvement from the GM side of play, it is ok for the learning curve for
I agree. Although, low level encounters see cantrip use more often than multi-enemy encounters over the course of the whole of the game. All multi target spells tend to significantly outshine single target spells.
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I agree. Although, low level encounters see cantrip use more often than multi-enemy encounters over the course of the whole of the game. All multi target spells tend to significantly outshine single target spells.
That being the case, it seems like single target cantrips could likely go up a die size or two without causing problems then. It likely wouldn't solve the issue of EA + single target cantrip being optimal but it would give a boost to theme builds and dedicated single target attack casters.
One thing that could be a cool space for new single target spell attack roll spells to play with more, is hydraulic push. Because the damage does not double on a crit, but goes up a sequential die amount, it is possible to have spell attack roll spells that don’t have as massive spikes when accuracy is tactically boosted. They will fall off and not heighten super well past a couple levels over their base, so maybe another 5th or 6th level type spell could make a lot of folks looking for bigger base spell attack roll damage happy. And if it did something debuffing on a crit instead of more damage, then it could have interesting accuracy boosters , kinda like shocking grasp, but maybe a little more for a 6th level spell.
There is also space for an attack spell that has a built-in accuracy booster that can't benefit from True Strike. That means you get a spell with a higher floor, better average damage, and a known and bounded ceiling. Something that can be 'pushed' a little without worrying that another spell or effect could easily break it.
I definitely agree that “new spells that do the thing I think would be interesting” is the most likely design space to get used. As opposed to expecting large scale changes to the way spells can wirk
Your analysis seems to pit an optimized caster against an unoptimized ranged martial. Why should this be the baseline when every other baseline in the game assumes a character with optimal stats and some investment into that strategy?This is a strawman. How is it only looking at the number of cantrips and not the relevance of any given cantrip? I never listed however many cantrips there are being affected because that doesn't matter, as I literally made a three bullet point statement expositing the irrelevance of other similar cantrips, no matter if it's 10 people using a different cantrip or 100 people using a dozen different ones. If anything, it makes those players still relevant at the table while keeping the other majority from making those players feel like they made a bad choice when, honestly, I don't think the spell(s) is/are designed to have players make a bad choice simply because its mechanics are garbage.
Even if we use more accurate/comparable examples, Scatter Scree is only usable against ground-based creatures (since it affects an area with no height, creatures in the air aren't affected), with a slight effectiveness increase against swarm-type enemies, and Spout is only effective against grouped-up enemies or against enemies in water (whom are already at a high advantage against you). Yes, Gale Blast could potentially do more...
The comparison is to determine whether A. the Shortbow, the golden standard for ranged combat, does more damage than cantrips (at least, attack-roll based ones) for a spellcaster (which is ironic, since most spellcasters aren't even proficient in martial weapons like Shortbows,) which segues into B. whether the cantrip from an optimized spellcaster does comparable damage to an optimized ranged martial (which it shouldn't, based on design goals and projected math past 1st level). Just as well, the only ranged martial that actually has more raw reliable damage than any other ranged martial is the Precision Ranger (which only applies to one hit per turn, and requires an action to apply to an enemy, which means it only pulls way ahead after the first round), since Sneak Attack at Ranged isn't reliable (at least until later), and most other classes don't get free damage boosts to ranged attacks (not even Barbarians with Rage, whom are better off using Thrown builds instead). There might be others (such as Investigator and Magus), but the former still takes two actions for identical damage at 1st level (which is 2D6, the same as making two ranged Strikes in a turn), and the latter attaches a separate mechanic to their Strike, meaning it's doing more than simply Striking, which is the real comparison to be made here.
As it stands, an optimal turn for a spellcaster at 1st level is 2 action Electric Arc et. al. followed by a 1 action Strike with a ranged weapon (like the Shortbow), since you are getting both the best damaging cantrip followed by utilizing your full attack bonus (which still accounts for something, even for a spellcaster, at least at 1st level). No other action sequence for a spellcaster is stronger when limited to cantrips.
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Honestly I am not at all surprised to see this whole conversation again boil down to a comparison of cantrips. The perception that Electric Arc is the unparalleled best cantrip is very strong because of its ability to hit two enemies, but as has been repeatedly shown in this thread, spell attack roll spells can spike their damage with very little effort.
SO let's look at the Electric arc vs Produce flame situation. When confronted with a single enemy, produce flame (with no accommodation at all for its crit effect) ends up with exactly the same DPR against an equal level enemy as hitting them with electric arc.
Now one camp will say, "see electric arc is as good as a Spell attack cantrip against a solo enemy!" but again, we can very quickly show how the ability to get bonuses (like flank+1 status) to attack are going to very quickly take produce flame to 40% more damage per attack than electric arc.
Blasting away against 1 creature with electric arc because it does damage on a successful save is setting yourself up for disappointment with casting. These self-defeating meta-analyses of casters based on cantrips and not looking at the effect of common modifiers on an encounter very quickly paint pictures that don't match up to a lot of players experiences.
"But I played a caster and it was tough" is a fair thing to think and feel. But if your response to, "did you try making tactical choices that could make your play experience better?" is "I shouldn't have to!" Then you have a fundamental alignment issue with the base premise of the game. Even so, if your GM knows this, the game is very, very easy to adjust for players that feel burdened by the expectation of tactical play. It is a dial for individual GMs to adjust, and without having to rebalance every single encounter ever (which is what happened trying to GM a PF1 AP with players ready for a tactical challenge). This is such an overwhelming improvement from the GM side of play, it is ok for the learning curve for players and GMs to take some...
It's not even because it hits two enemies, it's because it deals double the amount of damage of any other cantrip. Its damage is not scaled to be the equivalent of other cantrips or factors into account. Yes, if you compare it to how much single target damage it does, it's practically equal, but A. this is using the spell in an inoptimal way, which makes such an argument disingenuous to begin with when optimization is in the discussion, B. It still puts out more raw damage simply because you're affecting two creatures for a comparable amount of half the actions it would take to affect just one creature with that same cantrip, and C. Being able to target multiple enemies is a balance consideration when determining a spell's overall effectiveness; disregarding it for spell slots is a glaring balance problem, why on Golarion should it be disregarded for cantrips as well?
And before you sit there and say "It's easy to spike its effectiveness if you factor in Time Sense/Guidance/Inspire Courage and/or True Strike, etc." the former requires actions (which may not always be possible due to tactical issues) and availability (who always has a Bard in the party?), and the latter also requires additional spell slots (using True Strike for Cantrips feels like a bad time unless it's absolutely necessary), which are all things that Electric Arc et. al. don't need to rely on to do even acceptable consistent damage. Even if you use those things, there's still a chance the spell does absolutely nothing, and you're already having to boost that side just to try and get it on par with the non-attack roll damage cantrips. Remember, even on an enemy succeeding (which is the equivalent of missing an attack roll), Electric Arc et. al. still does half damage to the target, meaning even on a successful save, the equivalent of a miss, Electric Arc et. al. does equal damage to a successful single target attack roll cantrip. If this doesn't demonstrate that Electric Arc et. al. are way stronger damaging cantrips, then nothing will.
Even factoring in "but tactics and debuffs," those still need to have sources, which won't (always) be from you. Demoralize takes actions and a successful skill check, and doesn't last forever (unless you have effects like Dirge of Doom or Aura of Fear/Despair or whatever it's called, again, not a guarantee), Flanking only works for melee attacks (technically doesn't work for all kinds of spell attacks by RAW, but even in a favorable ruling, it's restricted to melee spell attacks, since all ranged attacks are discarded from Flanking), and Flat-Footed as a general condition isn't that common starting out unless you do things like Trip the enemy (which, again, takes actions and checks to apply). In my experience, I've never seen spellcasters do a turn order like "Trip -> Produce Flame" to get the most out of their cantrips. At best, I'd see a Magus do that with Spellstriking (the one in our group does so via Feint instead), but given they are just martials with magic sprinkled in, it's not a genuine comparison to if a Wizard or Witch did that instead, where they are far more likely to do something like "Demoralize -> Ray of Frost/Electric Arc."
Honestly, a cantrip like Haunting Hymn is about as well-balanced as I can expect an "AoE/multi-target" cantrip to be, since at 1st level, doing your mere modifier (4, usually) against enemies in a 15 foot cone (so affecting at least 2 enemies does 8 damage on failures, or 4 on successes) means you are technically doing more damage overall by affecting more creatures, but doing less damage per creature to compensate (4 for Haunting Hymn, 6.5 for a given single target cantrip), which requires specific set-up, and the damage scaling is reduced over time for such a spell, meaning it won't always be the best option, or require a bunch of outside powers/sources to boost. And honestly, when you get those situations where you're getting 4 or more enemies, where it really shines, I can accept that it does significantly more damage because those situations are both rare enough and rewarding enough that it's about on par with effects like critical benefits from Ray of Frost/Produce Flame/Daze.
The complaint is not "I shouldn't have to make tactical choices to get the most out of my spell," it is "Those choices should mean that my spell should be way stronger," and it's simply disingenuous. When you get to a point that it is actually better, it requires so much set-up that it's ultimately defeating the purpose of making a 1:1 agnostic comparison, and it just seems weird that certain spells require this and other spells just don't. Of course a spellcaster using an attack roll cantrip with True Strike/True Target against a Flat-Footed Synesthesia'd opponent while benefitting from an Inspire Heroics +3 boost is going to do way more damage, because you're purposefully shifting the balance to allow this to happen, and you had to actually look into this that much just to get the most out of it. Whereas Electric Arc is simply "cast and go." Given the motto of this edition is to cut down on the complexity of the system and make the "grab and go" playstyle more viable, the simple players are still gonna go "Wheee! Electric Arc goes BZZZZZ!!" And still do potent damage. Meanwhile, you will have other players who either don't do the set-up (or don't know how) and get disappointed, so they'll relegate themselves to Electric Arc anyway, and honestly, I don't think spell attacks and saving throws were designed with the intent of spell attacks being for the more masterful player and saving throws for the less skilled player.
If you remove those things, and compare just Produce Flame, Telekinetic Projectile, Ray of Frost, et. al. to just Electric Arc, Scatter Scree, et. al., as has been suggested previously in the thread, the math simply doesn't favor the former, and spells are usually balanced against themselves, not against themselves with specific set-ups in mind. It's like saying a cantrip is fine because the Psychic can Amp it and make it half-way comparable to the other cantrip, when the whole point is that not every class that may want to take the cantrip is a Psychic.
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Okay but... so what?
Like we've established that electric arc is a good spell, especially in ideal conditions. To my knowledge no one has argued against that at all.
But a spell merely being good isn't a compelling argument to nerf it, especially not significantly.
Are level 1 wizards breaking the game into pieces? Not really. So an argument to make them (potentially significantly) weaker doesn't make sense.
The comparison is to determine whether A. the Shortbow, the golden standard for ranged combat, does more damage than cantrips (at least, attack-roll based ones) for a spellcaster (which is ironic, since most spellcasters aren't even proficient in martial weapons like Shortbows,) which segues into
This will only hold for 1st level as beyond that any character with 14 or more strength will grab a composite shortbow which also has more range and an excellent critical hit that EA doesn't get
B. whether the cantrip from an optimized spellcaster does comparable damage to an optimized ranged martial (which it shouldn't, based on design goals and projected math past 1st level). Just as well, the only ranged martial that actually has more raw reliable damage than any other ranged martial is the Precision Ranger (which only applies to one hit per turn, and requires an action to apply to an enemy, which means it only pulls way ahead after the first round), since Sneak Attack at Ranged isn't reliable (at least until later), and most other classes don't get free damage boosts to ranged attacks
Everybody who has enough strength can go composite, some builds will be served by taking a longbow and investing in it, and then there's the fighter who has better damage due to increased accuracy and the added hits and crits the come with that. Rogues can sneak attack, rangers are covered, fighters have accuracy, gunslingers have accuracy, and most other classes aren't generally focused on ranged damage. I think it's fairer to look at average damage values for characters that have invested into range rather than all martial classes.
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Okay but... so what?
Like we've established that electric arc is a good spell, especially in ideal conditions. To my knowledge no one has argued against that at all.
But a spell merely being good isn't a compelling argument to nerf it, especially not significantly.
Are level 1 wizards breaking the game into pieces? Not really. So an argument to make them (potentially significantly) weaker doesn't make sense.
The point of it being "good" is being able to target multiple targets to deal damage, while not also affecting allies, a benefit not shared with a cantrip like Haunting Hymn, which can cause friendly fire; the fact that it should deal double the damage of other cantrips isn't really respected in this balancing act, because if it was, the other cantrips should be doing more damage to compensate for the fact that they aren't affecting multiple creatures. This is why I find Haunting Hymn to be more balanced compared to Electric Arc, and it actually rewards good tactics (and punishes bad tactics from enemies) with the added number of targets, and consequently, the added damage for the round (on average).
Does Electric Arc et. al. do any of that? No. It does more damage on average in a round, comparable to using two attack-roll cantrips in the same around. It's not just "good," it's twice as good as other cantrips meant to do damage, and even resorting to two enemies that succeed, it still does as much damage as another cantrip meant to do damage on a success as well. Even in situations where it's not wise to use the cantrip, it still does equivalent damage to if you just used an attack roll cantrip and succeeded, and even has the added benefit of half damage on a successful save (or a failed strike by comparison). And if the argument is "Well, enemies are quite likely to succeed on saves compared to spellcasters being likely to succeed on attack rolls, so it makes sense it does more on enemy failures," it's doubling down on the jank spellcasting proficiencies being the way they are, which numerous people feel are handled awkwardly within the system.
Spells being good is fine, because Electric Arc isn't outpacing optimized martials (though it's awfully close), and it's not doing utility things that cantrips like Mage Hand or Bullhorn or Message can do. Spells being exceptionally better than other spells of a similar type without any comparable benefit is not.
I used 1st level as a basic example (because it's both simple and the most common level of play), and it's not a matter of "it breaks the game," since there are more damaging things out there, and more cheesy ways to "win" encounters. It's a matter of "it breaks the balance between comparable options to the point it borderline becomes a de facto option." Who wants Produce Flame when you can Electric Arc? Who needs Telekinetic Projectile when you can Scatter Scree? Cantrips expand well past 1st level, and as levels increase, the disparity between these cantrips only grows, given that spells like Electric Arc et. al. are twice the damage value as other standard damaging cantrips (if not significantly more with Haunting Hymn/Daze, or slightly less when using Gouging Claw/Telekinetic Projectile), with little to no gain for it, and are still equivalent substitutes for inoptimal situations.
The comparison is to determine whether A. the Shortbow, the golden standard for ranged combat, does more damage than cantrips (at least, attack-roll based ones) for a spellcaster (which is ironic, since most spellcasters aren't even proficient in martial weapons like Shortbows,) which segues intoThis will only hold for 1st level as beyond that any character with 14 or more strength will grab a composite shortbow which also has more range and an excellent critical hit that EA doesn't get
B. whether the cantrip from an optimized spellcaster does comparable damage to an optimized ranged martial (which it shouldn't, based on design goals and projected math past 1st level). Just as well, the only ranged martial that actually has more raw reliable damage than any other ranged martial is the Precision Ranger (which only applies to one hit per turn, and requires an action to apply to an enemy, which means it only pulls way ahead after the first round), since Sneak Attack at Ranged isn't reliable (at least until later), and most other classes don't get free damage boosts to ranged attacksEverybody who has enough strength can go composite, some builds will be served by taking a longbow and investing in it, and then there's the fighter who has better damage due to increased accuracy and the added hits and crits the come with that. Rogues can sneak attack, rangers are covered, fighters have accuracy, gunslingers have accuracy, and most other classes aren't generally focused on ranged damage. I think it's fairer to look at average damage values for characters that have invested into range rather than all martial classes.
I find that a lot of melee builds don't have as high of Dexterity (doubly true if using heavy armor because Bulwark shores up the main reason to have a passing Dexterity), making their ranged attacks significantly less accurate, and that a lot of ranged builds don't have very much Strength, making going Composite not particularly worthwhile. Yes, it's more raw damage, but it comes at the price of accuracy or attribute boosts for other things.
Not a whole lot of builds utilize the Longbow, given that Shortbow is the golden standard for a reason, and again, Strength builds won't be as accurate (their accuracy would be comparable to a spellcaster's base accuracy at best). Sneak Attack on ranged attacks isn't very common until the higher levels (where feats like Dread Striker come into play, for example), and while the accuracy boost is definitely an increase in DPR that other martials don't have, attacks are still hitting and critting for the same values (D6s plus specialization and half strength and for Composites as an example), it's just that their frequency of happening is increased.
I would argue that casters having obviously better options for targeting multiple foes is intentional and beneficial to the game, especially in the arcane and primal schools.
Multiple enemies in various positions and formations is your time to shine as a Druid/wizard and having the best option for doing that, right out of the gate with no feat manipulation is a good thing. With a sorely like lightning bolt, it is pretty clear that the ability to potentially do damage to more than one target is not a base line one to one damage parity in the system design. As in a line is defined by 2 points, so hitting 2 targets with lightning bolt is not difficult, but no one is evaluating that spell on the assumption it damages 2 targets.
It is a little bit of an issue worth pondering, that electric arc + weapon attack is such a good low level damage option, but only because it encourages caster + weapon as a thing that doesn’t really get good support beyond just using electric arc all the time. So many of the basic cantrips being spell attack roll spells will discourage players from picking them in the casting + weapon attack build. I could see an argument being made to potentially drop the attack trait from spell attack roll spells, maybe, because of this one specific interaction, but I don’t think that can work with things like fiery form, where the spells drop to one action. So it might not really be worth trying to address. Perhaps an item or spell designed to work well for “spell plus weapon attack” could be enough to give that play style another dimension.
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Spells being good is fine, because Electric Arc isn't outpacing optimized martials (though it's awfully close), and it's not doing utility things that cantrips like Mage Hand or Bullhorn or Message can do. Spells being exceptionally better than other spells of a similar type without any comparable benefit is not.
I'd rather have one damage cantrip worth using than have them all be so weak that attacking twice with a shortbow as a caster beats them. As-is, 10str shortbow caster outperforms produce flame at all levels except 1-3, 7 and 19-20 (and we all know how good magic weapon is from 1-3 to begin with). When a caster is better off using a weapon than damage cantrips for over 50% of the game, why even bother with cantrips? Elemental damage coverage for the rare occasion weakness or phys resist pops up? Not like it's hard to get access either, elf weapon familiarity is right there for the non-bards.
Also, y'know, AoE damage is worth less than single target in general. It's good on EA because it means faster mook clearing in pointless mook fights but it's ultimately inconsequential since you probably aren't using cantrips all that much in severe or extreme encounters unless victory is a foregone conclusion.
Spells being good is fine, because Electric Arc isn't outpacing optimized martials (though it's awfully close), and it's not doing utility things that cantrips like Mage Hand or Bullhorn or Message can do. Spells being exceptionally better than other spells of a similar type without any comparable benefit is not.I'd rather have one damage cantrip worth using than have them all be so weak that attacking twice with a shortbow as a caster beats them. As-is, 10str shortbow caster outperforms produce flame at all levels except 1-3, 7 and 19-20 (and we all know how good magic weapon is from 1-3 to begin with). When a caster is better off using a weapon than damage cantrips for over 50% of the game, why even bother with cantrips? Elemental damage coverage for the rare occasion weakness or phys resist pops up? Not like it's hard to get access either, elf weapon familiarity is right there for the non-bards.
Also, y'know, AoE damage is worth less than single target in general. It's good on EA because it means faster mook clearing in pointless mook fights but it's ultimately inconsequential since you probably aren't using cantrips all that much in severe or extreme encounters unless victory is a foregone conclusion.
I am inclined to agree that spellcasters using weapons to outpace cantrips (without investment, of course,) is absurd, but the problem is that the game has already been published, and this is the progression they went with, which means expecting swathes of errata to bring up all the other options to the power of Electric Arc is even less likely than a Pathfinder 3rd Edition being published (which would possibly change up the paradigm here entirely), whereas if there were errata to be applied in the form of cantrip power adjustments, Electric Arc et. al. being nerfed would both be in-style of Paizo's currently published cantrip expectation, combined with it being the quickest and least intrusive errata to implement, therefore it results in it being the most likely errata to be issued.
That being said, you are assuming everyone is an Elf or Half-Elf and takes ancestry feats for weaponry, which is a relatively miniscule subset of players/characters, one that I suspect is significantly less than spellcasters opting into Electric Arc.
I can accept AoE damage being less important/valuable than single target damage, and I provided an example where that is the case via Haunting Hymn. I can't accept AoE damage being on par with (or more accurately, being superior to) single target damage, because then it largely defeats the entire point of using single target effects, and Electric Arc et. al. is what creates this issue.
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I boosted most single target cantrips to d6 in my home games to encourage their use. I think electric arc is a perfectly designed cantrip. Makes a caster feel like it's worth using, but doesn't outshine martial damage. Most other cantrips do not fall into this category and they should.
That being said, you are assuming everyone is an Elf or Half-Elf and takes ancestry feats for weaponry, which is a relatively miniscule subset of players/characters, one that I suspect is significantly less than spellcasters opting into Electric Arc.
Currently is lot more easier than this. Just put a Jolt Coin into a bow and any spellcaster can do this.
I boosted most single target cantrips to d6 in my home games to encourage their use. I think electric arc is a perfectly designed cantrip. Makes a caster feel like it's worth using, but doesn't outshine martial damage. Most other cantrips do not fall into this category and they should.
IMO I still prefer to reduce attack cantrips to one-action. This wold replace this strange weapon+save cantrip advantage to an attack cantrip. Yet I didn't make any changes about cantrips in my games because this wasn't never a player complain in my games. It's just my personal complaining about how the games mechanics forces casters to be martials.
Last session in a level 12 campaign I run, the 4 person party (rogue, Druid, wizard, Barbarian) had been out exploring an island of particular dangers. Mostly they had been expecting encounters with small groups of equal level humanoids that the would challenge and fight. They had been out exploring all day and had fought through 6 encounters, heading back to their base, when they saw an ancient ship wreck. Again, the party was 6 encounters into the day, on a mission to find other groups of humanoids and challenge and fight them. But SHIPWRECK! So the party decides to investigate.
What treasure do the find? This ship wreck is home to be a 15th level giant scorpion that is not terribly hungry, but is very territorial. I roll a lot of natural 20s when I GM. It is unnatural, doesn’t happen when I am a player and is overly unfair to my players. The Scorpion with the nat 20 on initiative crits the rogue who had stuck his face in the lair with a stinger attack that does more than half the 12 level character’s HP and critically poisons him to the point that the Rogue is now completely out of the fight, trying ti treat his poison (against a very high DC poison that has slowed him 2 by the 2nd round, and very nearly killed him).
The giant Barbarian does not want to back down from this level *3 solo creature that took a party member out of the fight in the first round and hulks up and charges. I won’t go through the encounter round by round but the fight lasted 5 rounds. The Rogue was out round 1, the Barbarian went out round 5, the Druid only had stone skin left so polymorphed and fought up close with their companion. Both ended round 5 with less than 5 hp.
The wizard summoned a construct giant statue that absolutely saved the day tripping the scorpion 2 times and takin multiple poisoned sting attacks that it didn’t have to make hard saves against before dying, but otherwise, the wizard only had cantrips left. She stated pretty far back from this death machine, but did about a third of creatures total HP writhing ray of frost cast with the shadow signet vs reflex with 3 hits in the 4 rounds she attacked it. The creature’s AC was absurdly high for this party (more than 12 points higher than the barbarian’s) so that attack roll cantrip vs reflex was easily the most accurate attack the party had. The Barbarian slightly edged the wizard’s total damage contribution, but just barely because the scorpion’s AC was 3 points higher than its reflex DC and lots of first attack rolls missed.
Had the wizard not had a long range spell attack roll cantrip and the signet ring, that encounter would have been a TPK. The scorpion had a 2 action attack to make 3 tail strikes with no map at 30ft. Had the wizard got crit by a sting ( anything higher than a 5 on the attack) she could have been KO’d from the one hit and a very, very probable crit failed fort save vs DC 36. The Scorpion wasn’t even trying kill the whole party, just bring one character down and drag them back in the lair, but the rogue got far enough away before dropping to make it too much work to go get him.
This party is terrible at taking the hint to run from a fight that is all risk and only XP for reward, most of which they would have got for escaping and marking that place off as a no go on their map, but the wizard was fast enough with a 60ft move speed to have kited and killed this monster on her own with ray of frost if it had come after her.
Cantrips generally being one action would make save Based cantrips way too good. Spamming daze would probably end up even better than electric arc because forcing 3 will saves a round has a good chance of getting a crit fail.
Meanwhile attack roll cantrips become garbage because they contribute to MAP while save spells don’t.
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That being said, you are assuming everyone is an Elf or Half-Elf and takes ancestry feats for weaponry, which is a relatively miniscule subset of players/characters, one that I suspect is significantly less than spellcasters opting into Electric Arc.Currently is lot more easier than this. Just put a Jolt Coil into a bow and any spellcaster can do this.
I boosted most single target cantrips to d6 in my home games to encourage their use. I think electric arc is a perfectly designed cantrip. Makes a caster feel like it's worth using, but doesn't outshine martial damage. Most other cantrips do not fall into this category and they should.IMO I still prefer to reduce attack cantrips to one-action. This wold replace this strange weapon+save cantrip advantage to an attack cantrip. Yet I didn't make any changes about cantrips in my games because this wasn't never a player complain in my games. It's just my personal complaining about how the games mechanics forces casters to be martials.
Fixed the link name reference. Also, this is yet another strawman. (Did I cast a Tongues spell on myself or something? This is the third strawman against me in this thread.) My argument is that Electric Arc is far more prevalent in play than players taking ancestry feats (specifically, Elf ancestry feats) for weapon access, so the idea that solving weapon proficiency is the same as taking an item (or other, more commonly spread ancestry feat) to gain access to a popular spell does not track.
I honestly would think that to be the case, simply because not only does it do less damage than spells like Electric Arc when used optimally, it has MAP to balance around it (not unlike Strikes being balanced around MAP; funny how that works), but I believe Paizo is far too rooted in its "Most every spell must take two actions to cast" paradigm.
I'll repeat again: I can accept Electric Arc doing more damage by nature of it affecting more creatures, because a cantrip like Haunting Hymn is like this when it affects multiple creatures; I can't accept it doing more damage (read: DPR) than if it affected the same number of creatures as a single target attack roll cantrip.
So there definitely is a gap between haunting hymn and electric arc, and it is a lose one because it is so easy to get cantrips from other traditions, but I think arcane and primal casters are supposed to have a multi-target cantrip that is as good as electric arc. Like primal and arcane casters should never be in a position where they can’t zap 2 close by enemies at the same time for about as much damage as they can direct towards a single target. “More targets” is non-support casters default damage boosting mechanic. So like daze to ray of frost, haunting hymn is the default best support casters multi-target cantrip and it is supposed to be noticeably less effective for just raw damage, but have a more other effects and specialized damage types. I don’t think all cantrips are meant to compare to each other with no consideration of tradition.
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I heavily dislike EA only because it is so much better than every other offensive cantrip that it is practically required to take. The way I see it, the power and effectiveness of EA should be the baseline of all offensive cantrips and not the outlier. It doesn’t need toned down. The others need to be made better.
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I try to fit EA in any caster I play. But if I play an offensive caster, I will use attack cantrips to target weaknesses or for the longer range when useful.
Of course, Reach Spell feat + EA is pretty awesome too ;-)
So, EA is the basis and attack cantrips are the special ammo.
So, EA is the basis and attack cantrips are the special ammo.
You summed up the current situation of cantrips in one line!
I kinda like the 1 action cantrip somebody proposed, though I would make it in a way that prevents a spellcaster from casting a damage save spell ( like fireball ) in the same round they use an attack cantrip ( making it one or the other, but not both ).
I already think it should work along with saving spell slots spells too. Because that's what already happens with armed spellcasters.
Mechanically speaking, a spellcaster capable of launching a fireball or lightning with proficiency in using a bow can already do this with basically an efficiency similar to that of an average martial character, as long as the spellcaster is also using a weapon properly equipped with runes. The difference is that you will have -2 to hit when compared to martials, at levels 5-10 and 13+, which in practice is still an advantage if you consider that the 2nd attack of a martial suffers MAP, a -2 would be equivalent to MAP of a flurry ranger with a agile weapon.
If your character can't use a bow for whatever reason (like you don't have martial proficiency and don't want to be an elf/half-elf), but you have access to firearms, a Long Air Repeater does the trick, or even One-handed Air Repeater that still lets you hold a staff or a wand in the other.
As for the damage, it should be similar to a ranged attack made by a STR character with low dex ( and the absence of potency runes, as well as the slower spellcaster progression compared to the martial one already covers up for this ), as well as their damage:
Something like 1d6 + Spellcaster stat by lvl 1, that increases following the weapon progression:
lvl 1) 1d6+ spellcasting stat ( the full spellcasting )
lvl 4) 2d6 + spellcasting stat ( striking rune )
lvl 8) 3d6 + spellcasting stat ( elemental rune )
lvl 10) 4d6 + spellcasting stat ( second elemental rune )
lvl 12) 5d6 + spellcasting stat ( greater striking rune )
lvl 16) 6d6 + spellcasting stat ( third elemental rune )
lvl 18) 7d6 + spellcasting stat ( major striking rune )ofc the dmg is supposed to be slightly higher than a bow character ( full spellcasting stat as damage, and rune damage increases asap rather than having to pay or go to the town crafting during downtime ), but their lower chance to hit would make it closer to them ( probably slightly underpowered, as it should be ).
It doesn't even need that much. The current 1d4 attack cantrips already achieve very similar damage averages, the problem is that they spend 2 actions, which basically prevents them from being used in conjunction with most spells.
For example, the average damage of the cantrip you proposed would be:
Lvl 1: 7.5
Lvl 4: 11
Lvl 8: 14.5
Lvl 10: 19
Lvl 12: 22.5
Lvl 16: 26
Lvl 18: 30.5
Already the average damage of an attack cantrip that uses xd4+stat is:
Lvl 1: 6.5
Lvl 3: 9
Lvl 5: 11.5
Lvl 7: 14
Lvl 9: 16.5
Lvl 11: 20
Lvl 13: 22.5
Lvl 15: 25
Lvl 17: 28.5
Lvl 19: 31
And as I already said, this idea of one-action attack cantrips already exists. Fiery Body already does this, it turns the Produce Flame attack cantrip into a 1-action cantrip, as well as adding several other benefits (giving you fire immunity, resistance 10 to precision damage, and weakness 5 to cold and to water. Any creature that touches you or damages you with an unarmed attack or non-reach melee weapon takes 3d6 fire damage, add 1d4 additional fire damage to unarmed attacks, fly Speed of 40 feet and don't need to breathe and fire spells deal one additional die of fire damage, including the Produce Flame itself).
So in practice the main difference of making attack cantrips to use one less action would be precisely to remove this dependency of having to have a weapon (usually a bow) to increase your DPR with a caster and compromise fantasy in favor of efficiency in low levels, in addition to making attack cantrips more efficient for those who just want to use them with MAP.
...primal and arcane casters should never be in a position where they can’t zap 2 close by enemies at the same time for about as much damage as they can direct towards a single target.
This is the flaw that I take issue with, because the spells aren't even designed this way. Electric Arc's DPR doesn't equal 6.5, the average damage of a given successful attack roll cantrip at 1st level. It's equal on a failure, and yet technically higher due to the nature of save based spells. And it's twice as much when you actually target two creatures. In fact, I argued that the equality should be the case by stating Electric Arc et. al. should split its damage total between the number of targets you affect, and I was met with so much backlash over the fact that I was suggesting to nerf everyone's favorite little toy that quite frankly, people don't care about balance. They just want "Hurr hurr Electric Arc go BZZZZ!"
If Electric Arc is designed to do just as much damage (or rather, technically more, due to the nature of saving throw spells,) as single target cantrips, then you are defeating the entire purpose of single target cantrips, whose sole purpose is to provide additional damage to a specific enemy, instead of spreading that damage around to multiple enemies; that's the power benefit of Electric Arc et. al.
It would be like saying Magic Missile does more damage than a Shocking Grasp for every target you select with a missile, because you're affecting more enemies, even though, at the end of the day, if you select 3 different enemies for a given 3 Action Magic Missile, the damage total still comes out to 3D4+3. It doesn't triple in value because you affect 3 targets. Why should Electric Arc et. al.?
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Darksol, at level 1 vs a level 1 enemy the DPR for electric arc against 1 target is 4.55. The DPR for produce flame, with nothing added for persistent damage on a crit is 4.55.
They are exactly the same because ties go to the die roller so it is much easier to get a favorable critical good effect threshold with spell attack rolls than with save spells. Spell attack roll spells essentially start off with a +2 accuracy over saving throw spells built in.
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Also, I think you are looking at magic missile the opposite way it was intended. Its single target damage is not all that great unless fighting very difficult to affect enemies, but its total value is calculated as a single target spell. The fact you can divide up the missiles to target different enemies is a very minor add on to the spells usefulness and not a feature the spell is paying for out if it’s maximum possible damage budget (the spells budget is going heavily towards, automatically hitting and bypassing all traditional defenses). This is despite the fact that the spell can be buffed with feats to do more damage to the more targets you hit.
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Darksol, at level 1 vs a level 1 enemy the DPR for electric arc against 1 target is 4.55. The DPR for produce flame, with nothing added for persistent damage on a crit is 4.55.
Electric Arc doing the same DPR as Produce Flame would be totally fine if the idea is that Electric Arc was designed to be a single target effect. It is not, because you can do that same DPR to a second target, and for the purposes of calculating DPR, they stack together. It's effectively a "double" single target effect for the same amount of actions as a "single" single target effect. Therefore, saying it's fine for them to have the same DPR for single targets is inconsistent design when Electric Arc being able to do so for a second target is nowhere near comparable for DPR.
I brought up Magic Missiles as a counterpoint to explain why Electric Arc's DPR shouldn't double just because you can target multiple creatures with it. Magic Missiles has the opportunity to both target multiple creatures as well as target only a single one. Magic Missiles does 3D4+3 damage for 3 actions, no matter how many targets you select with it. Electric Arc does 1D4+4 damage for 2 actions, which doubles in overall DPR if you have a second identical target. Again, if the idea is that being able to target multiple creatures shouldn't result in an increase in such a spell's effectiveness, then Electric Arc has inconsistent design.
There's a sensible difference, because in order to use a bow a spellcaster:
1) should get bow proficiency through feats ( one or more ).
2) should start with 16 dex ( renouncing to other stats ).
3) should expend a load of golds to keep the bow properly upgraded.
You're right, I ignored that the caster starts at max 16 dex. But I disagree with everything else, including the "sensible difference".
1. Getting the bow proficiency is easy and cheap! Any half-elf and elf spellcaster can do it easily, and it is quite common for players to choose these races for spellcasters even for other feats. And as I said, if firearms are available, there are Air Repeaters, and other spellcasters like Warpriest and Bard don't even need it, at most they get EA via spellheart or ancestry feat.
2. Starting with 16 dex, in practice it even affects levels 1-4, and 10+, and in fact they even reduce your hit compared to the primary attacks of a standard martial by -3, maybe -4 at 17 due to the lack of APEX , however honestly, after level 13 the weapon loses importance, you probably complement the damage with the Fiery Body or even some sustained magic (but IMO the Fiery Body is better because it gives more freedom and capabilities and doesn't need to be hightened).
3. In practical gold for spellcasters, it's not a problem. In fact, my experience with spellcasting players is precisely that they don't know what to do with the money earned. I know there will be people saying they should spend on staves, wands and consumables and maybe a wearable item. But in practice I've never seen any muti casters excited about any of these items. On the contrary, when I remember that they can continue to invest in weapons to deal extra damage with the weapon, many like and accept the solution.
And that leads to the next question...
These are, to me, enough reasons to both approach that way, and also discourage aoe + attack cantrip ( which goes against how the game is structured around spellcasters, that are the best ones that can make a good use of INT/WIS/CHA combat skill based, like recall knowledge ).
Now it's kinda balanced because all meaningful spells ( i'd say 99% of the spells that a spellcaster might use ) require 2 actions, cantrip included, forcing the class not to spam spells but to rely on skills and skill/class feats, but allowing spellcaster to blast with 3 actions without any malus ( 2 actions for an aoe spell and 1 for a spell attack ), would obviously end up with everybody blasting with no tactics at all.
I'd rather not see spellcasters ending their turn just blasting and not doing anything else.
In practice none of that excites my players.
My players only practically use RK because they have nothing better to do.
None of them are fans of RK because when it fails it can no longer be used, and even when it succeeds there is no guarantee that the information given will be useful. It improves a little when using a houserule to allow the player to remember specific information (which breaks some investigator/rogue and thaumaturge feats by the way) of their choice. But even so, I rarely see them stopping to recall knowledge. Usually they are using the excess action for something else.
Those with high charisma still try to demoralize and that's it! And what happens. That's why many ended up adept at armed spellcasters, or simply play bards, summoners or cast some sustained magic. And when I demonstrated to them how Fiery Body works, all arcane/primal spellcasters on tables above level 13 adopted it as one of their favorite spells to use a 3rd action.
That's why I said that there is a kind of hole that encourages armed spellcasters.
At levels 1-2 they are practically played in this situation. For there simply isn't much option other than to demoralize and recall knowledge. Either play Bard or Summoner.
At levels above, some even try to sustain some magic, but often for reasons of saving spellslots, they simply continue using and improving their weapons. And since the invention of the Spellhearts to the attractiveness of the staffs ended up decreasing (especially after the addition of the Jolt Coil, which they use to increase the damage of the attack a little more).
And it's like I said, they never complained about playing like that. I'm the only one who finds it strange that in the end it's just as effective to use weapons in the hands of spellcasters than to use magic themselves.
Wow i didn't realise ray of frost had a 120ft range. now i feel even worse for having produce flame on my list :D
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Ray of Frost's range makes it a nice element to add to your cantrip choices.
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Produce flame is a deceptive spell. It’s obvious niche is melee against a higher level solo enemy that you really want to stick with persistent damage. The big problem with that niche is that it is a bad idea to be a caster stuck in melee with a higher level solo enemy. So the niche kinda cancels itself out. The crit riders are good though for a magus. So it still definitely has a place in the game.
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Produce flame is a deceptive spell. It’s obvious niche is melee against a higher level solo enemy that you really want to stick with persistent damage. The big problem with that niche is that it is a bad idea to be a caster stuck in melee with a higher level solo enemy. So the niche kinda cancels itself out. The crit riders are good though for a magus. So it still definitely has a place in the game.
If the attack roll is the same and it still triggers reactions, what exactly is the benefit (however small) of it having a melee option?
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Produce flame is a deceptive spell. It’s obvious niche is melee against a higher level solo enemy that you really want to stick with persistent damage. The big problem with that niche is that it is a bad idea to be a caster stuck in melee with a higher level solo enemy. So the niche kinda cancels itself out. The crit riders are good though for a magus. So it still definitely has a place in the game.
Not exactly painting itself a good picture when its normal payoff is to exploit conditions to increase likelihoods of success or crits (Electric Arc also does this via Clumsy), and its "big payoff" requires you to roll a 20 on the dice for it, as well as risking taking reactions (as well as the high likelihood of disruptions) to do so. You'd have better luck using Ray of Frost as your "big payoff" comparison, a cantrip with 120 feet of range; being able to take pot shots from a much further distance, disincentivizing enemies to come after you, is an infinitely more valuable payoff than "If I go up to him, flank with my buddy, avoid the Attack of Opportunity, and roll a 20, I can do a bit of extra damage for a few rounds!"
And in fact, you did just that when you told your little story, which, in my opinion, tells me more of a poorly balanced encounter than it tells me of the "greatness" that was Ray of Frost, given that A. a summoned creature somehow tripped them twice (implying that it has abysmal Reflex saves), and that B. Ray of Frost was augmented using an item exploiting that very abysmal stat, instead of being used as an Attack Roll against AC as it normally should be. If anything, this tells me the Shadow Signet is the real power house, not Ray of Frost, because odds are, without that item, those Ray of Frosts would have missed frequently and resulted in the TPK you stated would happen.
Meanwhile, Electric Arc can do almost the same amount of damage with a consolation prize if their saves are good enough that they save frequently (compared to if their AC is high enough that you miss frequently), and is assuming that you purposefully use Electric Arc to target only one creature, which is a relatively disingenuous take on how the spell is commonly used, which is to target two creatures most every time. The only time(s) you probably wouldn't would be to either trigger weakness (rare for Electricity damage), or to bypass super high AC or exploit garbage Reflex saves. Any other time? Two targets.
So let's not neuter Electric Arc's full power just to frame a picture that Produce Flame et. al. are balanced properly against it.
You'd have better luck using Ray of Frost as your "big payoff" comparison, a cantrip with 120 feet of range; being able to take pot shots from a much further distance, disincentivizing enemies to come after you, is an infinitely more valuable payoff than "If I go up to him, flank with my buddy, avoid the Attack of Opportunity, and roll a 20, I can do a bit of extra damage for a few rounds!"
If there's one thing that I've learned about playing sniper builds and hit and run kite builds (like many monks) is that your lack of presence in the hp pool makes everything harder on everyone else in the party.
Unless everyone is sniping/kiting, all you're doing is transferring your damage to another team member, who will fall all that much sooner because you weren't helping to spread the damage around.
This isn't 1st Edition where everyone does their own thing and can win. You gotta' work with your team. Part of that is taking a couple of the hits in their place every once in a while.
Or at least so says half the groups I've played with whenever I played such distance builds anyways.
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Thinking on how to fix the problem again, how about an item which granted an effective proficiency increase at key levels, but naturally dropped off once you attained that proficiency?
Spellstrikers Totem, Minor, 3rd.
When you Cast a Spell that takes 1 or 2 actions to cast, requires a spell attack roll and does not have a duration, you may cast that spell as though you had the Expert Spellcaster class feature for your class.
Spellstrikers Totem, 9th.
When you Cast a Spell that takes 1 or 2 actions to cast, requires a spell attack roll and does not have a duration, you may cast that spell as though you had the Master Spellcaster class feature for your class.
Spellstrikers Totem, Greater, 16th.
When you Cast a Spell that takes 1 or 2 actions to cast, requires a spell attack roll and does not have a duration, you may cast that spell as though you had the Legendary Spellcaster class feature for your class.
The idea here being pretty straight forward.
The overall problem with flat bonuses to Spellcasting feature is the heavily backended scaling means that any flat bonus granted at lower levels, where it is most needed, ends up pushing the curve too high at later levels.
By bringing the bonus from proficiency down in a way which includes a natural drop off, it smooths out the curve so its less spikey and actually makes Spell Attacks good options at certain levels, while not actually providing casters anything extra on top of their natural scaling.
The "For your class line" might need fixed, but the intent there is that if your class doesn't have the feature (Magus, for instance) it doesn't actually grant you anything.
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I don't see anything to "fix". Finally casters are not one-man-armies and need to hide behind martials to do their stuff to promote teamwork. Single target damage and mobility is martial cake in this edition and I really love it. Casters have utiltity spells, heal spells, summon spells, debuffs, buffs, crap ton of AoE damage spells/disable spells etc. Yes, I am well aware that most of those AoE spells are really effective on enemies same/-1/+1 level but that's also good in my book. The stronger single enemy there is: the more martials shine, the more lower level enemies are and more problem sloving/utility is required: the more casters shine. In the end they all meet somwhere in the middle via teamwork, using manouvers, buffs, debuffs, reactions, positioning, feats etc. to cover each other and support each other.
Seriously, it's a breath of fresh air after playing AD&D, D&D for so many years (didn't play PF1E but played 3.5 and 5e) to finally see casters being tonned down.
Also if you want to make casters stronger at your table: just do it if that's what your players want. But don't expect any official changes from Paizo as they were clear in their intent and reasoning behind their decisions why runes/proficiences work like they work for casters. The whole math behind system was built with that in mind, so they won't now mess up the whole nice balance they got just becasue some people want to be God-Wizards again.
TL:DR houserule that (e.g. give casters potency runes if you have to), but Paizo won't reinvent whole wheel after years now.
I wish we could put a label on discussions about intra-edition discourse vs inter-edition discourse.
Inter-edition hot takes aren't really relevant.
Yes, literally everyone likes these changes. Its why we are here.
This is discussing a minor imbalance for a particular subset of spells that aren't performing as well as they should given the system seeming design goals.
Everyone is also aware homebrew exists.