I'm trying to put together a document to supplement my class guides. The idea is to talk a bit about the metagame of pathfinder 2E and where the community generally is at after all these years since the release of the game. Part of that document is a personal tier list of the classes.
The criteria I plan to follow is how good a class is at filling the 4th slot of any given party and how good they cover roles for the group. These are the tiers I will use to sort the classes out.
Tier 1: Regardless of party composition, the class will always feel like a good addition to the group, and in a lot of cases, it will be the single, best addition you could have made for it. The class can fill several roles for the party and it is one of the best, if not the best, at a single or several roles.
Tier 2: The class ranges from an adequate addition to being the best addition to the party in some niche cases. The class can adequately cover several roles for the group, but usually not as many or not as well as the Tier 1 classes.
Tier 3: The class is usually a decent addition to any party, but it is overshadowed by higher tiered classes. They offer good role coverage, but they are hardly the best, the most versatile or the most intuitive.
Tier 4: The class is hardly a good addition to a party outside very specific groups. They cover some roles, but there are other classes that do what they do better.
Tier 5: Barely functional or a direct, inferior version of another class, subclass or build. No redeeming qualities.
The roles I've considered for the other classes are:
Damage (both single target and AoE)
Defense (in combat healing, condition removal, damage mitigation and other types of protection. Not counting personal endurance)
Buffing and debuffing
Battlefield manipulation (Disruptive reactions and the ability to create traps, hazards, difficult terrain, walls…)
Utility (Skills and other stuff like out of combat healing, access to spells like Comprehend Languages or abilities like the Thaumaturge Lantern Implement)
Ability to frontline (is the HP, AC and saves enough to be where the monsters are?)
Resilience to disruption (range, action compression, mobility…)
I'm having problems with placing a few classes, so I'd like some help in that regard. Not looking for people to just place them, I'm more interested in the reasoning behind it.
These ones are:
- Gunslinger: I only have experience with Sniper and Triggerbrand, and only at very specific levels. I think the class belongs in tier 3, but I'd like to hear more opinions on the matter.
- Inventor: Never seen the class since the playtest, just heard about it. No idea where to place it.
- Summoner: I have only seen the class at low levels. My general impression is that it is a tier 3 class, but I don't have enough info to know for sure.
- Wizard (familiar, metamagic and staff): I know they are bad based on my experience with the other two types of wizard, I just don't know how bad they are because I haven't seen them in play.
Just a note that Superbidi has a build he calls Caster Summoner that he considers extremely versatile.
Think I've seen that pop up a few times in other threads, but no idea how it works exactly (or how good it is).
I can speak on the Summoner and the Wizard to level 11 to 12.
Wizard: It's a slow starting class with the best thesis for party assistance being Spell Substitution. With a large spellbook, Universalist, and Spell Substitution, you become very good at useful utility that isn't necessary immediately like in battle.
Damage: Same as any caster with access to the arcane list for single target and AoE. Arcane list is good for blasting of any kind.
Defense: Standard 6 point caster defenses. On the bad end for PF2. Decent spell defenses as slots become easier to spend on lower level defense spells.
Buffing and Debuffing: Lacks a big debuff like Synesthesia and doesn't have heroism or bless, but a fairly comprehensive list of buffs and debuffs like slow and phantasmal killer.
Battlefield Manipulation: Arcane list for battlefield manipulation. Arcane list probably is the best at battlefield manipulation spells like walls, control spells, and illusions.
Utility: Best utility caster in the game with Spell Substitution. Give them 10 minutes and a spell slot, you'll have the spell you need if it is in their spellbook.
Ability to Frontline: Please don't make me do this, I'll die.
Resilience to Disruption: As good as any 6 point caster that can cast invisibility.
Considerations:
1. Focus spells are mostly bad. You will not get much out of the wizard focus spells.
2. Feat Choices are limited with Universalist having the best bang for the buck with feat choices like Bond Conservation which works especially well with multiple uses of Arcane Bond.
3. Spellbook is expensive to add to make your utility amazing. Costs a lot to buy a spell and then record it in your spellbook for a lot of levels. Not sure if anyone runs this cheaper, but given the lack of clarity on how hard or easy it is to acquire spells it has proved to be an expensive venture to fill up the spellbook.
4. Intelligence is not a high value statistic. It's best investment is in Unified Theory arcana at high level and Crafting to allow you to make items as you travel or quickly make larger quantities of low level consumables like scrolls of mirror image or true strike.
I would say the wizard is probably a Tier 3 to Tier 4 class in your list. You wouldn't take them over a bard or sorcerer, but the Universalist Spell Substitution will at least prove very useful at times being the Tier 3 option.
Any other type of wizard is likely a Tier 4 with Spell Blending perhaps able to do some very good damage at high level on occasion.
That was my experience with the wizard. Better than when I first played one when the game first came out, but still needing some work to be a class optimizers want in their group compared to many others that bring more to the table.
Thanks. I was looking mostly into Staff, Metamagic and Familiar Wizard, as I have some experience with the other 2 (I put Spell Blending and Spell Substitution in tier 3 in my list and I don't plan to move them right now).
I'm mostly looking for first or secondhand experience with these 3 thesis. As I said, I only know they are worse than the other 2, but not by how much.
To be more precise, do they feel in actual play like an outright inferior version of other casters with almost nothing to gain in return? Do you think that other class would do every single thing the class does better?
Or do they feel like a concept that has something going for them but that ultimately feels underwhelming under most circumstances? Do you think that under very specific circumstances the class has something (or a combination of things) to offer that no other class does better?
I identify the first as a sign of a tier 5 class/subclass and the latter as a tell of a tier 4 class. For reference, I put things like the Witch in tier 4 and only horrid builds like Ranged Champion or most finesse builds in tier 5.
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only horrid builds like Ranged Champion or most finesse builds in tier 5.
Sounds like I'm not going to agree much with your list.
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I'd imagine "most finesse builds" is probably supposed to mean something like finesse on classes that are nominally Str or Dex but have no precision damage or the like to compensate for Dex builds' weaknesses, rather than ones that are encouraged or forced into finesse and given the tools to compensate - i.e., champion or fighter, vs rogue or swashbuckler.
Even so those builds do work. Yes a finesse fighter will have a lower strength so they sacrifice some of their ability in athletics checks and melee damage. But it also opens up ranged combat, the possibility of using stealth for initiative and just dex skills in general. Plus a 14 Str fighter with a pair of agile/finesse weapons is still very effective in melee. The ranged champion likewise can immediately use the paladin reaction at range 15, not have to go with reach and just be range 10 - it makes a difference. Both these characters can still get into heavy armour if they want. If your tier system is putting these at the botton then you need to rethink your tier system.
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I'd imagine "most finesse builds" is probably supposed to mean something like finesse on classes that are nominally Str or Dex but have no precision damage or the like to compensate for Dex builds' weaknesses, rather than ones that are encouraged or forced into finesse and given the tools to compensate - i.e., champion or fighter, vs rogue or swashbuckler.
Yes, mostly for classes that would need 5 stats in case of going finesse, like Thaumaturge or Investigator, as they are the same as a ranged version of the class minus the range (or have to tank a save stat to have higher damage than ranged builds). I think finesse Fighter or Ranger are bad, but not that bad.
As for ranged Champion, it is just a flawed concept for how it works in actual play. If you are a good champion, you want to be almost at polearm range to use the reaction, but that clashes with having a good range unless you play bodyguard with a caster or another ranged martial. You want to get attacked due to your reaction and high AC, but enemies are most likely going to ignore you as you are hard to hit and deal very little damage, thing that gets even worse if you are an evil champion. You need CHA for some of your class features, but that means either ignoring STR or forgoing a save stat. Lots of your feats either don't work or were clearly designed with you being at melee range. It is just not worth it.
But it also opens up ranged combat
The thing is that if you are maxing DEX as a, let's say, Fighter, you are better off going for mainly a ranged gameplan and just using finesse as a melee back-up rather than the other way around. Guess I should put the whole list here for reference.
Tier 1: Bard, Fighter (STR based), Magus (Starlit Span), Rogue (Thief and Ruffian)
Tier 2: Barbarian, Cloistered Cleric, Champion (STR based, good), Druid, Fighter (ranged), Monk, Sorcerer, Thaumaturge, Rogue (other rackets)
Tier 3: Cleric (Warpriest), Champion (STR based, evil), Investigator (ranged), Magus (non-Starlit), Oracle, Psychic, Ranger (non-Outwit), Swashbuckler (Wit), Wizard (Spell Blending and Spell Substitution)
Tier 4: Alchemist, Fighter (Finesse), Investigator (melee), Ranger (Outwit), Swashbuckler (non-Wit), Witch
Tier 5: Champion (ranged), Finesse builds for non finesse-favored classes
The actual list has explanations for context, this is just a TLDR of where I put everything. If something is not mentioned it is because I either forgot (I'll add it if that's the case) or because I don't think it needs a different entry (finesse Flurry Ranger is worse than STR Flurry Ranger, but ultimately it does not matter for tiering IMO).
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only horrid builds like Ranged Champion or most finesse builds in tier 5.Sounds like I'm not going to agree much with your list.
Yeah, PF2 allows one to build competitively outside of typical builds. It's only select builds that fail, often due to overextending one's roles or carrying old edition expectations.
Tiers present too simple a picture because PF2 allows most classes to perform many roles well, with Archetypes compounding that. And the value of those roles depends on party composition and also sometimes on a campaign's theme & difficulty. Tiers may in fact mislead.If going meta, go full meta and start w/ a party POV about what the roles do and then which classes do each well. Though even then I'd expect much disagreement, again due to the system allowing for many approaches.
The only thing thaum misses from going dex instead of str is a bit flat damage, an area where he is already pretty good. The main weakness of finesse, which is (usually) one handed lol damage weapons is something that he already has to suffer either way.
If you are going DEX to hit, why are you limiting yourself to finesse when you can just go ranged and do mostly the same damage?. Finesse Thaum is bad outside very niche interactions like Triggerbrand Salvo, and I'm not going to add a note for every single, little build there is out there.
Rogues can't possibly be Tier 1 because what you consider T1, because they won't be able to properly fit any party [...]For example, a party with only ranged characters
I actually played in a party with only ranged players and the rogue not only fared just fine, but it was one of the biggest contributors to the party success. Of course you have to adjust tactics a lot, but the rogue was the least of the issues that party had. That a party with 3 ranged players is a flawed party from the beginning is not a fault in the Rogue's kit.
Also, just to note, I just want some feedback on those classes I have little experience on, nothing else. This tier list I'm doing is almost irrelevant in relation to the whole point of the doc I'm writting. It is just a personal tier list for extra context, of course it is going to be biased by my personal experience with the system, same as all tier lists ever made by a single individual.
At level 18 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/5. Spell blending 2/2/3/3/3/3/3/5/6. Druid 3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3
You do know an arcane/occult Sorcerer at level 18 is 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/5/5,
Divine or primal is 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/5/6Spell blending is not that good.
Staff Nexus Wizard: I have had a player try two Staff Nexus wizards in two separate parties. All the standard wizard abilities apply, but I'm still not sure what Staff Nexus does other than let a player start with a staff. It had no effect on performance I could determine with numbers. It was like if the DM had given the player a staff to start the game with a level 1 spell. That's what it did. I'm not sure why my player keeps wanting to try that thesis other than he likes having a magic staff.
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The Summoner: This is an extremely hard class to tier. You can build a summoner in a lot of ways, many are not intuitive. The summoner definitely requires more system mastery and thought to make work well or at all.
I've done a dragon summoner to level 5.
Undead summoner to level 11.
Angel summoner to level 7 or so.
Damage (both single target and AoE): Out of the box, summoner damage is on the low end of optimal. Each type of summoner, I tried a few different methods of attack.
Angel Summoner: I made the summoner with a champion archetype and Tandem Strike. So he would use his Champion's reaction to defend the eidolon and tandem strike for standard attack using a glaive. This was an experiment. It didn't work very well. It's not good to have the summoner and eidolon both in melee range with the shared hit point pool. The damage was lacking because you don't have any damage booster to make you even a decent martial.
Dragon Summoner: Standard attack and use a damage cantrip like eletric arc. Ok damage, better against multiple targets due to the nature of electric arc. Nothing to write home about, but adds up and consistent.
Undead Eidolon: I went a different route using a ranged unarmed strike with the undead eidolon. Unarmed ranged strike is low damage, but allows you to maintain range and avoid getting hit more than using the eidolon in melee.
I would say AoE and Single target damage are both middling to low with an occasional nova moment which can't be sustained.
Defense (in combat healing, condition removal, damage mitigation and other types of protection. Not counting personal endurance): Eidolon defenses are like a Master level martial and summoner like a 6 point caster with a combined hit point pool.
Nothing stands out for defense. And you do sometimes experience the pain of multiple points of attack if the eidolon is getting hit and you are getting hit by separate creatures or even something like a dragon hitting your eidolon with a melee attack while using their breath weapon on the group where the summoner is. You're always in danger of getting hit because your hit point pool exists in two separate hit boxes.
You can make a healer summoner by focusing on the medic skill and taking the eidolon casting line of feats. Both the summoner and eidolon can perform the heal skill on others. The eidolon can take heal every level for the magic feats giving you additional heals with the eidolon on top of your base slots.
Buffing and debuffing: Depends on the spell list you take. Fewer slots to buff and debuff. But you can take the eidolon line of casting feats to boost the number of spells you can cast.
You can build your eidolon to do something like Weighty Impact which is an automatic knockdown on hit for an extra action. You can also build a grappler combining a bit of martial debuff/buff with caster.
Battlefield manipulation (Disruptive reactions and the ability to create traps, hazards, difficult terrain, walls…): Depends on the casting list and investment in eidolon casting feats.
You can build a grappler eidolon to hold people in place. Eidolon can be built with reach and pick up Attack of Opportunity with reach.
Utility (Skills and other stuff like out of combat healing, access to spells like Comprehend Languages or abilities like the Thaumaturge Lantern Implement): Eidolon has all the skills you have and can use them with their stats versus yours. So you can have an eidolon with high dex do stealth or thievery, while you use Intimidation with your charisma. So it gives you some statistical flexibility with skill use.
There is a feat line for giving the eidolon unique skills and a skill feat or two. If you could share skill feats or give the eidolon more skill feats, this would be a lot cooler.
Ability to frontline (is the HP, AC and saves enough to be where the monsters are?): You are a 10 hit point class who can heal themselves. I feel like you can build a decent frontline summoner if you that is what you focus heavily on. Build a grappler or knockdown eidolon with reach, build up your Con, focus your spellcasting on healing.
Resilience to disruption (range, action compression, mobility…): You can set up at range. The summoner is often free to cast with the eidolon acting as their ranged attacker. So you aren't set up for disruption too often.
Some unique elements of the summoner:
1. Action Economy: Act Together gives you some unique action economy advantages. You almost always have an extra single action to do something with. So you could say sustain a spell easier at early level than nearly any other caster class. You can use summons so you can have an eidolon fighting while casting a summon and sustaining it with the extra action.
The summoner has some of the most unique and beneficial action economy in the game. Figuring out how to maximize it is part of the fun of the class.
2. Single Hit Point Pool: This unique feature makes the summoner easier to heal. My undead eidolon as an example could be healed by harm or heal spells. You can heal at two points. You can heal yourself while standing far away from the battle if your eidolon is fighting far away.
At the same time you can get attacked and surrounded, flanked, and hammered by AoE and other attacks at two points.
Sometimes if you're far away from the eidolon and you go down, it's hard to get back into the fight. I had my dragon eidolon fighting goblins 70 feet away and he was dropped knocking me unconscious. I went down, was healed, and had to resummon the eidolon while laying prone, then send it with one action back to the area to battle because it starts adjacent to you. It's pretty action intensive to get into a fight if you are brought down.
3. Some Things that might be interesting to try: What if you made a caster eidolon that used Battle Form spells to boost damage and combat ability? The eidolon is one of the few creatures being a Master level martial with a low damage physical attack that would get a big boost from casting a Battle Form spell on itself in combat using the eidolon caster line of feats.
What about doing something like having the eidolon cast a cloudkill in an area, setting up a wall to seal everyone in, then demanifesting the eidolon to remove them from the area while the enemies remain trapped in the area with the cloudkill or similar damaging sustain or active spell?
Suffice it to say the summoner is the class I'm having the most trouble putting in a power range. I know it's not a fighter in terms of dealing damage. But it's not a witch either. The summoner has good and interesting feats and build options. The biggest pain is probably the shared hit point pool.
The summoner is one of those classes where it is real hard to pick a path and stick with it. It can do so much. It would benefit from picking from the mass of what it does and trying to focus it down to a few things it can do well.
I'm not sure where to put it. Badly built probably Tier 3. A well built summoner is probably Tier 2, maybe some roles a tier 1. A smart player with sufficient system mastery can make a summoner that the group loves.
You won't be number one at much of anything but action economy. If you can create a summoner with high value actions, that can make you stand out pretty well in a group. The summoner is a Swiss Army Knife that needs a player who understands how to use a variety of actions at the right time to make it shine.
It's the most versatile class in PF2 and requires the most system mastery and thought when building it to make it work well in a group.
It's not what I would term a "power" class in that its single target damage or abilities will wow you. It's one of those classes that might make a party go, "I didn't know you could do that" over and over and over again as the summoner does a lot of different things using its amazing action economy.
Yeah, those look mostly correct. Maybe move psychic, and cloistered cleric up one. I'd lump all of 4 and 5 together and call it a day though.
Inventor (ranged) I'd put in 3. It's AoE damage makes it a novelty but I've yet to find a real use for AoE damage in the first place. It is otherwise unremarkable at best. Melee goes in 4 because of MADness.
Staff and familiar wizards have nothing to justify their existence mechanically. Tier 4.
Summoner I like, but it suffers a bit compared to others in part because it's spending a lot of feats to keep up instead of getting ahead. It does have a nice loop of and the AoE disadvantage doesn't mean as much when you're already assuming failure and crit failure. Not the best, not the worst but ultimately good enough for most use cases, especially when you can throw out a couple walls of stone and the like. Tier 2 if plant since you can abuse massive reach and knockdown/grapple along with some solid buffs and saveless control, tier 3 otherwise.
Yeah, those look mostly correct. Maybe move psychic, and cloistered cleric up one. I'd lump all of 4 and 5 together and call it a day though.
Inventor (ranged) I'd put in 3. It's AoE damage makes it a novelty but I've yet to find a real use for AoE damage in the first place. It is otherwise unremarkable at best. Melee goes in 4 because of MADness.
Staff and familiar wizards have nothing to justify their existence mechanically. Tier 4.
Summoner I like, but it suffers a bit compared to others in part because it's spending a lot of feats to keep up instead of getting ahead. It does have a nice loop of and the AoE disadvantage doesn't mean as much when you're already assuming failure and crit failure. Not the best, not the worst but ultimately good enough for most use cases, especially when you can throw out a couple walls of stone and the like. Tier 2 if plant since you can abuse massive reach and knockdown/grapple along with some solid buffs and saveless control, tier 3 otherwise.
I keep wondering what your games look like. I keep picturing some small group of creatures or a single boss creature sitting in a room or other area patiently waiting to roll initiative within 30 feet lacking any proactive activity waiting to get tripped and struck with AoOs.
You remind me a bit of the poster Exocist who put a huge premium on tripping and AoOs and seemed to play in games where the DM modified nothing to deal with an excessively used tactic and played casters like martials while devaluing their ranged superiority by never allowing them to take advantage of it.
Not sure why you would never find a use for AoE damage unless your DM served up a plate of 30 foot, easy combats over and over again to your group. If that's the way you like to play, that's the way you like to play. If the DM let's it work again and again, then you go with what works.
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I really know only about the Inventor and Summoner. The Inventor is ok. As usual, there's a difference between going Strength and Dexterity. Otherwise, it starts lower than other martials, but its AoE ability at high level gives it much more versatility than other martials.
About the Summoner, it's really the most versatile character in the game. So it really depends on how you value versatility. Damage is fine if you use Electric Arc alongside Eidolon's attacks. But then you have skills, some tanking abilities (off tank, not primary), excellent switch hitting between melee and ranged, mobility, spellcasting and a few shenanigans. It's very well rounded and really depends on what your GM puts you against. If it's always the same setup, then you won't get much out of it. But if the GM loves to play with terrain, skills, groups or solos, and different types of monsters, the Summoner really gets a strong edge compared to other classes. I rate it very high, as in TTRPGs reliability is more interesting than average (as you need to survive all fights, you need to be as consistent as possible in your contribution, randomness serves monsters more than PCs).
Now, most advice I've seen on the Internet encourage to sacrifice versatility for specialization on the Summoner, with the high reach maneuver specialized Plant Eidolon being the most appreciated build. In my opinion it's a big mistake as you then put aside your best asset and won't ever catch up with the actual specialists.
Yes, in such setup, the Summoner is more than pretty good. Every time there's a point in being at 2 places at once, the Summoner is the best to do it.
Otherwise, I agree with Shroudb, there are a lot of points in going for a finesse build even on a class without specific bonuses to Finesse weapons.
I keep wondering what your games look like. I keep picturing some small group of creatures or a single boss creature sitting in a room or other area patiently waiting to roll initiative within 30 feet lacking any proactive activity waiting to get tripped and struck with AoOs.
Why would it be 30ft? It's trivial to cover 100s of feet per round if you need to. Most non-elves easily hit 40 with just a longstrider wand and fleet. Elves go to 50. Stride + sudden charge on a fighter or barbarian is 150ft and a strike. Heavy armor hits your speed but 35-45 base speed should be more than enough.
If it's an actual issue at your table and 150ft isn't enough AND you still want to try melee, you spec harder for it and add another 50-150+ft to your initial range with stuff like drakeheart mutagen collar, haste, monk archetype ki rush, etc. Throw in some reach enhancers too, SuperBidi has a thread/spreadsheet for that. You can reach some impressive levels of movement and reach if your table requires it for you to function properly.
You remind me a bit of the poster Exocist who put a huge premium on tripping and AoOs and seemed to play in games where the DM modified nothing to deal with an excessively used tactic and played casters like martials while devaluing their ranged superiority by never allowing them to take advantage of it.
For prone in general, it's fantastic, even moreso these days. Flying boss? Bola shot ammo drops them out of the sky and eats their reaction to arrest their fall. Trying to kite you? Bola shot while Sanic up there catches them. Also a fighter? Slow them with debilitating shot while also proning them with bola shot. Lucky crit? Now they're stunned, prone, and pinned so that's 0 movement and turns off reactions. Melee? Punish any attempt to do anything with AoOs. Enemy insists on staying on the floor? Enjoy the -2 to attacks that make them less threatening, permanent flat-footed for you and ranged characters and layer silence 4 if they have anything verbal. It's a great condition to inflict and inflict often.
Not sure why you would never find a use for AoE damage unless your DM served up a plate of 30 foot, easy combats over and over again to your group. If that's the way you like to play, that's the way you like to play. If the DM let's it work again and again, then you go with what works.
And yeah, I hate player AoE. Damage is mediocre relative to hp until you get down to level-3 or -4 enemies or unless you have multiple blaster casters throwing top level slots into groups of conveniently clustered mooks. I much prefer low level illusions to break LoS and force enemies to expend actions to try to restore it or physical walls to break LoE and split up fights while martials kill things without spending real resources.
The only AoE I've seen actually be useful is shatter psychic tossing out 2-3 per refocus with a large damage bonus, d10 scaling and no friendly fire in a 60ft cone. No resources spent, ready to go again in 10 minutes. Worthless at tables that restrict refocusing or have short days though.
You mentioned 30ft a couple times though. Do your players just not invest in speed or is it just an easy number to demonstrate your intent?
Now, most advice I've seen on the Internet encourage to sacrifice versatility for specialization on the Summoner, with the high reach maneuver specialized Plant Eidolon being the most appreciated build. In my opinion it's a big mistake as you then put aside your best asset and won't ever catch up with the actual specialists.
What about the plant do you find over overspecialized? The primal list is pretty good for healing, some buffs and walls and the plant's reach is largely inherent to itself even without feats like eidolon opportunity or using evolution surge on growth.
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What about the plant do you find over overspecialized? The primal list is pretty good for healing, some buffs and walls and the plant's reach is largely inherent to itself even without feats like eidolon opportunity or using evolution surge on growth.
Now, most advice I've seen on the Internet encourage to sacrifice versatility for specialization on the Summoner, with the high reach maneuver specialized Plant Eidolon being the most appreciated build. In my opinion it's a big mistake as you then put aside your best asset and won't ever catch up with the actual specialists.
It's not inherent to the plant itself, it's about the builds I see (Eidolon's Opportunity + Hulking Size + Towering Size + Weighty Impact + Shrink Eidolon + in general Tandem Move and Extend Boost) that don't let much space to anything else.
It's not inherent to the plant itself, it's about the builds I see (Eidolon's Opportunity + Hulking Size + Towering Size + Weighty Impact + Shrink Eidolon + in general Tandem Move and Extend Boost) that don't let much space to anything else.
Ah, ok that makes perfect sense. I usually see them skipped and provided for with evolution surge, though that's just because the hover and flight form feats are taken instead to save a feat. I think you can save another by dropping extend boost too.
That 8 locked feat build looks like pain though.
I keep wondering what your games look like. I keep picturing some small group of creatures or a single boss creature sitting in a room or other area patiently waiting to roll initiative within 30 feet lacking any proactive activity waiting to get tripped and struck with AoOs.Why would it be 30ft? It's trivial to cover 100s of feet per round if you need to. Most non-elves easily hit 40 with just a longstrider wand and fleet. Elves go to 50. Stride + sudden charge on a fighter or barbarian is 150ft and a strike. Heavy armor hits your speed but 35-45 base speed should be more than enough.
If it's an actual issue at your table and 150ft isn't enough AND you still want to try melee, you spec harder for it and add another 50-150+ft to your initial range with stuff like drakeheart mutagen collar, haste, monk archetype ki rush, etc. Throw in some reach enhancers too, SuperBidi has a thread/spreadsheet for that. You can reach some impressive levels of movement and reach if your table requires it for you to function properly.
You remind me a bit of the poster Exocist who put a huge premium on tripping and AoOs and seemed to play in games where the DM modified nothing to deal with an excessively used tactic and played casters like martials while devaluing their ranged superiority by never allowing them to take advantage of it.For prone in general, it's fantastic, even moreso these days. Flying boss? Bola shot ammo drops them out of the sky and eats their reaction to arrest their fall. Trying to kite you? Bola shot while Sanic up there catches them. Also a fighter? Slow them with debilitating shot while also proning them with bola shot. Lucky crit? Now they're stunned, prone, and pinned so that's 0 movement and turns off reactions. Melee? Punish any attempt to do anything with AoOs. Enemy insists on staying on the floor? Enjoy the -2 to attacks that make them less threatening, permanent flat-footed for you and ranged characters and layer silence 4 if they...
There is always an investment in mobility. It is highly valuable in this game.
I was thinking more encounters that can start 100s of feet away with fairly weak creatures grouped up like you find multiple times in APs and other modules. AoEing them down from afar is fairly easy before they can even move. It's probably the only encounter or one of a few that you'll face that day. Makes for an easy kill.
We do have two blasters in nearly every party we have. We run with five normally. We like two casters and three martials with one ranged martial as our ideal composition.
I also like to build a hybrid druid sometimes that replaces a martial with the monk archetype that fights with bow and wild shape on occasion. I get some nice high damage rounds with a weapon or flurry attack along with some AoE either from a spell or dragon shape.
There a lot of different types of encounters and I find it hard you've never found much use for AoE.
I like prone condition even though I feel trip is overpowered in this edition operating almost like a slow, earthbind, flanking, and immobilize with one maneuver with a high chance of success. It forces players into using it given standing up activates AoOs and uses up an action for something trivial. As a DM I've been given a lot of higher level creatures Kip Up as something they would learn purely for survival given the power of Trip and the Prone condition in PF2.
I've always been a DM that believes creatures that would survive in a particular game world would learn whatever they had to learn to survive. It seems Paizo once again made this weird ability the end all be all of combat and I've never cared for that as in my mind's eye it looks incredibly stupid.
At this point they should call Pathfinder Combat "Trip-bat" as it comes down to landing a trip or knocking the target prone, then reacting off it. Whatever class can best take advantage of Trip or cause Trip is number one on the Tier List.
It's like Roquepo[ could base nearly his entire tier list on the ability of a class to cause a creature to go prone and take advantage of the prone condition and it would probably mirror his the power levels of each tier. The best action economy trippers and reaction attackers at the top.
I find that kind of redundant play boring in my mind's eye, but I also can't deny it is an optimal play-style in PF2.
I recall a while back you indicating you play the game as a war game simulation which allows you to avoid having to think too much about what everything looks like in play. The power gamer in me has been having trouble making something other than a Maul fighter when I want to make a martial because of how powerful and effective the class is due to inflicting the prone condition and reacting off it so easily. It's like playing on easy mode.
I have to turn off the role-player/storyteller part of my brain to take full advantage of trip because I start imagining my favorite books with every character constantly tripping and then smacking the creature when they stand up. Starts to make every single book, movie, and TV show look like some weird Circus Clown show for combat action. Knock them down, smack them as they get up, everyone uses a hammer. Game of Thrones or King Arthur no longer using swords, just lots of hammers and people falling prone and getting smacked as they stand up like Whack a Mole.
Be sure I mean no offense to you. It is the optimal way to fight in PF2 and the math clearly shows it. You didn't make the game. It sure seems funny when knocking someone prone and hitting them as they stand up is more powerful than level 10 spells or mighty dragons or even most level 20 abilities in the game.
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No offense taken, it plays out just as silly in my head. If I squint I can treat the imagery like a fighting game where we got the KD now we play around the wakeup (or lack thereof).
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It's like Roquepo[ could base nearly his entire tier list on the ability of a class to cause a creature to go prone and take advantage of the prone condition and it would probably mirror his the power levels of each tier. The best action economy trippers and reaction attackers at the top.
You've found one effective party strategy and you are missing all the other effective party strategies. I've seen parties focusing on Obscuring Mist with the whole party able to see through it, effectively giving a party-wide 20% miss chance for a low cost. There are also Frightened focused parties. If the whole party focuses on one single fighting style, it is in general efficient for most simple fights. But you can't base a tier rating on just one of them.
The only issue that has been reported is the crit spec of flails and hammers which is way better than the other crit specs. I hope Paizo will fix that with PF2R.
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I continue to hold that trying to come up with a tier list like this for PF2 is fundamentally a mistake from the beginning. So much of it depends on not just party optimization (which is huge) but on whether the player of that character has the specific skillset that makes that class shine. Some of them require less skill, or more commonly available skills, but fundamentally, classes like alchemist, wizard, summoner, and rogue depend on such *different* skillsets that you could designate any two, and I could easily posit players who'd do well with either while doing poorly with the other. (Investigator would be on the list too, if it weren't so dependent on GM and campaign top of being dependent on the player)
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I think it's more useful to use descriptive text, to describe more or less when they're useful and when they're not. Say "You need to have these skills and this playstyle and this situation to make the class really shine." You could probably knock it out in a sentence or two per class. If a class really is marginal, then that could be part of the description, but that's not usually goign to be as useful as, for example, the fact that making the alchemist shine requires that you be the sort of person who gets excited when they get recipes in a treasure packet and thinks that "learning every alchemical item in the book and what it does, and thinking about when they would be useful" sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon.
...because that person will do just fine as an alchemist. It's only the rest of us for whom the class is "less useful".
It's like Roquepo[ could base nearly his entire tier list on the ability of a class to cause a creature to go prone and take advantage of the prone condition and it would probably mirror his the power levels of each tier. The best action economy trippers and reaction attackers at the top.You've found one effective party strategy and you are missing all the other effective party strategies. I've seen parties focusing on Obscuring Mist with the whole party able to see through it, effectively giving a party-wide 20% miss chance for a low cost. There are also Frightened focused parties. If the whole party focuses on one single fighting style, it is in general efficient for most simple fights. But you can't base a tier rating on just one of them.
The only issue that has been reported is the crit spec of flails and hammers which is way better than the other crit specs. I hope Paizo will fix that with PF2R.
I do different things to break up the monotony.
I'd be lying if I didn't admit the most effective game tactic I've seen in PF2 is knocking something prone and hitting it with reaction attacks while it stands up. It doesn't matter quite as much who knocks the person down as I've had a monk tripper that did a great job as long as you have a fighter or AoO class able to hit it with AoOs when it stands up.
I can't bring myself to do that every time because it bores me.
I imagine that is why I like the druid so much. It does a lot of good things, but using different abilities. Whereas the fighter hits the thing, knocks it down, hits it as it stands up over and over and over and over again racking up tons of damage with this boring, optimal tactic. It's the main reason they are tier 1 on any PF2 list.
I think it might be a mistake to create many tiers, but having 2 ( useful and less useful ) is imo the way to go.
For example, on the "less useful" i'd put:
- Alchemist
- Swashbuckler
- Investigator
- WitchWhile all the other ones in the "useful" one.
I'd base the tiers more on fun to build and play. Something like:
Class Chassis
Feats
Unique Class Features
Roles Possible
Power:
Damage plus effective Effective Battlefield Actions as the power number.
Then you go with some subjective ratings
Fulfills Class Fantasy
Roleplay
Noncombat Utility
I'm one of those weird people that doesn't see the Alchemist as that bad. Every time we have one they seem to do well in a variety of situations. People love their elixirs. The bombs do a lot of damage over the course of a fight. They don't do the big single target hits, but they slowly build up a lot of damage splashing it around. They can hurt creatures that are magic immune and do damage even if they miss.
This is mainly the bomber though. They have a lot of useful tools in their repertoire that can apply to a variety of situations they can make to order.
I tend to think it makes more sense to rank classes based on a particular role like... for arguments sake
Single target DPR:
Multi Target DPR:
Frontliner:
Battlefield control:
Debuffer:
Buffer:
Healer:
Utility:
Skill monkey:
and then rank each class relative to how good it can be at that role, say on a 1-4 basis. Assuming of course that you build for that role with the class options available. So for example, a Sorc would get a 2 for healer, because although of course a draconic sorcerer would be a s$!* healer, we're giving them the benefit of the doubt they went Angelic.
1) Optimal
2) This will work well
3) You can do it but you won't be great at it
4) This'll be a bad time
So for an example, with the Sorcerer you might get something like
Single target DPR: 3
Multi Target DPR: 1
Frontliner: 4
Battlefield control: 1
Debuffer: 2
Buffer: 2
Healer: 2
Utility: 2
Skill monkey: 3
Seems more useful than saying
Oh yes a Sorcerer and a Barb are both great tier 2 classes that'll help a party. Because they'll both contribute totally different things.
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Do people use tiers to help determine which class they'll play?
Do veterans really need to encourage some (in many cases already popular) classes over others when they're so balanced in PF2? And when Archetypes can facilitate so much?
Sure one wants to avoid the pitfalls, yet those have solutions, something tiers don't address. All the classes (even Alchemist) have real-world players who advocate their value. All I've seen from tiers is inadequacy and argument.
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Do people use tiers to help determine which class they'll play?
Do veterans really need to encourage some (in many cases already popular) classes over others when they're so balanced in PF2? And when Archetypes can facilitate so much?Sure one wants to avoid the pitfalls, yet those have solutions, something tiers don't address. All the classes (even Alchemist) have real-world players who advocate their value. All I've seen from tiers is inadequacy and argument.
Yeah, my thought when I read the title of the thread was "But do you REALLY?"
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They're a fun pastime for people who enjoy optimization and ranking things. They're not particularly necessary, but that's because most everything is middle of the road with the outliers above and below very well known by this point. You can drill deeper and deeper into certain builds or party setups but the broad strokes have been pretty stable for a long time.
Note that the entire tier categorization structure is not (really*) an argument about the "best" or "worst" classes. The tiers are (supposed to be) a rough scale of how easy or hard it is for a particular class, assuming the same level of skill at both optimizing and in-play actions (which can often be problematic), to do well in a campaign that goes from 1st level all the way to 20th.
Because of the power and versatility high-level spells have over the the campaign setting and narrative, full casters have historically been seen as being higher tier than non-casters. In PF2, with multiclassed archetypes to gain spells and spells not allowing casters to easily fight as well as (or even better than) martial classes - as well as the proficiency system/skill feats, the much tighter system math, and the higher emphasis on in-play actions over a "build" - the "old" tiers are (IMO) not as useful when looking to "rank" classes. Because of the tighter system math the difference between the "floor" and the "ceiling" of classes is smaller than the way the tiers were originally defined.
Personally, I'd say classes in PF2 can be categorized into roughly four "tiers": Tier I for classes that can be very effective, possibly more effective than other classes in many situations; Tier II for classes that can be effective to very effective most of the time; Tier III for classes that may be somewhat below par, but can be effective with archetypes and/or some effort; Tier IV for classes that often require specific "build" choices and/or campaign situations to be effective. This doesn't mean that higher tier classes are "better" or lower tier classes are "worse" all the time; just that lower tier classes will often need more effort or planning for some players. Specific playstyles and situations can make any class perform better or worse.
*- although some may try to make it so
Do people use tiers to help determine which class they'll play?
Do veterans really need to encourage some (in many cases already popular) classes over others when they're so balanced in PF2? And when Archetypes can facilitate so much?Sure one wants to avoid the pitfalls, yet those have solutions, something tiers don't address. All the classes (even Alchemist) have real-world players who advocate their value. All I've seen from tiers is inadequacy and argument.
I don't use tiers, but I do rate classes by power level. My group in general will hate classes that are particularly weak or hard to make work like a swashbuckler or wizard. They definitely notice.
At the same time they may like something for purely style reasons as long as the class is not obviously terrible. I have a player who likes monks and oracles and plays them all the time. He doesn't care if they're the absolutely best at anything as he usually finds things they do well and has plenty of moments in the campaign.
It can also depend on role. I have one player who prefers a witch healer over a cleric, druid, or sorcerer because a witch in a healer support role is more interesting to him regardless of absolute power. The witch class operates well in the healer role.
Tiers or power ratings are more a matter of width than absolute value. You don't need to be the maul fighter every time, but you don't want a class that's so bad at dealing damage as to be absolutely pathetic like an investigator or a fighter using a dagger or something if making a damage dealer.
I guess to sum it up tiers give you some idea of where a class stands in the power structure of the game. As long as a class is in Tier 1 to 3, you're usually good to make one. If that class falls into some tier 4 or lower, then Paizo needs to work on that class because it likely has some serious issue undermining its ability to contribute or fulfill a role.
I do different things to break up the monotony.
My players do different things because their favorite tactic is nullifying the enemy's favorite tactic.
I'd be lying if I didn't admit the most effective game tactic I've seen in PF2 is knocking something prone and hitting it with reaction attacks while it stands up. It doesn't matter quite as much who knocks the person down as I've had a monk tripper that did a great job as long as you have a fighter or AoO class able to hit it with AoOs when it stands up.
I can't bring myself to do that every time because it bores me.
And in this Friday's game the monk used Trip and Shove as tactics, so that combat makes a nice example.
The party in Vault of the Onyx Citadel had found a pech village called Stonehome in the vault, a vast cavern on the Elemental Plane of Earth. They were talking with an elderly pech named Squinty Sebrenar when watchmen spotted the shaitan Shaakhib and two iron golems approaching. Sebrenar considered Shaakhib an adversary, so the party hid. However, the rogue/sorcerer magical trickster Sam rolled low and Shaakhib noticed him. Shaakhib did not care about a visitor, because he considered himself the best mercenary in the entire vault, matched only by the best warriors in the newly arrived hobgoblin Ironfang Legion, his current employers.
Diplomatic Sam encouraged him to boast to gain some information about the warriors of the Ironfang Legion, but when Shaakhib mentioned that he was evenly matched by the hobgoblin Taugreth, whom the party had already fought, the player realized that Shaakhib was 17th level. And the party was 19th level.
Sam had nothing against Shaakhib until he mentioned that the Ironfang Legion had coerced the pech smiths into making enchanted weapons for them without pay and he was to pick up that month's tribute early. Sam challenged Shaakhib to a bet: spar against his monk friend Ren'zar-jo with a 1000 gold piece wager, and if he lost, Shaakhib could no longer force the pech to work without pay.
Proud Shaakhib agreed, but he set the conditions of the bet to favor himself. The sparring would be in a 50-foot diameter circle. The first one who lost half their hit points, was shoved out of the circle, or immobilized for a full round would lose. Shaakhib had Shaitan powers for shoving and immobilizing, including a pair of Transmute Rock and Mud spells to first mire opponents in mud and then solidify the mud around them.
Though Ren'zar-jo had a higher Perception, Shaakhib rolled higher on initiative after the start signal and won first turn. Shaakhib cast Transmute Rock and Mud to mire Ren'zar-jo in mud. But Ren'zar-jo had taken feats for leaping, so he leap out of the deep mud next to Shaakhib--with Shaakhib missing the attack of opporunity due to his 10-foot reach--and hit with his flurry of blows. Then he made a critical success on a Shove to shove Shaakhib to the edge of the circle, following along to remain adjacent.
Shaakhib circled around Ren'zar-jo to the center of the circle, taking an hit due to Ren'zar-jo's Stand Still reaction. He swung at Ren'zar-jo with his +3 greater striking adamantine scimitar and tried his fist Strike to trigger his Shove into Stone ability. The dice hated him so he missed twice. Ren'zar-jo made a two-action Tiger Slash attack, also missed, and then Tripped Shaakhib. When Shaakhib stood up, Ren'zar-jo used his Stand Still reaction again, and critically hit. That brought Shaakhib to less than half his hit points, so he conceded.
Ren'zar-jo used his Medicine feats to heal Shaakhib. The party gave the 1000 gold pieces they won to the pech. And Shaakhib took only a partial delivery from the pech, since he paid for it out of his own pocket.
Ren'zar-jo has a high-Strength monk build specializing in mobility and Athletics, a clear high-tier build. But hidden in that build is the reason for the mobility was so that he could be in the right place at the right time to rescue party members in danger.
Sam, in contrast, took the Scoundrel racket for rogue to raise his Charisma. Scoundrel is one of the worst rackets, making Sam low tier. Sam's player chose that because Sam would take Sorcerer Multiclass Dedication at 2nd level and Magical Trickster rogue feat at 4th level to play a magical trickster. But look at what Sam did in that encounter with Shaakhib: the two iron golems sat out the entire encounter. Furthermore, the combat tactics for Shaakhib said he would use Earth Glide to flee underground if reduced to half hit points, so the party would have not gotten any treasure off of him. Instead, they won 1000 gold pieces (giving it away is irrelevant).