Fear also isn't fool-proof since there are a fair amount of mindless creatures
This is an interesting point to lean on while you're comparing everything to Synesthesia.
I think you had no examples and did a cop out.I asked for unique arcane spellsTo which I said no.
That is not a reasonable request because much of arcane is replicated everywhere. I'm not especially a fan of that decision. But there actually is very little pure arcane. Or pure any tradition for that matter. Most of it is shared.No it wasn't a cop out. Those spells are all arcane spells. I'm saying the point that they be arcane only is rubbish. It is just not relevant.
I've read your posts long enough to know if you know something, you'll share it. If you don't or can't, then you won't because you don't know the answer or it doesn't exist. I'm thinking there are no uniquely effective arcane spells you know off the top of your head or have used.I don't keep track of the Arcane only spells as there is no value to know that.
You are the first person that I can recall to rate the Arcane list in third place.
It's because we in general optimize. Though I don't completely agree with Gesalt on blasting being bad, the optimal way to play PF2 is with one or two casters who can fill the combat healing role and support the martials.
One Arcane caster cannot cover everything a party needs, but due to the ability to combat heal any other caster list can cover nearly all casting needs allowing you to run one caster and all martials.
Even when you use the Arcane list, you would still be better served for victory with another martial doing damage, combat maneuvers, and the like.
I rate the Arcane list as I do because this is a game of roles with only a small number of effective spells necessary for victory, primarily combat healing and buffing or debuffing.
The Arcane list can't combat heal and it also surprisingly cannot buff. It's debuffs are ok, but Occult has most of its debuffs and synesthesia. Primal has good control spells with walls, heals, condition removal, entangle, slow, and other mobility altering options.
It comes down to experience in game with each spell list. Arcane is the least versatile and desirable spell list for achieving victory in PF2 because it is the most lacking in ability to support martials within the group dynamic.
No heroism. No synesthesia. No combat healing. Shares way too many of what would be considered quality spells with other lists. The Arcane list is very lacking in the roles it can fill within the group dynamic and if something has to be left off of checking boxes during party creation, the Arcane list is an easy box to leave open and you won't even notice you don't have the few unique spells on that list.
Fear also isn't fool-proof since there are a fair amount of mindless creaturesThis is an interesting point to lean on while you're comparing everything to Synesthesia.
The lack of buffs on the Arcane list are also glaring.
Heroism is one of the best buffs in the game and it used to be on the Arcane list, but now it is not. That really hurts the competitiveness of the Arcane list as well.
Heroism gives a bonus to attack rolls and skills which for many martials are attack rolls as well. That's a big deal. Even for casters heroism is amazing for skill debuffing like Bon Mot using Diplomacy and Intimidation using Demoralize.
It was pretty irritating when I first learned heroism was not going on the Arcane list. First, you're going to give Occult the best debuff in the game with Synesthesia. Ok, I can live with that. Then I find out Occult and Divine are only lists with heroism? What?
So the occult list at high level can basically shift probably by six with two spells with a 5th level synesthesia coupled with a 9th level heroism? Brutal, just brutal.
Bosses are not really an issue at high level. Synesthesia is an outlier, but Slow and Roaring Applause (and Fear, Hideous Laughter, True Target, Trip, etc...) are in general enough to trivialize/rip appart a boss fight. Bosses are dangerous at low level because you don't have these tools (or because they consume your highest level slots).
My experience has been that couple/trio of enemies have been as tough to deal with as boss fights (a couple of Brimoraks at level 4 and a trio of Lesser Deaths at level 17 should have TPKed the party if the GM had played them nasty).Also, blasting works fine. I really don't get why some players feel it sucks. It's just not, obviously, a tool for bosses.
Slow requires failing a Fortitude Save to get a meaningful debuff, which is unlikely against most every boss. Yes, losing an action for a round is significant, but not that strong in the long run, compared to Synesthesia, which is 1 round of serious pain and complications for the bad guy. Fear also isn't fool-proof since there are a fair amount of mindless creatures, and most of those other spells are Incapacitate or Occult-exclusive.
Bosses being dangerous at lower levels is also because of their power ratio, where a single crit can take out an entire PC, which is far less likely to happen at the higher levels due to them having less of a power ratio.
Blasting sucks because it's fodder control at-best and a waste of spell slots for a better spell at-worst. When Magic Missile is the best damaging single target spell in the game against bosses, you know it's a pretty terrible action to use against them, and honestly, buffing martials provides more group DPR than casting a spell like Polar Ray.
I would have thought Primal would be lower than Arcane until I used the primal list.
Primal has fear.
Primal has some good summons like summon elemental, summon giant, and summon fey. Elemental is shared by the Arcane list, but giant and fey are unique to the Primal list. I've found giants almost like moving walls with bags of hit points. You want to use a summon to block as some on here recommend, summon giant is one of the best at doing that.
Primal has wall of stone and other walls for control.
Primal has heal, haste, slow, most elemental blasting as well as undead blast, and good sustain spells like control sand as well as battle form spells.
Nature's Enmity and Storm of Vengeance are real nice as well.
They have some of the best 10th level spells in the game on Primal.
Primal has a surprising number of very nice spells that cross the Divine and Arcane list as well as unique spells just on primal.
And Electric Arc being better than Haste is hard to justify when restricted to a single target, meaning against bosses, it's probably not going to outperform a Fighter's secondary attack after having more actions for things like movement, Knockdown, Demoralize, etc.And still it does twice more damage against a boss (half damage on miss is very useful) than the extra attack Haste provides to your Fighter. So you'll need 3 rounds of combat (past the round where you buff the Fighter, who generally has a better Initiative than a caster) to just break even. Considering the risk of Hasting the Fighter (as you now have all your eggs in the same basket and bosses are rarely stupid) and the spell slot cost, it's better to go for Electric Arc than Haste.
Pretty easy for Occult to pick up Electric Arc with an ancestry feat.
And Occult has magic missile.
And synesthesia.
And heroism.
And slow and haste.
And Phantasmal calammity.
And wall of force.
And teleport.
And most illusions.
And soothe.
And fear, phantasmal killer, and weird.
And bless.
The occult list has so much effective versatility. You can use the occult list over and over and over again and not bother with another list and you'd be fine. It would get boring, but you could do it.
And Electric Arc being better than Haste is hard to justify when restricted to a single target, meaning against bosses, it's probably not going to outperform a Fighter's secondary attack after having more actions for things like movement, Knockdown, Demoralize, etc.And still it does twice more damage against a boss (half damage on miss is very useful) than the extra attack Haste provides to your Fighter. So you'll need 3 rounds of combat (past the round where you buff the Fighter, who generally has a better Initiative than a caster) to just break even. Considering the risk of Hasting the Fighter (as you now have all your eggs in the same basket and bosses are rarely stupid) and the spell slot cost, it's better to go for Electric Arc than Haste.
But you aren't targeting the same creature twice with Electric Arc, so it is more like 1/4 damage on a success, half on a failure. You're not doing 2x dice and 2x modifier against a boss, acting like you are isn't even an accurate or fair comparison.
The extra attack with Haste can also instead be done to allow other actions to work, like Demoralize/Intimidating Strike, Movement, etc. without losing effective Strike actions.
If you aren't keeping that Fighter up to snuff, you got bigger issues than not using Electric Arc/Magic Missiles.
The occult list has so much effective versatility.
Yes Occult has some good tricks. It does look like they picked the best bits out of the Arcane list.
So what is it missing?
Elemental Damage. Big area of effect spells. Many people think this is the thing that casters are best at.
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One Arcane caster cannot cover everything a party needs, but due to the ability to combat heal any other caster list can cover nearly all casting needs allowing you to run one caster and all martials.
Open your eyes.
Combat healing is easy. Any one can do it including wizards if they want. That the arcane caster does not have it on their spell list is just not relevant. There are focus spell healing sources that cost one or two feats to take eg Blessed One. Then there are the classes that have the spare hands to do medicine in combat. Then there is the fact that an arcane sorcerer can get Heal if they want it. But you are singing the praises of occult so you aren't just talking about Heal. Medic is a good option for a wizard.
The occult list has so much effective versatility.Yes Occult has some good tricks. It does look like they picked the best bits out of the Arcane list.
So what is it missing?
Elemental Damage. Big area of effect spells. Many people think this is the thing that casters are best at.
Walls - also very good for crowd control.
I really do wish I had a use for the elemental damage. I just haven't seen it accomplish anything an extra round or two of martial beatsticking (with some CC if necessary) hasn't.
Occult does have wall of flesh and wall of force though along with the basic illusion wall. Flesh might not be as durable or versatile as stone, but force remains a good option. Also prismatic wall
Occult does have wall of flesh and wall of force though along with the basic illusion wall.
Yes it is something. I'll delete that comment.
The occult list has so much effective versatility.Yes Occult has some good tricks. It does look like they picked the best bits out of the Arcane list.
So what is it missing?
Elemental Damage. Big area of effect spells. Many people think this is the thing that casters are best at.
Walls - also very good for crowd control.
I really do wish I had a use for the elemental damage. I just haven't seen it accomplish anything an extra round or two of martial beatsticking (with some CC if necessary) hasn't.
Occult does have wall of flesh and wall of force though along with the basic illusion wall. Flesh might not be as durable or versatile as stone, but force remains a good option. Also prismatic wall
You don't operate from the ranges my party does, so I can see why. My party will gladly sit by and cook something from afar while letting it run to us while smashing it with bow shots. Then once in range, clean it up with martial damage.
We'll happily spend the rounds letting the wild shape dragon druid fly over a group of monsters with no meaningful ranged attack breathing on them while the martials relax in a place polishing their weapons.
If we see some group we can proverbially "nuke from orbit", we do it. Primal is very good at doing this.
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One Arcane caster cannot cover everything a party needs, but due to the ability to combat heal any other caster list can cover nearly all casting needs allowing you to run one caster and all martials.Open your eyes.
Combat healing is easy. Any one can do it including wizards if they want. That the arcane caster does not have it on their spell list is just not relevant. There are focus spell healing sources that cost one or two feats to take eg Blessed One. Then there are the classes that have the spare hands to do medicine in combat. Then there is the fact that an arcane sorcerer can get Heal if they want it. But you are singing the praises of occult so you aren't just talking about Heal. Medic is a good option for a wizard.
We like the ease and versatility of the 2 action heal spell and secondarily soothe.
No one wants to take those archetypes. 2 action heal is a great bang for the buck spell.
Our medical set up is:
1. Medicine built up with ward medic and continual recovery. This keeps the bookkeeping by the rules.
2. One class with 2 action heal or soothe.
Even with the heal spell from the sorcerer, Arcane list isn't that interesting. It's a really boring spell list that shares too much with so little to offer that makes you go, "I really want to be able to cast that."
Arcane needs a synesthesia type spell and why did they take heroism off the arcane list?
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The occult list has so much effective versatility.Yes Occult has some good tricks. It does look like they picked the best bits out of the Arcane list.
So what is it missing?
Elemental Damage. Big area of effect spells. Many people think this is the thing that casters are best at.
Walls - also very good for crowd control.
Not just good tricks; the best tricks, and tricks that nobody else can get. They didn't just pick the best bits, they have their own bits that Arcane can't pick from. Occult is the bully of the Arcane spell list, no cap.
Again, Elemental Damage is only good for trash mob clearing, and maybe weakness exploitation, and most of the time there, the martials can take care of it in a few rounds of trivial combat, or have weapon runes specifically designed to trigger common weaknesses; being able to do it in one round, and/or at lower levels, is not in and of itself a relatively useful boon.
Walls aren't as potent as they have been in previous editions. Walls of Stone are relatively easy to break down and at-best serve as a makeshift bridge, Wind Walls only work for ranged attacks (I've only ever had one encounter in all the time I've played where this ability had a significant impact), and the others ones (like Wall of Fire/Water/Ice) either are worse than simply using standard blast spells, or are superficial at-best. Not to mention, they almost always take 3 actions (Prismatic Wall only takes 2 for some reason), meaning they are already bad on the action economy for a class that already struggles with action economy as it is.
Wall of Force is probably one of the few "useful" walls in the game, given that 1. it's invisible, so creatures can't immediately tell there is a wall in their way, 2. it stops incorporeal creatures dead in their tracks and blocks physical attacks from coming through, and 3. it's actually relatively difficult to destroy without actions spent or abilities used. And guess what? Occult gets it, so again, the "best" tools are taken by Occult, and Primal gets the rest. Oh, wow, Arcane getting access to both "types" of walls certainly is a game-changer in the favor of the Arcane spellcaster! Said nobody ever.
Combat healing is easy. Any one can do it including wizards if they want. That the arcane caster does not have it on their spell list is just not relevant. There are focus spell healing sources that cost one or two feats to take eg Blessed One. Then there are the classes that have the spare hands to do medicine in combat. Then there is the fact that an arcane sorcerer can get Heal if they want it. But you are singing the praises of occult so you aren't just talking about Heal. Medic is a good option for a wizard.
And that's the big thing there: If they want. A Wizard shouldn't have to want (or even feel like they want) to go to the front lines to treat the Fighter's wounds, especially when other classes with more HP, AC, Saves, etc. can do so at the same efficiency as the Wizard, if not better. And honestly, people who play Wizards, nine times out of ten, don't want to be healers, it's not their class identity, they are poor at it for a reason. In fact, I don't particularly mind that a Wizard (or any Arcane spellcaster) can't really ever heal anyone with their spells; the problem is that they aren't given anything especially intrinsical to their kit to do so (and before you say it, Arcane Sorcerer doesn't count).
There aren't that many focus spells that are healing, and taking dedications for them is an opportunity cost; what if I wanted Sorcerer/Witch dedication for more spell slots with my Legendary Casting DC and better focus spells (that aren't healing)? What if I wanted Alchemist dedication for non-magical contributions via the reagents or crafting? What if I wanted Rogue dedication for some added skills/skill feats, and neat personal benefits that both keep me alive and give me unique ways to contribute to combat? (The last one, for the record, I've done before in actual play, and it's saved my character more times than I can count.) The idea that you can just take a dedication (which is pretty hard to take feats to branch out from, by the way,) isn't really a cure-all solution. It's also a touch spell, meaning you have to be in melee range (AKA next to a front liner) to utilize, so it's another risky option.
The lack of buffs on the Arcane list are also glaring.
Haste is a buff, so is Enlarge and Dragon Form. True Strike, True Target are buffs.
It is just that there is little in the way of simple numerical buffs. But that is correct. It is niche protection.Your arguments just don't make sense, and ignore obvious counters.
The lack of buffs on the Arcane list are also glaring.Haste is a buff, so is Enlarge and Dragon Form. True Strike, True Target are buffs.
It is just that there is little in the way of simple numerical buffs. But that is correct. It is niche protection.Your arguments just don't make sense, and ignore obvious counters.
I for one still think that heroism should have remained on the arcane list, and that magic missile should be unique to arcane.
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The lack of buffs on the Arcane list are also glaring.Haste is a buff, so is Enlarge and Dragon Form. True Strike, True Target are buffs.
It is just that there is little in the way of simple numerical buffs. But that is correct. It is niche protection.Your arguments just don't make sense, and ignore obvious counters.
Once again shared spells clearly show the Arcane list to be lacking unique options that make the list desirable. Your attempt to dismiss the question about unique spells further shows you are trying to win an argument by dismissing the main point: the arcane list lacks unique effective options that make it a desirable spell list. Which is why I rate it 3rd tied with Divine.
Arcane lacks the following:
1. Unique effective options that make the list desirable.
2. The highest value buffs and debuffs in the game.
3. Lacks role versatility requiring further investment in archetypes or abilities that other classes don't have to take to achieve role versatility.
4. The Arcane list is attached to low value classes and class options that don't support what the Arcane list lacks. For example, the druid is clearly a great option for Battle Form spells as it is a constantly renewable resource with feats to support versatility while using a high value stat in wisdom and having heal on the primal list along with Enlarge, haste, and slow as well as some unique primal options that are effective like Summon Giant or Summon Fey.
The Arcane list is an easy pass for group optimization.
I for one still think that heroism should have remained on the arcane list, and that magic missile should be unique to arcane.The lack of buffs on the Arcane list are also glaring.Haste is a buff, so is Enlarge and Dragon Form. True Strike, True Target are buffs.
It is just that there is little in the way of simple numerical buffs. But that is correct. It is niche protection.Your arguments just don't make sense, and ignore obvious counters.
That was real irritating to see heroism off the arcane list. Really hurt that list to be missing both the best buff and best debuff in the game along with lacking combat healing. When I made my wizard, I was expecting that spell to be on the list as its always been a great buff and is even better in PF2 given the value of skills.
Once again shared spells clearly show the Arcane list to be lacking unique options that make the list desirable. Your attempt to dismiss the question about unique spells further shows you are trying to win an argument by dismissing the main point: the arcane list lacks unique effective options that make it a desirable spell list.
Why does the fact that someone else has an option stop it from being useful to me? That is illogical.
Total spell numbers for each tradition at the moment are:
559 Arcane
330 Divine
515 Occult
396 Primal
Divine +20% => Primal +30% => Occult +9% => Arcane
Arcane clearly wins the numbers.
Arcane's unique spells are just a handful. The stand outs are Disintegrate and the Power Words. Important but not critical except at high level. It doesn't matter so much as it has so many other spells to choose from.
Unique effective options that make the list desirable.
You have been talking about going down to 1 caster in the group. You like to have your cake and eat it too.
Lacks role versatility requiring further investment in archetypes or abilities that other classes don't have to take to achieve role versatility.
That is just false. You are just looking at one aspect.
But you aren't targeting the same creature twice with Electric Arc, so it is more like 1/4 damage on a success, half on a failure. You're not doing 2x dice and 2x modifier against a boss, acting like you are isn't even an accurate or fair comparison.
The extra attack with Haste can also instead be done to allow other actions to work, like Demoralize/Intimidating Strike, Movement, etc. without losing effective Strike actions.
If you aren't keeping that Fighter up to snuff, you got bigger issues than not using Electric Arc/Magic Missiles.
I'm speaking of Electric Arc against a single level+3 target and gave the Flat Footed condition to the boss for the comparison. You are vastly overvaluing the extra action from Haste.
And Demoralize is a third action, too. The benefit will be very close to a third attack (and you can do it only once, so very quickly your Fighter will be left with Strikes).
But you aren't targeting the same creature twice with Electric Arc, so it is more like 1/4 damage on a success, half on a failure. You're not doing 2x dice and 2x modifier against a boss, acting like you are isn't even an accurate or fair comparison.
The extra attack with Haste can also instead be done to allow other actions to work, like Demoralize/Intimidating Strike, Movement, etc. without losing effective Strike actions.
If you aren't keeping that Fighter up to snuff, you got bigger issues than not using Electric Arc/Magic Missiles.
I'm speaking of Electric Arc against a single level+3 target and gave the Flat Footed condition to the boss for the comparison. You are vastly overvaluing the extra action from Haste.
And Demoralize is a third action, too. The benefit will be very close to a third attack (and you can do it only once, so very quickly your Fighter will be left with Strikes).
At 7th level as an example, I don't think it holds up that Electric Arc is better.
A Fighter at this level is going to be at +18 to hit (or +16 for non-Fighters), whereas a Wizard is going to have a 25 Save DC (or +15 spell attack roll). A level 10 creature is going to have an AC in the 29-30 range on average (let's just use 30 for posterity's sake), and will have a Reflex Save of 19-20 on average (let's just use 20 for posterity's sake as well), and having an overall health pool of 180 HP.
So, Fighter will be able to hit on a 12 or higher on their first attack as a single action, not factoring in any debuffs or buffs, dealing 2D12+7 damage (average 19). They can use Demoralize to start, and feats and abilities like Intimidating Strike to maintain Frightened, Power Attack to punch through with stronger single attacks (making the average hit become 25.5), as well as Knockdown to attempt to make the enemy Prone. A Fighter with Expert Athletics at this level will have less bonuses than their to-hit, since they can have 11 from Proficiency, 4 from Strength, and a +1 from a Lifting Belt at this level, meaning they have less chance to succeed with Knockdown, but it has the same success rate as Electric Arc dealing full damage. While all of this doesn't make him deal more damage per hit, it does increase his DPR, given that he can inflict Frightened 1 on the regular combined with the potential for Prone, thereby both triggering reactions for Standing Up, as well as inflicting Flat-Footed, meaning a second attack significantly increases in DPR due to having exponentially more chance to hit, and not having to choose whether to move or to strike is huge when you can do both, which is where Haste truly shines.
Meanwhile, Wizard will only be doing 4D4+4 damage with Electric Arc (average 14, halved to 7 on a success) for 2 actions, with the enemy being able to succeed or critically succeed on 75% of rolls (anything 5 or higher succeeds, 15 or higher is a critical). Wizard being able to invest in Intimidate isn't very likely to occur, given they are relatively MAD in their scope (needing to boost Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence, and Dexterity means not much space for boosting Charisma at 5th level or more), and probably even less likely to succeed than Fighter, whom has probably invested in Intimidating Prowess/Glare at this point. They have the Fear spell, but that takes a round, and they are probably likely to succeed against that as well if their bonus is the same as their Reflex (making that benefit not relevant for the follow-up of Electric Arc). Though we can tip the odds in his favor a bit for a round with Force Bolt if we feel inclined.
Honestly, I don't think the math works out. Feel free to post a graph showing me otherwise, though, and let me know the paradigms you are applying.
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Honestly, I don't think the math works out. Feel free to post a graph showing me otherwise, though, and let me know the paradigms you are applying.
I don't see why you make such a gigantic post when right at the beginning you have the answer to your question: the enemy has 29-30 for an AC and the Fighter +8 to hit on their last attack, hitting (and not critting) only on a nat 20. So Haste is mostly useless in this situation. And even making the enemy Flat Footed and Frightened doesn't make Haste competitive.
You need specific circumstances for Haste to be useful. In normal circumstances, Haste is not worth it.
I'm not assuming the Fighter is going to Strike 3 times in a round, when they have feats like Knockdown (leading into Improved Knockdown later), Power Attack, and Intimidating Strike in their arsenal; saying they will or should is a disingenuous argument, especially since you already admit it's a bad use of actions.
Attacking twice is enough for them to pull out against the Wizard's DPR with Electric Arc, and is honestly the more fair comparison, since Wizard's Electric Arc is 2 actions; all Haste does is make certain circumstances come out more frequently (such as providing an additional action for Movement, letting the Fighter spend an action for a specialty attack) instead of having to compromise what they can otherwise do on their turn.
Define "normal" circumstances. Against Level-X enemies, it's probably not, given that these are already relatively weak enemies that can just be Crit into oblivion by the Fighter, or can be killed via Electric Arc without much issue. Against on-level enemies, it's debatable, and against Level+X enemies, these are considered boss-tier enemies, which probably isn't the expected "normal" circumstances.
Given that we are discussing boss creatures, buffing Fighter with Haste for feats like Intimidating Strike means they can reduce their Saves and AC for Electric Arc to have more DPR, or Knockdown to potentially reduce enemy actions (not unlike a successfully saved Slow spell), or Power Attack for pure damage bonus (which is 6.5 on average with a D12 weapon, but probably less due to DPR calculations).
At best, you can say that Haste has a lower start point due that it requires a round to set up, but in the case of Power Attack, it accumulates DPR over time; given that it's only one round where you aren't doing an average of 7 damage, and are doing, say, 4, which follows up to 11 afterward, it basically evens itself out after the first round it's triggered, and only improves from there, assuming Fighter is attacking for 3-4 rounds.
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It strikes me that if putting heroism on your striker and synthesia on an enemy is enough to demoslih everything a team is facing, perhaps they’re not facing many encounters with multiple enemies.
The more enemies you introduce the less valuable buffs like heroism and debuffs like synth become.
Giving rise to AOEs and battlefield control becoming more useful
You are making things uselessly complicated. Outside special circumstances, like high mobility fights or having your Fighter Slowed, Haste gives you an extra third action every round. The basic third action is a third attack so you can very easily compare it to Electric Arc and see that it's plain bad. Sure, you can find better uses of your third action but you won't get much more oomph out of it. And comparing to single target Electric Arc is comparing to the absolute floor when it comes to spellcasting.
Exchanging a first and second action for third actions is a bad tradeoff, and that's without even counting the spell slot. Haste 3 is a circumstancial spell, using it in a normal fight is a pure waste of actions.
I would think the design principle for the Arcane list is that it should have fewer gaps in terms of "things you can't do with arcane spells" than the other lists. I think that's supposed to be the balance point, rather than "the spells only arcane gets are great."
It strikes me that if putting heroism on your striker and synthesia on an enemy is enough to demoslih everything a team is facing, perhaps they’re not facing many encounters with multiple enemies.
The more enemies you introduce the less valuable buffs like heroism and debuffs like synth become.
Giving rise to AOEs and battlefield control becoming more useful
Usually because using those effects doesn't warrant that kind of power expenditure. You end up demolishing such encounters without those buffs/debuffs, meaning they are relatively useless.
Using high end spell slots on multiple weak(er) enemies isn't really good from a resource management standpoint, and even then, there are other spells that can accomplish this to relatively similar effect (such as heightened Fear) without needing to burn high end slots.
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You are making things uselessly complicated. Outside special circumstances, like high mobility fights or having your Fighter Slowed, Haste gives you an extra third action every round. The basic third action is a third attack so you can very easily compare it to Electric Arc and see that it's plain bad. Sure, you can find better uses of your third action but you won't get much more oomph out of it. And comparing to single target Electric Arc is comparing to the absolute floor when it comes to spellcasting.
Exchanging a first and second action for third actions is a bad tradeoff, and that's without even counting the spell slot. Haste 3 is a circumstancial spell, using it in a normal fight is a pure waste of actions.
Haste means I can avoid enemy third action attacks via movement without compromising DPR, and/or inflict specialty attacks on the enemy. You might find them useless, but Power Attack works great against high resistance/high AC enemies, Intimidating Strike is an awesome debuff to increase the accuracy of a follow-up Strike (and reduce the offensive prowess of the enemy), and Knockdown has the opportunity to both do that and cause the enemy to waste actions standing up; combined with spending the Hasted action to Stride, that's an enemy wasting 2 actions not attacking anyone. Or, I could try and employ AoOs for that.
And I don't understand why you keep saying you have to use Haste for a third attack when I've said before that the Fighter isn't making 3 attacks. He's only making two. Strawmanning my argument isn't doing your argument any favors, because I've already acknowledged that it's a waste of actions.
And I don't understand why you keep saying you have to use Haste for a third attack when I've said before that the Fighter isn't making 3 attacks. He's only making two. Strawmanning my argument isn't doing your argument any favors, because I've already acknowledged that it's a waste of actions.
Ok, I'll go back to basics: Actions in PF2.
There are 3 kinds of actions in PF2: first actions, second actions and third actions. The whole game is made in such a way that every round you have one first action, one second action and as many third actions you want (but generally one). The game uses 2 ways for that:- MAP: once you have made your first attack (a first action for a martial), your MAP increases, preventing you from making a second first action.
- Bundling actions into activities that cost at least 2 actions: as there's no way to make 2 2-action activities in a round you can balance this activity as the combination of a first and second action (that's the balance for spells).
You can try whatever you want, you'll never manage to get around this rule. For example, Intimidating Strike combines a Strike (first action) and a Demoralize (third action). As such it increases MAP only once as you still have to make your second action. Double Slice on the other hand increases MAP twice and as such is balanced as a first and second action (and it's why it does as much damage than 2 Strikes with a 2-hander).
Haste gives an extra action. Unless you need to do 2 third actions (like Striding twice, Standing up from Prone and Step, etc...) it means that you'll get a third action out of it. The basic third action is a third attack. It's not necessarily the best third action available at a specific moment but it's at the same power level than other third actions so you can use it for metrics (especially because it's easy to put a number on it).
You are bringing feats like Knockdown, Intimidating Strike or Power Attack, but you don't have to complicate things: All these feats are following the rules of the game and ultimately your round can be sumed up as a first and a second action and then as many third actions as you can with your remaining actions. By playing properly, your third action should be better than a bland third attack, but not much better. You can squeeze 50% extra power but you won't get above that easily as that would break the game math (have fun with Citricking's tool if you want to try, I haven't been able to break the game math but maybe you'll be more lucky). That's why I use third attacks as a measure of Haste efficiency, because it's very close to it (and Fighter third attacks are actually quite good thanks to their +2 to hit which affects them disproportionately).
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Ok, I'll go back to basics: Actions in PF2.
SuperBidi, we both know that Darksol the Painbringer is an experienced player. Whenever his viewpoint does not fit basic concepts, he is not showing ignorance of basic concepts. Instead, he is applying advanced concepts.
In my games around 14th level, the primal sorcerer Honey frequently cast 7th-level Haste on 6 characters. The party had 7 members and up to three allied NPCs. But the Haste was not for a third Strike action. The Haste was mostly for an extra Stride action to get into good tactical position on the first turn. For example, on So in 2E, is it normal to just feel... really weak? comment #89 I described a battle against 10 gugs in a 80-foot by 90-foot room. The martial characters wanted to reach the gugs before the gugs reached the spellcasters, and the extra Stride helped. For comparison, when they met the next set of gugs in a smaller room, the sorcerer did not cast Haste.
It strikes me that if putting heroism on your striker and synthesia on an enemy is enough to demoslih everything a team is facing, perhaps they’re not facing many encounters with multiple enemies.
The more enemies you introduce the less valuable buffs like heroism and debuffs like synth become.
Giving rise to AOEs and battlefield control becoming more useful
I agree. Due to running a PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion adventure path about an invading set of armies, my party often fights small armies. The druid in the party prepares Area-of-Effect spells and is quite good at destroying armies. A single-target spell would be wasted when no single target is important.
Usually because using those effects doesn't warrant that kind of power expenditure. You end up demolishing such encounters without those buffs/debuffs, meaning they are relatively useless.
Using high end spell slots on multiple weak(er) enemies isn't really good from a resource management standpoint, and even then, there are other spells that can accomplish this to relatively similar effect (such as heightened Fear) without needing to burn high end slots.
Throw enough low-level enemies at the party and the threat becomes Extreme. Each hit by the enemy is unimpressive, but whenever the party kills one enemy, another one takes their place. The damage accumulates.
A dungeon crawl is about small encounters against only the enemies who fit into a small room. Thus, high-level enemies are the real damage. But in outdoor battles against an army, the PCs need mobility from Haste and multiple-character damage from Fireball and Chain Lightning.
Once again shared spells clearly show the Arcane list to be lacking unique options that make the list desirable. Your attempt to dismiss the question about unique spells further shows you are trying to win an argument by dismissing the main point: the arcane list lacks unique effective options that make it a desirable spell list.Why does the fact that someone else has an option stop it from being useful to me? That is illogical.
Total spell numbers for each tradition at the moment are:
559 Arcane
330 Divine
515 Occult
396 PrimalDivine +20% => Primal +30% => Occult +9% => Arcane
Arcane clearly wins the numbers.
Arcane's unique spells are just a handful. The stand outs are Disintegrate and the Power Words. Important but not critical except at high level. It doesn't matter so much as it has so many other spells to choose from.
Unique effective options that make the list desirable.You have been talking about going down to 1 caster in the group. You like to have your cake and eat it too.
Lacks role versatility requiring further investment in archetypes or abilities that other classes don't have to take to achieve role versatility.That is just false. You are just looking at one aspect.
What numbers are you trying to run? Most useless number of spells on a spell list? Thanks for pointing out the sheer number of spells on the Arcane list further proving how many useless spells they have that no one should take or want.
What point of mine exactly are you trying to disprove? You're tossing stuff out there that makes no sense and isn't applicable to my point.
Role versatility is one of multiple aspects I look at when choosing a caster list. Can I heal well? Nope. Do I get the best buff in the game on top of the other stuff? Nope. Do I get the best debuff in the game on top of all the others stuff? Nope.
So why take it? It's tied for the 3rd best list. And someone wanting to play an Arcane caster hampers other players ability to make the characters they want while still covering the bases for party optimization. Low value list, easily avoided and forgotten.
It strikes me that if putting heroism on your striker and synthesia on an enemy is enough to demoslih everything a team is facing, perhaps they’re not facing many encounters with multiple enemies.
The more enemies you introduce the less valuable buffs like heroism and debuffs like synth become.
Giving rise to AOEs and battlefield control becoming more useful
Heroism is always useful even against multiple enemies.
Primal blasts fine. Even Occult and Divine have some blasting ability or at least control.
Calm Emotions is on the occult and divine list. It works great for controlling enemies. You want to know what list calm emotion isn't on? Arcane. Imagine that, missing another great control spell.
Primal and Occult have battlefield control as well. Not sure why people think Primal or Occult lack battlefield control options. Walls are on every list. So is slow. Primal has some entangling and environment manipulation spells. Occult has spells like confusion, fear, and mental effect spells.
Occult and Primal lists can fill the most roles you want from a caster including healing, battlefield control, blasting, condition removal, buffing, debuffing, and just about all you could want from a spell list.
Divine is more limited which is why I list it as tied for third with Arcane, but Divine can still buff and heal real well with some other functions. Just not quite as diverse as Arcane, but can fill the important roles in a group.
Haste and slow are on every spell list except divine. Arcane doesn't do haste and slow any better than the primal or occult list.
Superbidi himself has listed numerous ways to pick up electric arc easy on any list.
SuperBidi, we both know that Darksol the Painbringer is an experienced player. Whenever his viewpoint does not fit basic concepts, he is not showing ignorance of basic concepts. Instead, he is applying advanced concepts.
You're right. Sorry about that, Darksol. I was a bit pissed about the back and forth discussion.
In my games around 14th level, the primal sorcerer Honey frequently cast 7th-level Haste on 6 characters. The party had 7 members and up to three allied NPCs. But the Haste was not for a third Strike action. The Haste was mostly for an extra Stride action to get into good tactical position on the first turn. For example, on So in 2E, is it normal to just feel... really weak? comment #89 I described a battle against 10 gugs in a 80-foot by 90-foot room. The martial characters wanted to reach the gugs before the gugs reached the spellcasters, and the extra Stride helped. For comparison, when they met the next set of gugs in a smaller room, the sorcerer did not cast Haste.
Examples that perfectly illustrate what I say about Haste: In specific circumstances (in your case a high mobility fight where you are expected to use at least 1 action per round moving) Haste is excellent. but after that, you end up in a much more classical combat and Haste would just have earned you extra third actions, which is not worth the (action) cost of casting it.
The only difference in your case being that your party can cast Haste 7. Haste 7 is fine because of the extreme amount of actions it gives.
I don't really think of Synesthesia as something you're forced to take, so much as why you pick the occult spell list in general. It is a really strong tool but I'm not sure the occult spell list feels unbalanced on the whole. Every spell list has a small number of really really good spells and some glaring weaknesses it doesn't cover at all.Synesthesia falls under the "mandatory" tier of options, not unlike Fighters et. al. taking Sudden Charge, or Clerics preparing Heal/Harm spells. After all, you aren't going to be doing much else with your spell list, other than Haste/Slow, or the occasional Soothe.
Occult has all of the best Arcane spells with none of the drawbacks, and has more "unique" spells (which are easily Occult's best spells, by the way,) compared to any other tradition list.
It either needs a nerf on its existing/exclusive options, or it needs to not be so exclusive in some of its spells, or it needs exclusive analogues; because seriously, I'm baffled how Occult can utilize a spell like Synesthesia, but Arcane cannot.
"After all, you aren't going to be doing much else with your spell list, other than Haste/Slow, or the occasional Soothe." I thought the Occult list was good, I mean don't they have anything else besides these couple spells you mentioned? Heightened Invisibility? Hideous Laughter? Synaptic Pulse? Or do these spells suck? :s
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I merely listed common examples, it's not an exhaustive list.
Usually because using those effects doesn't warrant that kind of power expenditure. You end up demolishing such encounters without those buffs/debuffs, meaning they are relatively useless.
Using high end spell slots on multiple weak(er) enemies isn't really good from a resource management standpoint, and even then, there are other spells that can accomplish this to relatively similar effect (such as heightened Fear) without needing to burn high end slots.
If multiple weaker enemies is what you're facing then it isn't a waste of resources, what you're doing is actually just assuming that only single target high CR encounters can be challenging. Which is the whole problem.
If instead of a level 10 party facing 1 cr12 enemy they might face 2 Cr 10 enemies or you could have a level 10 party facing 4 CR 8 enemies.
Getting Synethesia on half the encounter is significantly less impactful that getting it 100% of the encounter. Getting it on a quarter of the encounter probably isn't worth the slot.
Using battle field control to slow them down or separate the enemies, so they can swamp your fighter, as quickly, or they take an extra turn or 2 to reach you backline is much more valuable that making 1 quarter of the encounter less effective.
It strikes me that if putting heroism on your striker and synthesia on an enemy is enough to demoslih everything a team is facing, perhaps they’re not facing many encounters with multiple enemies.
The more enemies you introduce the less valuable buffs like heroism and debuffs like synth become.
Giving rise to AOEs and battlefield control becoming more useful
Heroism is always useful even against multiple enemies.Sure but it isn't always equally useful, if it takes you fighter from hitting on that one big scary guy on a 13, to hitting that guy on a 11 is significantly more exciting than making him hit those little guys on a 5 rather than a 7. For example.
Primal blasts fine. Even Occult and Divine have some blasting ability or at least control.Calm Emotions is on the occult and divine list. It works great for controlling enemies. You want to know what list calm emotion isn't on? Arcane. Imagine that, missing another great control spell.
Primal and Occult have battlefield control as well. Not sure why people think Primal or Occult lack battlefield control options. Walls are on every list. So is slow. Primal has some entangling and environment manipulation spells. Occult has spells like confusion, fear, and mental effect spells.
Occult and Primal lists can fill the most roles you want from a caster including healing, battlefield control, blasting, condition removal, buffing, debuffing, and just about all you could want from a spell list.
Divine is more limited which is why I list it as tied for third with Arcane, but Divine can still buff and heal real well with some other functions. Just not quite as diverse as Arcane, but can fill the important roles in a group.
I don't know what any of this spell list comparison debate has to do with anything I'm saying or the point of the thread.