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https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43gmq?Occult-Wizard#7
Paizo does not have a universally understanding that the arcane list is better. Aaron isn't a member of the design team, but I haven't seen anyone official contradict him either.
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However, I believe its enough for at least a solid hypotheses the observation that: Arcane is always the least used spell list for subclasses with Divine and Occult being the most used; Few people talk about arcane sorcerer bloodlines, and if they do its usually draconic because dragon or because of the Arcane Evolution feat; In general the focus spells are of questionable use; et cetera.
Do you disagree with that statement?
Yes. What makes you think Arcane is less used or discussed than Divine or Occult?
Focus spells are kind of lousy in general, IMHO, not just for arcane casters. YMMV on that last point, but I don't think there's community consensus on anything you said.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43gmq?Occult-Wizard#7
Paizo does not have a universally understanding that the arcane list is better. Aaron isn't a member of the design team, but I haven't seen anyone official contradict him either.
Didn't somebody say something about Mark Seifter bringing up that Arcane has more spells than any other tradition by design? Not a contradiction, but a point of importance to bring up as well.
Not saying that it is better to have more spells, either; quite the opposite, actually. Spell bloat is pretty bad to have. But if the idea is that Aaron's opinion is effectively fact, having more spells can mean that either Arcane is better by nature of simply having more spells (if the spells are as equally balanced as he says they are), or is worse and had more spells to compensate for it.
In either case, our point stands.
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Just because it does this doesn't mean that we can't extrapolate that the Arcane ones are weaker than the Primal/Occult ones; there's bound to be variance in power levels between even options of the same level/type, so saying that because this variance exists that it can't be used as a comparison just sounds like a cop-out.
But because the variance exists, the core premise is undermined because it only becomes sometimes true, which means it's no longer a trend because instead we're comparing individual elements against each other.
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But because the variance exists, the core premise is undermined because it only becomes sometimes true, which means it's no longer a trend because instead we're comparing individual elements against each other.
Just because it does this doesn't mean that we can't extrapolate that the Arcane ones are weaker than the Primal/Occult ones; there's bound to be variance in power levels between even options of the same level/type, so saying that because this variance exists that it can't be used as a comparison just sounds like a cop-out.
At what point is "Arcane Focus Spells are weaker than Occult/Primal ones" only sometimes true? If by sometimes you mean "very rarely," sure, but those are basically outliers. Even with that argument, the idea that it's a general trend still tracks, which is ultimately what we are saying at the end of the day. Arcane has a negative impact on a trend line if we put those spell in the same graph as the Occult and Primal ones.
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At what point is "Arcane Focus Spells are weaker than Occult/Primal ones" only sometimes true? If by sometimes you mean "very rarely," sure, but those are basically outliers. Even with that argument, the idea that it's a general trend still tracks, which is ultimately what we are saying at the end of the day. Arcane has a negative impact on a trend line if we put those spell in the same graph as the Occult and Primal ones.
I'd like to know what focus spells people think are really good and which are not. I know personally I think Dread Aura is pretty stellar, but if wizard is said to have bad focus spells I'm wondering which are considered bad and what ones are so much better that other classes get?
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At what point is "Arcane Focus Spells are weaker than Occult/Primal ones" only sometimes true? If by sometimes you mean "very rarely," sure, but those are basically outliers. Even with that argument, the idea that it's a general trend still tracks, which is ultimately what we are saying at the end of the day. Arcane has a negative impact on a trend line if we put those spell in the same graph as the Occult and Primal ones.I'd like to know what focus spells people think are really good and which are not. I know personally I think Dread Aura is pretty stellar, but if wizard is said to have bad focus spells I'm wondering which are considered bad and what ones are so much better that other classes get?
The only decent Wizard focus spell there is as a starter is Force Bolt, since it's a one-action Magic Missile that caps at one action and doesn't take slots to cast compared to Magic Missile. Compared to a Druid's or Bard's focus spells, it's garbage, but compared to any Arcane Sorcerer's focus spells, it is better. It is mostly worse than the Primal or Occult Sorcerer's focus spells, though.
A Wizard's Dread Aura is basically a worse Dirge of Doom, since it's the same radius, has less of an action tax, and can be activated at-will (doesn't require focus points). At best it can overcome Dirge of Doom by 16th level, when Effortless Concentration becomes available, but considering a majority of games don't reach that far, and requires outside help for it to function (whereas Dirge of Doom doesn't), it's not exactly a genuine comparison.
Also, Wizard having to spend feats to get working focus spells is already a pretty feelsbad set-up, when most other classes don't need to spend feats to get good focus spells; they already have them right out of the gate.
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The only decent Wizard focus spell there is as a starter is Force Bolt, since it's a one-action Magic Missile that caps at one action and doesn't take slots to cast compared to Magic Missile. Compared to a Druid's or Bard's focus spells, it's garbage, but compared to any Arcane Sorcerer's focus spells, it is better. It is mostly worse than the Primal or Occult Sorcerer's focus spells, though.
A Wizard's Dread Aura is basically a worse Dirge of Doom, since it's the same radius, has less of an action tax, and can be activated at-will (doesn't require focus points). At best it can overcome Dirge of Doom by 16th level, when Effortless Concentration becomes available, but considering a majority of games don't reach that far, and requires outside help for it to function (whereas Dirge of Doom doesn't), it's not exactly a genuine comparison.
Also, Wizard having to spend feats to get working focus spells is already a pretty feelsbad set-up, when most other classes don't need to spend feats to get good focus spells; they already have them right out of the gate.
I personally think this compares unfavorably because dirge of doom is overtuned not because dread aura is weak
I personally think this compares unfavorably because dirge of doom is overtuned not because dread aura is weakThe only decent Wizard focus spell there is as a starter is Force Bolt, since it's a one-action Magic Missile that caps at one action and doesn't take slots to cast compared to Magic Missile. Compared to a Druid's or Bard's focus spells, it's garbage, but compared to any Arcane Sorcerer's focus spells, it is better. It is mostly worse than the Primal or Occult Sorcerer's focus spells, though.
A Wizard's Dread Aura is basically a worse Dirge of Doom, since it's the same radius, has less of an action tax, and can be activated at-will (doesn't require focus points). At best it can overcome Dirge of Doom by 16th level, when Effortless Concentration becomes available, but considering a majority of games don't reach that far, and requires outside help for it to function (whereas Dirge of Doom doesn't), it's not exactly a genuine comparison.
Also, Wizard having to spend feats to get working focus spells is already a pretty feelsbad set-up, when most other classes don't need to spend feats to get good focus spells; they already have them right out of the gate.
Dread Aura isn't weak by itself, but if we compare it to Dirge of Doom, it's relatively inferior.
And relatively inferior is all that we need to make the statement of "Arcane focus spells are weaker than Occult focus spells" become true.
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The only decent Wizard focus spell there is as a starter is Force Bolt, since it's a one-action Magic Missile that caps at one action and doesn't take slots to cast compared to Magic Missile. Compared to a Druid's or Bard's focus spells, it's garbage, but compared to any Arcane Sorcerer's focus spells, it is better.
I get that Dragon Claws are mostly a trap for a caster, and Ancestral Memories for a Charisma based caster is rarely useful or effective - but the rest of the Arcane Sorcerer Focus spells are good.
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Dragon Sorcerer and Imperial have good focus spells. I even like Ancestral Memories and Dragon Claws if you want to build certain ways.
Imperial sorcerer spells really make the wizard focus spells look weak comparatively. They feel more like a wizard than a wizard.
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The serial killer reference.If 3 classes isn't enough to classify a design trend, neither should 3 kills be enough to classify a serial killer. The point is that the idea that 3 isn't enough of a data pool to pull from is absurd based on the previous conclusion.
Lemme write out the argument being made point-by-point to explain why it's faulty:
1) I want to establish a trend in Data Set A, but I don't know how many data points I need.
2) The government has decided that 3 data points are sufficient to establish a trend in Data Set B for legal purposes.
2a) [Unspoken Assumption] These two data sets are similar enough that the standards for establishing a trend in one can be reasonably extrapolated to the other.
3) Therefore, 3 data points should be enough to establish a trend in Data Set A.
The problem is that little unspoken assumption in the argument - it does not follow that there is a significant enough connection between the data sets being compared or the topics associated with them to draw conclusions about one based on the other.
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I personally think this compares unfavorably because dirge of doom is overtuned not because dread aura is weakThe only decent Wizard focus spell there is as a starter is Force Bolt, since it's a one-action Magic Missile that caps at one action and doesn't take slots to cast compared to Magic Missile. Compared to a Druid's or Bard's focus spells, it's garbage, but compared to any Arcane Sorcerer's focus spells, it is better. It is mostly worse than the Primal or Occult Sorcerer's focus spells, though.
A Wizard's Dread Aura is basically a worse Dirge of Doom, since it's the same radius, has less of an action tax, and can be activated at-will (doesn't require focus points). At best it can overcome Dirge of Doom by 16th level, when Effortless Concentration becomes available, but considering a majority of games don't reach that far, and requires outside help for it to function (whereas Dirge of Doom doesn't), it's not exactly a genuine comparison.
Also, Wizard having to spend feats to get working focus spells is already a pretty feelsbad set-up, when most other classes don't need to spend feats to get good focus spells; they already have them right out of the gate.
Dread Aura isn't weak by itself, but if we compare it to Dirge of Doom, it's relatively inferior.
And relatively inferior is all that we need to make the statement of "Arcane focus spells are weaker than Occult focus spells" become true.
Well, Occult cantrips are garbage. Even worse than the Divine ones.
Does this make the Occult list garbage ?
Also, I noticed you're using the royal "we".
I personally think this compares unfavorably because dirge of doom is overtuned not because dread aura is weakThe only decent Wizard focus spell there is as a starter is Force Bolt, since it's a one-action Magic Missile that caps at one action and doesn't take slots to cast compared to Magic Missile. Compared to a Druid's or Bard's focus spells, it's garbage, but compared to any Arcane Sorcerer's focus spells, it is better. It is mostly worse than the Primal or Occult Sorcerer's focus spells, though.
A Wizard's Dread Aura is basically a worse Dirge of Doom, since it's the same radius, has less of an action tax, and can be activated at-will (doesn't require focus points). At best it can overcome Dirge of Doom by 16th level, when Effortless Concentration becomes available, but considering a majority of games don't reach that far, and requires outside help for it to function (whereas Dirge of Doom doesn't), it's not exactly a genuine comparison.
Also, Wizard having to spend feats to get working focus spells is already a pretty feelsbad set-up, when most other classes don't need to spend feats to get good focus spells; they already have them right out of the gate.
Dread Aura isn't weak by itself, but if we compare it to Dirge of Doom, it's relatively inferior.
And relatively inferior is all that we need to make the statement of "Arcane focus spells are weaker than Occult focus spells" become true.
Well, Occult cantrips are garbage. Even worse than the Divine ones.
Does this make the Occult list garbage ?
Also, I noticed you're using the royal "we".
Not worse than the Divine ones. But cantrips aren't really a major selling point of a spell list, this is like saying Barbarian is bad because they have garbage 1st level feats.
Sounds like it is done out of coincidental accident than any sort of intention, since it requires me to know how to use it in a sentence, and I don't.
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I play almost only in PFS, so rather low levels (my highest caster is a lvl 8 Bard), so Cantrips are a very important part of what my casting PCs use. And Occult is really bad there.
You have TKP, Daze, Shield, Guidance, Light, Haunting Hymn...Plenty of good cantrips to me. They might not be Electric Arc, but Electric Arc is an overtuned cantrip compared to all the other ones, so it's an outlier.
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If it's good enough to establish a serial killer's trend, it's good enough to establish design trends.
I urge you to do some reading on basic statistics, 3 points not only isn’t enough to establish a trend it’s a tiny percentage of the total number of responses you need to see consecutive results within.
What you’re incorrectly conflating with a trend is a threshold, absolutely different things.
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I play almost only in PFS, so rather low levels (my highest caster is a lvl 8 Bard), so Cantrips are a very important part of what my casting PCs use. And Occult is really bad there.You have TKP, Daze, Shield, Guidance, Light, Haunting Hymn...Plenty of good cantrips to me. They might not be Electric Arc, but Electric Arc is an overtuned cantrip compared to all the other ones, so it's an outlier.
I was wondering when someone was going to mention electric arc.
The Raven Black, I recommend the Jolt Coil if you want a better cantrip for your bard.It's 60 gold.
I play almost only in PFS, so rather low levels (my highest caster is a lvl 8 Bard), so Cantrips are a very important part of what my casting PCs use. And Occult is really bad there.You have TKP, Daze, Shield, Guidance, Light, Haunting Hymn...Plenty of good cantrips to me. They might not be Electric Arc, but Electric Arc is an overtuned cantrip compared to all the other ones, so it's an outlier.I was wondering when someone was going to mention electric arc.
The Raven Black, I recommend the Jolt Coil if you want a better cantrip for your bard.It's 60 gold.
If anything in the Arcane spell list needs a nerf, that cantrip is the one because it is so overtuned compared to every other cantrip in the game that it's expressly sought after for how much of an outlier it is.
I guarantee you if its standard use conditions had the same parity as the standard use conditions of other damaging cantrips, that it would be treated as the same as other cantrips in the game; useful in certain situations, not so helpful in others.
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If it's good enough to establish a serial killer's trend, it's good enough to establish design trends.I urge you to do some reading on basic statistics, 3 points not only isn’t enough to establish a trend it’s a tiny percentage of the total number of responses you need to see consecutive results within.
What you’re incorrectly conflating with a trend is a threshold, absolutely different things.
We are not looking at 3 points, we are looking at many points over 3 categories: Feats, Spells, Focus Spells.
The whole 3 point thing was a reference that you don't need to wait for 20+ things before you can start seeing common points. Nor do you need to wait for 20+ things to say that there is an issue.
Also we are not talking tiny percentages. Most of the 24 Arcane focus spells being bad is not a small percentage. Most arcane focus spells being worse than focus spells for other lists is not a small percentage. Most arcane feats being worse than other lists is not a small percentage.
Why not include Cantrips there ? Because their analysis does not support your conclusion ?
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Electric arc is the best cantrip, but it's still a cantrip. After the very earliest levels they start to fall of. I think people make too big a deal out of it, personally.
I hope they change it for the remaster, or else make the other cantrips better.
Once you have only one target available, it's worse than other damage cantrips. Also IIRC very few creatures have a weakness to electricity and several have immunity.
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Once you have only one target available, it's worse than other damage cantrips. Also IIRC very few creatures have a weakness to electricity and several have immunity.Electric arc is the best cantrip, but it's still a cantrip. After the very earliest levels they start to fall of. I think people make too big a deal out of it, personally.
I hope they change it for the remaster, or else make the other cantrips better.
It's equal, which it shouldn't be; it should be exactly half the damage, and it's not.
Your complaint there is that bard has a better focus spells than wizard. You can say that and I would agree, it doesn't mean anything about the actual spell lists. If I said the divine list was better than primal because it had lay on hands you can see that would be rather silly.
It's not just Bard, though. Sorcerers, Clerics, Druids, heck even Champions and Rangers have better starting focus spells; and that's just from Core Rulebook. Even the later focus spells accessible from feats are pretty bad for Wizard, and are pretty inferior to other options other classes get. Dread Aura versus Dirge of Doom is a prime example of this being the case, since the former needs a 16th level feat just to be able to slightly surpass it in terms of action economy.
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I mean the conclusion there is just that Wizards have bad focus spells, which isn't really a controversial opinion in the first place.
I mean the conclusion there is just that Wizards have bad focus spells, which isn't really a controversial opinion in the first place.
You're missing the main picture here. It's not just Wizard focus spells that are bad, either, even if they provide a large majority of them as being bad.
The initial ones from the Arcane Sorcerers are bad (which upgrade to "kind of meh" in the higher levels), and the initial one from Arcane Witch is pretty bad too, with the other focus spells being tradition-independent, meaning we can't really treat them as belonging to a specific tradition like we could with Sorcerer and Wizard (even if, again, a large amount of them aren't that great).
Meanwhile, all the other focus spells the other three traditions have are mostly superior. Short of one or two outliers, the Primal and Occult focus spells are stronger in a similar vein of function, and all three focus spell traditions offer things that Arcane focus spells simply cannot. Even non-spellcasters who get focus points have better focus spells to use by comparison (even if that's their only form of casting).
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You're missing the main picture here.
No, I've seen it. I just don't think there's much of a main picture at all.
Sorcerer and Witch tradition based options are all over the place. The best primal or occult witch cantrips are better than the arcane one, but ultimately most of them are pretty forgettable. The other big kicker here is that you're comparing 8 different spells to one, which means simply by volume you're bound to find a couple of outstanding options (which for some reason don't qualify as outliers themselves, it's only the spells that work against your hypothesis that do). And the ultimate conclusion... is that Discern Secrets is kind of meh. That's just not worth very much here.
... and then you look at the Summoner and even that ghost of a correlation fades away, because both of their Arcane options are good.
You're missing the main picture here.No, I've seen it. I just don't think there's much of a main picture at all.
Sorcerer and Witch tradition based options are all over the place.
Yes, those options are, but none of the Arcane ones are all over the place; they're bottom of the barrel garbage. The best Arcane is significantly worse than the average Occult/Primal, and it's like that across all levels. That's the big picture we're talking about.
And why should an entire tradition's worth of focus spells be significantly worse if the spell list isn't any better?
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It's equal, which it shouldn't be; it should be exactly half the damage, and it's not.Once you have only one target available, it's worse than other damage cantrips. Also IIRC very few creatures have a weakness to electricity and several have immunity.Electric arc is the best cantrip, but it's still a cantrip. After the very earliest levels they start to fall of. I think people make too big a deal out of it, personally.
I hope they change it for the remaster, or else make the other cantrips better.
Not quite correct. Electric arc (which I agree is overtuned) has such high damage because that's all it has. The range is anemic and there's no persistent damage or condition applied. So leaving it with half damage with only 1 target would nerf it too far out of balance.
If it's second target only activated on a critical save failure, that would bring it back in line. Though the fact that both targets get a save blunts the damage potential already, so that might be too big of a nerf.
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It's equal, which it shouldn't be; it should be exactly half the damage, and it's not.Once you have only one target available, it's worse than other damage cantrips. Also IIRC very few creatures have a weakness to electricity and several have immunity.Electric arc is the best cantrip, but it's still a cantrip. After the very earliest levels they start to fall of. I think people make too big a deal out of it, personally.
I hope they change it for the remaster, or else make the other cantrips better.
Not quite correct. Electric arc (which I agree is overtuned) has such high damage because that's all it has. The range is anemic and there's no persistent damage or condition applied. So leaving it with half damage with only 1 target would nerf it too far out of balance.
If it's second target only activated on a critical save failure, that would bring it back in line. Though the fact that both targets get a save blunts the damage potential already, so that might be too big of a nerf.
The range isn't any more anemic than Produce Flame or Daze or Telekinetic Projectile, and Ray of Frost has higher range because that is its selling point. And doing 2D4+8 between two targets being nerfed to 1D4+4 between two targets means it has the same DPR as these other D4 cantrips when used appropriately.
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And those other cantrips have a bonus effect on crit which EA lacks.
Edit:. TK also has no crit effect though, but it does have even higher single target damage and can do several different damage types.all double damage on critical, so that’s a wash.
I'm going to be pretty grumpy if all this moaning has got EA nerfed. Its the workhorse of many early level casters. We should be looking to make other cantrips on the level of EA, not the other way around.
Agreed. And the easiest way to do that would be to make most cantrips save based. Or give spell attack rolls a "half damage" or "minimum damage" on a miss effect. Maybe leave acid splash an attack roll, but defientely reword it so the splash damage clearly works like a bomb's splash.
Off the top of my head, I think most new cantrips have saves, so there's that.
Oh, and also make shadow signet (or something like it, perhaps a scaling ring that gives a bonus to spell attack rolls when you make a save an attack) part of the core.
I wouldn't put much weight on critical hits when discussing cantrips, since they're so unlikely to happen. What makes electric arc good is that it's a save spell rather than an attack roll spell & that it's multitarget.
Not exactly what my point was, but yes. I think when they were balancing cantrips, they placed too much weight on crit effects and not enough value on the "half damage on saved" portion of save spells. And they haven't really wanted to dislocate the existing meta by changing all those just yet. But with remaster, they can probably get away with it.