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I was thinking the same thing. But one that focus spells are for some classes only it's unlikely that designers put it as general feat even if they put "you have a focus pool" has pre-requisite.
There's already multiple general feats that are not useful (or even availabe) to everybody, so that doesn't seem like an issue when creating them.
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Since I'm currently playing a ranger and it seems that warden spells are going in the core class I'm double excited.
Toss a focus point to your witcher
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So wait.
Ranger now gets to simply choose between Gravity Weapon and Heal Companion at first level, not otherwise trading out any other features to do so?
No. The only information we have is that your warden spell dc and class dc now increase via the same feature, like the monk.
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So wait.
Ranger now gets to simply choose between Gravity Weapon and Heal Companion at first level, not otherwise trading out any other features to do so?
When Ranger came out, it didn't have spells in the book. Then the APG added spells. Because the Ranger came out without spells in the book, it didn't advance spell DC like Monk did. Now Ranger is getting put in a book with the spells it can take, and will advance its spell DC like Monk does.
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When Ranger came out, it didn't have spells in the book. Then the APG added spells. Because the Ranger came out without spells in the book, it didn't advance spell DC like Monk did. Now Ranger is getting put in a book with the spells it can take, and will advance its spell DC like Monk does.So wait.
Ranger now gets to simply choose between Gravity Weapon and Heal Companion at first level, not otherwise trading out any other features to do so?
The spells stay optional IIRC.
Controversial opinion: refocus to max as a general feat?
I'm expecting it to still be a class feat, but it does feel like it could stand to not be reprinted a dozen times.
Seems reasonable to me, would be wayyyyyy too inconsiquential to trade class feats for usually... honestly I probably wouldn't take it with a general feat unless I was human lol. But I know some of my players who would.
Plus 3 lay on hands in 10 minutes is a lot of healing at low levels.
Paying a class feat to gain a benefit the GM is likely to handwave most of the time seems pretty bad yeah, ngl. As I said in another thread, I'm a little concerned the new focus point system is going to reduce build diversity if you can still get focus points as easily as you can right now via low level feats.
i think it unbalances things and gives more work for the DM
but ill gladly have 3 weapon surges on my war priest i guess, virtually every fight, because thats often how adventuring days seem to go.
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i think it unbalances things and gives more work for the DM
but ill gladly have 3 weapon surges on my war priest i guess, virtually every fight, because thats often how adventuring days seem to go.
My opinion that the new Refocus rule will make less work for me as a GM. I won't have to worry about the difference between the first encounter in the day, when the PC could have three focus points available and the last encounter of the day, when the PC could be down to one focus point without the feats to restore a 2nd focus point.
However. I decided to review how the 19th-level PCs in my campaign use their focus points.
The rogue/sorcerer Sam has the Dragon Claws focus spell and a focus pool with 1 point. The new Refocus rules don't affect him.
The ranger Zinfandel has the Ranger's Bramble focus spell and a focus pool with 1 point. Yes, I let the player bend the rules and take the Ranger's Bramble feat 6 without a starting warden spell feat like Gravity Weapon. The new Refocus rules don't affect him.
The sorcerer Honey has Faerie Dust and Fey Disappearance and a focus pool with 2 points. She is almost always casting from her spell slots and I do not recember her ever casting those focus spells. She did not invest in Bloodline Focus feat 12. Technically, the new rules are a change for her; practically, they make no difference.
The champion Tikti has Lay on Hands as a class feature, Sudden Shift via Deity's Domain feat 1, Champion's Sacrifice from feat 12, and Hero's Defiance as a class feature. She has a focus pool with 2 points, because Deity's Domain and Hero's Defiance did not increase the focus pool. She does use Champion's Sacrifice during combat, but Lay on Hands is almost always for the healing downtime between encounters, so she can Refocus before using it. Hero's Defiance is new and she has not used it yet. She manages her focus points carefully for efficiency, and the new rules simply mean that she does not need to be as careful.
The character sheet for the stormborn druid Stormdancer is on Pathbuilder on the player's tablet, so I can't easily view it. I asked the player. Stormdancer's player confirms that her only focus spells are Tempest Surge and Stormwind Flight from Wind Caller feat 8. The player also says that Stormdancer has three focus points, and I don't understand how. I had assumed that Stormdancer had taken Primal Focus feat 12 to be able to Refocus 2 focus points, because Stormdancer always had plenty of focus points during combat. However, she had not. Instead, the player had forgotten about the "you have spent at least 1 Focus Point since you last regained any Focus Points" restriction on Refocus and had been playing the remastered version all along.
The other two PCs don't have focus spells.
Given Stormdancer's example, I have nothing to fear from the remastered Refocus. Seriously, Stormdancer casting Tempest Surge during combat rather than using a 9th- or 10th-level spell slot is more comfortable to me. I am familiar with Tempest Surge since she has cast it regularly for 19 levels.
19th level matters less in this case then say, 2nd or 4th level depending on class
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My opinion that the new Refocus rule will make less work for me as a GM.i think it unbalances things and gives more work for the DM
but ill gladly have 3 weapon surges on my war priest i guess, virtually every fight, because thats often how adventuring days seem to go.
Less work for everyone. Less bookkeeping.
YES it will change the power dynamics of some spells. There are things like the storm order druid that just became a LOT more powerful.
And it will make non-Cleric healers a LOT more effective in combat and not just out of combat as before. If you're got the 'blessed one' dedication or are a champion and you've got 3 focus points for a lot of combats you can keep pace with a cleric (minus the AoE heal). Pack it with having Heal spell (but not the font) - and you'd only need to waste one or two spell slots on Heal (+/- how rough the adventure is).
But I think this is one case where the shift in what makes for a good build is not too severe and is outweighed by the reduction in 'pointless bookkeeping.
Except for maybe a Storm Druid. Being able to spam 3x 2d12 lightning blasts by level 3 per combat (unless your GM forcibly interrupts rests) is... intense, when you still have your normal spells as well.
The change effectively gives PF2E options for 'Powerful single target spell blasters'. Something they'd intentionally nerfed previously. So we might see some Focus spells get adjusted.
19th level matters less in this case then say, 2nd or 4th level depending on class
When is the earliest level at which a character can gain a 2nd focus point? The new Refocus does not matter before that.
A champion can take Litany against Wrath at 6th level for a 2nd focus point. A cleric can take Advanced Domain at 8th level for a 2nd focus spell. A sorcerer can take Advanced Bloodline at 6th level for a 2nd focus point.
I have seen a suggestion that a character should have one focus point for each focus spell, which could progress the size of the focus pool even faster. A druid could have 2 focus spells via Order Explorer at 2nd level. But that is a player's suggestion for simplicity, not a Paizo reveal.
A simpler method would be that all characters have a focus pool with 1 focus point at 1st level, regardless of whether they can use it. At 6th level, they get a 2nd focus point. At 12th level they get a 3rd focus point.
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My gm already implemented this in our game, which is awesome for my character. Even though Oracles are still hard locked due to their curse, he's multiclass sorc so he can use that focus spell at least. I wonder if they'll address Oracle's awkward focus spell cap with this too?
To clarify, by awkward I mean this:
When an Oracle casts one of their focus spells which is Cursebound, their curse goes up to minor.
If they cast another, it goes up to Moderate.
HOWEVER, when resting, the curse only 'restores' back to Minor level, and won't fully heal back until a full proper rest.This means that you really have to make sure to spend 2 focus points in the first fight of the day that you spend one, because after that, you're hard locked to always only casting one, since you cannot progress past Moderate without bunting yourself, so effectively you only have 1 focus point for every combat after the first that you spent one in. Which means it highly encourages multiclass archetyping into something else with focus spell.
I guess I feel its kinda an awkward design? So I'm super curious to know if that would be looked at thanks to this update.
This is a good point I hadn't thought of yet for my own Oracle. Luckily I have both Dragon's Breath from Dragon Disciple and Amped Guidance from the psychic dedication, so I have some workarounds.
Also really making me want that release of Player Core 2.
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19th level matters less in this case then say, 2nd or 4th level depending on classWhen is the earliest level at which a character can gain a 2nd focus point? The new Refocus does not matter before that.
Level 1.
Open up pathbuilder and just pick the Druid class, then Storm Order. Then check your focus spells.
You can do this with Witch also. Human -> Natural Ambition -> Cackle
I think you can even hit 3 at level 1. But I'd need to mess around to find a path to it if it's there.
19th level matters less in this case then say, 2nd or 4th level depending on classWhen is the earliest level at which a character can gain a 2nd focus point? The new Refocus does not matter before that.Level 1.
Open up pathbuilder and just pick the Druid class, then Storm Order. Then check your focus spells.
Ah, that solves the mystery I mentioned back in comment #60:
The character sheet for the stormborn druid Stormdancer is on Pathbuilder on the player's tablet, so I can't easily view it. I asked the player. Stormdancer's player confirms that her only focus spells are Tempest Surge and Stormwind Flight from Wind Caller feat 8. The player also says that Stormdancer has three focus points, and I don't understand how. ...
I checked Archives of Nethys and the 2 focus points at 1st level are in the rules as written there, too. Stormdancer used Tempest Surge only once per encounter at low levels, so I did not notice the larger focus pool.
Is the large focus pool intentional, some kind of perk to make the Storm Order the frequent spellcasting druidic order?
19th level matters less in this case then say, 2nd or 4th level depending on classWhen is the earliest level at which a character can gain a 2nd focus point? The new Refocus does not matter before that.
A champion can take Litany against Wrath at 6th level for a 2nd focus point. A cleric can take Advanced Domain at 8th level for a 2nd focus spell. A sorcerer can take Advanced Bloodline at 6th level for a 2nd focus point.
I have seen a suggestion that a character should have one focus point for each focus spell, which could progress the size of the focus pool even faster. A druid could have 2 focus spells via Order Explorer at 2nd level. But that is a player's suggestion for simplicity, not a Paizo reveal.
A simpler method would be that all characters have a focus pool with 1 focus point at 1st level, regardless of whether they can use it. At 6th level, they get a 2nd focus point. At 12th level they get a 3rd focus point.
Some get it by level 2
I could go human and get 3 by level 4 with my cleric
It's really not hard
Is the large focus pool intentional, some kind of perk to make the Storm Order the frequent spellcasting druidic order?
Storm and Leaf both start with 2. None of the others do. It seems like they want you to be able to spam their focus spells a little more.
The Oracle class also starts with 2. I've not gone through everything in the game yet though so there might be more.
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Is the large focus pool intentional, some kind of perk to make the Storm Order the frequent spellcasting druidic order?Storm and Leaf both start with 2. None of the others do. It seems like they want you to be able to spam their focus spells a little more.
The Oracle class also starts with 2. I've not gone through everything in the game yet though so there might be more.
You can have 3 focus at 1st: ancient elf oracle with its free muli-class in psychic.
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Do we know the type of feat it will be (general, skill, ancestory, class)?So wait. To clarify.
If you have one Focus spell, you have a 1-point pool.
And two spells = 2 points, three spells = 3 points.
And without any stipulation on "how" to Refocus, you can recover up to your whole pool in 10 minute increments per point?
I got it right?
That's how I understand it, yes.
And one feat allowing you to refocus your whole pool at once in 10 minutes, no matter if it's 2 or 3 points total.
No, we don't know that. I could see it being something like a 7th level general feat or something along those lines. Printing a separate class feat for every class seems a bit redundant.
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This is exactly why I think that it is only equitable to simply do away with all increases to Focus Pools completely and simply have the pool start and cap at 3, period. Increases to that resource are lame, confusing, boring, and generally unfair as the options that get higher amounts aren't even worse than the options that gain fewer points so X getting more Focus Points isn't at all grounded in balance, it's just arbitrarily different for difference sake if anything, the options than gain more of a Focus Pool early on are stronger than the options that offer fewer, the Focus Spells that are offered in those features are just stronger and more widely useful.
Decrying "it would be too stronk!1 to start wif 3 points!!1" makes no sense to me at all, I've not seen a single argument, esp given the fact that refocusing will be easier than ever, that it will unbalance anything at all but instead, it will merely ensure that certain Casters don't get locked out of anything useful to do other than cantrips after casting their ROLE DEFINING Spell once or twice per encounter.
Witches used to be able to spam a half dozen Hexes all day every day, now they are a near garbage F tier Class that gets fewer things to do with their CLASS DEFINING FEATURES every day than a freaking magical brain carrie wannabe who can throw an imaginary sword to deal more damage than a freaking Barbarian 2-3 times more often. Make it make sense...
The change is already a great buff for martials since they can pick up an extra focus spell here or there to cast their good ones more often. Starting at 3 from the jump would be a bigger buff to them than anything since you can just pick up lay on hands or a psi amp and be done with it. Blessed One giving the local fighter 3 rechargeable lay on hands from the jump would be pretty convenient, yeah?
Not that I mind buffing martials some more. They've benefited more than casters have with each new book so this would follow that trend nicely.
It is going to have a massive effect on perceptions of the caster/martial disparity at lower levels and be something that requires careful rebalancing of the range of focus spell powers for every class or it could create problems, but as long as it is not hard for every class that gets them to be able to grab one option close to that ceiling without having to massively jump through archetype feats to get there, it will be ok, and could be a massive improvement.
I fear the developers may take other steps to balance out this new focus point change, such as by lowering the power level of focus spells across the board.
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How could most focus spells get worse. They heighten like all other spells, meaning they don't keep up with higher spell slots, and many are low impact already. Lets hope most focus spells get brought up or expanded so casters of low to mid level have reliable things they can do other then limp cantrips.
The issue is more that some caster classes have to jump through a lot of hoops to get more than 1 focus spell and that some of those focus spells are incredibly situational. Meanwhile the Druid could have 3 focus points and tempest surge by level 4 to 6. It takes predominantly spell slot casters a very long time to have enough spell slots where throwing down 3 spells equivalent to tempest surge in an encounter is even close to an option more than once a day.
The issue isn’t that some spells are better than others. The issue is that every character that can get 1 good focus spell with relative ease now has 3 good spells to cast pretty much every encounter, and the classes were most definitely not balanced around that assumption.
Not having 3 focus points in PF2 is not that big a deal currently because using three in an encounter is not something most character will do more than 1x a day for more than half the game. It was often a waste to have more than 2 until very high level. Now it is an advantage as soon as possible and some classes will suffer for it if that is not acknowledged and considered in the rebalancing. I think the solution that will make most players happy is to give out focus points and focus spells like candy now. Make them easy for everyone to get and the refocusing rules won’t really be favoring one class over another. It is probably fine for fighter and barbarians and Rogues not to have them in class, but barbarians and rogues could add them as feat options with their more magical class paths and no one would probably complain.
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Druids are one of the game's premiere casters idk what you're talking about. The class is exceptionally solid, and Storm is already one of the better order choices.
Unicore's point is absolutely valid, having a 'good' focus spell is significantly more important in a game where refocus 3 is now something you can do all campaign long. Being stuck with a terrible focus spell isn't a "meaningful choice", it's a huge hit to your playability, usually with no positive outcome for it (after all, it's not like the really bad sorcerer bloodline spells or cleric domain spells are compensated by being similarly stronger in other ways).
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Druids are one of the game's premiere casters idk what you're talking about. The class is exceptionally solid, and Storm is already one of the better order choices.
Unicore's point is absolutely valid, having a 'good' focus spell is significantly more important in a game where refocus 3 is now something you can do all campaign long. Being stuck with a terrible focus spell isn't a "meaningful choice", it's a huge hit to your playability, usually with no positive outcome for it (after all, it's not like the really bad sorcerer bloodline spells or cleric domain spells are compensated by being similarly stronger in other ways).
I think you're missing something here.
In order to actually take advantage of the 3-focus-per-fight schtick, you're going to need to actually have three focus spells. You only really need one of those to be 'good'. If you get a focus spell packaged with your class and it's great, then that's awesome, and you maybe want to look into getting more focus spells to unlock more uses of the thing. If you get a focus spell packaged with your class and it's absolute trash, then... it's still a focus point, you know? There are plenty of focus spells out there available via archetype. You can grab one of the good ones there and be doing just fine. It wasn't like you weren't going to have to spend feats to get more focus points anyway.
So... if you get a good focus spell for free from your class, and then can line up two more that are at least decent at a cost of one feat each without ever having to lock down a dedication, then that's great for you, but it's not like "got a free (but lousy) focus spell" is a bad thing. It just means it's time to go shopping. If nothing else, Psychic Dedication is right there. It's not like amped Guidance is ever going out of style... and hey, you can get your third focus point (and another ampable cantrip) for one more as a level 6 feat and be one feat away from having your dedication paid off.
My opinion that the new Refocus rule will make less work for me as a GM.i think it unbalances things and gives more work for the DM
but ill gladly have 3 weapon surges on my war priest i guess, virtually every fight, because thats often how adventuring days seem to go.
If you're got the 'blessed one' dedication or are a champion and you've got 3 focus points for a lot of combats you can keep pace with a cleric (minus the AoE heal). Pack it with having Heal spell (but not the font) - and you'd only need to waste one or two spell slots on Heal (+/- how rough the adventure is).
Storm Druid. Being able to spam 3x 2d12 lightning blasts by level 3 per combat (unless your GM forcibly interrupts rests) is... intense, when you still have your normal spells as well.
The more I think about it the more I feel this new change is just too powerful to go in without some edits somewhere.
The above two examples basically change what class is the top healer, and turn a caster into one of the most powerful single target DPS.
While Heal can hit harder than Lay on Hands, it runs out and it can hit softer. Lay On Hands is predictable and will now be able to be used 3 times per fight now matter how many fights the team gets in. With a few domains you can slightly boost it's impact - but even though it's often just 'half their hit points' the predictable nature means you can get good at knowing when in a fight to use it for maximum impact.
The Storm Druid's Lightning spell may be a d12 that can roll a 1 just as easy as a 12 - but it's got 3 uses per fight and that will often shorten how many rounds fights go when facing off against bosses and mini-bosses.
This slides Cleric out of top healer spot, and slides Storm Druid into top or second to top ranged DPS slot (need to think about how often a gunslinger crits before I'm sure on that).
That's seems like an unintended and undesired shift in the game's balance. Essentially it's buffing already strong classes.
It does also buff a witch that relies a lot on sustained spells - but it's not often that a witch would use multiple different sustained spells in the same fight and thus need to apply, drop, and then apply again different uses of cackle.
So it's a massive buff for strong classes and a trivial buff for weak classes. The opposite of how things should get done.
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That's seems like an unintended and undesired shift in the game's balance.
It is a significant shift.
So it's a massive buff for strong classes and a trivial buff for weak classes. The opposite of how things should get done.
There are a few good divine focus spells Dazzling Flash, Fire Ray, Weapon Surge. It just makes Domain Initiate and Domain choice more important.
I don't think it shifts class value that much. Just that it makes those options that start with poor focus spells more noticeable.Every one can easily get good options unless you are strongly themed. Which should of course we should do in a role playing game. The solution is to patch up some of the weaker focus spells.
I also agree that it will be a good boost for some focus spells but not a power shift and still expensive.
For example. You usually will can spam Lay on Hand 3 times per encounter but to do this you will still need waste some amount of feats to do this and still no match to Healing Font.
Same could be said to Tempest Surge. During initial levels it's no more stronger than a d12 weapon. It's main advantage happens when your level is high enough to it compete in damage with a DPS martial but when this happen you already get Primal Wellspring also in such high levels your top 3 spell levels are equally stronger.
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The focus spell change... just isn't that big a deal.
- You always got one per fight.
- If you don't have more than ten minutes to chill after each fight, you're still running on the old economy entirely.
- You still need to buy most of your focus spells with feats
- In many cases, high-level play barely changes at all, because many of them could refresh 3/fight already. It saves a feat or two, which is cool, but it's not a massive change to game balance.
Is it helpful? Yes. Is it a bit of a bump? Yes. Does it affect some classes/builds more than others? Yes. Is it OMG HUGE? Not... really.
Now, as for balance between classes and between builds of the same class, it does affect things... some. Yes. I expect that they will take this into account. They've already said that they're tuning up some of the weaker focus spells out there, so that will help on that side of things. as far as the other shifts... honestly, I have faith in them to do it well. I just do.
the refocus change is just nice for the reason they said, it's one of those things that makes it work how people kinda expect it to work, I feel like the feat change could be bigger but that's also more nice to have than powerful I think
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Yeah, the only real issues come from innate spells that force a save or an attack roll. If they don't scale, they are inherently pointless. Everything else is fine.One thing I was noticing with this change that Paizo could take advantage of was basically doing away with the innate spells (not cantrips) of most ancestries and making them focus spells.
Because for me innate spells are on my list of most useless feats that most ancestries can have, they are extremely limited and do not progress or progress very badly. That is, when they no longer start bad.
But if most of these spells were replaced by focus spells, along with this new "unlimited" refocus ability, it could breathe new life into these normally useless feats that many ancestries and heirlooms possess.
Some of the newer ancestries have scaling innate spells and even higher level feats scaling spellcasting proficiency. I'd be fine with that, honestly.
Just stuff like the non-scaling 1st level charm of the half-elf are pointless.
But that's precisely the question, with the exception of cantrips, do you use or have you seen anyone use any innate magic that comes from ancestry?
The most I can think of is spellcasters picking them up as an additional spell. But even that is very rare and questionable, because it's a feat, often high level for 1 spell 1x per day.
If it was focus magic, at least it would have better scalability and number of uses.
This is another place that Psychics can get an advantage. The first level feat "Ancestral Mind" lets you treat your innate spells as psychic and occult spells, so they will scale.
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this could solve the low level caster have nothing to do other than spam cantrip problem
get a decent focus spell at level 1 and 2 also more important than ever
most level 1 domain focus spell need a rework or player will never choose them
Or use them if provided by default, even.
this could solve the low level caster have nothing to do other than spam cantrip problem
get a decent focus spell at level 1 and 2 also more important than ever
most level 1 domain focus spell need a rework or player will never choose them
At level 1 or two, you're pretty much only goign to have one focus spell anyway, so, again, there's no effective change at those levels.
It only *really* matters for people who have two or three focus spells, but who are two low-level or feat-strapped to get the refocus feats for their class (or of a class that doesn't offer them). That's a fair chunk of the middle levels, sure... but, again, this isn't as big a deal as people are going to be inclined to imagine it to be.
In order for it to matter, you need...
- Multiple meaningful encounters per day in which you'd want to spend more than one focus spell (you could always spend that many on one encounter per day, and encounters that aren't meaningful aren't worth spending those extra focus points on, so no real change there)
- Opportunities to rest for more than one ten-minute block per encounter between the start and end of that set.
- More than one focus spell (generally only a limitation at low levels)
- more focus spells than you have focus recharge feats (generally only matters at high levels)
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Is it OMG HUGE? Not... really.
In a four combat day, it's an extra five auto-scaling spells per day.
Being able to tempest surge or spellstrike with amped imaginary weapon up to three times per combat is a lot more value than I think you give it credit for. Even twice per combat is clearly a significant boon to longevity and utility.
Under the current paradigm, my magus is highly pressured to prepare shocking grasp a whole bunch of times for good damage, but with three imaginary weapons per combat, suddenly it's a lot easier to devote some of those slots to utility spells instead. That's not just a big deal, it's basically a paradigm shift in how you're allowed to use the class.
Not to mention at higher levels it means effectively getting a level 12 and 18 feat (or more, Wizards could never refocus 3 before this change).
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But this really depends on the GM and the campaign. If the GM wants to keep to put players in time pressure, which in most dungeons they are anyway, the rule change has no effect. I don't think the boost is really that substantial, albiet there.Is it OMG HUGE? Not... really.In a four combat day, it's an extra five auto-scaling spells per day.
Being able to tempest surge or spellstrike with amped imaginary weapon up to three times per combat is a lot more value than I think you give it credit for. Even twice per combat is clearly a significant boon to longevity and utility.
Under the current paradigm, my magus is highly pressured to prepare shocking grasp a whole bunch of times for good damage, but with three imaginary weapons per combat, suddenly it's a lot easier to devote some of those slots to utility spells instead. That's not just a big deal, it's basically a paradigm shift in how you're allowed to use the class.
Not to mention at higher levels it means effectively getting a level 12 and 18 feat (or more, Wizards could never refocus 3 before this change).
IDK about most dungeons. I should say time pressure is the exception, not the rule, for APs. And usually if you can take 10 minutes you can take 30. One of my GMs is really good at exerting time pressure but he's homebrewing.
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Is it OMG HUGE? Not... really.In a four combat day, it's an extra five auto-scaling spells per day.
Being able to tempest surge or spellstrike with amped imaginary weapon up to three times per combat is a lot more value than I think you give it credit for. Even twice per combat is clearly a significant boon to longevity and utility.
Under the current paradigm, my magus is highly pressured to prepare shocking grasp a whole bunch of times for good damage, but with three imaginary weapons per combat, suddenly it's a lot easier to devote some of those slots to utility spells instead. That's not just a big deal, it's basically a paradigm shift in how you're allowed to use the class.
Not to mention at higher levels it means effectively getting a level 12 and 18 feat (or more, Wizards could never refocus 3 before this change).
You bring up Magus. Let's look at Magus. In a four combat day, once you have three focus spells (so, probably not before level 6), before you have your own focus spell recharge feats (so only before level 12) when you are not constrained for rest time between encounters (campaign-dependent) you have an extra two focus spells to burn in whichever three of those four encounters were the lest in need of them.
You've talked about amped imaginary weapon. Okay. Let's go with that. At level 5, that's giving you an extra 2d8 damage over standard cantrip per use. At level 11, it's an extra 5d8... and you still have to hit.
So yeah - if you're running a dungeon crawl campaign where your days are limited but your minutes aren't, and you're between levels 6 and 11, and your class is something (like magus) for whom focus spells are particularly important, and you have a party that's willing to let you sit around for an extra 10-20 minutes to recharge even after they're full-up (or who is equally big on focus spells), then it can be fairly important. That's true... and that's one particular type of character, in one particular type of campaign. Alternately, if you're not playing turret-magus, you could actually use your conflux spells.
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if refocus are changed there is no reason it take 30 minute for 3 point
conflux spell are mostly worthless
dimensional assault maybe the only exception for that recharge plus movement
- Thunderous Strike: attack plus a bit of extra damage plus possible knockdown plus recharge spellstrike
- Dimensional Assault: moce plus attack plus recharge spellstrike
- Shielding Strike: raise shield plus strike plus recharge spellstrike
- Shooting star: admittedly kind of situational/meh
- Spinning Staff: make two attacks, plus recharge spellstrike
Three of the five are giving you three actions for the price of one. The other two are giving you two actions, one of which is buffed, for the price of one. That's not any kind of "mostly worthless".
for the follow-ons:
- Force Fang (lvl 2): Guaranteed auto-damage that doesn't care about saves or hit rolls, plus recharge spellstrike
- Hasted Assault (lvl 14): gain quickened (strikes only) for a minute and recharge spellstrike.
Force Fang is a bit situational but potentially quite useful. Hasted Assault is just straight up good stuff. Again, "mostly worthless" would not describe.