Vivi FF9 Build

[siegfriedliner]

I was wondering if anyone had any advise on how to build Vivi from FF9 (small black mage construct). For a level 13 game with free archetype.

I was wondering how someone would play a black mage in pathfinder 2e with at least some focus on elemental damage spells (your fire, cold, lightning).

Any one done such a build how did it work ?

[The Raven Black]

Actually, for a blasting mage in PF2, I would forget the visuals and go Starlit Span Magus MC Wizard.

Poppet for the Ancestry seems a great fit.

Never tried this build though.

IME, playing a PFS Starlit Span Magus MC Cleric is great to hit weaknesses and for Novaing with Fire Ray.

[WatersLethe]

I would strongly consider a mage automaton and then sorcerer

[Tactical Drongo]

poppet or construct, depending on which flavor you want to lean into more (I personally would pick poppet)

for the class, thats a little trickier as the final fantasy spell list is 90% elemental blasting
wizard would be the classical choice for vivi himself but for me it always felt like the ff spell list is more akin to the primal spell list
druids on the other hand are not exactly a good fit, neither are witches

which leaves us with sorcerer as class, the spontaneous casting might also work well - I never had the impression that any final fantasy mages are going 'by the book' (ot at least very few

As for the bloodline we have:
Elemental - fitting enough, would give you one main element to focus on
Fey - imo not very fitting for the little mage construct
Nymph - same as above
Phoenix - very cool, versatile and flavorful bloodline, but for vivi still loses out to elemental

Now another thing you could do is, independent of the class, take the elementalist archetype which replaces any spell list with the specific elemental spell list which is admittedly smaller but still grants you all your blasting needs and a few support spells on top (and will be expanded in the upcoming wrath of the elements)

which also would give a lot of metamagic feats to enable you to do more elemental stuff with your spells

on a side note: I noticed that Lulu from FFX would be most likely a witch with either a special familiar or baba yaga as patron to represent her little dolls

[Themetricsystem]

I'd probably with Imperial Sorcerer Mage Heritage Automaton for sure.

He's NOT a prepared Caster and as a Blk Mage he is most certainly NOT a Magus (Magus is 100% a Red Mage), heck.

He also MIGHT work well as an Evocation Wizard with the Flexible Spellcaster Class Archetype and later, Dedication too as that eschews the whole messiness of squaring the circle that Prepared Spellcasting doesn't exist in the FF9 Universe for all intents and purposes too.