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If anything needs to be changed about attack spells, is that they should get half damage on a miss (and zero damage on a critical miss.)
Definitely not an idea I'm aligned with. Using the same mechanics for both spell attack roll spells and save spells would be a reduction of available tactics. Also, spell attack roll spells would need a massive nerf to be balanced with that change, ending with extremely low damage output (even if a near guaranteed one).
Speaking of interesting and evocative, if spell attacks were going to get potency runes or their equivalent, what form should they take? I think a wand like the playtest would be kind of boring and would eat up a valuable hand slot. I could see a few options.
One is that you can benefit from potency runes on weapons you hold, including magic staves. Decently flavorful, but would mean you'd have a harder time juggling staves, wands, and scrolls.
Another would be creating a worn item like the kineticist got. Stronger than the above option, but if you made it class specific like the kineticist it suddenly becomes a mandatory piece of loot where finding one becomes contrived. If you make it class agnostic it is just kind of boring.
A middle ground might be letting casters apply potency runes on things personalized to their class. I got this idea thinking about how the remaster may be turning verbal and somatic components into class specific things instead of basic spellcasting rules. Examples:
Clerics: into the holy symbol, naturally, but not requiring it to be wielded.
Druids: mistletoe or something similar.
Wizard: spell book. Could also spice up finding the BBEG's spell book. (Which Paizo seems to have drifted away from as a loot source and it bums me out.)
Sorcerer: Tatoos or maybe handwraps. I like the idea of the runes appearing on a sorcerer's skin when they cast either way, but handwraps might be a nice bone to throw those melee focus spells.
Witch: Inscribing them into the familiar. I have been playing around with the idea of the familiar truly being the conduit for the witch's power, and have it be more of an extension of themselves. You should be able to heal or revive the familiar while you refocus, as well.
Summoner: Some combination of the the sorcerer and witch ideas. Should involve the rune becoming part of the insignia linking the summoner and eidolon.
Magus: On their weapon or handwraps, naturally.
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So, what is the problem with True Strike?Spellcasters have less to-hit than martials to compensate for True Strike. If we remove True Strike, we can give them equal to-hit and spellcasters won't feel like they are punished for being a spellcaster.So, the idea is to have casters hit as easily as martials in addition to all they can bring to the table that martials cannot.
No thanks. I like martials being able to do a few things casters cannot.
Okay, so then why should True Strike exist as a spell if by design spellcasters should not be able to hit as frequently as martials?
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The value of true strike is giving casters a way to add reliability to being able to land the occasional big spell attack roll spell without hyper charging the chance of critical success, like static item bonuses lead to.
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The value of true strike is giving casters a way to add reliability to being able to land the occasional big spell attack roll spell without hyper charging the chance of critical success, like static item bonuses lead to.
But that leads them to hitting more frequently than martials, which is apparently not acceptable by design. Even if it's from a (relatively) limited resource, the factor that spellcasters can be more reliable than a martial in an attack roll is unacceptable.
If the design is that it's supposed to feelsbad with spell attack rolls because feelsgood means it hurts the martials feelings and purpose, then having mechanics that make it feelsgood goes against that design choice.
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You are ignoring the critical success difference. True strike greatly increases the odds of getting a hit, but is much more moderate in its increasing the odds of critical success compared to flat accuracy bonuses.
A +2 flat bonus alone is no where near as much of a boost to reliability for landing a spell attack roll, but it skews the DPR of a blast damage spell by increasing the critical success ratio.
Again, for the cost of an extra action and a spell slot.
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And item bonuses are not available at level 1
People saying it should stick around are too scared of attack roll spells innately overshadowing martials, and it simply can't because of action economy alone.
I'm not scared of that at all. I'm scared for the reasons Unicore mentioned: adjusting progressions to be the same as martials will make everything feel the same, which would doom the Remaster just as readily as it did D&D 4e.
If you truly believe that you need true strike to make attack roll spells viable or competitive, then you and your party must not be accustomed to the tactics game that PF2e is.
Simple things like you or your allies making the target flat-footed make true strike completely unnecessary. Between various buffs and debuffs, I've seen AC swings by as much as 6 points.
In an experienced party that uses good tactics and teamwork, attack spells become far more powerful than save spells or individual martial strikes.
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The divine spell list has super easy access to True Strike through a variety of gods. I think everything but the witch can have it by level 4.
One thing that is worth remembering is that monsters don't have this problem. Their spell attack rolls are actually hitting because they don't use the DC - 10 formula. For instance, the "mage for hire" statblock from gamemastery guide has DC 20 and +12 to spell attacks...*and* has true strike as well! The "mage of many styles" (magus lite) has DC 32, +26 to hit with spell attacks... and true strike.
So I think it's maybe an overreaction to say boosting caster to-hit blows up system math when most monsters already are using it, and the devs have already acknowledged that it's a weird piece of system math by giving them higher bonuses.
Mage for Hire doesn't have any spells with attack rolls prepared, so they're not the best example to point to. Mage of Many styles has a few, but I'll note their DC is lowered and their spell attack roll raised compared to the high values. Most importantly, their signature ability, spell punch, uses their much lower +22 unarmed strike bonus to hit and doesn't double the spell's damage on a crit. (Hello Unicore's point.) I don't know what their assigned tactics are in the AP, but given they have only disinintrigrate, a non-heightened acid arrow, and Hand of the Apprentice for ranged attack rolls I don't think they are going to leverage that spell attack bonus for long.
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You are ignoring the critical success difference. True strike greatly increases the odds of getting a hit, but is much more moderate in its increasing the odds of critical success compared to flat accuracy bonuses.
A +2 flat bonus alone is no where near as much of a boost to reliability for landing a spell attack roll, but it skews the DPR of a blast damage spell by increasing the critical success ratio.
Again, for the cost of an extra action and a spell slot.
I'm not ignoring that at all. In fact, the complaint seems to be that spellcasters hitting as frequently as martials means they are no different than martials, and it's also been argued that they shouldn't be as efficient with attacking as martials are.
As for the whole +2 thing, this is like saying the Fighter +2 isn't a reliable boost to accuracy, when it's literally one of the biggest selling points of the class. Yes, if a martial can only critical on a 20, a Fighter can maybe critical on an 18 instead, which is a 200% increase, but that is the most extreme example of this, and even in some of those cases, a Fighter's chance to critical may not increase, making it a situational bonus (if the enemy's AC is high enough to where a martial still needs an 12 or higher to hit them, for example).
I'm stating that, based on action economy alone, spellcasters can't overshadow martials (2 action cantrip v.s. 1 action strike), and True Strike both exacerbates this issue further (by requiring additional actions), and handicaps spellcasters to essentially require this spell to match martial efficiency (because they have reduced to-hit as a result), which is backwards design if the idea is "spellcasters can't match martial efficiency." This comes across more as "spellcasters have to invest in this one spell to match martial efficiency," which I honestly don't like as a design principle, because it's pigeonholing playstyles. Why does a spellcaster require a specific spell to match martial capability? Why even give spellcasters an option to match martial capability if it goes against design to do so?
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I'm not scared of that at all. I'm scared for the reasons Unicore mentioned: adjusting progressions to be the same as martials will make everything feel the same, which would doom the Remaster just as readily as it did D&D 4e.People saying it should stick around are too scared of attack roll spells innately overshadowing martials, and it simply can't because of action economy alone.
Okay, then why maintain True Strike as a spell if it basically just makes them feel the same as martials, but worse because it's limited and action-taxed? It's literally a bad solution to a problem that is explicitly presented within the system (spellcasters being worse at martial options than martials).
Just cut the middle ground out entirely, since it only serves to either make martials feel inadequate by overshadowing them, or make casters forced to play in a specific way just to feel like they're playing a martial (which honestly shouldn't even be possible given the balance of the game).
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't devotee benefits (and thus deity spells) only for clerics? "Cleric spells: when preparing spells, clerics can choose from specific spells..." I may be missing something of course.
You can of course multiclass cleric, but that doesn't actually get you true strike. Because devotee benefits only benefit clerics proper.
Quoting from cleric devotion:
"You become trained in religion and your deity's associated skill, for each of these in which you were already trained you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. *You don't gain any other abilities from your choice of deity.*"I'm not seeing how you can get true strike from your deity without playing a cleric.
Sorcerers have the Blessed Blood feat at 1st level which basically makes them clerics for the purposes of list pilfering (and of course crossblooded at 8th) while oracles have divine access at 4 which is extremely flexible but requires a spread sheet fo parse your options.
Witch might have a lesson that grants if but I can't be bothered to dig through them. Lack of true strike is the least of the witch problems.
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I want to go back and address the black dragon vs level 9 wizard situation because it is a fascinatingly difficult situation for the caster, but won’t have time to break that down today.
I am not arguing item bonuses alone would make casters too much like martials.
I am saying that people arguing to get rid of true strike in the hopes that casters could then get item bonuses, the same as martials, are missing the difference between spells and martial attacks. Then these conversations get additional people chiming in to reduce spell attack roll spells or cantrips to 1 action and or to give casters profiency boosts closer to martial advancement and that is when it is sounding like people are saying that the “unfairness” of casting vs martials “needs to be solved” and the way to do that is making at will casting abilities that work the same way as at will martial abilities.
If folks want to hack the game to work that way, fine. It isn’t that hard to do for your own table. But the design of spell attack roll spells is to still feel different from general martial attacking, and that includes a bigger emphasis on critical effects with the mitigating factor of less accuracy. This choice was made because casters aren’t dependent on attacking AC, so it is an option for when you have the advantage tactically, otherwise you use save spells. But true strike is not about general spell casting choices in an every encounter situation. So it isn’t about cantrip accuracy. True strike is about making sure that a caster that memorizes a disintegrate or hieghtened acid arrow or shocking grasp can have an ace up the sleeve to help it land. It is really only the magus that I see “needing” true strike in large quantities like this strange meta-analysis of spell casting makes it seem like is necessary for casters to function.
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Has anyone in this thread actually asked for proficiency progression to be closer to martials for casters because I kept seeing it brought up when people have only asked for item that goes up to +2? Also I think once the Kineicist is easily available to more people and if the general consensus is "This class feels to much like a martial" or "This class really does feel a slotless caster" will kinda solve the argument of giving casters +2 will make them feel like martials
Yes, people have asked for it. And I'd rather have that +item bonuses than just item bonuses and lose True Strike, because True Strike is better at preventing big slot attacks from missing. (While apparently being less likely to crit than a flat accuracy boost, but I don't entirely get the math there.) Accuracy boosts wind up being better for cantrips but I don't care if I miss with one of those. Missing with the slot is what feels bad. It is also why the kineticist is a poor point of comparison, because they don't have big powerful slots to miss on.
I'd also dig it if True Strike were opened up to other traditions. It at least fits Divine.
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(While apparently being less likely to crit than a flat accuracy boost, but I don't entirely get the math there.) Accuracy boosts wind up being better for cantrips but I don't care if I miss with one of those.
The math behind it is that if you have a single roll of, say, 50% chance to hit and 5% chance to crit, having two rolls where you can hit at least once is significantly higher than having two rolls where you can crit at least once. Probability of getting a 1 in 20 chance out of 2 probability calculations is approximately 7.5%, whereas the probability of getting a 10 in 20 chance out of 2 probability calculations is approximately 75%, since all you need is one of these two results to trigger a favored outcome.
Meanwhile, if I added +2 to those odds, my chance of a hit on a given roll remains 50% (requiring less of a number to do so), whereas my chance to critical becomes 15% instead (since now instead of requiring a 20, now an 18 and 19 can critical as well).
In short, the ratio determines how efficient an additional roll may be, whereas additional modifiers reduce the odds of negative outcomes (and increase the odds of positive outcomes) on a given roll. It's why Hero Points for re-rolls are best used on high(est) probability outcomes, and not on things that require a specific (or even impossible) result, for example.
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Let's make True Strike a cantrip available to all lists.
Who would even notice ?
It would make for/enable even blander gameplay, since it turns most every offensive spellcaster into a gameplay loop of "True Strike -> Cantrip/Spell Slot." Plenty of other classes have gameplay loops (Starlit Span Magus, Rangers, Swashbucklers, etc.), which isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but making the entirety of spellcasters into a gameplay loop if they specialize in attack roll spells is pretty bad design.
Even by removing the cost of it being a spell slot, adding action taxes to something that's already action taxed and limited in resources is just doubling down on something that will end up simply being tied with martials at-best isn't really compelling or feelsgood gameplay to me, and the real point behind this thread is wondering if there are better alternatives to feelsgood gameplay besides "Use True Strike."
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I appreciate the tone and earnestness of folks participating in this conversation. It is one that has been had before, and will probably continue to be had even past the point of the remastery.
The math of accuracy in PF2 is complicated. Not to have an intuition about, but to actually fact check and make statements that are not limited to incredibly narrow ranges of the possible situations that players might find themselves in.
Things like Hero points and Truestrike add exponential curves both positively and negatively to calculations and defy attempts to say "true strike is like a +2," or "a plus 1 in PF2 can effectively be like a +2 in 5e or PF1." There are situations where these things feel true and there are situations where they are definitely not true.
For one thing, Truestrike and Hero points affect the math differently. Hero points should generally only be used once the die has already been rolled and the outcome is negative. Truestrike rolls twice, which can mean an increased chance of critical success compared to Hero Point usage.
I have done a lot of math on rolling one or more 20-sided dice and the probability of getting different different results, but only when the dice are rolled simultaneously. So my math is more useful for looking at Truestrike than hero points.
I appreciate that there is a contingent of players that generally feel like the feel of casters is off, and that a big part of that feel for them is that:
Casters lag in general accuracy behind martials...
Unless the caster is targeting a weak defense...
But that targeting weak defenses requires very cooperative GMs or nearly "metagaming" levels of system mastery about the opposition faced.
Additionally, many of the "big guns" that casters have are extremely limited in how many times they can be used a day, and thus most players want to be very careful about how they use those limited resources.
When players that feel this way speak up on these boards, I imagine it gets pretty frustrating to be told something along the lines of a statement that feels like "sucks to be you and not understand how the game works! All of your ideas and complaints about casters are wrong and everyone knows you would just be having a blast blasting if you just have 30 truestrikes at your disposal every day, your wizard can solo any level +4 monster all by themselves."
Now I don't think any of us that view ourselves as trying to explain the logic of the math around spell casting are trying to say that message or speak in that tone to any players asking questions or suggesting ideas about things that could be done to address the concerns above, but I can see how it can feel like getting jumped when people try to explain the effects certain proposed changes would have on the game.
If you haven't seen the game played a certain way, then playing the game that way isn't really an experience that weighs down your perception of the game.
Are spell casters too weak in PF2? Are they too powerful in PF1? There are many cases where the answer could be yes or no to both questions, depending upon how the game is being played at the table.
So here are some of my observations about casters and accuracy and what makes for fun wizarding while running and playing many different PF2 campaigns with different tables:
Early level casters over utilize spell attack roll spells. Having 2 or 3 spells at level 1 means the vast majority of players jumping into PF2 playing casters are relying primarily on cantrips, unless they have help making sure that they have very good focus spells that they want to cast every encounter. They are probably playing with other newer players and are not likely to be playing the game anywhere near its tactical ceiling. In that environment it can be frustrating to be casting spell attack roll spells, and then when you learn at level 2 that martials start getting item bonuses to their accuracy, but you never will, that can be a moment of frustration.
The meta-analysis against spell attack roll spells (probably that arises from the above situation) leads to a lot of players who then swing the pendulum too far the other direction and will end up having almost 0 spell attack roll spells available in the many situations where those spells can be far more effective that trying to throw down debuffs or damaging saving throw spells (although at higher levels spell slots should frequently be doing both damage and debuffing/battlefield control). Or they have switched over to just casting utility and buff spells along side electric arc, because that is what the internet says is the best caster.
Most prewritten adventures (paths and modules) have encounters that move fast and furiously. Enemies don't tend to run away, get reinforcements and return during the same encounter, and thus very many players don't experience encounters that last more than 4, maybe 5 rounds. This alone should be enough to raise questions about the value of buffing with spell slots, because very many buffs and debuffs end up only affecting 2 or 3 total rolls, but it also means that elaborate, multi-round set ups of spells are almost impossible to pull off in actual play. This also makes recalling knowledge in combat far more difficult because it is burning actions that martials would much prefer could just go to supporting them doing the same thing they plan on doing every round unless doing so immediately results in something like a creature splitting into 2, or their weapon attack doing almost no damage. Suddenly, these kind of "non-traditional" encounters become incredibly dangerous to parties and result often in character deaths.
I have a bunch more I want to say about comparing any action economy choice like casting true strike to spending 1 action gaining a +2 bonus to the attack roll, and where that really changes the math, but this is a monster post and I ran out of time. I will try to come back to it later.
I just wanted to say that I do understand when and where GMs should be flexible and help players that are not having fun with their characters see if there are easy things that they can do as GMs that will make big differences, and to actively do those things, but to just be prepared for players to eventually learn how the game itself helps casters succeed more often if they are experimenting with spells they would have passed on previously. It might make perfect sense to make up a wand of fire that gives a +1 item bonus to spell attack rolls made with spells that have the fire trait. If you do, it is very likely your player is going to cast a lot more scorching rays than they might have otherwise, and you probably don't need to offer them a +2 item later on, because once they are casting fiery body on themselves, and have a bunch of feats that let them overcome resistances to fire, the character is probably just fine, and the next time that player plays PF2, they probably won't even need that +1 item to make them feel ok about making choices that might require tactical synergy or communication with their team mates.
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The issue has always been that spells are a limited resource with limited options at any given time, but are balanced as if they were infinite and you have unlimited choices. The devs made this edition revolving around martials and "how do we make martials good", everthing else is secondary. "Ah but teamwork" some of you might say. Well I say BS because you can make a martial fulfill any roll with no issues, but it is by design more difficult to be an offensive caster.
Let's thing about the original context of True Stike. Originally it was a standard action to get +20 to attack and ignore concealment on the next attack; The spell took 2 turns to be effective and while useful it was not required. Now its 1 action to get advantage, ignore concealment/hidden, and ignore circumstance bonuses; The spell can be used on the same turn and has a much is much more usable by everyone.
So both are really good, what changed? Spells changed. The amount of spells were reduced from 8 at level 1, to at most 5. The change to hit was heavily reduced from ~60%-90% to ~35%-50%. The cap of the attack bonus was technically increased, but the rate became worse. The damage that used to be 5d6 at spell level 1 became 1d6, 10d6 at spell level 3 because 3d6. The methods to increase damage (add dice, maxime roll, add static value) were removed. The methods to modify the spells were removed or made so you could only add 1 at the cost of an action.
Its been 4 years and the ways to deal more damage are to either play a goblin, play a sorcerer, or not play caster. Prepared casters are practically useless for what makes prepared casting good (you know preparing spells). And this is the 5th? 10th? 20th? Thread asking for casters to be fixed and once again its one side saying, "look spell attacks need help" while the other side say, "look you are playing wrong and its your fault the spells aren't working".
True Strike is not the core issue, its just the cough that keeps saying "hey there is an issue here". Removing it wont fix caster...
It seems people who want to play blasting casters want to have the power of the Kineticist AND the additional versatility of being a full caster.
Does not sound reasonable IMO.
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Let's make True Strike a cantrip available to all lists.
Who would even notice ?
It would make for/enable even blander gameplay, since it turns most every offensive spellcaster into a gameplay loop of "True Strike -> Cantrip/Spell Slot." Plenty of other classes have gameplay loops (Starlit Span Magus, Rangers, Swashbucklers, etc.), which isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but making the entirety of spellcasters into a gameplay loop if they specialize in attack roll spells is pretty bad design.
Even by removing the cost of it being a spell slot, adding action taxes to something that's already action taxed and limited in resources is just doubling down on something that will end up simply being tied with martials at-best isn't really compelling or feelsgood gameplay to me, and the real point behind this thread is wondering if there are better alternatives to feelsgood gameplay besides "Use True Strike."
If feelsgood gameplay is for casters to be better at attack rolls than martials AND get the whole versatility of being a full caster, I think it is a matter of managing expectations rather than the PF2 system having a big obvious flaw.
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The value of true strike is giving casters a way to add reliability to being able to land the occasional big spell attack roll spell without hyper charging the chance of critical success, like static item bonuses lead to.
Then why is it not accessible to all casters
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If feelsgood gameplay is for casters to be better at attack rolls than martials AND get the whole versatility of being a full caster, I think it is a matter of managing expectations rather than the PF2 system having a big obvious flaw.Let's make True Strike a cantrip available to all lists.
Who would even notice ?
It would make for/enable even blander gameplay, since it turns most every offensive spellcaster into a gameplay loop of "True Strike -> Cantrip/Spell Slot." Plenty of other classes have gameplay loops (Starlit Span Magus, Rangers, Swashbucklers, etc.), which isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but making the entirety of spellcasters into a gameplay loop if they specialize in attack roll spells is pretty bad design.
Even by removing the cost of it being a spell slot, adding action taxes to something that's already action taxed and limited in resources is just doubling down on something that will end up simply being tied with martials at-best isn't really compelling or feelsgood gameplay to me, and the real point behind this thread is wondering if there are better alternatives to feelsgood gameplay besides "Use True Strike."
Never said that was what feelsgood gameplay was. Though suggesting "Use True Strike" is the penultimate definition of feelsgood gameplay isn't really compelling as an argument either for obvious reasons.
If spell attack rolls are meant to be bad by design, then baking in an accuracy-boosting effect like True Strike (which is limited in usage in and of itself, and requires even more actions to utilize) shouldn't even be considered as acceptable to be put in the game if the idea is spell attack rolls are meant to be bad.
Just as well, this should also mean that using True Strike for spell attack rolls shouldn't even be considered as a mechanical benefit to the spell in question, because this turns spell attack rolls from "pretty bad" to "okay, but still significantly behind martials." This means that spell attack rolls cease to be bad, which means True Strike betrays an important element of design we all seem to think should be present.
Honestly, they can pitch True Strike and relegate any spell attack roll effects into save-based effects and call it good. Makes the game simpler and now you don't have to worry about having to scale a singular proficiency around two different levels of scaling. If the spellcaster wants to make strikes, they should pick up a weapon and use it as intended. Otherwise, stick them to save-based effects explicitly, which both promotes simplicity as well as consistency between their design.
I would probably even be fine with True Strike existing as-is if they restrict it specifically to Strike actions/activities, which is entirely possible. This would mean that classes like Magus and subclasses like Warpriest could still utilize these effects as normal (though Magus doesn't need this, since they are a full martial anyway), while spellcasters doing things like Polar Ray aren't going to benefit from it, which is what we want to have happen here.
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I honestly think people would glady sacrifice the versatility of a caster to allow them to specialize like I've seen multiple posts on reddit where people would love to just specialize at stuff and not even the more common like stuff like necromancy and illusions like maybe Kineticist will really show how they make it so casters can specialize
I think SOME people will gladly make that sacrifice, yeah. The kineticist fills a long overdue niche, and will hopefully make a lot of people very happy. But it IS a different niche. For every cool thing a kineticist can do, a caster can do at least twice as many. The longevity of the kineticist is only actually an advantage if you're having long adventuring days where you have time pressure or can't really dictate your own rate of encounters. Which is not the case for many APs. APs are notoriously reluctant to have a ticking clock beyond "clear this dungeon in the next couple weeks. Meanwhile Hexploration games just be throwing one encounter a day at you.
I honestly think people would glady sacrifice the versatility of a caster to allow them to specialize like I've seen multiple posts on reddit where people would love to just specialize at stuff and not even the more common like stuff like necromancy and illusions like maybe Kineticist will really show how they make it so casters can specializeI think SOME people will gladly make that sacrifice, yeah. The kineticist fills a long overdue niche, and will hopefully make a lot of people very happy. But it IS a different niche. For every cool thing a kineticist can do, a caster can do at least twice as many. The longevity of the kineticist is only actually an advantage if you're having long adventuring days where you have time pressure or can't really dictate your own rate of encounters. Which is not the case for many APs. APs are notoriously reluctant to have a ticking clock beyond "clear this dungeon in the next couple weeks. Meanwhile Hexploration games just be throwing one encounter a day at you.
In a very general sense yes
But it has a FANTASTIC early level.
Having a good third action (blast)
Being able to not have to worry about finite resources at these early levels where it only have 3 slots, 6 slots, etc.
At higher levels they have unique and powerful affects that even caster's don't do
Even the early game four winds is fantastic.
Now I love casters in this edition and my wizard is close to my heart. But I can also agree sometimes you just want a few tricks and those tricks to be reliable.
What niche is that? I know next to nothing about the class. Save for nonat latest video on it.I think SOME people will gladly make that sacrifice, yeah. The kineticist fills a long overdue niche, and will hopefully make a lot of people very happy. But it IS a different niche.
Sacrificing versatility for reliability and sustainability. Basically being the martial equivalent of a caster that just really specialize in one particular thing without leaving money on the table for everything their class can do.
A lot of Kinecisit feats are basically spells that you can use all day. But they're limited to just their feats for them where most casters have at least 3 spells for every spell rank and can spend feats to get more.
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The thing is that versatility does not equal power when all the things you can do are bad.
Exhibit A: shadow blast. It can be any damage type you want! It can be a line, a cone, or a burst! It... deals literally half the damage of another level 5 spell, cone of cold (5d8 ~ 22.5, 12d6 ~ 42) and the target *gets to choose which save it would prefer to make*.
All that versatility adds up to zip because it's comedically bad damage (except against golems, but that's a function of golems being a guessing game for casters). Yes, it occasionally lets you shut off regeneration or whatever, but in normal play it's garbage even including damage from weaknesses or regeneration, and a martial with a few level 1 alchemical bombs in a sack can do everything relevant it does far more cheaply.
I'm not sure what point you're making besides "don't use Shadow Blast." A single spell being bad isn't really a counterpoint to casters getting 40+ of them and none of them have to be Shadow Blast.
Some people just want to play a necromancer who rips the life out of people and not suck at doing it. That's the entire point of wizard school specialist: to trade in some of that vaunted versatility for more of your favorite spells. The fact that entire themes (such as blaster) are mechanically terrible means people don't get to play what they like without sucking, and I think we can all agree that's not fun for anyone.
I've never entirely bought into the whole "blasting is bad" thing; there were a lot of really powerful blast options prior to the kineticist. But I certainly don't object to the design space of a true magical specialist being filled. I said it was long overdue.
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I will try to address the math around black dragon specifically tomorrow because it is a particularly interesting and challenging example. It is a level 11 creature with a low reflex save, high fort save and no weaknesses, but immunity to acid. Lightning spells that target reflex are a particularly good option when fighting one because reflex saves essentially are its weakness, although it is also not a difficult creature to trip though which is a really strong tactic against such a mobile and tenacious creature. And then moving Frye caster from level 9 (as per the original example) to level 11 enables picking chain lightning, probably the best reflex targeting spell in the game, but not yet give us polar ray, which is the best spell attack spell to compare it to.
So it is a particularly good creature to pick if your goal is to argue that chain lightning is better than disintegrate. Or reflex targeting spells are better than spell attack roll spells. It is a terrible target for disintegrate, as opposed to many other creatures, like a Gosreg (as another 11th level example).