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There is a non-zero chance that summon spells get buffed in player core, being notably weak for their spell slot (even compared to other "budget martial" spells like the polymorphs) is a known issue. There is nothing structurally wrong about the Reanimator archetype, if summon spells were just a little bit better you'd be able to fulfill your Diablo fantasies just fine.
There's actually a good example here with the pyrokineticist. One of the weaknesses of the subclass is "some things are just straight up immune to fire" (devils mostly.) You have the tools in class to deal with this problem (versatile blasts, get a second element, etc.) But if you decided to pick up "Earth blasts" or "Cold blasts" then you're not "the fire guy who burns everything with fire anymore."
At some level you might need to expand or reconsider "what your theme is" because overly strict themes leads to weaker characters.
You don't actually want to sit there just yelling encouraging things when you're fighting a fire elemental, I imagine.
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An Automaton is a killer robot from the past which is completely different from a killer robot from the future ;pYou cannot be a killer robot from the future with a gatling plasma cannon for an arm.You pretty much can be, actually.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3104
The character just has to take the Time Traveler background... Now you're a killer robot from the future past...
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I doubt anything will change given that we see Paizo staff essentially telling caster players to get good on Twitter but it's important that they see our desire for options.
You... may actually need to get good, though. Lots of people in this thread have suggested various mechanics and archetypes you can take advantage of in order to hone in on a particular flavor. Others have carefully explained why certain PF1-isms aren't present in PF2, and how to adjust your approach accordingly. All this advice is being offered up to you, and you're shutting it down and demanding the devs craft bespoke builds for you rather than using the available tools yourself.
I agree that casters as they stand require a disproportionate amount of system mastery to use effectively, making them difficult for new players to approach. I agree that the caster meta feels a bit restrictive due to the limited number of consistently useful spells. But like... people are trying to help you have a good time despite these flaws, and you're ignoring them because kineticists use impulses instead of spell slots and necromancers aren't Pokémon trainers.
So like... part of the problem here is an active refusal to actually learn how to build and play a flavor-forward mage.
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One thing worth keeping in mind is that the game is actually interested in niche protection now. It used to be in PF1 that there were a lot of things where a magical type person was straight up better than a specialist because they had a spell that solved the problem (e.g. who cares how good you are at climbing, I can fly.)
In PF2 you're not supposed to be better at alchemy than an alchemist, you're not supposed to be better at investigating than an investigator, etc. So spellcasters had to be brought in line with those assumptions- even if you could polymorph into a scary thing, you're still not a replacement for "an actual martial who can fight things in melee."
Generally the niche accorded to the main spellcasters (particularly the Wizard) is "versatility" since you have access to the entire spell list and there are lots of kinds of spells. So wanting to give this up in order to tread on other people's toes is somewhat "swimming upstream."
Certainly there should be ways to specialize in a thing that you find interesting, but that's generally where archetypes come into the picture. But they're also generally not going to publish archetypes that completely obsolete existing archetypes.
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Actually no his point was that you should be using your brain and tactics as opposed to just trying to force the same spells over and over again. Its a really fun play-style because you can go from support, to damage, and possibly tanking depending on class.It seems that Paizo believes that the correct way to play a caster is to pick the greatest hits, memorize the bestiary, and generally have a very particular spread of spells in order to meet the needs of the game's tight math.
One of the oddities of PF2 design is how the philosophy shifts so much depending on which class we're talking about.
Here we have someone being outright ridiculed for suggesting that he wants to play a wizard or sorcerer or cleric who follows a tight theme with their spells being used.
Meanwhile encounter and class design in other aspects of the game are designed to protect players and make sure they don't have to diversify unless they really want to.
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For example, elemental sorcerers are incredibly thematic in design, but still capable of having a range of useful utility spells and even different damage types.
I'd say that kind of illustrates the issue perfectly. Elemental Sorcerers feel and sound thematic, but the closer you try to play to your core elemental theme, the worse you're going to perform (and apparently, the more a subset of the paizo boards will ridicule you for even trying).
The best way to play an elemental sorcerer is more or less the same way you play a winter witch or leaf druid or fey sorcerer. There's a little internal nuance based on other features, but your spell use will largely be the same.
Deciding being a fire sorcerer just means being a goblin and spamming elemental toss and produce flame over and over again isn’t thematic, it is trying to over specialize, and that is what PF2 puts up pretty intense walls to block.
Not really though? My archer fighter spends a whole AP shooting enemies with a bow and functioning just fine.
My thief rogue struggles when he runs into a precision immune enemy, but the way they play never actually changes.
PF2 puts up intense walls to block over specialization... if you're a spellcaster. Which makes this whole premise kind of circular. PF2 want spellcasters to specialize so specializing a spellcaster is bad. Yeah, we know. It's kind of dumb.
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One thing worth keeping in mind is that the game is actually interested in niche protection now.... in PF2 you're not supposed to be better at alchemy than an alchemist, you're not supposed to be better at investigating than an investigator, etc. So spellcasters had to be brought in line with those assumptions....
Generally the niche accorded to the main spellcasters (particularly the Wizard) is "versatility" since you have access to the entire spell list and there are lots of kinds of spells.
I think the problem with versatility as a niche--and this is a huge problem for alchemists as well--is that you have to be fundamentally worse at all the things you can do than a dedicated specialist. And since all your individual abilities are very piecemeal and slightly underpowered, you can--as another user has already stated--effectively be replaced by a well-stocked inventory. Also, taking proper advantage of that versatility relies on being able to reliably predict the future (Schrödinger's wizard, as it were).
Honestly, I think the problem is that versatility is a garbage niche. All the spicy casters do their own thing: bards are the buff kings, magi do the funny-haha nova damage, summoners are the best at having a funny little friend, oracles and psychics can pump out ridiculous damage or effects at a cost, kineticists hit things with fire, et cetera. These classes are fun because they can do things no one else can.
So like, the fact that being a Swiss Army Knife kinda sucks in PF2 due to niche protection, followed by the developer expectation that wizards absolutely must be Swiss Army Knives when played correctly... I can see how we got to the point where wizards are just... bad. Maybe not bad mathematically, but the feel is icky enough that people are beefing about it across multiple social media platforms.
Fighters get to bypass the frustration of being generic/versatile by having higher weapon accuracy than anyone else. This boost in accuracy is so effective that a lot of people consider them overpowered.
So I guess my question is, if it's okay to give the generic martial such a strong numerical boost to overcome the does-it-all doldrums, why not give something similar to wizards? Perhaps allowing them to be on the bleeding edge of overpowered for one specific spell type of their choice--just like fighters are allowed to get spicy with one weapon group--is the solution to feeling both underpowered and unable to specialize? Is it possible that the new spell school replacement thingies will do that?
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These conversations get complicated when “I want a thematic caster” is code for “I want to be able to specialize into doing the same thing over and over again with as little need for changing up my tactics or combat round routine as possible.”
For example, elemental sorcerers are incredibly thematic in design, but still capable of having a range of useful utility spells and even different damage types. Deciding being a fire sorcerer just means being a goblin and spamming elemental toss and produce flame over and over again isn’t thematic, it is trying to over specialize, and that is what PF2 puts up pretty intense walls to block. The closest classes to that style of play are the kineticist and the psychic, but both run into problems if you try to play them too narrowly or statically.
I personally think psychic and kineticist solve a lot of problems. I think the game is a lot healthier now that there are mages with broad magical gotchas and solutions as well mages with narrow powerful scopes. People will still complain when their preferred style doesn't have the right "name" attached to it but that's whatever, just grumbling. I'm excited to see the casters moving forward, not bc the crb casters are bad (I've played many and enjoyed myself doing so) but bc new casters are exploring new playstyles
Actually no his point was that you should be using your brain and tactics as opposed to just trying to force the same spells over and over again. Its a really fun play-style because you can go from support, to damage, and possibly tanking depending on class.It seems that Paizo believes that the correct way to play a caster is to pick the greatest hits, memorize the bestiary, and generally have a very particular spread of spells in order to meet the needs of the game's tight math.
One of the oddities of PF2 design is how the philosophy shifts so much depending on which class we're talking about.
Here we have someone being outright ridiculed for suggesting that he wants to play a wizard or sorcerer or cleric who follows a tight theme with their spells being used.
Meanwhile encounter and class design in other aspects of the game are designed to protect players and make sure they don't have to diversify unless they really want to.
I don't think anyone ridiculed 3-Body Problem (might have glossed over a post or two)
But he (or she?) constantly demands to get a solution to the appearent problem delivered from the devs while being hostile zu them and straightup rejecting everything people talk about to possibly help
readin the thread from the beginning I can certainly understand the frustration that hails from that
Spellcasters with a tight theme can work, as many noted before
but if someones theme is 'I cast fireball!' and the only alternatives to that are other fire elemental spells that rely on the reflex save of the enemy then they maneuver themselves into a dead-end
It is not hard to find a theme for a character in pathfinder and specialize in it - without locking yourself into a routine that has one type of spells to use
For example, elemental sorcerers are incredibly thematic in design, but still capable of having a range of useful utility spells and even different damage types.I'd say that kind of illustrates the issue perfectly. Elemental Sorcerers feel and sound thematic, but the closer you try to play to your core elemental theme, the worse you're going to perform (and apparently, the more a subset of the paizo boards will ridicule you for even trying).
The best way to play an elemental sorcerer is more or less the same way you play a winter witch or leaf druid or fey sorcerer. There's a little internal nuance based on other features, but your spell use will largely be the same.
Deciding being a fire sorcerer just means being a goblin and spamming elemental toss and produce flame over and over again isn’t thematic, it is trying to over specialize, and that is what PF2 puts up pretty intense walls to block.Not really though? My archer fighter spends a whole AP shooting enemies with a bow and functioning just fine.
My thief rogue struggles when he runs into a precision immune enemy, but the way they play never actually changes.
PF2 puts up intense walls to block over specialization... if you're a spellcaster. Which makes this whole premise kind of circular. PF2 want spellcasters to specialize so specializing a spellcaster is bad. Yeah, we know. It's kind of dumb.
Your archer fighter did probably not just stand around in the same spot and use three times the attack action every turn
your rogue could probably do a lot of out of combat stuff and maneuver, debilitate the enemy etc
mage is the same - the different spells are for a mage essentially like the different class and skill feats for martials (in terms on how they go about their combat)
and saying that elemental sorcerers are not specialized/cant specialize is also pretty empty of an argument imo
you get one spell per level for the element you chose (implementation of the damage types should be better, admittedly) and three focus spells of which one gives you the option for an easy elemental attack that you can add to about everything and elemental movement thats pretty distinct for each element
you have still 3 more spells per spell level to freely chose and it should not be hard to chose more elemental spells for almost every spell level and still retain flexibility and versatility
what do you want to specialize in? attack spells? dext save spells?
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I agree that the Wizard is somewhat difficult to play, and requires some level of system mastery so that it's not very friendly to new players. I would argue that the Wizard has never been particularly friendly to new players either.
One thing that would help to make Wizards feel better, seriously, is "give them good focus spells." Tempest Surge makes it so much easier to play a druid, because "when in doubt, you can use it, and it's strong!" Since there isn't a need for one focus spell for each of 7 schools of magic anymore, you can now devote more attention to these things and make them more relevant.
"You have something as reliable and handy as Tempest Surge in your back pocket" is going to smooth over a lot of issues the people have with the Wizard. Probably moreso than "enabling Wizards to devote themselves to one specific thing."
Melee range focus spells are probably the strangest thing in the game like casters generally don't want to be in the thick of it especially with caster being more restricted in their actions so hit and running is just not really a thingFocus spell balance in general is whack, but those are particularly egregious yeah. I don't think it's ragging on the devs to say that "you get some melee weapon stuff" focus spells are problematic, since a lot of that stuff came out early in development cycle and they couldn't have known.
The difference between a quite solid focus spell (elemental toss) and a bad one (dragon claws) is just mind-numbing, though. The former is a 1-action gun that you can use to reliably increase your DPR. The latter is a buff spell for something that you demonstrably should never do. Like...the accuracy is just appalling. Something similar can be said for a LOT of cleric domain focus spells, especially the 2-action ones. They're just never going to compete with cantrips, let alone actual leveled spells.
I'm hoping the remaster goes through a fair number of focus spells and makes more of them functional and competitive. It can be off-putting to see a really cool theme like "dragon sorcerer" have such a poor mechanical implementation.
I think the biggest problem with those melee spells is they were put as first level features. Like, Dragon Claws are ok... For certain builds. Meanwhile dragon's breath and dragon wing's are great options for any dragon themed build, but you need to pay feats for those.
That said, the themed elemental magic user space is well covered by the kineticist now, and a lot of the other specialities people want are available in the psychic. If your class isn't good at doing the thing you want to do, you should generally look for a class that is. Get us a minion mancy class and the game will be in pretty good shape.
Wait, what's the complaint shifted to? You can't make a thematic caster or that the community says thematic casting is bad mechanically?
Like, sure, if you didn't plan around it, Dragon Claws is a bad Focus Spell. Heck, even if you did, it's not suddenly wonderful. A sorcerer in my AoA game made a character based around wading into melee and being "the dragon caster." And it worked, it just wasn't ALWAYS the best play. He had to sometimes drop his plans and change things up (because a sorcerer jumping into the center of eight warriors was bad or that golem didn't really care about anything he had to offer).
This sounds like people are extrapolating wild conclusions from charOP'ers on the forums. People who say "you must have X or Y or your not effective," when in reality you can function just fine without. I'm not sure what people want? Like if I'm a caster who only casts Produce Flame and other fire spells, I should expect to occasionally have that niche run into trouble and accept that's sort of the trade-off I made for overspecialization. It's not like I can't DO other things, even if they're not spells
I will note I'm not actually sure how much more support you need to be an illusionist. Illusory Creature* and Object are two of the best spells in the game (especially for their slot rank), and there's a series of pretty dang solid damaging spells as well. Now we are getting a good cantrip. I think the biggest thing missing is social casting support feats for charisma casters besides the bard.
*Forget about using Divine casters against demons. Two illusory Creatures did 160 damage to a level 13 omox for me the other day. They also provided flanking for the barbarian. Sure the omox eventually disbelieved them and regained some hit points, but at that point it wasted actions too.
Wait, what's the complaint shifted to? You can't make a thematic caster or that the community says thematic casting is bad mechanically?
Like, sure, if you didn't plan around it, Dragon Claws is a bad Focus Spell. Heck, even if you did, it's not suddenly wonderful. A sorcerer in my AoA game made a character based around wading into melee and being "the dragon caster." And it worked, it just wasn't ALWAYS the best play. He had to sometimes drop his plans and change things up (because a sorcerer jumping into the center of eight warriors was bad or that golem didn't really care about anything he had to offer).
This sounds like people are extrapolating wild conclusions from charOP'ers on the forums. People who say "you must have X or Y or your not effective," when in reality you can function just fine without. I'm not sure what people want? Like if I'm a caster who only casts Produce Flame and other fire spells, I should expect to occasionally have that niche run into trouble and accept that's sort of the trade-off I made for overspecialization. It's not like I can't DO other things, even if they're not spells
I think the OP's original complaint was that they couldn't play a caster like a kineticist and be as successful as a kineticist playing as a kineticist would be. There's probably other complaints that other people have but past a certain level of toxicity I start skipping posts.
I will note I'm not actually sure how much more support you need to be an illusionist. Illusory Creature* and Object are two of the best spells in the game (especially for their slot rank), and there's a series of pretty dang solid damaging spells as well. Now we are getting a good cantrip. I think the biggest thing missing is social casting support feats for charisma casters besides the bard.
Heck, my next character is an Illusionist Wizard because illusions got a major glow-up from PF1. Bristlebrush can make an Illusory Creature copy of themself, use a focus point to turn invisible, and then just pass off anything they do as spell effects cast by their illusion. And that's just messing around, not actually pulling out any of the serious stuff.
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This sounds like people are extrapolating wild conclusions from charOP'ers on the forums. People who say "you must have X or Y or your not effective," when in reality you can function just fine without.
I think this is worth restating. People's home games are all going to look very different from one another. Slow loses a lot of utility when you're facing a larger number of enemies per encounter, fly sucks when your campaign takes place primarily indoors or underground, et cetera. GMs will vary in how tactically they run their encounters, players in how much they value optimization, and groups in how closely they follow the rules.
This forum is weird because we've got a lot of hyper-focused people who get really crunchy with this stuff and play a ton of official APs. We're not representative of a typical player experience.
That said, one of the selling points of PF2 was that it was balanced well enough that players shouldn't have to choose between optimization and flavor. And while that gap has certainly narrowed, a lot of players--both old and new--are still struggling to build casters that "feel" right. Some of it really is just being cranky that a tactics-focused game is going to require tradeoffs, but a lot of it comes from spells and caster subclasses just not being as well-balanced as other parts of the game.
I personally think the game could do more to guide players in crafting and using caster builds. I don't think it's fair to expect your audience to teach people how your product works, you know?
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Snip
Yeah, math certainly does mean that every choice has its own flaws. I mean, these are also things that we all know. What is it that you want to see changed?
Do you want all powers to be on the same level in terms of usefulness? Like, by the very nature of spellcasting in general, spells will have situations in which they are going to shine and function better. I'm just... I'm not sure what you're saying.
EDIT: I should say that I reject the notion of an "attack routine" being anywhere near how PF2 design leans. There's a wealth of interaction in the game and while charOP and builds tends toward "your optimal turn looks something like this" the game itself highly discourages that from actually happening. Spellcasters have the greatest ability to shift when that "routine" is interrupted.
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I guess my disconnect here is "There are situationally bad options," and "There are bad options." Where I see an option I wouldn't take 90% of the time, I recognize there are times when it's amazing. Not being my first pick 90% of the time doesn't mean it's a trap option, but that I have to be a bit more selective with my spell choices.
This is something I mentioned up-thread, but is also something that prepared casters handle better than spontaneous casters. As a wizard, I can have a spellbook filled with spells without having to carefully curate them for general use, but a sorcerer doesn't have that luxury. While this is a design a truly love, it does require a level of game knowledge - this I will admit.
Focus spells are a bit different, however, as a spellcaster generally doesn't choose from them and rather is given them to do with what they wish. Dragon Claws/Gluttons Jaws stand out in that they scream "make a build around me or ignore me," which - again - I can see being tricky for new players, but they function just fine. I'm not sure they need a big rebalance seeing that many folks use them decently (I actually haven't see a Gluttons Jaws-focused caster, but I think that has more to do with the divine spell list. My groups mostly snatch up arcane sorcerers).
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The game actively forces you into doing specific routines or else your character just does not work. Casters are even more affected because once their spells fail there is nothing they can do about it. While a martial can just try again next round.
I mean this is just obviously wrong. I don't think anyone believes the game forces you to do anything or immediately fail. Not to mention casters having zero-sum effects while martials somehow do not.
Part of the whole "sustaining a theme" is not being forced to use things you don't want to use. Which is not the case in PF2 where "you are playing wrong because you should cast [insert list of specific CRB spells]"
You're conflating "what the forums say" with "actual rules of the game." No one is stopping you from loading up on every fire spell that exists. As a matter of fact, my PFS wizard casts nearly exclusively attack spells and does just fine. But there are times when I have to do other things, too! And it's still good.
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The quickest way to fix a character that is underperforming "the math" isn't to fix the class or rebuild the character to optimize it better or for the GM to adjust every encounter balance, but for the GM to add or change some treasure found to have magic items that help that character fill the gap, and the game rolls on...
GMs if your player's characters need magic items I'd be happy to sell them those items.
I guess my disconnect here is "There are situationally bad options," and "There are bad options." Where I see an option I wouldn't take 90% of the time, I recognize there are times when it's amazing. Not being my first pick 90% of the time doesn't mean it's a trap option, but that I have to be a bit more selective with my spell choices.
This is something I mentioned up-thread, but is also something that prepared casters handle better than spontaneous casters. As a wizard, I can have a spellbook filled with spells without having to carefully curate them for general use, but a sorcerer doesn't have that luxury. While this is a design a truly love, it does require a level of game knowledge - this I will admit.
Focus spells are a bit different, however, as a spellcaster generally doesn't choose from them and rather is given them to do with what they wish. Dragon Claws/Gluttons Jaws stand out in that they scream "make a build around me or ignore me," which - again - I can see being tricky for new players, but they function just fine. I'm not sure they need a big rebalance seeing that many folks use them decently (I actually haven't see a Gluttons Jaws-focused caster, but I think that has more to do with the divine spell list. My groups mostly snatch up arcane sorcerers).
You seem to be positioning the issue with Wizards as a skill issue in that people just aren't skilled enough to be taking all the right spells and don't know when to cast them. The issue is that not all spells are created equal and that there exists a set of meta spells that are just better options than their peers. Paizo needs to stop printing a bunch of worthless NPC spells and focus on printing spells, I'd like those to be damage-dealing spells or summoning spells, that compete with Heroism, Haste, Slow, Synesthesia, et al.
The support caster should not be the only supported caster.
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I mean, a few things - I think it's generally agreed upon that spellcasting does require a bit more system knowledge to get the most out of. That said - you really haven't seen a martial flub up a turn? You never had a monk rush into to flurry the golem and then sit in melee range to get smashed to death? You didn't a rogue continue to use their daggers against the skeleton despite a fist being a much easier option? You've never had a ranger hurl their animal companion to their doom because they rolled a great initiative while the rest of their party lagged behind?
This forum is weird because we've got a lot of hyper-focused people who get really crunchy with this stuff and play a ton of official APs. We're not representative of a typical player experience.That's honestly extremely fair.
I apologize if anything I said was communicating badwrongfun.
Oh, no worries. What came across from your commentary (at least to me) was disappointment in how selectively bad balancing makes it harder for people to make their offbeat character concepts work. A new player choosing a trap option (i.e. dragon claws) and later wondering why they're struggling isn't an instance of badwrongfun, but rather a failure of the development team to catch and correct that option before release.
Like, I'm pretty sure that you're not telling other people they're playing the game wrong, but rather arguing that "wrong" options shouldn't exist in the first place. And I agree with that; it's one of the reasons I never gelled with PF1.
(Note: I think there's a difference between a situational option and a trap. Situational stuff does well under specific circumstances or with the right setup. A trap option is just flat-out worse than an alternative, either due to bad balancing on the first pass, or powercreep from later material.)
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You seem to be positioning the issue with Wizards as a skill issue in that people just aren't skilled enough to be taking all the right spells and don't know when to cast them. The issue is that not all spells are created equal and that there exists a set of meta spells that are just better options than their peers. Paizo needs to stop printing a bunch of worthless NPC spells and focus on printing spells, I'd like those to be damage-dealing spells or summoning spells, that compete with Heroism, Haste, Slow, Synesthesia, et al.
The support caster should not be the only supported caster.
This is an interesting point! I mean, I entirely disagree that only a support caster is supported - that's an obvious exaggeration. But the problem is... how many damaging spells can you make before you're making the same spell again? I have a spell attack wizard that I really like using, but I don't actually stray from a few damaging spells because my choices look like this:
"I want to deal damage to the enemy. I must choose a spell to do so. First, is it weak or resistant to a particular element? Once I know that information, I use the spell that deals the most damage that I have."
Sure, some spells have rider effects, like throwing in clumsy or stupefied, but with heightening spells, I don't need to have 20+ different spells prepared. I have my damaging spell, I have my "situational" back up damaging spells (for elemental resistances and the like), and the rest is all either enabling my build (if I'm feeling selfish) or some problem solver spells. While the bulk of my prepared spells are damaging spells - they're singular spells. I don't need five different spells that deal damage, but I do need five different spells to solve problems or to give myself different advantages in combat.
I have seen several casters played in such a way that they are nearly completely useless (they cast the wrong spells on the wrong targets and contribute occasionally chip damage and no utility) and can't remember thinking that of any martial I have played with.
Exactly! That's what I meant when I said that casters "require a disproportionate amount of system mastery." It's way too easy to build a stinker and/or just not grok tactical play, and it makes a lot of people give up on mages! Meanwhile, you can figure out a martial just by doing whatever their class features tell you to do, and the math does the rest.
But until Paizo does something about this imbalance of accessibility--and they had better if they don't want to blow it with this whole remaster thing--the system is what it is, and approaching it on its own terms is the best you can do. So, when 3-Body-Problem keeps shutting down people who are trying to help them do that, they're (quite rudely) cutting themselves off from having a good time. There's a line between disappointment and self-sabotage, you know?
I mean, a few things - I think it's generally agreed upon that spellcasting does require a bit more system knowledge to get the most out of. That said - you really haven't seen a martial flub up a turn? You never had a monk rush into to flurry the golem and then sit in melee range to get smashed to death? You didn't a rogue continue to use their daggers against the skeleton despite a fist being a much easier option? You've never had a ranger hurl their animal companion to their doom because they rolled a great initiative while the rest of their party lagged behind?
What does any of that have to do with a Wizard being forced to play a specific way because the best spells are so far above the other options at those levels that taking anything else ends up feeling badly suboptimal?
It sounds like we have different requests of the thread - I mean, the OP is asking for more specific spells to support theme (or are what they call "meta spells" which is a very nebulous term, let's be fair) while we have shifted the conversation to spellcasting requiring a degree of game knowledge.
I'll be honest when I say, I don't know what to do about spellcasting and the level of game knowledge required. I think that is what attracts many people to that playstyle (at least it does for me). I definitely agree and have said that a spellcaster is something that requires some foreknowledge for.
I disagree that "slow and synthesisa are superior spells and a good player would know this, ergo I cannot stray from these spells" meaning that unless you pick these "meta spells" you are playing poorly. I have seen casters function with wildly different spell lists and I run a lot of games. I've seen entirely themed casters (Always fire, why always fire? Why doesn't anyone theme their character with electricity or something?) succeed without ever lifting a finger in the direction of a Will save. Hell, I've seen them not even attempt to debuff an opponent - baffling, I know, but spells don't stop being effective just because there's a guide telling you there are better ways to deal more damage.
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This is an interesting point! I mean, I entirely disagree that only a support caster is supported - that's an obvious exaggeration. But the problem is... how many damaging spells can you make before you're making the same spell again? I have a spell attack wizard that I really like using, but I don't actually stray from a few damaging spells because my choices look like this:
"I want to deal damage to the enemy. I must choose a spell to do so. First, is it weak or resistant to a particular element? Once I know that information, I use the spell that deals the most damage that I have."
Sure, some spells have rider effects, like throwing in clumsy or stupefied, but with heightening spells, I don't need to have 20+ different spells prepared. I have my damaging spell, I have my "situational" back up damaging spells (for elemental resistances and the like), and the rest is all either enabling my build (if I'm feeling selfish) or some problem solver spells. While the bulk of my prepared spells are damaging spells - they're singular spells. I don't need five different spells that deal damage, but I do need five different spells to solve problems or to give myself different advantages in combat.
So again you're still playing more of a support Wizard because your blasting needs to be setup by first casting another spell. Even beyond that, it's rarely correct to blast against a LA+2 (or greater) foe because chip damage is less effective than the failure effect of Slow. So you don't get to enjoy dealing damage against bosses. Meanwhile, the Fighter's experience doesn't tend to change nearly so much when fighting a boss versus fighting mooks. They get to specialize in doing one thing well and have room left over to bring in utility but casters aren't afforded the same ability to specialize and are forced into breadth by default.
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I think if your willing to give up all your utility and versatility at a class chassis level (meaning, you can use skill feats and general feats to accrue some)
Then by all means get better blasting!
Sounds like fire kineticist
What does any of that have to do with a Wizard being forced to play a specific way because the best spells are so far above the other options at those levels that taking anything else ends up feeling badly suboptimal?
Alright, now I'm actually curious - what sort of spellcasters have you played in PF2? What problems have you run into?
I'll say that I've had the most trouble with running a Devotion Cathartic Mage Battle Oracle just because that's a huge balancing act of action economy and knowing when to switch from spellcasting to combat to healing to taking a hit or two. It was intense, but a fun character.
On the other hand, literally playing a brain-dead evoker has been incredibly easy without having to think about anything more than "Recall Knowledge -> Big Spell" or "Stride -> RK -> Force Bolt" or even "Warp Step -> Force Bolt" or "True Strike -> Big Spell."
I think the character that I attempted and liked the least in feeling was a warpriest of the Green Faith, which has little enough support as it is, but I attempted to make them a front-line bruiser with trips and flanks while maintaining Bless and the like. If I revisit that style of play again, I'd approach it differently.
Like, what are you having trouble actually doing?
So again you're still playing more of a support Wizard because your blasting needs to be setup by first casting another spell. Even beyond that, it's rarely correct to blast against a LA+2 (or greater) foe because chip damage is less effective than the failure effect of Slow. So you don't get to enjoy dealing damage against bosses. Meanwhile, the Fighter's experience doesn't tend to change nearly so much when fighting a boss versus fighting mooks. They get to specialize in doing one thing well and have room left over to bring in utility but casters aren't afforded the same ability to specialize and are forced into breadth by default.
Playing a support wizard is casting spells to support myself? Also, "rarely correct to blast against a LA+2 (or greater) foe because chip damage is less effective than the failure effect of Slow" - Why? Tell me why you think that. Why am I weighing my damage against a Will save? We don't know my opponent, what my team is doing to debuff it, what its Will save is, what its AC is... why have you decided that Slow is going to be better than what my character is doing and wants to do?
It truly sounds like one of those guides that says "X is the best spell and a must have for casters" without any critical examination about why.