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Out of curiosity - these are metrics that you, yourself, have defined, correct?
Defined? I did not define them.
They are damage, action economy, damage absorbed, AC.
They are based on game elements you can measure during common combat scenarios. They aren't something I made up.
It's taking existing game elements and tracking them to measure how something works within the game.
Helps me as a DM determine if I have to make adjustments.
Most players experience the game through a qualitative, subjective lens. They will say something like "This feels bad." Or they look at their attack doing 15 points or their round of 3 actions not producing as much another class.
So as a DM if this occurs continuously, you have to start to figure out why. This requires you to take game elements and track them.
Just off the top of my head, Raving Dork's use a summons to distract guards. Think about how that works and imagine it in the game.
The summoner casts a 3 action summon then is able to use 2 actions.
You have to roll initiative between the guards and the caster and the caster's group because this is occurring in encounter mode.
The summon has to move by the guards. The DM has to decide the guards follow the summon for some reason and that they can't engage it at range or quickly close to melee and strike it.
This has to all occur within a 1 minute spell duration. So you have ten rounds to make this work with all the elements moving on their initiative in a given round.
If the guards spend all their actions following the summons because the summons has a sufficient speed advantage to move with 2 actions what the guards can move in 3 actions, then you track that out.
Then you have to determine how long it takes for them to move far enough away to not require a perception check to see the PCs move through if they are moving at full speed not stealthing.
The caster who is using the sustain action has 2 actions to move if stealthing at half-speed if lacking faster move skills feats when stealthing. That means said caster is moving 15 feet per move if stealthing or 30 feet per move if moving at standard speed.
So do I think Raving Dork played this all out with rolls and round by round action? Don't know, but I know how it would work mechanically and that would be a pain.
I also know that if he hand-waved this out that such role-play applications of spells, skills, and the like can be handled a hundred different ways with different spells, skills, and the like. So they are not helpful to me as a means to use a summons when distracting guards or causing them to move from a guard post in a manner that is more story-telling than mechanics can be accomplished without summons.
So I want to see how they do for combat functions in encounter mode doing damage or absorbing damage or how they affect the action economy. Measurable combat elements in the game common to PF2.
I'm more surprised more folks don't do this to see how things are working within the game between the classes. It improves the experience for the players if the GM takes corrective action for game design issues the designers may have missed to improve the flow of the game and comparative class performance.
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Those aren't standards of measurement, though, right? That is to say, a metric would need to account for a lot more than what you're measuring in scenarios that go beyond what you're looking at. I feel like it would be impossible for one person to be able to do all of that on their own and create a valuable decision.
A summon measured against a fireball has a different value if the creature is immune to fire, is a singular target, or is against a creature with extreme Reflex saves.
A summon measured against synthesia has a different value if the encounter consists of multiple creatures, or a target immune to mental effects, or even just an extreme Will once more.
A summon measured against even a singular Strike has a different value depending on the range of the opponent, movement types like flying or swimming, or even something as small as the ability to provide flanking.
I say all of this to say that you can't state the importance of these spells objectively. You can take passionate notes about what your idea of "quantifible, objective metrics" are, but that would be a disservice to the definition of the word objective and falls squarely in the realm of subjective - your opinion.
EDIT: And more to the point, metrics created and used exclusively by one person are not objective, they are subjective. You are essentially just creating a list of parameters that you, personally, find to be of value within a set of categories while discarding those that you don't value. That isn't objective.
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It's kind of amazing how Secrets of Magic is more than two years old and we're still getting the Temperans thread derail every time the class is brought up. They've been doing this since the playtest.
Genuinely kind of goofy.
Temperans simply figured out how moderation works here,as long as you don't comment on some person (and ofc don't cross any "slavery was kinda fine" lines), you can easily spend 10k posts telling people that Paizo products are crap and derailing every thread.
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I feel like changing summoners to not have a eidolon would cause just as many complaints about the name because again, I'm pretty sure most people cared more about the eidolon part of summoner over the free summon monster spells. I also don't think "good at summon X spells specifically" is really enough to make a class, seems like it would just be a wizard school or a druid order.
????? I didn't say remove the eidolon from the summoner? At all???
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Apologies for the confusion, I meant it with the idea of your purposed new class called summoner focusing on summoning spells (with current summoner getting it's name changed to account for it).I feel like changing summoners to not have a eidolon would cause just as many complaints about the name because again, I'm pretty sure most people cared more about the eidolon part of summoner over the free summon monster spells. I also don't think "good at summon X spells specifically" is really enough to make a class, seems like it would just be a wizard school or a druid order.????? I didn't say remove the eidolon from the summoner? At all???
Maybe you are right and it should be an archetype, idk? People seem to want a class around it though!
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If a creature is on a different plane, or otherwise Elsewhere, and you go, "hey, come here" and it appears next to you, you have summoned it to this plane. Or, rather, that's what I usually mean when I refer to summoning, particularly in the context of a fantastical role-playing game.
If you have a permanent life-bond with a very specific creature on a different plane that allows you to empower and rely on that creature, to the extent that going "hey, come here" and fighting alongside that creature becomes the main thing that makes you special, I would be prepared to argue that that qualifies you for the title of Summoner. Eragon isn't disqualified from the title of Dragon Rider just because he only typically rides the one.
However, yes, if you are used to "summoner" meaning, in an RPG context, that you can create pawns on the battlefield and chuck them at your problems without worrying too much about your "summons"' personal experiences, then, yes, the PF2 Summoner doesn't lean into that enough, even if it's better at it than most other characters. For me, that's simply not necessary to be called a summoner; I'd call that a conjurer first, because you're conjuring a facsimile of a creature from magic rather than really summoning a living, breathing creature from Somewhere Else. However, it absolutely makes sense that you think the class misnamed if that's your class fantasy.
And, yes, if you require that the descriptive name of the class matches up with a mechanical trait and its associated effects, or at least to have the word be a little bit more peppered about the class description even if it means re-clarifying that trait, the Summoner doesn't fit that either. I don't need that, and that doesn't make me delusional, but it's fair enough if that feels misnamed to anyone. I doubt the precise mechanics of this class were front-of-mind when the "Summoned" trait was being designed back at launch, so there is a perhaps misleading gap in the language there.
Ultimately, most of the disagreement on this point in particular seems to be a simple difference of opinion being misunderstood as, well, misunderstanding. Which isn't much fun for anyone. It's certainly less fun than the great clash of TTRPG philosophies going on in the other half of this thread, but I can't really talk about that until I finally get some proper play experience with this system in particular... Except to say that Easl's most recent post on the matter is fantastic.
Now. Back to the hibernation.
...
(As if. I know for a fact that I'll be active during the playtest, at least until I try to organise taking part and my health gives out again. Someone softly chide me if I don't join PFS this time; I got so close with the Kineticist.)
Another fun feature of the summoner:
1. You are able to seal off two doors or points of entry by standing in the way. Things can still tumble or shove you out of the way, but that isn't so easy for everyone.
I have to agree with Superbidi that the ranged option is a good feat for its utility. I got rid of the spellcasting and took the ranged attack. I was able to seal off the doors while still attacking with the ranged attack. So it adds more options for positioning with a ranged attack. It does quite a bit of damage when you can boost it with greater striking. +6 status bonus to damage on top of propulsive and specialization and runes makes for pretty good damage.
And the fact you only have to buy one weapon and put runes on one weapon to gain the full benefits on all your weapon attacks is quite nice.
So you basically are able to have a ranged attack, an agile weapon, and a main d8 weapon with a trip or some other trait for the cost of one good weapon. So it saves you a lot of coin as well.
I'm using a metal eidolon, so my main weapon is Versatile S, P, B and has trip. This is all boosted for the cost of a single built up weapon. So being a summoner saves you cash while still having a highly versatile set of weapons that do good damage.
I really underestimated this class during the playtest mainly because it doesn't do well what you would think a summoner does well. It's more like a super versatile martial class in two bodies than a caster.
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Those aren't standards of measurement, though, right? That is to say, a metric would need to account for a lot more than what you're measuring in scenarios that go beyond what you're looking at. I feel like it would be impossible for one person to be able to do all of that on their own and create a valuable decision.
A summon measured against a fireball has a different value if the creature is immune to fire, is a singular target, or is against a creature with extreme Reflex saves.
A summon measured against synthesia has a different value if the encounter consists of multiple creatures, or a target immune to mental effects, or even just an extreme Will once more.
A summon measured against even a singular Strike has a different value depending on the range of the opponent, movement types like flying or swimming, or even something as small as the ability to provide flanking.
I say all of this to say that you can't state the importance of these spells objectively. You can take passionate notes about what your idea of "quantifible, objective metrics" are, but that would be a disservice to the definition of the word objective and falls squarely in the realm of subjective - your opinion.
EDIT: And more to the point, metrics created and used exclusively by one person are not objective, they are subjective. You are essentially just creating a list of parameters that you, personally, find to be of value within a set of categories while discarding those that you don't value. That isn't objective.
I did not see.
No, they are objective because they use the same rules for everyone. That is why measuring combat rules provides a more objective analysis because those are the only rules that are objectively the same from table to table.
Exploration and Downtime can vary wildly from table to table in how a DM handles.
Combat encounters are run using a common ruleset. You can indeed measure the effectiveness of a synesthesia versus a fireball in a given circumstance.
You can measure action economy, damage, healing, damage mitigation, and a wide variety of metrics based on game mechanics in encounter combat mode, so you know which is best in given situations. It doesn't change from table to table unless a DM is using a house rule that can't be accounted for.
Never been quite sure why this is hard concept to understand. Combat is the only area of roleplaying games where there is any objectivity from table to table.
There may be table variance in choices leading to party composition variation, choice of weapons, spells cast, and the like. But the combat ruleset is objective and thus can be measured in an objective way to determine how well a set of choices or a group composition works in combat absent unknown variables like house rules or GM fiat.
I really underestimated this class during the playtest mainly because it doesn't do well what you would think a summoner does well. It's more like a super versatile martial class in two bodies than a caster.
The Summoner is the most versatile class in the game bar none. I really haven't found such a versatility in my Rogue, Alchemists nor Sorcerer (which are still very versatile classes).
The Summoner is the most versatile class in the game bar none. I really haven't found such a versatility in my Rogue, Alchemists nor Sorcerer (which are still very versatile classes).
I think the druid gives them a run for their money in that respect.
Yeah. It doesn't do a lot with either its spellcasting or its attacks but it basically gets 4 actions per round which is incredibly valuable and offers a ton of options
Which, though quite good, is not as great as people often think. Due to restrictions, that fourth action is typically just movement, or a really weak strike from the summoner who is likely not only not built for it, but also needs to eat the eidolon's MAP.
The real strength is being in two places at once and impacting how enemies move around and respond to the party.
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I think the druid gives them a run for their money in that respect.
The Summoner is a martial and a spellcaster simultaneously (and not concurrently), a perfect switch hitter (for the Eidolon, not the Summoner), it has excellent mobility (once level 4), skill monkeyness, can take tanking duty (offtank only) and is one of the hardest classes to pin down. It's among the top healers in the game considering you can 2-action Heal and deal excellent damage in the same round. It's the best specialized skill monkey with the Eidolon who can help the Summoner or the other way around. It's the best scout in the game also (maybe the Wild Witch can compete, I'm testing that right now). The class is just full of shenanigans, you can make absolutely everything with it.
If you haven't played a Summoner you have no idea how this class is versatile. It has a solution to every situation.
The Druid is just a spellcaster who can turn into a martial but then lose all spellcasting ability, something that all Primal spellcasters can do. It's in the dust, without a hint of hesitation. And I think Deriven will second that point of view, he has more experience than I have with Druids.
Edit: I don't say the Druid is not versatile but the level of versatility you can reach with the Summoner is just unimaginable before you actually play one. There are lots of encounters (in a large sense) where one of the Summoner shenanigans can be somehow exploited to great effects.
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It seems odd that they'd do that from a balance perspective. Why make low-level summons viable in this way and high-level summons not? Like, that has to have been intentional. So what's the tradeoff there that makes them perceive heavily underleveled level 3 creatures as worthwhile in a way that heavily underleveled level 1 creatures aren't?
If you haven't played a Summoner you have no idea how this class is versatile. It has a solution to every situation.
I speak as someone who has been playing a summoner for years.
Though I admit I have not tried a ranged summoner build yet; I hear they're quite good.
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I speak as someone who has been playing a summoner for years.
Though I admit I have not tried a ranged summoner build yet; I hear they're quite good.
Sorry, I didn't know.
I also think the only thing the Summoner doesn't do well is being a proper melee martial. The frontline asks for quite some tankyness that the Eidolon can't have, giving the feeling that the Eidolon is always desperately trying to compete with melee martials without ever getting up to par. Also, being in melee forces your positionning and as such removes one of your assets. It's also extremely costly in terms of feats.
It seems odd that they'd do that from a balance perspective. Why make low-level summons viable in this way and high-level summons not? Like, that has to have been intentional. So what's the tradeoff there that makes them perceive heavily underleveled level 3 creatures as worthwhile in a way that heavily underleveled level 1 creatures aren't?My pet theory is that it's balanced for low level and someone didn't realize there was a scaling discrepancy and just thought the numbers were pretty.
If you want to have a 2nd rank summoning spell do more than a 1st, it has to summon creature 1s, since 1st rank summons creature -1s. Then you carry the logic through, so that 3rd rank spells summon creature 2s and 4th rank spells summon creature 3s and oh oops you suddenly have that 4-level gap.
Or it's balanced for high level but there aren't creatures low enough level to do "character level - 4 = summoned creature level" at rank 1, so they had to crunch things down at lower level. Thus massively boosting low-level summoning because there was nowhere else to go.
I have the opposite theory: summoned creatures are generally meant to be balanced at the PC's level-4, but you can't do that at level 1 when the lowest options are level -1.
I've still found strong use for summons at levels 9-13, and even seen them kind of solo encounters at level 16. But that is based on using them as silver bullets, not just DPR bots.
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...Those aren't standards of measurement, though, right? That is to say, a metric would need to account for a lot more than what you're measuring in scenarios that go beyond what you're looking at. I feel like it would be impossible for one person to be able to do all of that on their own and create a valuable decision.
A summon measured against a fireball has a different value if the creature is immune to fire, is a singular target, or is against a creature with extreme Reflex saves.
A summon measured against synthesia has a different value if the encounter consists of multiple creatures, or a target immune to mental effects, or even just an extreme Will once more.
A summon measured against even a singular Strike has a different value depending on the range of the opponent, movement types like flying or swimming, or even something as small as the ability to provide flanking.
I say all of this to say that you can't state the importance of these spells objectively. You can take passionate notes about what your idea of "quantifible, objective metrics" are, but that would be a disservice to the definition of the word objective and falls squarely in the realm of subjective - your opinion.
EDIT: And more to the point, metrics created and used exclusively by one person are not objective, they are subjective. You are essentially just creating a list of parameters that you, personally, find to be of value within a set of categories while discarding those that you don't value. That isn't objective.
I did not see.
No, they are objective because they use the same rules for everyone. That is why measuring combat rules provides a more objective analysis because those are the only rules that are objectively the same from table to table.
Exploration and Downtime can vary wildly from table to table in how a DM handles.
Combat encounters are run using a common ruleset. You can indeed measure the effectiveness of a synesthesia versus a
I could come in to any game and measure the objective performance of a player and class using the combat rules.
I pay attention to all aspects of the game. Only combat is objective with a ruleset that operates similarly across all tables.
Roleplaying and other non-combat activities are subjective.
Qualitative aspects are also subjective. As in I can prove a class operates with inferior ability to another class, but nothing is stop a player from saying, "I'm still having fun. I don't even care that the class I'm playing isn't optimal."
Since it seems some don't understand the difference between objective and subjective or quantitative versus qualitative, I'll stop that discussion now as some of you just want to believe what you believe without measuring it against anything. Since that's a fine way to play and definitely falls into the subjective category, I will leave you to it while I play the game with an interest in measurable comparative performance.
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I pay attention to all aspects of the game. Only combat is objective with a ruleset that operates similarly across all tables.
But combat is not objective. There are many questions you'll answer one way that others would answer another way. And these answers will create the subjectivity of your combat assesment.
Examples only focusing on damage:
- How much do you value multi target damage compared to single target damage?
- How much do you value focused damage (like Strikes using your actions) compared to unfocused damage (reactions targetting whatever triggers them)?
- How much do you value first round damage compared to damage dealt to the last remaining enemy no one cares about?
- How much do you value damage dealt during trivial encounters compared to damage dealt during extreme encounters?
- How do you handle overkill?
Then we can add the fact that damage is not taking the same investment depending on characters. A Flurry Ranger will certainly use 100% of its actions towards damage when a caster will certainly have RK or healing duties obviously reducing the number of actions used to deal damage.
Then you have to take the player into account. I deal Fighter damage with my Alchemist. I'm obviously an outlier as I've never seen anyone considering Alchemist to be as much of a damage dealer than Fighter. So the difference in damage between 2 characters may not come from the class but from the build or from the tactical acumen of the player. And it can lead to extreme differences (I'm used to outdamage 2 to 1 and even 3 to 1 other casters with mine).
Also, how do you value non damaging actions? How much damage is Slowed 1? Tracking only damage is just a subset of combat, a significant one but very far from an encompassing one.
And ultimately you get this information in one group on a limited amount of games playing an extremely limited number of campaigns with a very limited number of PCs. None of this can be considered even remotely close to statistical relevance.
What you consider objective is just your experience. From my point of view it's nowhere close to objective. Which doesn't mean it's wrong or whatever, I agree with you on a lot of points but I will only remind you that some of our disagreements around the Summoner actually led you to better master the class. So even your "objective" experience is fluid.
That's what people try to tell you.
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Oh, and there are also campaign differences. First, obviously, are houserules, and they can skew all sorts of things. Then there's the question of what kinds of encounters you're getting into. A campaign focused on single-encounter days with set-piece enemies that are level+2 or level+3 is going to see some major differences from one that runs 5-8 encounters per day and tends to have horde encounters where each enemy is at the level-1 or level-2 range.
Then there's the detail work. Prepared casters have an advantage when you can know more or less what you're going to fight at the beginning of the day. If your'e going in blind, then spontaneous casters are going to be better off. If you often have a moment or two to prepare and toss buffs before you bust down the door, then that's going to advantage certain builds a lot more than others. If you instead often find that you have time to prepare the room, then that's a different set of advantages. How restricted your battlefields tend to be, what kinds of enemies you tend to face, whether the battlefieds often have interestign features to exploit... a lot of this stuff matters.
...and, of course, there's the local meta. There are certain strategies that work well together, and if your group has one of those as its happy little rut, then the classes that contribute to those synergies are going to be more effective, and those that do not are going to be less effective. In a different place, with a different set of default strategies, you could see a very different set of classes and/or builds getting a chance to shine.
Oh, and of course there are differences that are much more class-specific. Like... the investigator really struggles by default... but if they can consistently set things up so that they're pursuing a viable lead every time they get into a fight, then they get a *lot* stronger. Wizards and Witches are going to care about how many new and more interesting spell scrolls show up in treasure packets. If you have someone who's deep into snares... well, there are a ot of ways that GMs can react to snares, at varying degrees of fairness, and some of them make those snares a lot more effective than others. Heck - "how monsters act" in general is a big deal...
Basically, there's a lot of stuff out there that matters... and making Resounding Declarations about The Way Things Are based on your own assumptionset doesn't make you correct.
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I would guess spontaneous is slightly stronger. But when it fails it fails HARD.
I recall adventuring with an occult sorcerer. All was well for many levels... and then we walked into a dungeon full of constructs.
Confusion? Mental, it failed. Roaring applause? Mental again, failed. Synesthesia? Yup, mental. Failed. Inner Radiance Torrent? Necromancy. Failed. Phantom Orchestra? The monsters kept crit succeeding on the fort saves, because that's how fort saves work. Same thing happened when they tried casting slow. The sorcerer was reduced to a healbot with Soothe and the odd Shadow Blast, which did practically no damage.
Meanwhile the occult witch cheerfully swapped over to color spray, resilient sphere, and stagnate time, and continued on her merry way.
...and see, that's just it.
- You had a heavy concentration of one kind of monster that you pretty clearly hadn't encountered in significant numbers/density before. (If you had, the occult sorcerer would have made sure to have something in his repertoire that would work)- This was true not just over multiple encounters, but multiple days, and predictably so, to the point that the witch could prepare spells appropriately
- It did not last long enough for the level-ups or downtime days necessary for sorcerer retraining.
That's a specific set of conditions where prepared casters have a huge advantage over spontaneous casters. By contrast, the conditions were you wake up in the morning and have no more real information about what you'll be facing later in the day than you did at your last level-up is the one where spontaneous casters thrive... and especially so when you have multiple significant encounters in the day where you want to be burning spell slots at a fairly consistent pace, because while the spontaneous caster is just burning gas, the prepared caster is also burning flexibility.
...and, of course, every campaign has their own set of specific conditions... which may or may not closely resemble the specific conditions found in other, similar campaigns run by and/or for the same rough group of people.
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...Those aren't standards of measurement, though, right? That is to say, a metric would need to account for a lot more than what you're measuring in scenarios that go beyond what you're looking at. I feel like it would be impossible for one person to be able to do all of that on their own and create a valuable decision.
A summon measured against a fireball has a different value if the creature is immune to fire, is a singular target, or is against a creature with extreme Reflex saves.
A summon measured against synthesia has a different value if the encounter consists of multiple creatures, or a target immune to mental effects, or even just an extreme Will once more.
A summon measured against even a singular Strike has a different value depending on the range of the opponent, movement types like flying or swimming, or even something as small as the ability to provide flanking.
I say all of this to say that you can't state the importance of these spells objectively. You can take passionate notes about what your idea of "quantifible, objective metrics" are, but that would be a disservice to the definition of the word objective and falls squarely in the realm of subjective - your opinion.
EDIT: And more to the point, metrics created and used exclusively by one person are not objective, they are subjective. You are essentially just creating a list of parameters that you, personally, find to be of value within a set of categories while discarding those that you don't value. That isn't objective.
I did not see.
No, they are objective because they use the same rules for everyone. That is why measuring combat rules provides a more objective analysis because those are the only rules that are objectively the same from table to table.
Exploration and Downtime can vary wildly from table to table in how a DM handles.
Combat encounters are run using a common ruleset. You can indeed measure the effectiveness of a
If you can only measure certain parts of a whole objectively, that doesn't turn measuring those parts into an objective measure of the whole. It just means you can't measure the whole thing objectively.
(Also, you can't measure "combat" as an objective whole either.)
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Also, the Sorcerer screwed hard. Magic Missile as a signature spell is a staple for any Occult/Arcane spellcaster.
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Force Barrage is one of the best spells in the game for sure and is way underrated by players.
Also, the Sorcerer screwed hard. Magic Missile as a signature spell is a staple for any Occult/Arcane spellcaster.It's decent at least. I believe the sorcerer took signature spell Soothe for their 1st.
Though Magic Missile might not have been better than shadow blast was, honestly. They're similar damage and shadow blast hits multiple targets.
Magic Missile 5 deals 31.5 damage with no save when Shadow Blast deals 22.5 damage with a save (using the best of Will or Reflex). So Shadow Blast competes with Magic Missile if you manage to hit more than 2 creatures. Also, you can use your lower spell slots with Magic Missile when you will cast Shadow Blast only a few times per day (I assume your PC was around level 10).
Shadow Blast is only interesting to exploit weaknesses. Besides that, it's really weak.
I pay attention to all aspects of the game. Only combat is objective with a ruleset that operates similarly across all tables.But combat is not objective. There are many questions you'll answer one way that others would answer another way. And these answers will create the subjectivity of your combat assesment.
Examples only focusing on damage:
- How much do you value multi target damage compared to single target damage?
- How much do you value focused damage (like Strikes using your actions) compared to unfocused damage (reactions targetting whatever triggers them)?
- How much do you value first round damage compared to damage dealt to the last remaining enemy no one cares about?
- How much do you value damage dealt during trivial encounters compared to damage dealt during extreme encounters?
- How do you handle overkill?Then we can add the fact that damage is not taking the same investment depending on characters. A Flurry Ranger will certainly use 100% of its actions towards damage when a caster will certainly have RK or healing duties obviously reducing the number of actions used to deal damage.
Then you have to take the player into account. I deal Fighter damage with my Alchemist. I'm obviously an outlier as I've never seen anyone considering Alchemist to be as much of a damage dealer than Fighter. So the difference in damage between 2 characters may not come from the class but from the build or from the tactical acumen of the player. And it can lead to extreme differences (I'm used to outdamage 2 to 1 and even 3 to 1 other casters with mine).
Also, how do you value non damaging actions? How much damage is Slowed 1? Tracking only damage is just a subset of combat, a significant one but very far from an encompassing one.
And ultimately you get this information in one group on a limited amount of games playing an extremely limited number of campaigns with a very limited number of PCs. None of this can be considered even remotely close to statistical...
Why do you keep telling me stuff that isn't true?
Combat is a measurable, objective way to measure performance. The rules are consistent from table to table barring house rules.
Which means, I can measure whether or not you made a good decision valuing AoE damage versus a single target debuff spell by the effect on performance in the group.
What you value doesn't matter. That's subjective. How it performs within the game math is objective. This can be measured and compared.
You subjectively saying, "I value AoE damage" does not change if that is a good choice in a given situation or a given number of situations.
Objective analysis of performance doesn't care about your values. You could value something and still have it underperform another choice which can be objectively measured.
Extreme example of this is if a fighter choses to be a dagger fighter using Power Attack versus a fighter using a maul with power attack. The fighter using the maul with power attack is going to perform better in the vast majority of situations. This is objectively measurable as superior performance.
Whether that fighter values that dagger more is irrelevant.
That is what folks like yourself...which surprises me...don't seem to accept in the this understanding of what objective is.
Combat can be objectively measured because the rules are mostly consistent. What you value is a subjective idea. How effective what you value is is objective.
You can sit at any table, make a choice about your character, we can objectively measure how effective that choice was combat.
I'm not sure why that is a hard idea to understand. I can only surmise that this resistance to measuring objective performance is a personal one based on a bias towards feelings over objectively measured performance.
It amuses that someone like yourself Super Bidi who uses ctrickings tool so extensively to do white room math to measure comparable combat performance is now trying to sell me that combat performance is subjective and not objectively measurable. Can't really have it both says.
You can choose an inferior option because you like it. But we'll know it's inferior. Performance is not based on how much fun you have. It's based on how well you do on objectively measurable metrics which do not change because a character enjoys something more.
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Magic Missile/Force Barrage is particularly good as a signature spell because you can just spam it as third actions for automatic extra damage in difficult fights.
However, in the case of fighting foes where your other spells are struggling to be effective, then just using 3 action magic missiles from your top 3 to 4 slots will probably be better than anything else you can do.
Oh, and there are also campaign differences. First, obviously, are houserules, and they can skew all sorts of things. Then there's the question of what kinds of encounters you're getting into. A campaign focused on single-encounter days with set-piece enemies that are level+2 or level+3 is going to see some major differences from one that runs 5-8 encounters per day and tends to have horde encounters where each enemy is at the level-1 or level-2 range.
Then there's the detail work. Prepared casters have an advantage when you can know more or less what you're going to fight at the beginning of the day. If your'e going in blind, then spontaneous casters are going to be better off. If you often have a moment or two to prepare and toss buffs before you bust down the door, then that's going to advantage certain builds a lot more than others. If you instead often find that you have time to prepare the room, then that's a different set of advantages. How restricted your battlefields tend to be, what kinds of enemies you tend to face, whether the battlefieds often have interestign features to exploit... a lot of this stuff matters.
...and, of course, there's the local meta. There are certain strategies that work well together, and if your group has one of those as its happy little rut, then the classes that contribute to those synergies are going to be more effective, and those that do not are going to be less effective. In a different place, with a different set of default strategies, you could see a very different set of classes and/or builds getting a chance to shine.
Oh, and of course there are differences that are much more class-specific. Like... the investigator really struggles by default... but if they can consistently set things up so that they're pursuing a viable lead every time they get into a fight, then they get a *lot* stronger. Wizards and Witches are going to care about how many new and more interesting spell scrolls show up in treasure packets. If you have...
Already mentioned house rules.
Doesn't change character choices in combat can be objectively measured performance.
I can walk into any person's game barring house rules and outperform bya good measure anyone that makes subjectively driven performance choices. I can do this at any table. So can anyone who measures this game objectively for performance.
Anyone who even mildly tries knows the best spells to take, the best weapons to use, the best builds. They know these will outperform weaker builds across tables regardless of subjective feelings on what you value.
I always wonder why some are so resistant this idea of objectively measurable performance. They confuse it with personal choice. It has nothing to do with that. It as simple knowing slow and synesthesia will be the best choice in the vast majority of situations for debuffing and achieving maximum combat power within a group.
All this stuff in these games is based on measurable math. If you want to choose inferior options, you can do it. If you have fun having doing it, then have at it.
But don't pretend that someone showing at your table who understands how to make a powerful character in PF2 is somehow using "impossible to measure" magic to objectively figure out the best options in combat. That's just bunk.
This game has best options options for performance. They are measurable and do not change from table to table absent house rules or some specific variable which makes some other choice more valuable, which is also measurable.
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You know, I generally enjoy spontaneous casting, but man does it bite for utility. Having to spend 150 gp on a scroll of sending or remove curse/cleanse affliction SUCKS, especially when a prepared caster does it for free. I'm banging my head against the wall because our witch player decided they were sick of their PC at the exact moment we needed those spells and my oracle has better things to spend coin on.