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Before rank 3 spells you don't have good AoE/multitarget spells
Kineticist do.
Shorter range than the higher level spells, but there is a 60' line, 30' cone, and a 30' path available at level 1.
At higher levels, blaster casters probably do a bit better.
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And it is not like proper blasting is that effective at low levels either, it is also a mid to high level thing for the most part. Before rank 3 spells you don't have good AoE/multitarget spells besides Scorching Ray, and at levels 5 and 6 casters lagging behind in their spell DC hurts quite a bit. Before that we are looking at Magic Missile for bosses, Scorching Ray for mobs and that's kind of it. That's alright, but it is nothing too impressive either, specially considering how in levels 1 to 4 Runic Weapon and Heal are as dominant as they are.
Levels 1-4 are hard for most casters. Whatever you want to do, be it blasting, buffing, debuffing, etc... it will be rather weak. Only healing is efficient and it tends to be the center of my contribution if I don't play an Arcane caster. Also, many cantrips deal ok damage and as such you can "blast" with them.
There are still some staples, like Magic Missile and especially Sudden Bolt (if the GM is ok with it). Scorching Ray, Sudden Blight and Spiritual Weapon are not tremendous but they can help, too. It's really at level 5 that you get the good stuff. The reduced DC is not that important as it ends up being a limited reduction of damage (roughly 15%) due to half damage on failure. Also, at these levels, mooks tend to have a significant reduction of hit points and as such blasting is extremely satisfying (even if not at the top of its game).
I had been under the impression that the best thing you could do offensively for the party at those first few levels is cast Runic Weapon on the fighter until either your party finds the runes or you get fireball.
This has recently become my first choice for my spellcasting characters in PFS. Not only does it work terrifically well, but it helps making new friends much easier too. I absolutely love seeing their expressions light up with joy when they realize just how much damage we did on a juiced up critical hit.
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it helps making new friends much easier too.
Buffing and healing (and sometimes debuffing) get good reactions from teammates, which sometimes generate weird situations where everyone wants to do it. I play my Barbarian in a PbP adventure right now, he is completely underleveled (level 3 against level 7-8 opponents) so he gets obliterated every time and I have 2-3 players lining up to heal him. And they really don't understand when I tell them to blast instead, as I have no way to affect enemies with 4 more levels so it's wasted resources/actions to heal me.
Too much positive reinforcement is not always a good thing. The "support caster" should definitely be a thing, but it becomes annoying when it's the default assumption.
it helps making new friends much easier too.Buffing and healing (and sometimes debuffing) get good reactions from teammates, which sometimes generate weird situations where everyone wants to do it. I play my Barbarian in a PbP adventure right now, he is completely underleveled (level 3 against level 7-8 opponents) so he gets obliterated every time and I have 2-3 players lining up to heal him. And they really don't understand when I tell them to blast instead, as I have no way to affect enemies with 4 more levels so it's wasted resources/actions to heal me.
Too much positive reinforcement is not always a good thing. The "support caster" should definitely be a thing, but it becomes annoying when it's the default assumption.
One of my fellow players was exactly there a year and a half or so ago. She was overly defensive in playstyle (she prepared low level Soothes a lot and used them to raise us as soon as we fell down, causing us to go down again instantly due to the low health and stack wounded over and over), to the point it almost caused a TPK a few times. She has learned since then than sometimes just killing the enemies is the best way to keep your party alive.
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She has learned since then than sometimes just killing the enemies is the best way to keep your party alive.
Definitely. Damage is the most basic and expected contribution of any character. If you can't deal damage this is a serious burden for the party.
Because your companions will not always be in a position where they can deal damage. And if they can't, you need to take over. Considering that tough fights are typically those where some PCs can't act fully, being purely supportive can get the party killed.
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The op asked about level 12+, so I don’t think they are worried about the low level blasting situation, but I do have a lot of experience as a player and a GM with low level blasting, so I kinda want to address it.
First, again, every table is different and, as Ravingdork points out, making friends is usually a better result of playing a game then doing .16 more average damage than other player’s characters over the course of 100 encounters…especially as you won’t play 100 encounters with one character at level 1 anyway. You are probably going to play 6 to 8 encounters tops as a level 1 character, so luck tends to play a huge role in how you will personally feel about your level 1 experience. Some players really love that and others hate it and that can wildly skew perspectives on “best ways to play.” In other words, play whatever style of game makes you happy, and if a style you thought was going to work out well is not, then start looking for other ways to play, or talk to your GM about what is frustrating you.
Ok, with that big disclaimer out of the way: the remastered low level casting experience is different than the pre -remastered one. Electric arc was so consistently good in original PF2, that there were incredibly few situations where a caster needed anything more than a cantrip and either a weapon or a one action focus spell to have consistent high value rounds at level 1, making rank 1 spells at level 1 not really necessary for blasting. But even then I saw hydraulic push result in many memorable high damage and strong effect on encounter outcome experiences for players willing to throw it out often against single enemy encounters…I’ve also seen it miss entirely, so I get why the “no damage on a success” leaves it as a spell many players won’t touch. How often your GM hands out hero points, how often your GM runs encounters designed around allowing forced movement to be a big deal (and whether the whole party is good at capitalizing on i is t), and how often your party will rest at level one all swing the value of hydraulic push wildly one way or another at the table. It can really be an effective way to make a big impact on an encounter though. Everyone will remember the time you roll a natural 20 on your spell attack roll with this spell because it will be in an early round of an encounter against a difficult foe and you are rolling enough dice that damage will consistently be in that high 10s to low 20 range that feels very impactful at level 1. Even when you just hit with it your damage will probably be around 10, which is very good damage out put for a caster against a single target without having triggered a weakness.
But single targets often have high AC. So unless you are fighting an ooze (seriously, hydraulic push is fantastic against oozes), the miss chance is high enough that a lot of players will have bad experiences trying to spam hydraulic push in difficult encounters, so many (understandably) don’t even try. It is a gambler’s spell.
On the other end, hating risk, many level 1 casters will try to go with something like magic weapon: an accuracy and damage bonus that lasts 1 minute feels like a very sure thing. And it can be a lot of extra damage per spell! A fight that goes 6+ rounds will likely see magic weapon obliterate the damage potential of hydraulic push, especially when cast on a d10 or d12 weapon being used to make reaction attacks as well as regular attacks, for sure. But many encounters don’t last 4 rounds and to really be effective casting magic weapon in an encounter already in progress, you need to cast it on round 1 (the most important round) and you need to be adjacent to your teammate with the highest impact weapon. All that means you either need to go first or have a moderate amount of teamwork already going with this level 1 party. Often, I see parties that try to make this work, but end up spending 2 characters’ first round doing nothing to really change the fight or spending 6 actions to get 1 attack in with magic weapon and that can be a big disaster. Especially if the solo enemy manages to retaliate by dropping the character with the magic weapon. This isn’t to say it is a bad spell, but it is really just a different kind of gambling that is more like heart or spades than roulette or poker. I have seen magic weapon be devastatingly effective when cast as a pre- buff and when cast on an encounter that was obviously cascading into another encounter, but I have also seen it used to make one attack that missed, and then the party rushed into a sever encounter missing hp and focus points because “magic weapon still has 5 rounds on it.” The magic weapon can be double bladed.
Force barrage/magic missile is probably the safest and most consistent extra damage leans 1 spell to have on hand in abundance because it has 1 and 3 action options that can let a caster really maximize damage output. It will rarely wow, but its consistency and flexibility is not to be underestimated. It buries thunderstrike as a spell to cast at 1st or 2nd level.