Which do you consider the better Spellcaster class? Which benefits does one have over the other and why should I know Psychic over Sorcerer or Sorcerer over Psychic.
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Hard to say that one is better than the other. They are too different. It will be a matter of preference and character design goals on which one to go with.
Sorcerer has more spell slot spells and relies on those for a lot of its usefulness. Also, if you want anything other than Occult spells, Sorcerer can do that where Psychic can't.
Psychic has more and better focus spells. Sorcerer is a bit hit or miss on whether the focus spells that you get are going to be useful. Also Sorcerer has their choice of focus spell tied to a lot of other things too - you may have to make a hard choice when choosing your bloodline based on the focus spells that you get or the spell tradition that you get.
As for flavor of the resulting character: Psychic has more built-in lore and character concept in the mechanics. Sorcerer is more open to interpretation. Which one is better depends on how creative you feel and what character you are creating.
To put it in broad terms: Sorcerer is better at casting leveled spells (more spells in its repertoire, essentially double the spell slots per day, Blood Magic effects) while Psychic is better at casting cantrips (unique psi cantrips, amps, Unleash Psyche's damage bonus).
There's nuance to be had in regards to other areas, of course; sorcerers can pick spell lists other than Occult, and both classes have their own unique array of class feats. But that's the general gist.
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I think The Psychic is a very good class, with plenty of depth and strong options.
But from a class on class perspective, it has to be the Sorcerer.
I admit, I am of the controversial opinion that Sorcerers are actually too powerful and have too much stuffed in them compared to other casters.
Sorcerers are 4 slot-3 focus casters, giving them the largest overall arsenal before specific builds are considered. As a Pick-a-List caster they also have the most range a caster can have. Spontaneous casting is very good in PF2, thanks to Signature spells. Charisma is probably the best mental stat a caster can key off thanks to its range of save-impacting actions and feats. These last two points are true for the Psychic as well, but with the more limited spell slots and the ability to key off Int as well, a Psychic can make themselves less optimal much easier through their choices.
Arcane Sorcerers can overcome the key limitation of Spontaneous casters, in that they have the limited ability to prepare some spells.
Primal Sorcerers can have very strong blasting and healing options at the same time without any real trade off.
Bloodlines have a suprising amount of meaningful stuff to them, with Blood Magic often being a somewhat unique effect. They're not all equal, and some are definitely much better than others, but you have a lot of options overall to get the list / vibe you want.
I think they are also set to see additional improvements with Player Core 2.
They're just a more stacked class than the Psychic.
Do they make the Psychic obsolete? Not at all! A Sorcerer can't touch the Psychic where it lives, in that the Psychic has powerful and unique cantrips that let it work in its space extremely well.
But the Psychic just can't have the sheer range and depth of the Sorcerer.
These are classes that have a pretty large difference within class depending on choices. Hard to say which is better but what are considered the best options right now? How do the best in class options compare to eachother?
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I've played both and Sorcerer wins, hands down.
Psychic is not really powerful, Unleash Psyche really cripples you any time the combat lasts more than a few rounds (which means tough fights).
Sorcerer on the other hand is among the top casters in the game.
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Sorcerer is probably stronger overall but I really love the Psychic. My Infinite Eye + TK Rend Psychic is arguably the stronger character I've seen in play so far. Amped Guidance is the nuts.
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I've played both and Sorcerer wins, hands down.
Psychic is not really powerful, Unleash Psyche really cripples you any time the combat lasts more than a few rounds (which means tough fights).
Sorcerer on the other hand is among the top casters in the game.
No...it doesn't "cripple" you.
I've played my Psychic for 6 levels, unleashed, and had the fight go extra rounds, and only once was I not able to get my spell off, but was still able to move at full speed.I realize you like to use hyperbole, but you're simply wrong.
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Sorcerer plus the Psychic Dedication to boost their Focus Pool and give them empowered Cantrips is hard to pass up for anyone who doesn't already have something else specific in mind when it comes to trying to spend your Class Feats efficiently. That is in large part because the first few mandatory MCA PSY Feats you have to get to escape the Archetype for another are just leagues ahead of options that any other Archetype offers.
No...it doesn't "cripple" you.
20% chance to fail your spells and -1 to all DCs and attack rolls... call that however you want but I think "cripple" will be used by more than just me.
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No...it doesn't "cripple" you.20% chance to fail your spells and -1 to all DCs and attack rolls... call that however you want but I think "cripple" will be used by more than just me.
Yeah. That stupefy two rounds is pretty brutal. Makes Unleash Psyche more situation specific than something you commonly use.
Some of their cantrips are really good. If you use those well, can be fun.
Definitely not a class for long fights. Hard for Paizo to make a class relying on focus points that require downtime to replenish to do well in some of the long, drawn out fights some of us like to run.
I have one DM who loves to run wave attacks with no to minimal downtime. He does this encounter after encounter. It's almost impossible to play a focus point class with this type of DM. Even the 1 minute rage barbarian is hard to play with wave attacks.
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I've played both and Sorcerer wins, hands down.
Psychic is not really powerful, Unleash Psyche really cripples you any time the combat lasts more than a few rounds (which means tough fights).
Sorcerer on the other hand is among the top casters in the game.
I gave my Psychic Dark Persona's Presence -- that means I only Unleash Psyche in specific tactical situations, so I don't nerf my party. (But it's fantastic when I do.)
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Arcane Sorcerers can overcome the key limitation of Spontaneous casters, in that they have the limited ability to prepare some spells.
Primal Sorcerers can have very strong blasting and healing options at the same time without any real trade off.
Sorcerer is my prefered caster. Primarily because I prefer the flexibility of spontanteous and the Charisma skills are just more useful and fun.
But it goes both ways now. Recall Knowledge has been clarified in a way that makes it useful. Wizards have ways of swapping spells during the adventuring day. So in a real sense prepared casters can overcome their key limitation too.But the Psychic just can't have the sheer range and depth of the Sorcerer.
The Psychic minds are different and good. They don't all get played much though, and there just aren't as many of them as there are bloodlines. For me the difference is that the Psychic better powers are their focus point powers and those are poachable. Top level spell slots aren't.
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No...it doesn't "cripple" you.20% chance to fail your spells and -1 to all DCs and attack rolls... call that however you want but I think "cripple" will be used by more than just me.
Actually, it's 30% since you're Stupefied 2. But you're still much more likely to succeed.
Also, in most of the longer fights I've experienced, there are multiple opponents, many of which are lower level, so you're more likely to succeed . Just because I can't affect the BBEG, doesn't mean I can't contribute.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah. That stupefy two rounds is pretty brutal. Makes Unleash Psyche more situation specific than something you commonly use.No...it doesn't "cripple" you.20% chance to fail your spells and -1 to all DCs and attack rolls... call that however you want but I think "cripple" will be used by more than just me.
I would agree with that. That is fair.
Fortunately Unleash Psyche is only one tool in the box. So sort of like Arcane Cascade - if there is a reason that you don't want to use it in a particular situation, it is fine to use other tools instead.
And it makes Unleash Psyche a much more interesting class feature than something that is auto-used like Rage or Hunt Prey - the ones that people criticize as just being action taxes.
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Actually, it's 30% since you're Stupefied 2. But you're still much more likely to succeed.
After Unleash Psyche ends, the Psychic is Stupefied 1. That condition lasts for 2 rounds.
The Psychic would need to succeed at a flat check with DC 6 since that is 5 + the stupefied value. So 1-5 would fail, which is 25%.
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I'm going to debate a little here!
Today the sorcerer is much better, especially since the Remaster and RoE killed the psychic!
Before Remaster and Kineticist Psychic was the option for spellcasters who didn't want to rely too much on daily resources and wanted to be a strong blaster.
However, after the remaster released the complete recovery of focus points and made it easier to access their increase, the psychic lost one of its main advantages, which was being able to use its focus spells as its main resource from level 1. Now it is much easier to other classes gather focus points and use them as their main resource without being restricted to having to consume high level feats to completely refocus them, this especially benefited the druid, the sorcerer and the cleric, who have great options for focus spells and can easily gather 3 focus points at lower levels (curiously, the sorcerer has the most difficulty with this).
Additionally, the sorcerer has bloodmagic that interacts with his focus spells, making them even more powerful. Adding to this, it has the largest number of spellslots that any spellcaster can have with the freedom of being able to cast the spells it has in its repertoire with much more freedom than other classes (such as the wizard) to use all of his spell slots.
Psychic in turn has "only" Unleash Psyche, but it is very limited and generates very bad pressure so that the Psychic only uses offensive spells and ends up being very punishing when it is on cooldown.
My experience playing a lot with Psychic is that once you use Unleash you put yourself in a situation where you don't want to do anything other than use damaging spells to take advantage of the Unleash bonus, making it frustrating to have to stop your attacks to heal, support or even to Stride. You simply have to use all 3 of your actions to attack and take advantage of your 2 rounds of Unleash before it ends, and when it ends it gets worse, because you don't want to risk losing a cast from your few spell slots due to a 25% failure due stupefied 1 per 2 rounds of Unleash cooldown.
To top it all off, today we know that the sorcerer will gain more benefits from bloodmagic (which will probably affect his focus spells as well) and that the Oracle, today the class that would compete with the psychic in terms of having focus spells naturally , will also be improved, which should leave the psychic even more sidelined (which is also why I advocate the creation of a PC3 reviewing the rest of the classes).
In the current situation, the psychic is increasingly entering the situation of the alchemist, that is, the class that is worth more for the archetype than for itself.
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since the Remaster and RoE killed the psychic!
Before Remaster and Kineticist Psychic was the option for spellcasters who didn't want to rely too much on daily resources and wanted to be a strong blaster.
However, after the remaster released the complete recovery of focus points and made it easier to access their increase, the psychic lost one of its main advantages, which was being able to use its focus spells as its main resource from level 1. Now it is much easier to other classes gather focus points and use them as their main resource without being restricted to having to consume high level feats to completely refocus them, this especially benefited the druid, the sorcerer and the cleric, who have great options for focus spells and can easily gather 3 focus points at lower levels
The Oracle has the same problem as the Psychic though not to the same extent - in that faster recovery of focus points was one of its features. We are going to see the remastered version of that soon.
In the mean time I think we should be compensating Psychics. None of my players will take a single class Psychic. I'd suggest that Bard spell slots ie an extra spell slot at every level would very reasonable, till we get an offical solution.
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And it makes Unleash Psyche a much more interesting class feature than something that is auto-used like Rage or Hunt Prey - the ones that people criticize as just being action taxes.
Does it actually?
A psychic is still probably going to unleash for the damage, they're just going to feel really bad if a fight lasts 1 round or 4-6 rounds. I'm not sure how interesting "sometimes you're just worse" actually is in practice.
I agree. I play as Psychic from level 1-15 and many times the Unleash was really fun and in many others was frustrating. It was a pretty diferente experience than it was as I played as a barbarian or a ranger.
Barbarian only falls in frustration when they fall unconscious and looses their rage while Rangers IMO many people overrate their action economy cost but in practice the action compression feats usually reduces any action economy frustration a lot and are rare the situations where I was fighting a high enough number of opponents thats forces me to use many actions to Hunt Prey and I usually just focus into the stronger/leaders instead while my allies deal with the "minions".
But the Unleash was different. When the encounter was short and good to allow me to enter in my full attack mode it was fantastic if the encounter endures to the end of 3rd round I already made a very good damage and I could enter in my "cooldown" mode only using cantrips. But when this wasn't the case the Unleash becomes an undesired thing as long it doesn't helps significantly with Soothes and Buffs/Debuffs and it's cooldown only risks to makes the things worse.
In the mean time I think we should be compensating Psychics. None of my players will take a single class Psychic. I'd suggest that Bard spell slots ie an extra spell slot at every level would very reasonable, till we get an offical solution.
IMO there are 3 things that need to be done the improve the Psychic to a more competitive and fun situation:
This would put psychic again in a competitive condition with Sorcerers with sorcerers having more spell slots, more tradition flexibility, high damage output in first round due Dangerous Sorcery and Bloodline Magic while the Psychic would end with more damage output starting from second round, useful psyche abilities, more focus spells and points from level 1, more focus points spells usage due Strain Mind and Brain Drain.
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1min Unleash AND more spell-slots AND no penalty? Sounds excessive.
Sorcerers with sorcerers having more spell slots
In return Sorcerers have worse focus spells; some are completely worthless, especially the melee ones (e.g. Dragon #1) or utterly unusable (Shadow #1).
At the same time Psychics can mix & match their focus spells, having a huge selection of different cantrips, Amps, and Parallel Breakthrough.
more tradition flexibility
This isn't flexibility. Flexibility is what a single character can do. But a single Sorcerer can only have 1 tradition; your divine Angelic Sorcerer doesn't gain any benefit from the fact that he could have chosen the arcane Draconic bloodline instead.
This is merely different possible builds, just like Psychics have their different options from among casting stat INT/CHA, conscious mind & subconscious mind.
high damage output in first round due Dangerous Sorcery and Bloodline Magic
That's only the case for Elemental Sorcerers, which are the only good blaster Sorcerers. All other Sorcerer bloodlines have to follow the general trend for casters: being generalists.
Most blood magic effects are weak or push a Sorcerer into a specific direction; e.g. the divine bloodlines don't make for good blasters at all, unless your campaign is all against undead. I bet Dangerous Sorcery is more often grabbed by non-Sorcerers (e.g. Flame/Tempest Oracles) via archetype than taken by Sorcerers themselves, because most Sorcerers are just not that much focused on blasting; even the other primal Sorcerers - Fey, Nymph, Phoenix - are usually non-blasters or generalists with some blasting.
The Psychic is a primary blaster class however, while the Sorcerer is not. Psychics also don't have to worry much about friendly fire, while the primal bloodline Sorcerers can't get a Fireball or Cone of Cold off when everyone's cuddled up in melee & flanking exercises.
I think you should try playing a few different Sorcerer bloodlines to see that you're comparing apples to oranges. The classes are quite different, and your ideas definitely run counter to that.
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Psychic is a class that could use a remaster with the new focus point rules.
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But it goes both ways now. Recall Knowledge has been clarified in a way that makes it useful.
I feel that RK has become fairly democratized as this edition has gone on. We have a growing roster of classes that are straight-up good at it, and several others with strong options.
I generally wouldn't put RK in the same category as save-impacting abilities. Both work great in tandem, but potentially messing with an enemies actual numbers can move the needle more.
Wizards have ways of swapping spells during the adventuring day. So in a real sense prepared casters can overcome their key limitation too.
I actually don't agree with your premise here. I don't think a key limitation of a prepared caster is mid-day spell swapping, its certainly something they generally can't do, but the ability to just come back the next day means its not a hard limitation. Being able change mid-day just moves around the time restriction on something which is already a core part of the kit.
Sorcerers being able to change the spells they can cast is a much more valuable sort of feature. Being able to learn and prepare additional spells on a daily basis is just something spontaneous casters just can't generally do.
They can do it on a weekly basis via the retraining rules.
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Conscious Minds that don't get a blasting cantrip can (and should) use Parallel Breakthrough at 6 to get one.
And it makes Unleash Psyche a much more interesting class feature than something that is auto-used like Rage or Hunt Prey - the ones that people criticize as just being action taxes.Does it actually?
A psychic is still probably going to unleash for the damage, they're just going to feel really bad if a fight lasts 1 round or 4-6 rounds. I'm not sure how interesting "sometimes you're just worse" actually is in practice.
This sounds like we have a mismatch on the definition of 'interesting'.
I am meaning that it is not repetitive and automatic. That there are tradeoffs to consider.
It feels like you are meaning 'interesting' as 'fun', 'powerful', and 'entertaining' - something that only has benefits and no drawbacks.
So yes, "sometimes you're just worse" is exactly my meaning of 'interesting'. Because sometimes you are also just better. Sometimes the risk pays off and you can help finish off a fight sooner. Sometimes the fight doesn't finish as soon as you hoped and now you have to either risk casting spells that may fail, or find something else to do for a couple of rounds.
I get the impression you are comparing the best psychics to the worst sorcerers. If someone wants to blast with a sorcerer, they aren't likely to pick a bloodline that doesn't help that build.
I was comparing the worst blaster Psychics to the best blaster Sorcerers:
These suggestions are absolutely ridiculous. "Unleashed Psyche for 1 min without penalty" turns this into a permanent fixture of the Psychic with the biggest bonus to damage ever seen in the system: "When you cast a damaging spell, you gain a status bonus to its damage equal to double the spell's level."
For comparison, this is far superior than Dangerous Sorcery + Elemental Sorcerer's bloodmagic COMBINED, as Dangerous Sorcery works only with spell-slot spells (not focus spells, not cantrips, not innate spells), and that bloodmagic works only with exactly 1 type of damage (fire or bludgeoning) and only with exactly 3 spells in the entire game: Breathe Fire (rank 1, Burning Hands), Fireball (rank 3), and Wrathful Storm (rank 9, Storm of Vengeance).
The Psychic would not just leave every Sorcerer in the dust with that amount of damage to EVERY blast he casts (from focus spells even), and with every damage type, but this would also be a CORE class feature. The Psychic could still go for any other build, like an Infinite Eye supporter, and yet blast better than a specialized blaster Sorcerer.
Oh, and then let's look at the next part of that suggestion: "adding more spell-slots to the Psychic"... yeah...
You were supposed to unleash your psyche, not lose your mind. =P
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And it makes Unleash Psyche a much more interesting class feature than something that is auto-used like Rage or Hunt Prey - the ones that people criticize as just being action taxes.Does it actually?
A psychic is still probably going to unleash for the damage, they're just going to feel really bad if a fight lasts 1 round or 4-6 rounds. I'm not sure how interesting "sometimes you're just worse" actually is in practice.
This sounds like we have a mismatch on the definition of 'interesting'.
I am meaning that it is not repetitive and automatic. That there are tradeoffs to consider.
It feels like you are meaning 'interesting' as 'fun', 'powerful', and 'entertaining' - something that only has benefits and no drawbacks.
So yes, "sometimes you're just worse" is exactly my meaning of 'interesting'. Because sometimes you are also just better. Sometimes the risk pays off and you can help finish off a fight sooner. Sometimes the fight doesn't finish as soon as you hoped and now you have to either risk casting spells that may fail, or find something else to do for a couple of rounds.
Trade offs can be interesting, but that's based on those tradeoffs being meaningful to gameplay, which is not something I've really seen with the psychic in play. How often is Unleash's mechanics leading to psychics meaningfully changing how they play the game and how much is it just making them kind of less powerful in very short or longer than normal combats?
From my experience it's bee much more of the latter and less of the former.
I get the impression you are comparing the best psychics to the worst sorcerers. If someone wants to blast with a sorcerer, they aren't likely to pick a bloodline that doesn't help that build.I was comparing the worst blaster Psychics to the best blaster Sorcerers:
These suggestions are absolutely ridiculous. "Unleashed Psyche for 1 min without penalty" turns this into a permanent fixture of the Psychic with the biggest bonus to damage ever seen in the system: "When you cast a damaging spell, you gain a status bonus to its damage equal to double the spell's level."
For comparison, this is far superior than Dangerous Sorcery + Elemental Sorcerer's bloodmagic COMBINED, as Dangerous Sorcery works only with spell-slot spells (not focus spells, not cantrips, not innate spells), and that bloodmagic works only with exactly 1 type of damage (fire or bludgeoning) and only with exactly 3 spells in the entire game: Breathe Fire (rank 1, Burning Hands), Fireball (rank 3), and Wrathful Storm (rank 9, Storm of Vengeance).
Yet you don't become useless with 25% chance of failure in your spellcasting and unable to unleash 2 rounds after the unleash effects gone. Also sorcerers aren't press to use dmg spells while in unleash because its duration is too low and can get their benefit since the round 1.
Also sorcerers have the double of spell slots and its focus spells can benefit from bloodmagic bonuses too. Some people also uses Burn It! to get 3/4 of the bonus+extra damage for focus spells too, it's not so strong as a bloodmagic + dangerous but allow the sorcerer to also save some spell slots if wants using its focus spells.
Also Elemental is not the only bloodline that gives extra damage. Diabolic, Phoenix, Psychopomp and Undead bloodline does too. So it's not restricted just 3 spells and even non-dmg spell can do the extra damage if it targets an enemy.
As someone who has played more than one sorcerer to high levels, it's just stupid how many spells they get.
I LOVE it!
Sorcerer Bloodline Spells 3 Focus Points, DC 38, attack +28; 9th elemental blast, elemental motion, elemental toss
Innate Spells meld into stone
Major Staff of Earth
Cantrip scatter scree
1st pummeling rubble
2nd expeditious excavation, pummeling rubble
3rd earthbind, shifting sand
4th expeditious excavation, shape stone, spike stones
5th blazing fissure, wall of stone
I am meaning that it is not repetitive and automatic. That there are tradeoffs to consider.
I'm playing both a Psychic and a Barbarian and my Psychic Unleashes more than my Barbarian Rages.
I'm the opposite I used/saw way more Rage than Unleash. When I (and my players) play as barbarian we almost always rage in the first turn and goes to smash. My Barbarian have little reason to no rage soon as possible and then go to smash their enemies with all they have.
For other side many times I end encounters with my psychic without Unleash when I need/want to focus in doing non-instant-damage spells.
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I'm the opposite I used/saw way more Rage than Unleash. When I (and my players) play as barbarian we almost always rage in the first turn and goes to smash. My Barbarian have little reason to no rage soon as possible and then go to smash their enemies with all they have.
I agree that most players do that, but it's not really the best course of action even from a pure damage perspective. If you rage during turn one you make a single attack as in general you'll also need to move when attacking twice without Rage would output more damage, letting you Rage during round 2 and only lose a third attack because of that. Also, you don't immediately lose AC so you both deal more damage, and as such attract more attention, and are more tanky during turn one. It also allows you to see what's coming in case you absolutely need to review your course of action (classical case is waiting to know if the enemy has a resistance to your extra rage damage so you don't rage for nothing).
Very often, always raging at round 1 with a Barbarian is a weak move. It prevents you from adapting your course of action and it isn't optimized at all.
I agree that if you don't plan on using instant-damage spells with a Psychic there's no point in Unleashing. But as Psychic's strength is instant-damage, it should be something quite rare. Also, you have turn 1 to cast your buff/debuff/control spells, at turn 2, you should move to your basic blasting routine. And if you don't really want to blast with your Psychic, then I'm questionning the choice of class. Occult Sorcerer with Psychic Dedication is much more fitting for a Psychic who doesn't want to specialize in blasting.
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I am meaning that it is not repetitive and automatic. That there are tradeoffs to consider.I'm playing both a Psychic and a Barbarian and my Psychic Unleashes more than my Barbarian Rages.
This feels like you are nitpicking the example rather than actually engaging with what the point I am making.
'Not optimal' regarding a Barbarian using Rage on their first turn is a tangled mess that I don't think is relevant. The point is that it facilitates a character that is very simple to play. One that can feel very repetitive and boring if the player is instead looking for a character that requires more complex strategy and decision making.
Perhaps a better way of phrasing the example would be: Does any Barbarian player question whether they should use Rage as early as possible during a battle or not?
At level 12, Blessed Denial from Blessed One really helps with the stupified.
At level 12, Blessed Denial from Blessed One really helps with the stupified.
Mental Balm at level 2 can also be used.
Does any Barbarian player question whether they should use Rage as early as possible during a battle or not?
I do but I agree not many players do.
But I think it has less to do with mechanics but with how players view their character. A lot of Barbarian players don't want to think when playing, on the other hand you rarely play a caster when you don't want to think.
And I stick to my previous point: If you don't Unleash most of the time then a Sorcerer with Psychic Dedication would certainly be a more fitting choice. Besides Unleash Psyche, the Psychic class doesn't provide much that can't be poached through the Dedication.
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Sorc with psy dedication neither gets access to the higher level Amps/unique cantrips nor can he be made with Int primary, both of which are very important differences.
That's why I said it "would certainly be a more fitting choice" and not it is a more fitting choice. There are still a few reasons outside Unleash Psyche to go for a Psychic, but I think it's the main selling point to it. For me, Unleash Psyche is like Ranger's Edge, you can choose to play a Ranger for something else, but it'll be the main selling point for most players.
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I am meaning that it is not repetitive and automatic. That there are tradeoffs to consider.I'm playing both a Psychic and a Barbarian and my Psychic Unleashes more than my Barbarian Rages.This feels like you are nitpicking the example rather than actually engaging with what the point I am making.
'Not optimal' regarding a Barbarian using Rage on their first turn is a tangled mess that I don't think is relevant. The point is that it facilitates a character that is very simple to play. One that can feel very repetitive and boring if the player is instead looking for a character that requires more complex strategy and decision making.
Perhaps a better way of phrasing the example would be: Does any Barbarian player question whether they should use Rage as early as possible during a battle or not?
Playing an Animal Barbarian, I certainly do.
Not being able to use ranged attacks can just leave you completely out of a fight. Which is something I do not wish on any Barbarian.
Sorc with psy dedication neither gets access to the higher level Amps/unique cantrips nor can he be made with Int primary, both of which are very important differences.That's why I said it "would certainly be a more fitting choice" and not it is a more fitting choice. There are still a few reasons outside Unleash Psyche to go for a Psychic, but I think it's the main selling point to it. For me, Unleash Psyche is like Ranger's Edge, you can choose to play a Ranger for something else, but it'll be the main selling point for most players.As I said earlier, in my playthrough, I did use Unleash, just that it wasn't the real focus of the build. Either unleashing on round 3-4 which was my average to clean up things with EA, or the occasional T2 true strike amp TK too snipe a threat that the rest of the group would struggle.
Unleash imo is only a tool in psychics arsenal, and not something you blindly do on T2. The downside on later turns is significant enough that you want to guestimate in each combat how long it will last and time it with that.
That's very much unlike stuff like Rage where you want to rage as soon as you can reliably maximize damage, which will always be T1/2 without any other considerations.
It's very much down to party role. Sometimes you're there to be the magic barbarian. You may often be better off, as the only AOE character, to Unleash early so the party can pick off a few targets early and then have you sit out the clean-up.
It's often good to delay the Unleash, but the fact that your Psyche abilities like Psi Burst are locked behind the Unleash is particularly annoying.
Unleash imo is only a tool in psychics arsenal, and not something you blindly do on T2. The downside on later turns is significant enough that you want to guestimate in each combat how long it will last and time it with that.
Unless you're fighting a solo enemy, the guestimation is simple: ASAP. The more you wait and the less impactful your Unleashing will be. So you trade an efficient Unleash with an annoying Stupefied for a less impactful Unleash with no downside. Potato, potahto.
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Yet you don't become useless with 25% chance of failure in your spellcasting and unable to unleash 2 rounds after the unleash effects gone. Also sorcerers aren't press to use dmg spells while in unleash because its duration is too low and can get their benefit since the round 1.
If all you can do is use spells in round 4 of combat, then you need to learn to play better. The first 3 rounds are the most crucial. You have skills to use and can integrate other abilities into your set. Playing a Psychic, or any caster even, as a pure CAST SPELL, CAST SPELL, CAST SPELL, CAST SPELL machine is a newbie mistake.
Also sorcerers have the double of spell slots and its focus spells can benefit from bloodmagic bonuses too.
According to you you want to remove that difference in spell-slots as well.
Some people also uses Burn It! to get 3/4 of the bonus+extra damage for focus spells too, it's not so strong as a bloodmagic + dangerous but allow the sorcerer to also save some spell slots if wants using its focus spells.
Maybe some people do, but that is ridiculously stupid. It may look good at first, but the math on that sucks hard: Burn It gives you a status bonus to damage equal to half the spell's rank, i.e. a quarter of your level. That's a +1 damage in total; only when you cast 4th-level spells at level 7 will you get a +2 damage. That doesn't amount to much at all and it doesn't stack with Dangerous Sorcery, as that gives a status bonus as well. Going for Burn It just so your cantrips and focus spells deal 1 or 2 more damage?
Compare that to your suggestion of giving a Psychic a quasi-permanent bonus equal to FOUR times the power of Burn It, and working with all spells, for free.
Also Elemental is not the only bloodline that gives extra damage. Diabolic, Phoenix, Psychopomp and Undead bloodline does too. So it's not restricted just 3 spells and even non-dmg spell can do the extra damage if it targets an enemy.
You were talking about the Elemental Sorcerer. But yes, by all means, look at those bloodlines and see which spells are empowered by their blood magic's bonus to damge.
The Diabolic bloodline has these spells working with it: Hellfire Plume, Floating Flame, and Divine Decree, but oh, none of those spells work with Dangerous Sorcery. There's only a single spell that works with bloodmagic and Dangerous Sorcery, the 9th-rank spell Falling Stars, so yeah, once the Diabolic Sorcerer made it to level 17 he can finally enjoy that greatly coveted bonus damage of both abilities...
The Phoenix Sorcerer has twice as many spells working with his bloodmagic & Dangerous Sorcery than even the Elemental Sorcerer! Yet it's not known as the better blaster? So a total of 4 spells, Breathe Fire and Fireball as the Elemental Sorcerer, and then Disintegrate and Falling Stars. His first two bloodline spells, Rejuvenating Flame and Shroud of Flame, work with bloodmagic, but not Dangerous Sorcery. Neither of those are damaging spells, but healing & protection spells with added fire damage (and extremely short range, 15 ft / 10 ft).
Finally, the Psychopomp bloodline is the absolutely best blaster for sure, with THREE times as many spells than the Elemental Sorcerer empowered by bloodmagic and Dangerous Sorcery, a total of 6 spells: Heal, Holy Light, Spirit Blast, Execute, Spirit Song, and Massacre. No offensive bloodline spells at all though. So when you're in a campaign against undead, then this bloodline absolutely blasts, but against others. Well, I mean Heal is always a great spell to have!
But let's compare this to a support Psychic, say the Infinite Eye that was mentioned earlier. Your suggestion for this SUPPORT-specialized caster is to give him a damage bonus to ALL his spells for FREE equal to the 9th-rank spell of a blasting-optimized Diabolic Sorcerer? And you honestly think that makes sense?
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For me the difference is that the Psychic better powers are their focus point powers and those are poachable. Top level spell slots aren't.
Some are poachable. But only the 1st level cantrips. And there are some very good higher level cantrips (Shatter mind being a stand out but there are other good ones).
But I think one of the design flaws for the psychic is that Imaginary Weapon is so poachable. Things would have been a lot better if this was a level 3 cantrip.
astral rain would be the better spell to poach for most classes tbh.