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So Paizo Blog Solarian Preview mentioned several playstyles and i am curious how to get into them.
"We’re excited to see what kinds of solarian builds you create during the playtest. In our own internal playtesting, we’ve built solarians who focus on big speed boosts to get in close and deal tons of damage, others who stay in the front lines to fight like a tank, and still others who pin enemies down as masters of battlefield control. Every solarian we’ve playtested has felt different. Most importantly, though, each of them has felt very much like a solarian."
I bolded the text I am trying to replicate. I can not seem for the first couple levels make a tank Solarian that doesn't feel weak. Am I missing something of the Solarian until I hit level 4 Empowered Nimble and that only works against Physical (Graviton) or Energy (Photon) attuned but not both at only half-level. I feel like I am missing something that makes this class defensively viable and not just a DPR class focused on keeping the aggression in either attunement.
For context I am playing in a 4 PC party, 1 Envoy (Infosphere Director), 1 Mystic (Healing), 1 ???, and 1 Solarian (me) is this a viable place to play a Solarian or would I be better off if I chose a class like Operative or Soldier over Solarian?
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Solarian has the sticky part of being a tank covered, just not the survivability as much.
Consider being in graviton attunement, every single successful strike of your Solar Weapon is going to make the terrain around the target difficult. That makes it harder for them to move on to a different target.
Solar Flare/Shot does use a hand, and Solar Weapon is 1 handed, so you have a spare hand for a shield, so buy a Commercial Carbon Shield and Raise a Shield for +2 circumstance AC.
In terms of Solarian Arrangement, Degradant helps with control tanking, as an opening Black Hole (which doesn't affect allies), can knock at least a few enemies prone, making them waste actions.
As far as 1st level class feats, Solar Shield is inferior to a normal shield or even Shield Cantrip (which is good option from an Ancestry). Twin Weapon isn't really defensive in nature and uses up another hand, and to be honest, doesn't do that much for you.
Meditative Analysis is a single action cycle, so its slightly better than Attune when you need to change your attunement back to gravition, so its a reasonable pick if you want to just test Solarian feats.
Stellar Rush is also cycle, and the photon effect can in theory provide concealment to your allies, although it also provides it to the enemies, so seems rather a net wash. Typically you're not going to want to use it while in graviton attunement. So the question is, how often will you be in photon mode and want to stride twice?
Personally, a dedication feat is probably the strongest pick at level 1 for the Solarian as written, but that is less playtesting and more just optimizaiton. Certainly a dedication that gives you the Shield Cantrip and another Cantrip is going to be stronger than Solar Shield, and prevent more damage per fight.
2nd level class feat can be Solar Rampart, which gets you heavy armor proficiency, so another net +1 armor class.
I'd probably do Str +4/Dex +1/Con +2/Int +0/Wis +2/Cha +0, with Freebooter armor at 1st and then maybe Hidden Soldier Armor at 3rd.
In theory, Eclipse Strike also improves survivability, but its a cycle action, where as you want to stay in gravition typically. Also, the defensive benefit is highly situation dependent (does nothing against a single hard target for example), so I think the heavy armor option is better. Unfortunately, you don't get the armor specialization effects at 11th the way I read it, but you do get expert heavy armor proficiency, and then master at 17th.
At 3rd level, you can use your general feat to take Shield Block, to use with your normal shield.
Once you hit 4th, you can take Reactive Strike. So if you hit them last turn with your Solar Weapon, they can't step away, and have to take a Reactive Strike if they want to shoot or move to someone else.
Thats roughly what I'd do for a tanking Solarian.
In theory, the graviton attunement Nimbus Surge reaction could cause a target to waste an extra action by moving it away, but reach/good fortitude saves/enemies wanting to get away from melee are going to make it a waste of a reaction in the tanking role many times. The worst part about it is, the push is both non-optional and chance based. So if you're using an Empowered Nimbus to reduce damage against a reach creature, it might put you in a worse position next turn as you need to spend an action to stride to get close again or the like.
It also only works in melee, which is the same place you want to use Reactive Strike. So the basic shield gives you a reaction you can use at range and in melee, and does damage reduction regardless of your attunement state.
Not getting shield block is a bit weird on the default melee class. The Druid gets shield block!
Not getting shield block is a bit weird on the default melee class. The Druid gets shield block!
This is not Pathfinder, and I'm guessing classes who are meant to be more survivable are not expected to wield a shield in combat by default like in a medieval fantasy game.
As for the OP's assessment, I ended up coming to the same conclusion: the Solarian isn't a functional tank, because right now they're about as tanky as a Fighter, except they can't use heavy armor or block with shields by default (not that they need to), can't use their kit to shoot more than 30 feet away, and are going to find themselves regularly in situations where they'll have to spend most of their turn Striding into range of one single enemy at a time. By themselves, they're likely to take lots of hits before they even get in range, but in a party that is likely to have 8 HP/level classes and against enemies who are remotely intelligent, they're going to be projecting absolutely no threat as they shuffle around, allowing those enemies to focus-fire the squishier party members with impunity. The core class as written is not fit for purpose IMO, and needs their priorities reexamined so that they can actually close gaps as needed, and not need to build Dexterity for the sole purpose of being completely dysfunctional in a large number of encounters. Specifically, I'd suggest the following:
And there's other stuff you could do with this as well (for instance, switching the Solarian's key attribute to Constitution and giving them expert starting proficiency in solar weapons), but the above would cover the class's ability to actually close gaps, fight consistently in melee, project the threat needed to draw focus as a tank, and access "Strength AC" on top.