I saw in the weeks since the release of the Playtest a large number of people disapproving of the Solar Flare but I would like to hear why this is the case? My mind can come up with some reasons as too why someone might choose to dislike it.
- It deals low damage 5d6+Str at the highest level
- Caps at Master Proficiency where your Solar Weapon is Legendary
- It uses Dex instead of Str to attack with making Solarian super MAD
- It has no Upgrades or Item bonuses to attack rolls
- 30ft hard range is as far as I can move with a standard Ancestry with Fleet and not heavy armor
- It just doesn't fit with the flavor of star/plasma sword class
All valid answers and there are probably more I missed among the forums and other media sources. I just want to know if you got rid of this class feature what would you do with the power budget given for it? Would you give it more movement instead?
Perhaps you'd split Solarian off to be Str or Dex as their KAS. Choosing at level 1 your Solar Manifestation as Solar Weapon or Solar Flare but treated as a solar Weapon for Proficiency which might fix the issue but you'd still ened better gap closing for the melee side.
IMO, #5 is the most disliked.
I think most of the dislike is from the expectation mismatch in keeping the same name as the SF1 solar flare. The SF2 Playtest solar flare/solar shot seems to be equivalent to a single action cantrip (without the concentrate and manipulate traits and not requiring a free hand), while the SF1 solar flare was the equivalent of a pistol with unlimited ammo (and could shoot farther at short range, not even considering additional range categories).
There was a similar outcry over the PF1 warlock archetype for the vigilante with some people expecting the Mystic Bolts to be the equivalent of the 3.5 warlock's eldritch blast (even though the PF1 kineticist was the class that took the place of the 3.5 warlock).
The biggest issue I see is it is taking up word count and feat space on what is advertised as a melee class. The 2nd biggest issue is if you don't spend additional feats on it, it is essentially just a thrown weapon. Compare to an archaic spear or a modern singing spear as backup weapon that you spend ~10% of your total wealth on, including the returning rune/retrieval booster.
Every feat that works only on Solar Flare/Shot is a feat that isn't an option for making the Solarian better at melee. When building a character, I typically prefer to take most of the feats to make the character better at their main schtick, while investing 1 or 2 for insurance in rare situations.
Right now, look at the 12th level feats for example. You have the option between Covering Flare and Wormhole.
Why does the Solarian get a feat option for a move twice and Solar shot action anywhere during the move instead of a move twice and melee Strike attack anywhere during the move? Or better yet, how about just a feat that lets you spend 2 actions to get move, move and a general purpose strike anywhere during the moves?
At 14th level it is even worse, as you have the choice between a Solar Shield only feat or a Solar Barrage only feat. What happens if you want to improve your melee capabilities and already took Wormhole. You take a 10th level feat at 14th? Maybe not interested in Soul Furnace, so an 8th level feat? If you took Flicker Strike, I guess pick up Momentum?
It just feels bad when your backup weapon is getting better action compression than the main weapon that drew you to the class in the first place.
Compare to the Operative which gets options to use ranged weapons in melee range without an issue, as well as a number of options for getting out of melee range without reactions triggering, and moving through difficult terrain. Imagine if Operative only had two 14th level feats, and you were playing a Skirmisher, and your options were an ability to move twice and attack anywhere along the move with an agile melee weapons, and a Sniper weapon buff.
As it is, the Solarian is trying to cover the following build options:
Solar Weapon
Solar Flare
Nimbus
Solar Shield
Twin Weapon
with their own feat trees, while simultaneously being the class with the fewest feat options.
Solarians get 33 feat options right now, of which, for example, 5 only apply to Solar Shot and nothing else. Which means only 28 feat options in theory are melee centric. That's less than half the feat options that Soldiers get in total, which is 57.
Operatives have 52 feat options. Witchwarpers are full casters with 46 feat options. Envoys have 40 feat options. Mystics are full casters with 34 feat options.
This is why I'm an advocate of consolidating the manifestations down to Solar Weapon, Solar Flare, and Solar Shield, as distinct sub-classes. Then broaden the flexibility of the feats so they cover multiple types of weapons, both purchased as well as innate. In the same way many Operative feats can be used with agile melee weapons and ranged weapons by the Striker sub-class.
Right now if I try to plan out a melee focused Solarian with feats to support it, it just kind of feels bad compared to building an Operative, say. There's just not that many feats supporting it, leaving with very few build paths.
If you had a player come to you and say they want to have a light sword focused character, with a backup Shirren Eye Rifle (if they are in volley range, they're in let go with 1 hand, attune, stride and strike range), what feat selection would you suggest all the way to level 20?
Problems from my player:
1)it's such a short range, a +5' to move speed would most times be a better option for their character than this whole entire class feature and supporting feats. A semi auto pistol is their ranged option, and it's really just better than solar flare.
2)it's dex to hit, they are a melee bruiser, they aren't putting a lot of points to dex, they would rather do most anything else than try to hit with solar flare.
3)man, there's a lot of feats supporting a terrible attack that they'll rarely if ever use.
The feat chains make me think solarian is supposed to be focused on solar flare, but they really really aren't.
Listed issues #3, #5, and #6 are the ones I take with this class. The Solarian, i.e. the melee-focused solar knight, should not have to rely on a crappy backup ranged attack just to be able to do anything at all in bog-standard Starfinder encounters. If a Solarian wants to wield solar guns, that's great, and would be much better-served as a 1st-level feat, but as it stands, it is not all that unlikely for a Solarian to be reduced to nothing but ranged attacks in encounters where an enemy is out of reach (which happens surprisingly often in the playtest encounters). In some cases, even that's not enough due to the range restriction, and the Solarian has to pull out a backup gun, which carries zero interaction with their class. Solar Shot should not be a core class feature, what should be a class feature instead is the ability for the Solarian to actually close gaps properly.
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While that makes sense, I think I'd rather see a Solar Gun Manifestation as a level 1 feat over Solar Flare, that would fix a large amount of issues with it outside of DEX to hit but that's not really a problem, that can be solved by either changing Solarian to be STR or DEX KAS and STR gives you Solar Weapon while DEX gives you Solar Gun which are level 1 feats allowing you to pick up both if you want but just like Monk or Operative they should get passive movement increases.
Does this sound better then solar Flare/Solar Shot?
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Solar Flare is not quite there yet, I could see them embracing a Solarian with a dex key stat, or maybe one that can make a choice as far as their primary weapon is concerned etc.
I am not seeing great reasons why the crystals do not work similarly for the ranged option.
The range being a max range and not a range increment just means that the option just isn'T dependable as your ranged option and that likely means a Solarian will just have to get a decent ranged weapon.
Solar Flare is replaced by an upgradable Semi-Automatic Pistol. However I think the crystal was 100% an oversight, there is no way it is intended to be both maxed at Master, Use Dex (Which is an off-stat) and not gain Item bonus. I think they forgot it is suppose to be Solar Weapon just in a ranged format. If you treat it has a d6 Solar Weapon, the problem is solved rather quickly.
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What if we just make it Solar Manifest can be either the following
1) One-handed D& with 2 Traits
2) One Handed D8 with Reach Trait
3) One handed 60ft Thrown Ranged weapon with 1 Trait and you allow Brutal as a trait Solarians can choose.
Problem solved even quicker or is this just a terrible option?
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Maybe including some of the options from the Mind Smith archetype to allow solarians to modify their solar weapons would help. The design space is already pretty similar (if anything, the solar weapon has more flexibility on traits), so folding some of the archetype feats into the solarian class feats could work.
Plasma Ejection is similar to Mind Shards, but Plasma Ejection has a choice of area, does persistent damage on a failed save, and is available at level 4 instead of level 6.
Port over a version of Mind Projectiles in place of Solar Barrage at level 6, for example. Or add a level 2 feat that reduces solar weapon damage to 1d6 but replaces the solar weapon traits with agile and thrown 20 ft (loosely equivalent to the shooting starknife).
Not sure what the first suggested option with the 2 traits is supposed to be, damage wise. Assuming the third option with the 60ft Thrown has an auto returning kind of thing that would be the option I would probably take most of the time because of how versatile and switch hitting it would be, not sure if you were suggesting a lower damage die for that or not.
Kind of wish it worked kind of like Weapon Infusion, but perhaps without such a large range option. A 60ft range increment as the largest range increment option seems fine to me.
These kind of options would mean you wouldn't have a ranged Solar Flare and a melee Solar Weapon at the same time. Binaric Assault would have to change for that kind of thing, though it could just let you create "two" weapons where one is ranged and one is melee to use both.
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What I think they could do with it is make Solar Shot a "weapon", just like the Solar Weapon. Propulsive, deals base damage of d6 fire with a 20 or 30 foot range increment(photon) or d8 bludgeoning with 15 or 20 foot increment(graviton). The critical effects are fine. Use the crystals of the Solar Weapon, so thats where it gets potency, striking, and maybe property. The big thing for me is the range INCREMENTS.
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So... Having finally read through the Solarian Playtest material, I can think of a few ways to improve Solar Flare/Shot:
1) Double the range of the initial ability! I get that Paizo wants the Solarian to be a 'solar knight' (to quote 'Playtesting the Solarian'), but in a game where the average Simple ranged weapon can be fired from at least 30ft away, I really don't get why you'd give a class an ability that has a MAXIMUM range of 15ft. So, make the initial range 30/60ft for graviton/proton Solar Shot.
2) Either give the ability range increments or lower Homing Mote (which triples the range of Solar Shot alongside allowing Solar Shot to ignore concealment and cover in the original range) from a Level 18th feat to a Level 6th feat! If that sounds too overpowered for a 6th level feat, then how about this:
When you initially take Homing Mote (6th level), it doubles the range of Solar Shot, but once you get to 12th level it gets tripled, and gains the 'ignores concealment and cover' at 18th.
Or better yet, integrate a range increase into Solar Shot's Level Scaling. After all, it's clear Solar Shot is meant to supplement the Solarian rather than be something you focus your build on (at least for now), so why have it competing for feats?
3) Either have it gain an item bonus with each level it scales or make it so Solarian Weapon Crystals affect it too. And maybe have it count as a ranged version of the Solarian Weapon for the purposes of proficiency while you're at it.
As for the idea of 'Make a ranged Solarian Weapon'... I'm guessing that might happen as a Class Archetype for Solarian. Could be interesting.