After playtesting the Starfinder 2e playtest for about a month now, I'm feeling ready to write down some more detailed notes on specific aspects of the game. In this one, I'll be discussing the Solarian. I'll split my post into sections, spoiler them, and add a TL;DR just so it's all a bit easier to navigate.
Methods:
Here are the methods I've used for my playtest:
I mostly playtested by running a Solarian in the various playtest scenarios and field test encounters we've been given, which means most of my playtesting happened at levels 1 through 5. I did playtest the Solarian at higher levels using Pathfinder content, but treated that playtesting as secondary to the official scenarios.
Because I was playtesting the other Starfinder classes at the same time, I ran my Solarian in a variety of party compositions, initially just with Starfinder classes, and over time with some Pathfinder classes in the mix. As with the level ranges, I treated the instances with Pathfinder classes as secondary to the playtests run exclusively with Starfinder content.
I started by running the scenarios exactly as written, or as close as possible when there were gaps or issues. After several runs of the same encounters, I started altering certain parameters, such as by changing enemy behavior or their composition, and a while after that I started including changes to the class itself and comparing them to my findings on the vanilla class. Obviously, I treated the findings under those alterations as secondary to the findings when running the class and scenarios as written.
Because I was playtesting other ancestries, and had a hunch some would have interesting interactions with the class, I ran my Solarian as various different ancestries.
I maxed out my Solarian's Strength, then went for a mix of Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom. I experimented with prioritizing Dexterity over Constitution and vice versa for the most part, and while I experimented a little with sacrificing a bit of those secondary stats for Intelligence or Charisma, I quickly gave up on it for reasons detailed below in the core class feedback.
I mainly just used freebooter armor, and for this reason I always had at least a +1 to my Dex mod.
TL;DR: I ran the Solarian many times mainly through the official playtest scenarios at their low level range, using a variety of ancestries and party compositions. As I put the class through the same encounters, I altered some parameters over time to see how they would affect the its performance.
Solar Shot:
I was going to bundle together all solar manifestations in the same section, but felt Solar Shot needed its own section in the end, because I have a lot of feedback concerning it in particular:
It should come as little surprise that Solar Shot, in my opinion, had a lot of issues. Because I found it difficult to impossible for the Solarian to close gaps with certain enemies and get into melee range of them (more on that below), I had to rely on Solar Shot as my primary attack in several encounters, or at least try to, which made its problems all the more apparent.
The biggest problem with Solar Shot by far was its limited range, in my experience. Not only does it have a maximum range, rather than a range increment, the extremely short range of 15 to 30 feet made it sometimes impossible to use, forcing me to draw a backup gun and start shooting with that instead. The playtest scenarios seem to actively try to hide this issue by giving many enemies a range of 30 feet on their ranged attack, or in the case of Shards of the Glass Planet instructing the GM to have the repair drones stay only 30 feet off the ground, but in the fight against Amnieka, the midwife is instructed to fly "far overhead" and ended up being out of Solar Shot range.
Solar Shot relying on Dexterity was the main reason why I experimented with prioritizing Dex over Con. Not only did this make my Solar Shots inaccurate even when prioritizing Dex to the complete exclusion of Con and Wisdom, the fact that I had to use Solar Shot or a gun quite often made me feel like the Solarian was quite reliant on Dex, when in my opinion that's not really what the class was meant to be about.
Solar Shot's on-crit effects on both attunements rarely triggered for me due to the inaccuracy of the attack. I'm honestly baffled by the inclusion of on-crit effects on this mechanic in the first place.
I rarely used the graviton version of Solar Shot, because with a 15-foot range I could either get in range of the target (if they were at ground level), or had to use an actual gun (if they were flying, often more than 15 feet away). Additionally, the Trip attempt on a crit isn't exempted from MAP, making it much less effective at taking flying enemies out of the sky as I'd hoped.
I quickly ended up using the photon version of Solar Shot whenever possible, and so purely due to its range. The persistent damage on a crit rarely triggered, but that didn't matter, as the range was the main factor.
On a more personal note, I really disliked having to use Solar Shot so often. I did not enjoy playing a class that was meant to be a melee character designed for Starfinder's combat, only to spend entire encounters making ranged attacks. If the class were actually able to close gaps properly when needed, I don't think this effect would even be necessary on the core class.
The one positive thing I'll say is that when Solar Shot hit, it felt meaty. When everyone else was dealing just a die of damage, a +4 to my damage roll made a significant difference and let me stand out as an exceptional damage-dealer compared to most other classes.
TL;DR: Solar Shot felt like a crutch to the frequent dysfunctionalities of the core class more than anything else, and even then it didn't feel like it really worked properly. It's meant to be a backup ranged attack, but sometimes I had to pull out a backup gun for some fights due to its limited range, and it did not feel fun having to make ranged attacks at between a -1 and a -3 penalty compared to my melee attacks, even if the damage rolls were better than on most other classes. I really don't think this should be part of the core class, as the Solarian in my opinion is meant to be the one melee-centric class in Starfinder, but given their other problems it feels like a necessity at the moment.
Nimbus Surge+Solar Weapon:
Covering the other two solar manifestations in the same section, as I ended up having less to say than Solar Shot:
Solar Nimbus was just okay for the most part, and didn't feel like a huge component to my character or their playstyle. I don't feel like this needed to be part of the core class, and I feel the theme of making your own solar armor could've perhaps been developed further as a feat.
Solar weapon's core structure has the same problem in my opinion as with the Mind Smith archetype in Pathfinder: its limited set of parameters means the weapons you forge end up being quite samey, and because you only get a fixed list of traits, it doesn't look like it's going to be easily scalable as Starfinder adds more weapon traits. I question this implementation over being able to actually forge weapons from the melee weapons list, and when I experimented with enabling the latter it felt like I had a lot more choice.
I question restricting the solar weapon to a one-handed or free-hand weapon, particularly given how little support the Solarian has for shields (they don't get Shield Block for free, unlike most Pathfinder melee classes) or free-hand builds.
Despite the above, I can understand the limitation, because even with just a one-handed weapon, the Solarian easily ends up outdamaging every other Starfinder class when they get to fight in melee, due to being the only one besides the Envoy to add their attribute modifier to their damage rolls. It Came From The Vast! in particular seemed almost entirely designed to cater to a Solarian, what with their melee-focused encounters where all of the enemies were massively weak to fire. In the instances where the class could fight in melee, their damage output felt extremely strong, at least compared to the weaker damage output of Starfinder classes rather than the usually greater melee damage of Pathfinder classes.
Often I preferred to use the photon-attuned version of my solar weapon for more damage, until I unlocked a particularly nasty combo at level 4: because the graviton-attuned version makes the target treat all adjacent squares as difficult terrain, and you can't Step into difficult terrain, hitting an enemy you're expecting to move with a graviton solar weapon makes them much more liable to trigger a Reactive Strike, which you can get at 4th level.
TL;DR: Solar Nimbus felt nice to have, but not really worthy of being a core feature, whereas the Solarian's solar weapon felt quite restricted in several odd ways. Because melee strikes inherently tend to deal more damage, Striking in melee with a solar weapon felt much stronger than the average ranged Strike, especially when triggering weaknesses, but I don't think it compares all that favorably to Pathfinder melee damage even with the photon-attuned damage bonus, due to the weapon being one-handed.
Attune + Solarian Arrangements:
Bundling these two features together as they're part of the same general system:
Attune I think needs a bit of refinement. It's one of those mechanics that draws comparisons to the Kineticist, except it misses what makes Channel Elements work, which is that the latter lets you make a single-action impulse as you turn your class features back on. By contrast, Attuning simply enables your class's basic features, including the ability to Strike with your solar weapon, so it feels like you're using an action to do nothing in the immediate.
Similarly, one of the things that helps with the Kineticist is that the class usually fights from range. The Solarian, by contrast, prefers melee or at least close-quarters combat, so when all of their features turn off (including Solar Nimbus's reaction), they're significantly more vulnerable. That the class can essentially do nothing at all until they spend that action to Attune once more feels quite harsh, and I found the class much more flexible when I allowed them to use certain actions without the attunement bonus when unattuned.
The favored attunement bit didn't feel particularly necessary to me. Two of the arrangements only do something when you're in one specific attunement, so you're already going to be incentivized to favor one over the other anyway. Attune could very well just let you choose your attunement as a baseline, which I experimented with and worked just fine on the class, removing the need to have a separate Attunement Control activity for exploration.
Cycle as a trait I think is fun to use, and I generally enjoyed dipping into one or the other attunement effect for most abilities, but the rigidity of attuning limited my ability to alter my playtstyle on the fly and make meaningful decisions most of the time. Being able to attune to any attunement freely would help this, I think.
The balanced arrangement felt strong, but also mostly full of filler. Binaric Assault dealt a lot of damage, but again I disliked how it made me use a ranged attack on a melee class, especially at point-blank range. In the few higher-level playtests I ran, Ascended Stability basically let me re-Attune as a reaction rather than an action, which in terms of action economy was super-strong, but negating that downside so cheaply didn't feel terribly thematic or conducive to interesting gameplay. Astrologic Sense felt meh; one extra action to gain an extra attunement effect felt okay, but limited as a once-per-encounter effect, especially on a class that would often need to spend that third action moving or doing something else.
Degradant felt like the best subclass, mainly because Black Hole actually let me close gaps. It's not super-reliable as a once-per-encounter save effect, but a mass pull from 30 feet at level 1 with damage on top felt super strong when I did press that button, plus it made for some spicy combos with a Soldier or AoE spellcaster in the party (it also pulled enemies out of cover, which was generally helpful). Defy Gravity however felt awful, not just because the Fly speed happened at a point where I'd already have gotten to equip ultralight wings on my Solarian many levels ago, but also because if you swap attunements or unattune, you drop from the air like a brick. Singularity felt strangely less powerful than Black Hole due to the Reflex save, lack of gapclosing, and use of void damage, the latter of which mystifies me given how bludgeoning, cold, or force looked much more appropriate.
A minor detail, but Singularity refers to "supernatural darkness". This is a 1e-ism, one of many in the playtest, as effects in 2e are either magical or nonmagical. The fact that the solarian's abilities are generally nonmagical runs into issues, which I'll describe in more detail below.
Radiant didn't help the Solarian close any gaps, and for that reason it felt like the weakest arrangement. It has a place due to its AoE damage and crowd control, but I would've much preferred a gapcloser at early levels. As with Defy Gravity, Solar Wind felt like too little, too late. Something I'll also note in the feats is that despite photons literally being light particles, none of the Radiant arrangement's abilities have the light trait, making for strange non-interactions at times.
TL;DR: Attune needs some tweaking to avoid feeling like a pure action tax, and could benefit from just letting you choose your attunement regardless of subclass. Balanced felt strong-yet-boring as a subclass, Degradant's first revelation was super-useful due to its gapclosing abilities, and Radiant didn't feel as good due to the lack of gapclosing. In general, I felt like the Solarian consistently needed a gapcloser out of their initial revelation, not a once-per-encounter ability.
Core Class:
Splitting my feedback on the class's core chassis and its feats for readability:
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: the Solarian can't close gaps well, even at all sometimes. This in my opinion makes the class extremely feast-or-famine: when the class can fight in melee, they feel like they're dealing more damage than any other Starfinder class (not necessarily Pathfinder classes though), but when the class can't fight in melee, which happens especially against ranged, flying enemies, they just feel utterly awful to play. While it's okay for a class to be weaker in situations that don't work in their favor, those particular situations where I couldn't get in melee felt so exceptionally poor by 2e's standards that I would go as far as to say that the class is currently dysfunctional in their current state.
Because of this, I didn't feel like my Solarian was able to draw focus consistently: when they got into melee or fought in melee encounters, they certainly kept enemies busy, but while they were getting in range, or if they were fighting at range, as the GM I felt like I could easily ignore the class and prioritize targets that were a lot more immediately threatening, like the party Mystic or Witchwarper. This I think not only harmed the Solarian, who didn't feel able to do what they were supposed to all around, but also harmed those other party members, who felt much more exposed than they ought to have been.
Not super-serious, but the above-average number of skills on the Solarian struck me as odd, given how the class really didn't feel like they were meant to be particularly good at skills.
The Solarian is oddly dependent on Dexterity for a number of reasons: for one, they need it to make Solar Shot work, but also, despite being a Strength class the Solarian needs a feat to opt into heavy armor, forcing them to rely on Dex for AC and Reflex saves. This limited the class's ability to opt into more attributes that have more uses out of combat in my experience, like Intelligence or Charisma.
Despite having otherwise fairly standard HP and armor proficiency, the Soldier's weak Fort saves really screwed the class over against certain hazards, plus a few enemies in A Cosmic Birthday. When I prioritized Dex over Con for the sake of less inaccurate Solar Shots, this made me feel quite a bit squishier than the average Pathfinder martial class, to the point where I initially felt like the class ought to be keyed to Constitution to avoid this. I've changed my mind on that particular point since, but still feel the class isn't quite as durable as they ought to be for one of Starfinder's tank classes.
Pensive Assessor is one of many class features in the Starfinder playtest that just tacks on numerical bonuses willy-nilly. I didn't test too much at its level, but its +2 felt unnecessary, and even the expert-to-master Perception didn't feel as necessary to me as better Fort saves.
Similarly, becoming legendary in solar weapons at 19th level is extremely awkward by 2e's standards: classes that are balanced around legendary attack proficiency become legendary at 13th level, so 19th level is far too late, and at that point the Solarian basically becomes a Fighter with attunement effects instead of flexible feats. I get that the devs needed some other feature besides class DC to signify progression at that level, but this feels like a bad choice and ought to be changed to something else in my opinion, like instantly reforging one's solar weapon or something.
I experimented with giving the class a fly Speed at level 1, and that in my opinion was a game-changer. Not only did the Solarian feel able to actually function properly on the occasions where enemies were out of melee range, the class ended up being much less reliant on Solar Shot and backup guns, and therefore Dexterity. I would go as far as to say that this sort of change, or any change that lets the Solarian consistently close gaps, is going to be essential in order for the class to have a decent baseline of functionality in Starfinder's encounters.
TL;DR: The Solarian's chassis, like with other Starfinder playtest classes, is full of little awkward deviations from the norm that feel more like accidents than conscious choices, but the worst flaw by far, and the Solarian's biggest problem in my opinion, is that they fundamentally lack the ability to close gaps, despite being a melee-centric class in a game where enemies can fly and shoot as early as level 1. The class in my opinion is not fit for purpose for this reason alone, and coupled with awkward defenses and a general over-reliance on Dexterity also makes the class far squishier and less able to draw focus from enemies than they ought to be. More than anything, the Solarian desperately needs built-in gapclosers at level 1.
Feats:
I mostly focused on level 1-4 feats during my playtests, owing to the level range at which I mostly played. Many feats are quite similar to Pathfinder feats, so I'll mainly cover the differences:
Stellar Rush, like most other movement abilities in the Starfinder playtests, lacks the text usually found on Pathfinder movement feats that let you use a variety of movement types, as with Sudden Charge. This caused my Barathu Solarian to move a measly 30 feet. To make matters worse, the concealment on the photon attunement often made me an active impediment to my allies as I concealed enemies from them as I rushed into melee.
Solar Rampart feels like it ought to be baseline to the class, and Solar Shield I feel ought to drop the free Shield Block feat in exchange for a better circumstance bonus to AC, or better yet the ability to manifest an actual shield from the shield list.
The Shattering Impact and Twin Guard feats have this strange bit of text that does this very 1e-style thing of countering a very specific counter: both are disharmony effects, which cause you to become unattuned (and therefore unmanifests your weapons), so in most cases the text is redundant. The exception to this is the balanced arrangement's Ascended Stability, which counters the unattunement, and in those cases it counters that counter. This to me just looks messy, and I don't think the text about unmanifesting solar weapons ought to remain.
As with the radiant arrangement's abilities, and photon-attuned effects in general, none of the photon-attuned effects have the light trait, which feels like an oversight. Because the light emitted by certain photon effects is nonmagical, given that the solarian's abilities are nonmagical, this causes them to be instantly extinguished by magical effects with the darkness trait, which is particularly bad for feats like Corona.
Because the vast majority of Solarian feats require you to be attuned, becoming unattuned means you effectively get to do nothing unless you spend that action tax. When I experimented with letting an unattuned Solarian still use certain abilities without gaining their attunement bonuses, the class felt like they had more interesting choices to make in the short-term, even if it was still more beneficial to attune in the long-term.
With all of this said, several feats felt quite fun to use. Eclipse Strike combined really well with good positioning when fighting in melee, Plasma Ejection added a nice bit of AoE and sometimes crowd control at close range, and Reactive Strike at level 4 rather than the usual level 6 immediately made my Solarian much better at controlling enemies.
TL;DR: The Solarian's feats need a consistency pass where they're given the appropriate traits and texts you'd expect from their effects in 2e, such as photon abilities having the light trait or Stellar Rush letting you use other movement types (the Solarian's effects also need to be made magical in general so that their light doesn't get instantly extinguished by magical darkness). More importantly, the feats felt fairly inflexible in how they mostly require attuning first, which I don't think is necessary. However, several feats did feel cool to use, so once the Solarian becomes more functional, I think they'll be able to do some more fun and impressive things, especially in melee.
The final TL;DR to this is that if my assessment feels like it's really negative, it's because it is. When I decided to start writing down my playtest findings of Starfinder's classes, I chose to begin with the one I think was the least successful. As a melee-focused class built for Starfinder's primarily ranged combat, the Solarian in my opinion absolutely needs to be able to get within melee range of their enemies: it doesn't have to always be easy, but it ought to always be possible. This is currently not the case, and while the class can be fairly powerful in melee for a Starfinder class (less so a Pathfinder class), they really don't feel great when they can't get in melee, and even worse when enemies are out of range of their extremely limited Solar Shot. As written, the Solarian is therefore, in my opinion, unfit for purpose.
If I were to make just one suggestion, it would be to give the Solarian gapclosers at level 1, whether it be a fly Speed, reusable initial revelations that let them close the distance between an enemy, or both. Currently, the class has a ton of stuff that has no relation to their core purpose, and that could easily be moved to feats, later-level revelations, or done away with entirely. If instead of that they had the means to actually engage consistently in melee, the class I think would come out much better for it.
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Considering how many melee classes in PF2 have good gap closing options (barbarian, fighter, monk), I'm surprised the solarian doesn't. It's a weird oversight.
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HolyFlamingo! wrote:
Considering how many melee classes in PF2 have good gap closing options (barbarian, fighter, monk), I'm surprised the solarian doesn't. It's a weird oversight.
Stellar Rush says "Hello." Stride twice with a +10 ft bonus to Speed during the movement (that's 70 ft distance with a base speed of 25 ft; leaving one action left to Strike).
People are obsessing over "flying snipers" when evaluating the solarian.
The Soloarian does both need gap closers, not give one by default, and only give options for an OK one. Now, dont get wrong, Stellar rush really helps for gathering enemies into a ball for AoE fire. Its quite nice.
That said, as a gap closer it doesnt really have the action-economy of other gap closers, and the lack of variety or baseline ability is a bit of a concern.
Generally the class has been very functional, in my opinion, and this can be adjusted with some fairly basic alterations.
0: Solar Shot needs range increments rather than a hard cut-off. Its fine if its not strong, but it should at least thematically fit in.
1: Stellar Wind doesnt stack with Stellar Rush. This feels bad. Give one a Status bonus and one a circumstance bonus.
2: Binaric Assault isnt amazing, and also would be a good place for action eco for additional movement. Just add movement between the two options, would really make this variety of Solarian pop.
This would also mean each of the three gets a movement ability.
3: Build options to emphasize speed would help. Something like an Orbital Crystal that lets you Fly 30' towards a target you hit with a Solar Shot, once per 10 minutes as a free action.
As an alternate example, perhaps a crystal that lets you increase your solar weapon reach by 5/20/50' for a round, once per 10 minutes.
I have played three games with Solarians now. I feel they simply work in most circumstances, though they could be better. The flying sniper problem is real, but its far from most fights, and its very solveable. Their dps and functionality outside this problem is overall 'pretty decent'.
I think the class overall works, it just needs some options on these fronts. The damage is quite high, and you have gear to give flying speed and a lot of indoor fights.
Not super-serious, but the above-average number of skills on the Solarian struck me as odd, given how the class really didn't feel like they were meant to be particularly good at skills.
It is a hold over from the 1st edition Solarian, which had a few minor perks related to skills generally. I always thought it came from Starwars and "using the force" to know things you shouldn't know, or being better at piloting or whatever skill they're working with.
1st) Skill adept which let you pick any 2 skills as class skills.
2nd) Sidereal Influence which gave 1d6 insight bonuses to a pair of skills (one while Gravition attuned out of combat, the other while Photon attuned out of combat) at 3rd, 11th, and 19th.
Mechanically, since 1st edition Solarian could not attune out of combat, it was to give them something class related outside of combat. They actually made for excellent diplomats, spies, or captains given their charisma key ability stat plus insight bonuses.
Dragonchess Player wrote:
Stellar Rush says "Hello." Stride twice with a +10 ft bonus to Speed during the movement (that's 70 ft distance with a base speed of 25 ft; leaving one action left to Strike).
People are obsessing over "flying snipers" when evaluating the solarian.
I'm still kind of not sure what to make of the fact that they gave the Gallop action to Solarians as a feat option. When I think good mobility options for NPCs and PCs in Pathfinder 2e, Gallop isn't usually on my list. I suppose it is okay at low levels, but is both slower and less flexible than Sudden Charge, which I think of as the gold standard of gap closers and action economy buff for melee characters. There is a reason its on both the Barbarian and Fighter feat lists.
I think of it this way, Stellar Rush is maximally useful when the melee target is 5 to 20 feet further away than a double stride, but isn't 25 feet further than a double stride, since that will require a triple stride anyways. Its roughly an on demand Tailwind that you have to use with exactly 2 Stride actions. So as your base speed gets higher (speed suspensions, access to magic like Tailwind, fleet, racial abilities), Stellar Rush's gap closing becomes less likely to matter, where as a Sudden Charge which actually improves action economy as opposed to just speed, can find use far later in the game.
I can see in principle uses for graviton pull, but there are going also be times when you try to use it to pull a particular target out of cover, they succeed the save, and be left with 1 action to either move adjacent or Solar Shot, which just feels kind of terrible realizing you should have just moved adjacent and swung. Similarly, if you're closing distance with a solo enemy in photon mode, now your allies have to move wide to get a clear shot, or they have a miss chance while the solo enemy has no such miss chance hitting the Solarian. The fact that neither is optional is kind of weird as well.
Teridax wrote:
Despite the above, I can understand the limitation, because even with just a one-handed weapon, the Solarian easily ends up outdamaging every other Starfinder class when they get to fight in melee, due to being the only one besides the Envoy to add their attribute modifier to their damage rolls. It Came From The Vast! in particular seemed almost entirely designed to cater to a Solarian, what with their melee-focused encounters where all of the enemies were massively weak to fire. In the instances where the class could fight in melee, their damage output felt extremely strong, at least compared to the weaker damage output of Starfinder classes rather than the usually greater melee damage of Pathfinder classes.
Isn't this just the fact that you've got +4 Strength and using melee weapons? A From the Front Envoy with a Painglaive could be running +3 Strength, +4 Charisma, can Get 'Em, Stride and Strike for 1d10+3+3 (11.5 average, 7 minimum) physical damage at level 1, with the -1 Penalty to AC making up for the 1 less to-hit due to strength. Admittedly this precludes a 2nd attack that turn, but does give +1 damage to everyone else.
If you want someone who attacks twice a turn in melee, a +3 Strength and +4 Dexterity Striker Operative can do 1d4+3+1d4 (8 average, 5 minimum) with a agile and finesse Starknife (and throw it out to 20 feet as a ranged option). Mobile Aim means Aim+Stride, Strike, Strike. +2 more to hit over the Solarian is a non-trivial average damage buff, with the 2nd attack only at -2 to-hit relative to the Solarian's first attack. Same damage and to-hit out to 20 feet as well with thrown option.
Compare to the Solarian with presumably +4 Strength and +3 Dexterity (for Solar Shot), their Solar Weapon deals 1d8+4 physical baseline (8.5 average,5 minimum) at 1st, or in photon mode 1d8+4 physical +1 fire (9.5 average, 6 minimum), although it suffers from two damage reduction types.
Solarian doesn't get much in the way of melee damage buffs - just photon mode Solar Weapon which is just keeping up with Weapon Upgrades like Fire Module and Frost Module. It's graviton mode damage is pretty far behind at high level compared to a melee focused operative, although as noted does have nice synergy with Reactive Strike. Not helpful when up against a melee enemy, but still.
Interestingly enough, if the Solarian ignores their Solar Weapon feature, and picks up a Painglaive, they still have reach, do more damage than they do in Graviton mode, and also do competitive damage to Photon mode if they keep up with damage modules. At level 20, fully upgraded Painglaive should do more damage than a reach Solar Weapon in photon mode, even with the +10 fire damage and 3 orbital crystals. Basically comes down to whether you want more damage up front, or including the Reactive Strike against a purely ranged striker while in graviton attunement.
People are obsessing over "flying snipers" when evaluating the solarian.
The mere existence of flying shooters in Starfinder is enough to justify the need for better gapclosing on the Solarian, among other factors. No class should be reduced to not playing their class at all, especially at such low levels. As currently implemented, Stellar Rush isn’t default on the Solarian, wouldn’t address all of its mobility issues even if it were, and has problems of its own detailed in the OP.
Hiruma Kai wrote:
Isn't this just the fact that you've got +4 Strength and using melee weapons?
Yes, exactly. Melee damage in general is just a lot higher than ranged damage at lower levels, so it looks much more impressive by comparison. This is why I keep making the point that the Solarian’s damage, while impressive by Starfinder standards, doesn’t hold up favorably to Pathfinder martial damage. There’s likely room to push the Solarian’s damage even higher.
This might be a bit unfair, cross-edition comparisons at all, but I'm kind of frustrated with how narrow the PF2 Solarian is. The SF1 Solarian had room for the melee solar knight, long range gravity-focused gunslingers, solar armor, solar shields... ACFs even gave you things like electricity focused builds, dex based lunar martials...
The SF2 class is just the melee guy, your support for everything else just kind of sucks... and even as the dedicated melee guy you're kind of ,.. idk jut there.
I've seen some people really singing the class' praises, but- you're swinging 1d8 + 1 at the same time a dragon barb is doing 1d12+4, and that +1 is conditional on solar attunement, and that's a problem when you're the one charging face first into danger.
Solar Paradigm is also kind of dumb. Legendary weapons is cool, but having them be a normal martial for 18 levels and then Fighter proficiency for 2 feels really awkward to balance around.
Though part of me wonders if maybe they should just be on the Expert > Legendary track all the time?
That would justify their crappy base damage somewhat. I generally dislike the expert > legendary track and would rather see a core feature giving them damage but it'd be better than nothing.
... I don't like Nimbus either. It's not bad per se, but it's kind of a nothingburger and doesn't feel strongly integrated with the rest of the class. Just- oh sometimes you can do a little bit of extra fire damage or push someone out of the melee range you need to be in to function.
oh and before I go I wanna complain about Solar Shield too. Yeah sure it doesn't eat up a hand but like- ... it's a buckler with less hardness that costs a feat. IDK. It's probably not the end of the world but the hardness on graviton shields sucks and the photon shield felt underbaked. Blocking with no hardness feels goofy, the dazzle fails pretty regularly (since it only procs on a failed save), and the fact that the HP scales with your level is weirdly detrimental when used in that mode, since it only exists to break. The whole theater of spending a reaction to fake blocking with your shield (because it prevents no damage) in the hopes of destroying it just feels really bizarre and clumsy.
Along most other points I agree with Teridax and I want to add-
There are some things I dislike about existing Starfinder classes, in terms of mechanics or playstyle... but the Solarian is the only class so far that's felt legitimately just... bad in play. Like genuinely awful. You're a melee specialist who doesn't get to do melee damage and sometimes has to jump through hoops. For the most part, Disharmony actions felt less like impactful finishing moves that warranted the loss of attunement and more like normal parts of your class that had an extra penalty thrown on top of them in case you were having fun.
To some extent, I think talking about flying snipers or long range combats is doing the class a disservice, because it implies that it's struggling because of the nuances of the ranged meta... but like even entirely on its own merits it's just not good. People talk about Operatives power creeping gunslingers and fighters, well the Solarian sits on the other end of the spectrum and manages to make all the underwhelming PF2e martials look broken instead.
I very much agree with the above as well. Even if we were to solve the gapclosing issues that make the Solarian unable to use literally any of their abilities in certain encounters, what remains is a class saddled with mediocre damage by melee standards and an exceptionally large number of restrictions. I also agree that the class could easily have much more build diversity, and while I can understand wanting to focus the class on melee for playtesting purposes, the current mediocre Mind Smith-like implementation of the solar weapon meant that when running the melee class, I didn't really get to playtest any of the melee weapons in the list.
For those interested; I compiled a series of proposals in a document, but for the Solarian specifically, beyond just flight at level 1, I'd suggest the following:
Have Solar Weapon let you forge a commercial-grade simple or martial melee weapon from the weapons list (with perhaps a feat to let you forge advanced weapons too). This would let us actually playtest those weapons, allow two-handed weapons for more damage, and scale much better in the future as the game adds more weapons and traits to play with. You could then have gems increase the weapon's grade and replicate the effects of upgrades, allowing the Solarian to gain all the benefits of regular weapons and upgrades plus potentially extra gems made just for them.
Take out Solar Shot, and instead give the Solarian a 1st-level feat that lets them forge solar guns as well, which would properly enable ranged playstyles.
Remove Attunement Control, and instead let the player Attune to whichever attunement they like by default. Replace current advanced revelations with current basic revelations, and implement single-action, at-will initial revelations that let you Attune to a specific attunement while also doing something else, like Fly a distance if you're radiant, pull a single enemy if you're degradant, or do something else that lets you reach your enemies if you're balanced, like extend your weapon reach or the like.
Whenever possible, allow attuned solarian abilities to work even when unattuned, causing them to just lose their attuned bonuses.
The general idea being to align the Solarian with the game's weapon system better, restrict them less, let them opt into more damage and playstyles, and let them set themselves apart more from other melee martials via their solarian abilities. A Solarian that deals comparable or even slightly less damage than a Pathfinder martial I think would be okay if they made up for it with unparalleled mobility, plus a host of AoE and crowd control effects to supplement their Strikes.
