I've been trying to build an Animist recently, and I'm really loving this class's customization, but I'm having an issue. There is one surprisingly restrictive issue at level 1;
You only have 2 cantrips.
You get more from apparitions, but many are ones I usually ignore like tanglevine and sigil. I'm used to normal casters with 5 cantrips, allowing me to take 1-2 damage cantrips and a bunch of utility cantrips like detect magic and light. I'm thinking of picking Shaman so I can get another cantrip on the familiar, but what cantrips do you prioritize? Utility like tremor signs, detect magic, guidance, light, shield, etc, while using one apparition for an attack cantrip like Ignition?
What are your two favorite cantrips for your animists?
The obvious one is Needle Darts. You can also try to grab Electric Arc (with a Spellheart, it's easy to get at level 3).
With so few cantrips, you need an offensive one, first and foremost, and maybe a second "in case of" (mostly resistances and immunities).
I would try to take EA via Adapted Cantrip and some other via Spellheart later. I don't live without this cantrip when playing as caster :P
Yeah, electric arc is a tempting one. Do innate cantrips still scale off Charisma if you are a non-charisma spellcaster, or did the remaster change that?
I'm thinking a Kobold Shaman animist. Spellhorn heritage for a cantrip, familiar with cantrip connection. That brings me to 4 cantrips to better allow me to bring something like Needle Darts and utility cantrips.
If the party lacks a caster w/ an AoE Cantrip, I'd take one mostly for swarms (esp. if your martials rely on Precision damage), but it can be nice to thin out groups of mooks too until casters can devote more spells slots to that.
Otherwise Needle Darts.
Consider Elf or Gnome to pick up an innate Cantrip, not so much for offense unless you're investing in Cha, but for Shield or utility spells that aren't linked to your casting stat. Also, Ancient Elf can get you two Cantrips from a Wis-caster Archetype, like Druid for the Electric Arc other people are willing to spend a feat to swap to.
Do innate cantrips still scale off Charisma if you are a non-charisma spellcaster, or did the remaster change that?
No remaster only removed the traditions from Spell DC but the stats attribute bonus continues. So if you play as a gnome or elf and get extra innate cantrips with their ancestry feats/heritages these cantrips will use your spell DC proficiency but with Cha instead of Wis. That's why I only mentioned Adapted Cantrip because it allows to take a cantrip of other tradition using you class spell DC.
The rest you may get up to 3 extra cantrips from Spellhearts (2 weapons + armor).
To offer a counter perspective, with good HP, armor proficiencies, and at least one action a turn pretty much locked in to a sustaining focus spell, my experience with the animist is that they are very incentivized to make strikes as often as as they would cast an offensive cantrips, especially at level 1/low levels. I think the shield cantrip plus a two handed reach weapon is a good option, with your second as either a back up ranged attack (like either divine lance or needle darts, depending upon the campaign), or a utility cantrip, and the test your apparition cantrip as a free floater.
I haven't played him yet, but I have that feeling too.
The animist's action economy is greatly impaired by sustained focus spells, and his spell slots are a mess: For half of the levels you are a "3" spell slot caster, then you become a "4" spell caster, but your top 2 ranks are still 3 or 2. In addition, the spell slots of prepared spells have no synergy with the rest of the class's abilities.
So one of the best options is probably to focus on martial combat, even using vessel spells to give a boost and feats that give bonuses to attacks, leaving the spells as auxiliary mechanics for buffs, support and healing.
There are many ways to play an Animist, martial combat being just one of them. For a reason I don't know it is appealing to a lot of players, but it's not really more obvious than focusing on spells.
I play one (still low level) and I've seen a friend of mine playing one (low level, too). I play it as a full caster and I see a lot of potential, my friend play it as a gish and struggles. I won't draw any conclusion from so few experience but martial combat doesn't seem to be such an easy way to play an Animist.
There are many ways to play an Animist, martial combat being just one of them. For a reason I don't know it is appealing to a lot of players, but it's not really more obvious than focusing on spells.
I play one (still low level) and I've seen a friend of mine playing one (low level, too). I play it as a full caster and I see a lot of potential, my friend play it as a gish and struggles. I won't draw any conclusion from so few experience but martial combat doesn't seem to be such an easy way to play an Animist.
I don't love Witness to Ancient Battles personally, but if I had chosen it, I would be casting runic weapon at level 1 as often as possible, including getting as many scrolls of it as I can through first and second level. I would probably only go that route though if there was someone else in the party that was going to be tripping enemies a lot and setting up my reactive strike. I really don't think Witness is a necessary apparition to use a weapon decently in place of a cantrip for damage for the Animist though. A long spear is good enough as a reach weapon. My Animist has unconventional weaponry and uses a gill hook. At first I was going to try to use lurker in the dark, in which case I wouldn't have needed a weapon at all, but then you are pretty much forced into making a grapple check each round, so you pretty much are better off using caustic blast each round as well, but you never move. It is not the most powerful option, but I have ended up using River Carving Mountains, and enjoy the versatility of being able to either strike or grab with the gill hook, and get to move around a lot with one of my sustain spells. My character is a Litigurist, so I like trying to get 2 vessel spells going as quickly as possible. I switch up my second apparition fairly often, but have really been enjoying both steward of stone and fire and monarch of the Fey court.