Explain to me your "Worst" Class!


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

251 to 261 of 261 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | next > last >>

My 2 (3?) cents:

Worst class in terms of performance: Inventor. The Inventor really feels like half a class to me, in large part because I don't think they deliver at all on their fantasy of letting you be creative and invent things on the fly. In my opinion, they could be this fantastic provider of diverse item-based utility, but in practice it feels like they play like a clunkier, less reliable, and generally less effective Barbarian, the absolute last class I would normally want to compare to a brainy inventor type. I don't find the class at all fun to play, and although I can acknowledge that they're not completely useless, it feels like other classes do what they can do better and in more interesting ways.

Worst class in terms of flavor: Oracle. When Player Core 2 was on the horizon, I was really hoping for the Oracle, a flavorful but otherwise really weak class, to receive targeted buffs that would let them feel really powerful for leaning into their curse. What got released instead was a class that was undoubtedly very strong, but that in my opinion took the main thing that made the class unique, and sidelined it almost entirely. You can completely ignore the class's curse mechanic right now, and you'd still be one of the strongest casters around due to your 4 spell slots per rank and beefy base stats, and what's worse, it's often better to play the class exactly like that. What was once one of the most flavorful and interesting spellcaster classes became the most generic, and that makes me a bit sad.

Worst class in terms of mechanical design: Animist. In terms of flavor, the Animist I think is incredible, as they bring this whole new dimension to divine magic and shine as a mortal link to the divine that differs radically from the Cleric. Communing with ancient apparitions and having them as your traveling companions makes for some amazing roleplaying opportunities, and gives additional characters to forge bonds with over the course of the campaign. Except, unfortunately, the class's mechanics don't focus on any of this at all in my opinion. Instead, the Animist to me is the ultimate Main Character Syndrome class, no small feat given that they were released in the same book as playable demigods. The class is designed to step on virtually every niche in the game, lets you tread on multiple niches simultaneously, often lets you tread on a niche better than the actual specialists in those niches, and as the icing on the cake, lets you completely swap which niches you want to step on from one day to the next. The fact that the Animist can swap out not only their spells, but also their apparitions and even their class feats from day to day undermines any roleplaying that could have come from committing to specific apparitions and bonding with them, but also means all Animist builds inevitably converge into the same build, particularly as nearly everyone picks the Liturgist for being so head-and-shoulders above the other subclasses. The class is far too versatile for their own good, and in my opinion is grossly overpowered in a manner that heavily threatens the play experience of their teammates. Were the class more popular and less inaccessible due to their significantly above-average complexity, they would probably be causing far larger balance problems right now.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Teridax wrote:


Worst class in terms of performance: Inventor.

Fundamentally, the Inventor is a martial class that cannot reliably do their thing. Much has been said about Paizo designing classes for their peak performance - unfortunately, they regularly forget that with some classes it is legitimately impossible to stay at peak performance however hard they try. You'd think after remastering Swashbuckler and Barbarian they'd apply those very basic principles to their bastard lovechild, but instead we got a lot of hype for gunslingers and the inventor got a tweak to unstable DC that didn't really affect anything.

Teridax wrote:


Worst class in terms of flavor: Oracle.

Agreed, it's horrible, PC2 was a new book and they absolutely had space to make a bespoke revelation action for each mystery - instead, they went 'people took oracle for extra damage right' which just sucks so bad.

Teridax wrote:


Worst class in terms of mechanical design: Animist.

It's funny that after oracle butchered the ability of the subclasses to play differently, here's a class whose subclasses makes for really different playstyles!... and it can switch those subclasses.

Practices are just bad, it's not even like wizard thesis or ranger edge where there's stuff that not many would play but the guy who loves it really loves it - some of them give nothing but feats and feat-shaped benefits, meaning e.g. Shaman could be done just by spending you (typically bland) caster feats, and I think all of Seer's benefits are on a Archetype from AV (but slower).


If we're including archetypes: Warrior of Legend. Imagine Achilles, if his Achilles' heel was his Achilles' everything, and he kept getting pincushioned with arrows every time he set off into battle, and each of those mundane arrows brought him perilously close to death. Oh, and he can't wear his bronze armor or use his iconic shield effectively, because this Fighter class archetype strips you of your heavy armor proficiency and Shield Block. Don't fret, though, because in exchange for removing several of your class features and proficiencies, forcing you into one of two weapon groups, and giving you a crippling weakness to one of the three most common damage types in the game, you get... a general feat and a skill increase! Oh, and if you somehow manage to not die for 14 levels, you can get an actual good survivability feat, and if you manage to live long enough to level 18, you get to pick their capstone feat... which is straight-up worse than a class feat the base Fighter can get at 16th level. Yay!

So yeah. This class archetype could have easily catered to a whole range of famous characters with one notable weakness, including Achilles, Siegfried, Balder, even the Witch-King of Angmar, but instead it tunnel-visions entirely on Achilles. Not only that, it tunnel-visions on Achilles in ways that actually prevent you from playing like Achilles, and in fact make you the opposite of any of these characters by making you exceptionally fragile, for no particular reason or meaningful benefit. Some archetypes fail by offering too little of what they're supposed to, like the Inventor or Summoner archetypes, but this one in my opinion completely misses the mark on both a thematic and mechanical level.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Teridax wrote:
If we're including archetypes: Warrior of Legend.

Somewhat agree. IMO, Warrior of Legend almost pushes the character into taking the multiclassed Exemplar Dedication ASAP (8th, or 9th as a human with Multitalented), if allowed, for the Skin as Hard as Horn ikon so the immanence resistance at least can counteract the cursed weakness.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd argue all class archetypes except for flexible spellcaster and wellspring mage are kinda lacksluter. Avenger is a rogue with access to some ranger feats and the option to sneak attack with greatswords (which IMO should be errata'ed into the ruffian by giving them a hunt prey-like action or similar. Even if its through a feat or something). Battle harbinger, elementalist, seneschal, spellshot, and warrior of legend are traps, bloodrager is not bad but its design feels weird in a few spots, I just remembered palatine detective was a thing but it seems fine?, and vindicator its technically good for what it wants to do (though its design feels weird too) but its fails in being an inquisitor. I hope runelord becomes the new standard for class archetypes.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
exequiel759 wrote:
I'd argue all class archetypes except for flexible spellcaster and wellspring mage are kinda lacksluter. Avenger is a rogue with access to some ranger feats and the option to sneak attack with greatswords (which IMO should be errata'ed into the ruffian by giving them a hunt prey-like action or similar. Even if its through a feat or something). Battle harbinger, elementalist, seneschal, spellshot, and warrior of legend are traps, bloodrager is not bad but its design feels weird in a few spots, I just remembered palatine detective was a thing but it seems fine?, and vindicator its technically good for what it wants to do (though its design feels weird too) but its fails in being an inquisitor. I hope runelord becomes the new standard for class archetypes.

I can agree with at least part of this, it does feel like class archetypes have been tuned to be weaker than the main class for the most part. That, and their features and feats often straight-up forget to give them the power boosts necessary for the archetype to function properly, like Palatine Detective leaving you stuck at expert spell proficiency without a higher-level feat for the master spellcasting benefits, or Battle Harbinger forgetting to switch your key attribute and give you martial-grade weapon specialization damage.

The Vindicator and Battle Harbinger to me are semi-close seconds/thirds for poorly-designed archetypes: the Vindicator as you mention fails at emulating PF1e's Inquisitor, but also forces this niche of being good at focus spell accuracy when most of the Ranger's most iconic focus spells don't use spell proficiency at all, gravity weapon being the most obvious example. It feels like the archetype ought to give the option to gain spell slots, but it doesn't, and despite including a deity's favored weapon and even the Deadly Simplicity feat for it, the only part of its kit that incentivizes using that weapon at all is a PFS-limited 8th-level feat. Meanwhile, the Battle Harbinger is missing most of the benefits it needs to function properly as a gish, including benefits the Warpriest gets at level 1, and loses a ton of power and synergy with Cleric feats in exchange for being forever stuck with 1st-rank spells that don't heighten as their font.


warrior of legend are too weak

maybe they should only have weakness to critical hit of certain damage type


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Warmagon wrote:

I think some of the complaints about Magus might go away if it was A fighter/mage class instead of THE fighter mage class. A lot of Magus in terms of both power and identity is wrapped up with the "I hit them with Sword+Spell" power. Big potential, but also big awkwardness in terms of action economy. That kind of ability is going to be very appealing to some people.

But some people might be interested in other styles of fighter/mage hybrid and only reluctantly going with Magus because it is what's there.

Summoner is a fighter mage and does a classic "I attack and I cast" round quite frequently. You can even cast a debuff and then attack the newly debuffed monster, in the same turn. It's just in two bodies. :)


One of my players is currently playing a (homebrew) synthesist summoner and I feel besides the obvious flavor that comes ingrained with the archetype that's what the people that don't like spellstrike (or don't want it as their main gimmick) want out of a gish class. My player went for a plant eidolon and frequently casts nettleskin and/or haste on himself while still attacking thanks to Act Together and he's dealing some serious damage.

I feel a side of the magus that wasn't ported over from PF1e was spell combat, which was a feature that allowed the magus to attack and cast a spell at the same time. A reflavored synthesist could fit that niche with Act Together perfectly.


exequiel759 wrote:

One of my players is currently playing a (homebrew) synthesist summoner and I feel besides the obvious flavor that comes ingrained with the archetype that's what the people that don't like spellstrike (or don't want it as their main gimmick) want out of a gish class. My player went for a plant eidolon and frequently casts nettleskin and/or haste on himself while still attacking thanks to Act Together and he's dealing some serious damage.

I feel a side of the magus that wasn't ported over from PF1e was spell combat, which was a feature that allowed the magus to attack and cast a spell at the same time. A reflavored synthesist could fit that niche with Act Together perfectly.

This is a bit beside the point, but would you happen to know which homebrew your player's using for their Synthesist?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Mine lol. Its really basic and its pretty much Meld into Eidolon with a few less restrictions.

251 to 261 of 261 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Second Edition / General Discussion / Explain to me your "Worst" Class! All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.