Heya folks,
So I havent played a ton of PF2e, and knowing how tight the math is I'm wondering if anybody has tried the Decay and Ligneous isntincts.
I like the theming of decay, but the 1/5/10 poison damage per round of rage seems like a lot. And the fire weakness of ligneous, while definitely more manageable that the poison, seems like it would come up a lot.
So what do you folks think? Are these instinct just instant death or a decent risk/reward balance?
The amount of battles you will be facing fire damage varies quite a bit depending on which campaign you are in. But the value of fire weakness doesn't seem all that high .
And unlike Oracle curses, you can mitigate the fire weakness with fire resistance effects.
for Ligneous, the amount of damage you are taking each round is pretty small for a Barbarian. They are generally front-line glass cannons. The 1/5/10 damage is likely going to be a rather small percentage of the total damage that they are taking each round of combat.
Yeah, fire weakness is a campaign dependent thing. Like in an "average" campaign it's not like it'll never come up, but with some runes to mitigate the damage (and I believe resistance from fire runes would apply before weakness, but I'm not sure the rules clarify to apply when you have weakness and resistance to the same element like a PC might).
Anyways, my opinion is that Ligneous is very manageable as long as your not playing a campaign focused on fire.
Decay does seem like something I would absolutely never play because the damage per round is just too much.
I don't think Decay's self poison is "instant death" but I think it's "hard mode" with enough of a justifiable benefit.
When it comes to comparing Barbarian Instinct I usually compare against Dragon and Giant, cause those are generally viewed as the best 2 instincts.
Like sure, the bonus damage decay gives you is poison which isn't a highly resisted damage type and it's 18 bonus damage. But dragon gives you 16 bonus damage of a type you can choose, meaning you can mostly choose one that won't be resisted depending on the campaign you're playing. (Or like choose a Fortune dragon which deals Force damage and basically would never be resisted, although it will never trigger weakness either).
And Giant Instinct gives you 18 damage, but you're clumsy 1. Is clumsy 1 better or worse than 10 damage per round? Hard to say honestly. But I don't personally like it and wouldn't choose Decay instinct. Probably because I feel like there is more I can do to mitigate the lower AC from clumsy, since there is nothing I can do to mitigate the 10 extra damage per round from Decay.
A Strong-Blooded Dwarf can mitigate the poison damage, but I wouldn't recommend poison as one's main martial damage bonus. While not many creatures have Resistance to it, many have immunity, including Undead & Constructs, many Elementals. Those are gaps hefty enough you'd have to build to address them (or travel w/ PCs who do). I've long wanted to build a specific PC who would best be made as a Green Dragon Instinct Barbarian for the poison (or perhaps Decay now), but it's poison's flaws that have deterred me the most (and she ain't no Dwarf, despite that being my PC concepts' most common Ancestry.)
As to the OP, "too vulnerable" is subjective to party dynamics. If in a resilient party, this ongoing damage can be accounted for, and the same with a party that eliminates its enemies quickly. But if playing with skirmishers, low AC casters, and ranged martials where you're the solo frontliner, yeah, you're going to need a personal healer...but so does a Giant Instinct Barbarian in a similar situation, but worse damage spikes from criticals/crit failed Ref saves. Same gamble in many, except having more certainty with how much damage you'll take makes a big difference IMO, especially in the worst battles.
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I'm not sure the rules clarify to apply when you have weakness and resistance to the same element like a PC might.
They do. Apply immunities first, then weaknesses, and resistances third.
The purpose of that order is so that immunity trumps everything else, but having more resistance than the damage rolled does mean that a weakness still has an effect. You will take less damage than what is rolled, but it will likely be some damage unless you have so much resistance that it is more than both the rolled damage and the weakness.
A Strong-Blooded Dwarf can mitigate the poison damage
No, unlike the fire weakness from Ligneous Instinct, the damage from Decay Instinct is more like an Oracle curse.
your Rage action gains the primal and poison traits, and you take 1 damage at the end of each of your turns as your flesh decays. This damage can’t be reduced or avoided by any means.
Yeah, that has the poison trait, but it doesn't say it's poison damage to oneself. It's more like decay damage which isn't a thing so it's unavoidable. Plus (now that I've gone to AoN) I see the Instinct already grants Resistance to poison (and that's a bad ability compared to the Raging Resistance of most Instincts). And yeah, you're kinda trading your bonus damage (iffy) for that unavoidable damage (certain). That's a villain's Instinct IMO (especially w/ so many immune monsters).
Ligneous is more reasonable (and might suit my throwing Barbarian build idea well given he doesn't need to move as much). Just consider how to put out Persistent fire damage.
I'm not sure the rules clarify to apply when you have weakness and resistance to the same element like a PC might.They do. Apply immunities first, then weaknesses, and resistances third.
The purpose of that order is so that immunity trumps everything else, but having more resistance than the damage rolled does mean that a weakness still has an effect. You will take less damage than what is rolled, but it will likely be some damage unless you have so much resistance that it is more than both the rolled damage and the weakness.
Interesting, I missed that bit of rules. Good to know, but I don't love it.
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Like sure, the bonus damage decay gives you is poison which isn't a highly resisted damage type and it's 18 bonus damage.
It's extremely common as an immunity (e.g. undead and constructs). The latest Reddit compilation I looked at claims 24% of the then published monsters were immune to poison.
Resistance is just under 7%, making it about as common as electricity and between acid and cold. Fire is resisted by 9% and immunities run just under 5%.
Poison is by far the worst damage type if you're fighting random stuff, and campaigns with zero undead or constructs (or other things, there are plenty of others immune) are rare.
I hadn't realized that poison immunity was so common, makes Decay really bad.
<snip>And Giant Instinct gives you 18 damage, but you're clumsy 1. Is clumsy 1 better or worse than 10 damage per round? Hard to say honestly. But I don't personally like it and wouldn't choose Decay instinct. Probably because I feel like there is more I can do to mitigate the lower AC from clumsy, since there is nothing I can do to mitigate the 10 extra damage per round from Decay.
I think your impression is correct. In the very worst case, a -1 AC means you get hit 5% more often and crit 5% more often (with similar issues for reflex saves and being tripped). So unless you are being targeted every turn for 100 damage (or something you consider equally bad) then it's not as bad as the 100% certain 10 damage from poison.
On the other hand... that extra 100 damage is gonna be coming all in one chunk, not spread out over 10 turns!
Heya folks,
So I havent played a ton of PF2e, and knowing how tight the math is I'm wondering if anybody has tried the Decay and Ligneous isntincts.
I like the theming of decay, but the 1/5/10 poison damage per round of rage seems like a lot. And the fire weakness of ligneous, while definitely more manageable that the poison, seems like it would come up a lot.
So what do you folks think? Are these instinct just instant death or a decent risk/reward balance?
What you are getting is very good extra damage like Giant Instinct but with a different drawback. So it is a trade off.
All your abilities hang off Rage or you are forced back to doing the default +2 damage.
So in maybe 25% of encounters your abilities are going to be a serious disadvantage. However most adventures are themed. It is not hard to find modules where almost everything is immune to poison or immune to fire/has fire attacks. So overall it can be a really bad experience. You need to talk to your GM.
I hadn't realized that poison immunity was so common, makes Decay really bad.
It's kind of silly that they put this out not that long after putting out remaster Alchemist, where Toxicologist got "your poisons can do acid damage instead" specifically because of how often poison damage gets shut down.
I guess someone didn't get the memo.
Wow, I hadn't noticed that (I wrote off alchemist as too fiddley of a class long ago) but that does help the class/Research Field a lot in light of this poison immunity.
Decay Instinct probably should have gotten a similar option to do acid or poison.
The other thing people dumped on these options about when they were published is that they don't come with instinct specific feats. Not being a barbarian guy I don't know how much this matters, but apparently quite a bit.
Yeah, I also thought Ligneous is potentially a better Giant Instinct in the sense that slow speed and fire weakness are easier to mitigate/more manageable than Clumsy.
Although as Xenocrat points out, there aren't any Ligneous specific feats like Giant Instinct gets. The is both a boon and a curse in some regards, because you feel pretty obligated to take the Instinct feats. However, if you like the Instinct the related feats generally help you do that thing even more so it's more boon than curse (curse being "required" feats).
All that said, Dragon instinct with it's 16 bonus damage without any real drawback is probably still the most generically powerful. And with new dragons to choose compared to before Remaster, there's a lot of good options. Like I can't see much of a downside to Fortune dragon which gives you Force damage. You're not going to trigger weakness, but you're also not going to have to deal with resistance/immunity basically ever (I didn't search, maybe there are a very creatures that resist force). And because it's force it even has a beneficial interaction with Incorporeal creatures, which I guess is the target "weakness" type for Fortune dragon instinct.
If the new Instincts eventually get some class feats to expand their options, that could help a lot. I think part of what makes Decay so bad beyond poison damage is there's no other support to really help make the instinct gel/mesh. Imagine if you got to do an AOE decay thing as a feat. Imagine if it could cause a sort of "injury poison" effect as a greater level of this same AOE effect. With multiple doses stacking to increase the stage per the normal multiple exposure rules. That could be a big enough boon to make it worth it. But also probably still need an option to choose between Acid/Poison/Void damage. Honestly probably should just be void damage (thematically I feel like Void makes more sense than poison), although it would make you worthless against Undead. That would kind of overlap with the Spirit instinct, although spirit damage is like a "before aligned" version of vitality and void energy.
Just spill balling unrelated ideas that popped into my head, but it would be cool if a Ligneous instinct barbarian could do a feat to generate protector tree as a focus spell. And maybe some other kineticist style powers just as some neat stuff they could do.
Just spill balling unrelated ideas that popped into my head, but it would be cool if a Ligneous instinct barbarian could do a feat to generate protector tree as a focus spell. And maybe some other kineticist style powers just as some neat stuff they could do.
I was kinda thinking ligneous barbarian ghoran with the kineticist archetype. But I'll probably just focus barbarian.
Yeah, if you really wanted to go for the theme you could do it, I just don't like that you have to go kineticist to get some of the kineticist style powers.
I think some feats that give focus spells (with the rage trait) that replicate some plant/wood kineticist abilities would be awesome, and add a new dimension to being a barbarian.
Yeah, if you really wanted to go for the theme you could do it, I just don't like that you have to go kineticist to get some of the kineticist style powers.
I think some feats that give focus spells (with the rage trait) that replicate some plant/wood kineticist abilities would be awesome, and add a new dimension to being a barbarian.
Could be cool as barbarian instinct feats, tehre arent any for ligneous already.