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Once upon a time, the arcane list was the biggest and the most powerful of the four, and it was considered a boon to have access to it. Primal was strong but limited, occult had some strong debuffs but was all over the place and divine was widely considered to be the deal est.
Now they’ve all been buffed and it seems to me arcane is lagging behind.
Occult still has the best buffs and debuffs, some great damzging spells and some healing.
Primal has great blasts, great healing and condition removal, great mal controlling and some more utility.
Divine got the best lift and is now arguably one of the best lists with incredible buffs and healing alongside impressive blasting abilities.
So… what’s the point of arcane exactly ? You have very few specific spells, and the selection, while solid, is lacking specific gems.
Am I the only one disappointed in Arcane ? Shouldn’t they give it some specific spells to give it back some lustre.
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Many Wizard players have been calling out Arcane since those threads started. In PF1 the sorc/wizard spell list made the wizard incredibly strong even with weaker class features.
I called this out multiple times and am mostly ignored. I remember quite clearly why the wizard was so powerful in PF1 and it wasn't the class features. It was directly tied to the power inherent in the wiz/sorc list where you had every great spell and access to everything except healing though you could obtain that through wish and limited wish.
I imagine they could buff the arcane list or create some unique spells that make the arcane list standout other than the Power Word spells. Or they could buff classes like the wizard by adding spells from other lists to the Curriculums or give the wizard some ability to customize their spell selection by picking from other lists like they have given to nearly every other caster class.
Just adding to the arcane list would make every class that can access it have a better selection, but you'd still have the problem of a class like the sorcerer accessing other spells to add to the arcane list though now it isn't until level 18.
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Arcane is still the biggest spell list in the game, though, and the "specific gems" it lacks are gems it's lacked all along; that much is no change. Even without those specific spells, it is still an incredibly strong list for blasting, buffs, crowd control, environmental control, assorted utility, and essentially anything that doesn't involve healing. The point of the arcane tradition is that you get all of this on the same spell list, and it is still by far the most versatile list in the game.
Where I agree, however, is that other spell lists seem to have received comparatively more buffs than the arcane list, which has shortened the gap somewhat. Although this does feed into the issue of the Wizard not feeling very strong right now, since commanding the most powerful spell list in the game isn't quite as groovy when the power gap is smaller, I personally don't consider it a bad thing otherwise, as this makes choose-your-own-tradition casters more balanced across traditions and generally lessens one of the hidden caveats of spellcasting traditions in Pathfinder. In an ideal world, I'd even want the arcane list to be made less versatile, if only so that dedicated arcane casters could have some of that versatility fed back to them with stronger features. Arcane magic should probably not let you control void energy, for instance, nor does it particularly need necromancy spells in general outside of legacy reasons.
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This is very true; the arcane list left quite a few iconic spells behind in the remaster without coming up with that many new options. Despite having many more spells than any of the other traditions, the arcane list also has the smallest number of spells exclusive to its own list at 17, compared to the divine list's 43, the occult list's 38, and the primal list's 70. Contingency thankfully survived the jump and is still the most iconic arcane spell alongside disintegrate, but there's definitely room for many more arcane-exclusive spells: if not power words, we could definitely have more "hard magic" arcane spells that are all about explicitly playing with the rules of reality, and the rules of magic itself.
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Having the largest tradition list is great for Schrodingers wizard, otherwise arcane hasn't really stood out much other then being THE legacy list. Now that the other lists have really been fleshed out, hopefully we get a bit of push for unique arcane only Arcane flavored spells.
All the powerful reality and magic warping spells got turned into rituals, so what does being an arcane spell at its core mean anymore?
Might be wishful thinking but if we get another shot at Secrets of magic, since it can't be remastered and needs to be redone almost entirely, would be nice to get another deluge of spells and hope to balance out the number of uniques a bit. Just to really hone in on the flavors of each tradition.
All the powerful reality and magic warping spells got turned into rituals, so what does being an arcane spell at its core mean anymore?
Might be wishful thinking but if we get another shot at Secrets of magic, since it can't be remastered and needs to be redone almost entirely, would be nice to get another deluge of spells and hope to balance out the number of uniques a bit. Just to really hone in on the flavors of each tradition.
It sounds like Rival Academies did not scratch that itch? If that’s the case, did that most recent arcane-focused book do anything to address the above concerns? I’ve been debating getting it, but did not want to do so unless it really turned the wizard up to 11.
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It sounds like Rival Academies did not scratch that itch? If that’s the case, did that most recent arcane-focused book do anything to address the above concerns? I’ve been debating getting it, but did not want to do so unless it really turned the wizard up to 11.All the powerful reality and magic warping spells got turned into rituals, so what does being an arcane spell at its core mean anymore?
Might be wishful thinking but if we get another shot at Secrets of magic, since it can't be remastered and needs to be redone almost entirely, would be nice to get another deluge of spells and hope to balance out the number of uniques a bit. Just to really hone in on the flavors of each tradition.
The most worthwhile thing Wizards got in RA was removed in errata (or was clarified to never have been intended to work as written)
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Once upon a time, the arcane list was the biggest and the most powerful of the four, and it was considered a boon to have access to it.
Are you talking about 1e where Wizards had quadratic growth and could end combats with one spell slot? Because I'm quite certain that I don't want to go back to those days.
Wizards do have the notable drawback of being the spellcasting class with very limited access to really subpar focus spells. So they are also the class that is hit with attrition the most in PF2. But that isn't a feature of the Arcane tradition list.
Arcane does have the by far best list-unique spell in Contingency.
Being able to trigger another spell cast automatically is absurdly good. Plus, there's no once per day limitation, so it can be recast after every combat. (it doesn't even have the contingency trait, so you can still use other [contingency] spells, lol)
It is a bummer that it takes a long time to get as an R7, but the Arcane list honestly seems to be in a pretty good place imo.
From my own playtime with pf2, it seems like it's actually just the Primal list that has not-so-slowly crept way out of line. It's easily the best, and the supposed downside of lacking utility/control spells keeps being less and less true each release.
Occult and Divine still have some info and non-combat spells that Primal lacks, but Primal keeps getting spells that it really seems like it shouldn't. Even random buff spells like Loose Time's Arrow is arcane, occult, and primal for some reason. Why tf would divine be unable, yet primal can? Same goes for Slow.
Primal has everything you could ever want in combat. And considering how rare it is to get to use info spells like Object Reading in APs, I think the issue is less that Arcane sucks, and more that Primal has grown waaay better.
Also want to shout out a new Arcane only R2 Reaction spell, Warping Pull.
It's everything I wish Friendfetch had been. React to a first Strike, reduce the damage to the ally, and force the foe to burn another action moving back into melee if they want to swing again.
Crazy good spell.
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Id sooner have the arcane classes and subclasses buffed instead of the list itself. Wizard, magus, and and the rune witch seem to be charged heavily for arcane access (at least I think it's part of their power budget). Conversely, imperial sorcerer has one of the strongest spellcasting features in the game, so it might not be a firm rule, who knows.
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A lot of classes can access the arcane list now with better class features. Imperial sorcerer is arguably the new wizard for PF2. Which I'm fine with as I greatly prefer spontaneous casting.
I see no real advantage with the arcane list. To me it is the least interesting spell list even if the longest. You have only so many slots a day to use and only so many actions a round for combat, so you have to use spells that will impact with the actions used.
Some of the utility spells are decent for RP, but not so good you need them.
When you look at the lists now, you see the following:
Divine: Most powerful healer list. Much better at blasting now. Best summons in the game.
Primal: Healing and blasting. Decent summons
Occult: Can do a bit of everything with the most powerful debuff in the game with synesthesia.
Arcane: Blasting and utility. For the PF2 method of play, a Power Word Debuff would be a very cool addition. 1 action to quickly debuff a target, then smash them with a more powerful spell. Power Word Weaken would be nice. Apply a scaling debuff to every save and AC for 1 action.
Arcane does have the by far best list-unique spell in Contingency.
Being able to trigger another spell cast automatically is absurdly good. Plus, there's no once per day limitation, so it can be recast after every combat. (it doesn't even have the contingency trait, so you can still use other [contingency] spells, lol)
It is a bummer that it takes a long time to get as an R7, but the Arcane list honestly seems to be in a pretty good place imo.
From my own playtime with pf2, it seems like it's actually just the Primal list that has not-so-slowly crept way out of line. It's easily the best, and the supposed downside of lacking utility/control spells keeps being less and less true each release.
Occult and Divine still have some info and non-combat spells that Primal lacks, but Primal keeps getting spells that it really seems like it shouldn't. Even random buff spells like Loose Time's Arrow is arcane, occult, and primal for some reason. Why tf would divine be unable, yet primal can? Same goes for Slow.
Primal has everything you could ever want in combat. And considering how rare it is to get to use info spells like Object Reading in APs, I think the issue is less that Arcane sucks, and more that Primal has grown waaay better.
Also want to shout out a new Arcane only R2 Reaction spell, Warping Pull.
It's everything I wish Friendfetch had been. React to a first Strike, reduce the damage to the ally, and force the foe to burn another action moving back into melee if they want to swing again.Crazy good spell.
Glad to see someone else sees the power of primal for combat. It is the best combat spell list. Healing and blasting. Two of the most important combat functions for a spell list in a single list.
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I'm not convinced that "x was really powerful in a previous edition, so it should be again" is all that compelling an argument. Like Archery was incredibly strong in PF1, and is much weaker in PF2 and this seems fine to me.
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The problem with the arcane list is that there's no incentive to pick it. It does a little bit of everything, but so does every other list and those have areas they do better. Normally you'd think spell blending or spell sub or imperial sorc's focus spells would be big draws, but it turns out just casting arcane spells better or more often isn't actually enough to offset other traditions' unique spells or their classes' non-spell abilities.
Also doesn't help that the system doesn't particularly reward arcane's breadth of spells. Silver bullets for certain situations don't really exist anymore and it's easy enough for the local arcane skill guy to trick a scroll of a spell you'll need once a campaign, if it isn't already on somebody's spell list in the first place.
If you want arcane to be worth using you either need to invent a really wild class for it or give it some back breaking unique spells.
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I don't think arcane is bad per se, but I certainly think occult does the job of "a bit of everything and then some" much better than arcane does. But still, the arcane list isn't bad, the problem is that the class that's meant to use it (wizard) needs improvements ASAP. The wizard just screams boring to me honesttly. The arcane thesis in particular needs revision because 3 out of the 5 IMO aren't even really options you can take into account for 99% of characters (Experimental Spellshaping is not good, if I really wanted a familiar I would be playing a witch instead of taking Improved Familiar Attunement, and Staff Nexus is fine enough to be considered in some situations but I don't see myself ever picking it up instead of Spell Blending or Spell Substitution), while the other two IMO should probably become baseline features for the class. A ton of the feats need a revision too, like the spellshapes or Spellbook Prodigy.
IMO the "reason for picking" arcane is that it's the generalist pick, sharing a huge number of spells from other lists, and gives up the single niche of healing to do so. This can be a hard sell, but it is a valid design approach.
Contingency as a unique Arcane-only does give a lot of characterization to Arcane as a list. It's all about having the right tool for the right job.
The end-game Power Word: ____ spells are other arcane-only that further reinforce this by being 1A spells that can be cast alongside regular 2A spells.
I didn't think about the fact that Arcane can cast 3 PW:Kills in a row, and it's only the target side that has a cooldown.
IMO, the best "representative" for Arcane is still the Spell Substitution Wizard. They have an absolutely absurd ability to encounter to a new problem, pull out their endless grimoire, and swap in that one spell to overcome the obstacle.
And this goes for combat too. If you can predict the foes of a future encounter, either via scouting, or by simple pattern repetition, Arcane really can shine.
Such a Wizard can be using Wands/Scrolls/etc for a lot of their normal/common spells (Slow, etc), leaving as many core slots available as possible for swapping spells from the biggest list in the system.
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If you sort AoN's spells and match one list while blocking others, you can quickly see the list unique spells with a 1:yes 3:no setup, and you can browse the 2-list crossover by doing an 2:yes 2:no setup.
Both Arcane & Primal example Under the [spells/rituals] button is the spell tradition filter options
None of the lists are bad, that is for certain.
But the Arcane list is not the best either. Each list does different things with a few unique elements and a lot of overlap.
I look at spell lists in PF2 for the roles they can fill. The arcane list can fill the fewest roles, especially now that divine was heavily improved for blasting.
When you parse lists, you see Occult has the most access to non-blast high value spells:
Haste, Slow
Heroism
Synesthesia
Wall of Force
Fly
Freeze Time
Hidden Mind
Occult has tons of stuff on it that is high value even if not as long as arcane.
This in addition to healing, magic missile, debuff removal, vision of death, and the like. It has nearly everything all on one list.
If you want really versatile casting abilities absent heavy blasting, occult is the list to go with now.
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Occult isn't even missing blasting if you go late enough. Visions of danger is 8d8 x2 mental damage at baseline in the usual 500ft range, 30ft burst for example.
I'll take AoE incapacitate/slow/synesthesia over blasting for my mookbusting needs though.
Occult isn't even missing blasting if you go late enough. Visions of danger is 8d8 x2 mental damage at baseline in the usual 500ft range, 30ft burst for example.
I'll take AoE incapacitate/slow/synesthesia over blasting for my mookbusting needs though.
They have Vampiric Exsanguination and Phantasmal Calamity at higher level, which are definitely good blasting at higher level.
From what I'm told most people don't play much past level 10 to see the high level blasting on Occult.
They even have phantom orchestra which is one of the best sustain damage spells.
When I play an occult caster, I almost always feel I don't have enough slots.
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The intersection of the Wizard class and the Arcane list is one of the “original sins” of this edition.
Wizards paid through the nose to access the “best list”, hence why they had weird unique penalties, like being the only class to not have simple weapon prof, they are still missing a skill and are missing focus spells and focus spell options.
But the arcane list was never exclusive to the Wizard, so the price paid was always disproportionately paid by them. Paizo then remaster the other lists to make them stronger, so the value of what the Wizard paid for went down. This is also on top of the other remaster nerfs.
List rebalancing should have came with actual, meaningful, Wizard class rebalancing.
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I don't know how heavily the arcane list can be buffed without either:
1. Giving it heal
2. Straight up power creep.
Outside of healing and condition removal, arcane already gets the best out of pretty much everything. (Well, except Synesthesia.) I don't super love the idea of just printing a better fireball that is arcane only. But I could get behind just giving wizards some healing at this point. They only lack it for legacy reasons, and with wizard schools becoming more about societal roles it makes sense that wizards would start to explore healing. Heal might not jive with the lack of vital essence on the list, but soothe can work with mental essence. And if you can polymorph flesh with material essence there's no real reason you can't stitch it back together.
There's a lot of really high concept talk here but... do people have specific things they want arcane to do that it can't or specific types of spells you want to see?
I feel like it's hard to get a grip on what people are looking for when so much of the conversation is more about what other spell lists did or what previous versions of the game looked like.
Also I guess it's worth asking if the problem is arcane or some arcane classes. Like I agree the wizard and inscribed witch are bad, but a lot of that badness comes from their horrible feature set and like... magi are mostly fine (and their problems are more feature related too) and I'm not sure if arcane sorcerers, summoners, or witchwarpers necessarily feel uniquely bad compared to their other subclasses in the same way.
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I don't think Arcane needs a lot of work.
I think it needs some standout spells that work with PF2.
Power Stun and Blind all don't work on more powerful stuff and are single target. Who cares if you blind some mook.
Power Word Kill is pretty nice, but 9th level.
It could use some unique lower level debuffs and/or buffs that are good enough to stand out.
Arcane shouldn't get heal.
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For myself, Arcane would feel better if it had a few good spells per spell rank that are unique to the list. It has Contingency and Power Words [all 7+ power words are uncommon] and... nothing else jumps to mind. It'd be nice have some lower rank common spells that are just Arcane.
A lot of classes can access the arcane list now with better class features. Imperial sorcerer is arguably the new wizard for PF2. Which I'm fine with as I greatly prefer spontaneous casting.
I keep hearing that, but I kinda want to know why? Yep, it has a great new focus spell, but it also does not have the skill monkey capability the bloodline had pre-remaster, due to its old level one focus spell not being there anymore. Being kind of a skill monkey has always been one of the corner stones of playing a Wizard and the imperial Sorcerer still lacks that, unlike, say, the sage Sorcerer in PF1E (which just had to struggle with a miserable base class skill list).
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A lot of classes can access the arcane list now with better class features. Imperial sorcerer is arguably the new wizard for PF2. Which I'm fine with as I greatly prefer spontaneous casting.I keep hearing that, but I kinda want to know why? Yep, it has a great new focus spell, but it also does not have the skill monkey capability the bloodline had pre-remaster, due to its old level one focus spell not being there anymore. Being kind of a skill monkey has always been one of the corner stones of playing a Wizard and the imperial Sorcerer still lacks that, unlike, say, the sage Sorcerer in PF1E (which just had to struggle with a miserable base class skill list).
I don't get this talk of skills in PF2. Nearly every character I ever make ends up with 5 or more skills from base proficiencies, class abilities, ancestry feats, archetypes, backgrounds, and the like. Skills are cheap now.
Skill ups are not cheap. Every class but but the investigator and rogue get three with maybe a few more with feats for additional lore or acrobatics which everyone can take.
Another reason the wizard lost power in PF2 is because intelligence doesn't provide he skill increases it gave in PF1. The wizard was the caster skill king because they got so many points and skills were point based.
Now nearly every class ends up with a bunch of base skills and all have three skill ups no matter how smart they are. So everyone ends up with three legendary skills.
Why do you keep acting like the wizard is some kind of skill specialist now? They aren't. That aspect of the wizard is gone. Another reason why so many wizard players feel some kind of way given the number of nerfs the wizard was hit with due to system changes.
There was no class in PF1 that better leveraged the overall system for enormous power than the wizard from the huge spell list, the skill points from intelligence along with bonus spell slots, magic crafting, metamagic feats, and the like.
When Paizo stripped all of that way, they stripped away the power of the wizard across the board.
There are 16 base skills and nearly every class can have 5 or more starting with little to no effort. A third of all the available skills. If you put effort into picking up trained skills, you can acquire them all quite easily.
It's another way intelligence has been devalued as a stat.
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A lot of classes can access the arcane list now with better class features. Imperial sorcerer is arguably the new wizard for PF2. Which I'm fine with as I greatly prefer spontaneous casting.I keep hearing that, but I kinda want to know why? Yep, it has a great new focus spell, but it also does not have the skill monkey capability the bloodline had pre-remaster, due to its old level one focus spell not being there anymore. Being kind of a skill monkey has always been one of the corner stones of playing a Wizard and the imperial Sorcerer still lacks that, unlike, say, the sage Sorcerer in PF1E (which just had to struggle with a miserable base class skill list).
As far as the imperial sorc goes, their focus spells are top notch.
And with Arcane Evolution and Greater Arcane evolution and Greater Crossblooded, they can build a huge repertoire of spells that allow them far more on demand choices as the wizard along with the daily switching.
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The intersection of the Wizard class and the Arcane list is one of the “original sins” of this edition.
Wizards paid through the nose to access the “best list”, hence why they had weird unique penalties, like being the only class to not have simple weapon prof, they are still missing a skill and are missing focus spells and focus spell options.
But the arcane list was never exclusive to the Wizard, so the price paid was always disproportionately paid by them. Paizo then remaster the other lists to make them stronger, so the value of what the Wizard paid for went down. This is also on top of the other remaster nerfs.
List rebalancing should have came with actual, meaningful, Wizard class rebalancing.
This is the actual problem IMO. I don't think the real problem is the Arcane list. If you read this whole thread, there's a lot of talk about the Arcane list struggling in the context of Wizards.
Arcane isn't as good as it was relative to the others but it's not a "Core Rulebook Divine" situation. It really only needs a couple more unique things that are interesting and it's back to being in a pretty good place. It's paying a big tax having no access to healing so it needs stuff to make that worth paying.
But it's not like Arcane Sorcerers are awful or anything. A lot of the problem is that Wizard isn't great and it's tied to Arcane. You can't fix that just by tinkering with the Arcane list. Wizard itself needs some love and it really didn't get that in the remaster. (IMO Wizard is the other class failure of the remaster.)
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I'm glad to see that a lot of this talk has kinda found the sore-spot, that of Wizard's comparatively low power / feature design.
As the remaster ship has long sailed at this point, my own suggested homebrew is just a single change. Spell Substitution is now a baseline Wizard feature, and can be done alongside any refocus activity.
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IMO, the ability to swap prepared spells is really unexplored, but it's easy to understand why. At the moment, it is an opportunity cost that could instead be spent increasing your total spell count. Plus, it can be a challenge to find good times to halt the party to invoke the ability.
But, now that parties tend to do a whole lot more 10 min rests than before, this ability can be invoked a whole lot easier.
A party can even throw their Wiz into the back of a cart while hurrying to catch up to the ____. Two ish hrs of travel in reaction to a new objective is more than enough time for spell substitution.
Had an outsider teleport away?
Swap into Planar Tether for the rematch, and also their elemental weakness while you're at it.
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IMO, that "breadth of magic" idea is the remaining heart of the Wizard. It can okay if a Sorcerer is able to blast or evoke magics with a bit more potency, but to allow the Wizard to feel like a studied magical expert when other casters exist, they need to be able to take advantage of their big spell book.
I'd even throw in some homebrew feats to supercharge Wiz spell substitution, but I'll not clog up the thread with that.
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Chiefly, when getting deeper into pf2, I was surprised and disappointed when comparing Wiz to Sorc.
It's very hard to have the mechanics of book prepared casting not be a disadvantage compared to Sorc's spontaneous casting as they exist now. Niche spells are very rarely better than generalized spells, but the real kick in the teeth is that spell scrolls exist.
Seriously, the ease of "prepared item-casting" is a huuuuge deal that really puts a dagger in the heart of prepared casters.
The easy call of "spontaneous casting is an upgrade to prepared, not a sidegrade" (in context of actual play) is imo a red flag that something is fundamentally wrong, not with the Arcane list, but with prepared casting.
Prepared casters who have to do an extra minigame to collect spells need to be able to feel some sort advantage from that difference within the context of an adventuring day.
In my own playtime, it has never once happened in an AP where being able prepare a niche spell the next day has mattered.
I myself have pulled out some scrolls like Object Reading to use a key tool in the moment, but the actual "perk" of next day casting something different has never once mattered in AP gameplay. Not once.
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Especially in the context of Paizo just adding a signature Arcane R2 spell that looks really good in Warping Pull, I'm not worried about the spell list. I don't think it needs direct healing, etc, etc.
But I will say that reading the Wizard class in comparison to the others, including other Arcane casters, was noticeably "yikes."
And to be honest, that has actually gotten worse after the Remaster. In comparison to its peers, Wiz is even more behind than it used to be, imo.
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I'm glad to see that a lot of this talk has kinda found the sore-spot, that of Wizard's comparatively low power / feature design.
As the remaster ship has long sailed at this point, my own suggested homebrew is just a single change. Spell Substitution is now a baseline Wizard feature, and can be done alongside any refocus activity.
If we were to scale class feats by what we've seen Paizo do so far.
Swapping spells out with your schools spells is a 2nd level feat. Arcane Bond, as seen via the Oracle, is a 6th level feat.
This would place Spell Substitution as either a 4th or 8th level feat. They could split the difference have the 2nd level school swap feat be the preq for the broader version of the feat at 8th. Giving some modality to how much want their Wizard to be able to swap spells.
Given statements from Paizo where they "Don't balance around you having the perfect spell... but yeah we always expect you to have the a really really good spell", it would relieve some of the classes tention points.
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I am of the position that each spell list should be as equal as such things can be, with different strengths and weaknesses, so that they can be treated as equivalent as often as possible. Otherwise, there would need to be special benefits that come with using a lesser source to make up the difference.
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Just to get some objective numbers out there.
Arcane (including legacy spells like Power Word) has 17 unique spells on its list. Notable ones are Summon Construct, Disintegrate, and Contingency.
Divine has 42 unique spells. Harm, Breath of Life, Divine Wrath, Divine Immolation and Avatar.
Occult has 37 unique spells. Soothe, Ill Omen, Synaptic Pulse and Synesthesia.
Primal has 66 unique spells. Animal/Dinosaur/Plant Form, Lightning Storm and Summon Kaiju.
There are 16 Arcane/Divine spells, 219 Arcane/Occult spells, and 228 Arcane/Primal Spells.
Divine/Primal has 48, Divine/Occult has 84, and Occult/Primal has 23.
A/O/P has 45, A/D/P has 36, A/D/O has 89. D/O/P has 22. Finally there are 57 spells on all 4 lists.
Out of 1030 possible spells available. Arcane has access to 707. Divine has 394, Occult 576, Primal 525.
Arcane has access to 70% of all spells in the game. Occult and Primal about 55%, and Divine under 40%.
Arcane has access to 410 of 576 spells on the Occult list and 366 of 525 Primal spells, and 198 of the 394 on the Divine list. Divine and Primal have overlap of 163 spells, Divine and Occult have 252 overlap and finally Occult Primal have 147.
Arcane has access to 70% of the Primal and Occult lists and half the Divine list. So other than Divine/Occult, Arcane has access to the most spells from other lists.
And thus, all threads arrive as they are supposed to: with Wizard talk.
For all that I like about PF2, the wizard design is one thing I am not happy with.
I cannot stand that the most iconic D&D class has been reduced to this.
I wish they would scrap holding onto the old wizard design and do it well for PF2 like they did nearly every other caster class. Even D&D 5E went in a new direction with the wizard based around old tropes, but better designed for reduced spell slots, no metamagic, intel no longer providing massive skill advantages, and the like.
PF2 just seemed to hold onto the old wizard and try to shove it into PF2. It didn't work very well.
How else can talk of the arcane list not come back to the wizard?
No one can claim Arcane Sorcs are bad. They use a focus point, drop their 1st level free focus spell, and their spells look great.
Arcane witch? Well there's another class that is a pale version of what it once was. So best to play the occult or divine witch, leave the arcane list to the Imperial Sorc.
Magus has spellstrike to make up for being stuck with the arcane list.
Wizard is the main class stuck with the arcane list with limited roles and not so great class features.
You can make sorcs and witches all kinds of different ways. But the wizard has one spell list with curriculums. They should have worked a lot harder to make wizards the premiere arcane caster as that is all the wizard has to work from.
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Just to get some objective numbers out there.
Arcane (including legacy spells like Power Word) has 17 unique spells on its list. Notable ones are Summon Construct, Disintegrate, and Contingency.
There is also the intersection of the Arcane list and individual classes to think about. Between bloodlines, deities, mysteries, and/or other such things, even those 17 unique spells aren't unique to arcane classes, in paticular the Wizard; an Imperial Sorcerer can pick up Divine Decree [Divine unique] or unfathomable song [Occult unique] or Tree of Seasons [Primal unique] while a Phoenix sorcerer gets Contingency and Disintegrate added to their Primal list. This leaves the class that's JUST the Arcane spell guy [Wizard] out in the cold without a way to poach other lists spells while seeing their own Lists unique spells usable by other Lists users. It'd be nice to have a solid set of actual unique spells in each List.
How are divine and occult casters looking for reflex targeting now that inner radiance torrent is nerfed? Rank 5 and 6 open up some cool options for divine, but prior to that Inner Radiance Torrent always seemed like what people pointed to when the biggest drawback of the occult/divine lists was pointed out. Has anything been printed to fill that hole?
Arcane is also only one of two traditions with illusory object and illusory creature, which are some of the highest value spells in the game.
I'm joining the chorus of "sounds like the real problem is wizards." With three separate pick a tradition casters, you just can't argue the arcane list is clearly the best anymore. You can argue it isn't the worst, but all you can really do to improve it is give it healing.
A lot of classes can access the arcane list now with better class features. Imperial sorcerer is arguably the new wizard for PF2. Which I'm fine with as I greatly prefer spontaneous casting.I keep hearing that, but I kinda want to know why? Yep, it has a great new focus spell, but it also does not have the skill monkey capability the bloodline had pre-remaster, due to its old level one focus spell not being there anymore. Being kind of a skill monkey has always been one of the corner stones of playing a Wizard and the imperial Sorcerer still lacks that, unlike, say, the sage Sorcerer in PF1E (which just had to struggle with a miserable base class skill list).I don't get this talk of skills in PF2. Nearly every character I ever make ends up with 5 or more skills from base proficiencies, class abilities, ancestry feats, archetypes, backgrounds, and the like. Skills are cheap now.
Skill ups are not cheap. Every class but but the investigator and rogue get three with maybe a few more with feats for additional lore or acrobatics which everyone can take.
Another reason the wizard lost power in PF2 is because intelligence doesn't provide he skill increases it gave in PF1. The wizard was the caster skill king because they got so many points and skills were point based.
Now nearly every class ends up with a bunch of base skills and all have three skill ups no matter how smart they are. So everyone ends up with three legendary skills.
Why do you keep acting like the wizard is some kind of skill specialist now? They aren't. That aspect of the wizard is gone. Another reason why so many wizard players feel some kind of way given the number of nerfs the wizard was hit with due to system changes.
There was no class in PF1 that better leveraged the overall system for enormous power than the wizard from the huge spell list, the skill points from intelligence along with bonus spell slots, magic crafting, metamagic feats, and the like.
When...
The skill thing is also an issue that most of the Int key stat classes start with very low base skills with the understanding they are probably boosting int. This causes the odd situation of what should make them a big skill monkey means they are basically on par with other classes with minimal investment in int.
I would love to see another small niche of the arcane list in more contingency spells. Contingency (the actual spell, not the trait) is arcane only, and I always felt like arcane is the prep class - if you know what's coming, you have a spell for that. I think a bunch of arcane exclusive contingency spells would be thematically appropriate and make the list feel a bit more thoughtful.
Also, tangent, but I also feel there needs to be more arcane creatures. Arcane pretty much only has some constructs, every other tradition kind of ate the wizards lunch (especially occult which gets way too much imo).
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The skill thing is also an issue that most of the Int key stat classes start with very low base skills with the understanding they are probably boosting int.
This is broadly incorrect.
Also all classes default to a standard of at least 4 + Int starting trained skills. This is usually some combo of what’s in the stat line + class granted.
Wizards break this by having only 3+int.
Why Wizards are still missing a skill, even after the remaster, is a testament to the lack of care taken with the class.
The remastered schools should each have granted a trained skill.
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I would love to see another small niche of the arcane list in more contingency spells. Contingency (the actual spell, not the trait) is arcane only, and I always felt like arcane is the prep class - if you know what's coming, you have a spell for that. I think a bunch of arcane exclusive contingency spells would be thematically appropriate and make the list feel a bit more thoughtful.
Also, tangent, but I also feel there needs to be more arcane creatures. Arcane pretty much only has some constructs, every other tradition kind of ate the wizards lunch (especially occult which gets way too much imo).
I haven't used Contingency in the new edition. I don't think the cost is worth it. Contingency was great in PF1 with tons of spell slots and magic items with lots of extra casting power.
But now Contingency is a slot I can use for a better blasting spell that requires you to use another slot I can use for someone else better as well. Contingency isn't very good any more. It's what you could call just ok sometimes.
7th level spell slots are precious. They are some great blasting. Not sure why I would want to use it on Contingency given how few spell slots you have now.
They say some of us want power like PF1, but I also see some posters thinking some spells are as good as they were in PF1 and they aren't. Contingency is one of those spells that is no longer worth using given the new PF2 paradigm. Too few spell slots, too few spell options to use with it, and not worth it.
That's part of what I would like is more unique Arcane spells worth using. Not carryovers from PF1 that aren't nearly as effective as they once were.
This is PF2. You can't waste spells. I even recall recently trying to use a dominate spell, one of the power spells of PF1, it took quite a few castings to land on anything decent, Then the thing made its save again. All that effort to land a spell that turned out not to last that long.
That's how Contingency is now. A 7th level spell to cast a 4th or lower spell under certain conditions.
7th level slots are big damage now. You get 3 to 4 of them. Hard to tie up a slot with contingency.
How are divine and occult casters looking for reflex targeting now that inner radiance torrent is nerfed? Rank 5 and 6 open up some cool options for divine, but prior to that Inner Radiance Torrent always seemed like what people pointed to when the biggest drawback of the occult/divine lists was pointed out. Has anything been printed to fill that hole?
Arcane is also only one of two traditions with illusory object and illusory creature, which are some of the highest value spells in the game.
I'm joining the chorus of "sounds like the real problem is wizards." With three separate pick a tradition casters, you just can't argue the arcane list is clearly the best anymore. You can argue it isn't the worst, but all you can really do to improve it is give it healing.
For blasting, Occult has nothing worth looking at until TK bombardment at rank 7. Divine has sacred beasts for a 5ft burst but that's really it until divine immolation at rank 5 and then eclipse burst at rank 7.
Oh, and final sacrifice, but that's mostly for witches.
On illusory object, you can just grab a dedication and a staff. Plenty of divine casters have incentive to hit psychic or go for bard cantrips anyway and access to illusory object is a nice bonus.
How are divine and occult casters looking for reflex targeting now that inner radiance torrent is nerfed? Rank 5 and 6 open up some cool options for divine, but prior to that Inner Radiance Torrent always seemed like what people pointed to when the biggest drawback of the occult/divine lists was pointed out. Has anything been printed to fill that hole?
Vomit Swarm is still the only lowish level common option I can think of, and it's bad damage (d8 vs 2d6 standard) in return for sicken 1/2 debuff on fail/crit fail.
LO: Shining Kingdoms gave us the dangerous close range reflex damage option of Echo Jump. It does respectable force damage (but awkward +2 rank scaling) in a 10' emanation around you, then you teleport a short distance. As a three action combo it is useable to stride up to try to catch a couple of enemies without also hitting an ally, then cast it to do the damage and teleport away.
Is there any reason you're both writing off Animated Assault? It's core, common, and does decent damage. Less up front than fireball but sustainable for extra damage. The +2 scaling sucks, but it seems like an obvious pick if I want to blast with Occult.
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Animated Assault doesn't move? I think that was the big hit on it. 2nd level spell slots are pretty important for see the unseen and revealing light as those are the primary ways to deal with invisibility.
I usually sit on my level 2 slots to deal with invis. 4th level invis is a huge pain even for higher level characters if you don't take care of it.
Animated Assault might be ok when you first get level 2 spells and want some kind of a blast spell. Then it becomes a spell you forget about because it doesn't move or scale well. If it could be moved on sustain, it would probably be more popular.
Another (honestly kinda frustrating) part about Contingency and it's child Ready, is that when the trigger happens, it's optional to invoke it.
This means one can set the most generic triggers, like "a creature begins their turn" or worse "begins a hostile action targeting me", and it's still completely valid.
Normally that's kinda okay because Ready requires the availability and spend of the Reaction, but it makes Contingency into a *very* blank check with silly legal uses.
Even crazy generalist options like Flicker, Invisibility, etc, are very nice and impactful spells when they cost 0A. Those behave as one might expect.
The general idea of Contingency is giving new life and usability to your old R4 and under slots by the means of getting them for 0A right when you'd want them.
R7 @ 6,500 gp for a wand is also just low enough on the scale that my endgame PC that's been buying a lot of wands would loooove to have that as an option.
Sure, if R7 is your top R, you may want to fill all of them with your top of the curve damage / control spells.
In general I get that the role of Contingency being *not* a damage tool is offputting to some. But IMO, that specific incompatibility with nuking is kinda *why* it is allowed to be so crazy good at it's job.
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Aaaand here's an "oh, this is silly" example.
Having a contingency to "teleport behind the battle med cleric" any time a foe begins a hostile action against them sounds fine, buuuuut.
If the table runs Ready RaW in regard to disrupting and cancelling foe actions, then the Wiz teleporting off-turn is burning foe actions with near zero risk to themselves. No fear of using one's only Reaction for Shield and lacking to avoid the boss pancake, etc.
RaW, you should be able to set up teleports that dodge their trigger action, after the foe has committed the actions to their attack.
Off-turn movement like that is kinda nuts.