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Here is a link to the thread for Gortle's Guide to the sorcerer , where they talk about the different strengths of spell lists. About the Divine list, Gortle gives it 3 stars for a sorcerer and says "A good spell list but not as offensive as the others and a much smaller total number of spells. Good for healing and buffing. Reasonable summoning options, some battle forms. Your damage options are no longer weaker than the other lists."
As you can see, that guide was initially written in 2020, long before the remaster, and while it was certainly updated from the remaster, it was not rewritten, ostensibly because that would be a lot of work and would need to apply for every guide Gortle wrote. When commenting specifically on the divine list, rather than on the specificities of the Sorcerer (as I recall, you mentioned that focusing on one class isn't necessarily the most helpful in analyzing a spell tradition), they mention that the divine list got a big boost, that the addition of spirit damage is a significant rebalance to the divine list, and even that the boundaries between the arcane and divine lists have become blurred. That sounds an awful lot like what's been said to you by various people on this thread.
Execute now can effect the undead. That is a boost, especially in certain campaigns, but divine casters are not hurting for ways to be absolutely wrecking the Undead with rank 7 spells so its not a change that vastly improves what the spell will be used for in play.
This is once again incorrect. You are forgetting that this change allows divine casters to have two functions on the same spell, and have the same spell work both against the living and the undead, covering more bases at once. Not only that, execute is an exceptionally damaging spell, and so is a useful additional tool to have against the undead. I think it would help to try to understand what these changes actually entail before coming up with reasons to downplay their impact.
I actually did address Divine Wrath a bit earlier in this thread. I think it is an ok spell that has certainly improved with the remastered changes. It is a decent damage options for hitting those sanctification weaknesses (if your character can trigger them) which can really help boost the damage. It doesn't scale very well though and starts out behind Fireball to begin with, so I stand by that it is not a great spell to build a blasting focused caster around.
More the loss for you, I suppose, as divine wrath is an excellent spell that doesn't heighten far behind fireball (5.5 per rank versus 7), yet has the immense advantages of applying potent debuffs on top, being much less likely to be resisted, triggering sanctification weaknesses, and avoiding friendly fire. Unlike fireball, the spell is also worth casting without heightening it thanks to the sickened condition on a failure. It is also worth noting that the guide you linked brings up Divine Wrath as an excellent spell since the remaster, and the improvements made since its pre-remaster version, which only dealt alignment damage, are massive.
It is nice that Divine Immolation has a more clear cut way of doing damage to creatures resistant and immune to fire than Flame Strike, but the damage is bad for blasting. Persistent damage is worse than direct upfront damage.
I'm detecting a running theme here where it appears your sole criterion for evaluating the balance of blasting spells is their raw numbers (except of course in the case of divine spells with high damage numbers like execute, at which point you switch to other, unspoken criteria). In this particular case, you seem to be assuming that persistent damage is worse than direct upfront damage, when in practice the opposite is true: persistent damage is difficult to get rid of without specialized assistance, and so is likely to apply several times. You don't have to do the same, but I personally value persistent damage at twice the equivalent amount of direct damage, as that's usually how many times it triggers on average in my opinion, a balancing standard that appears to have been applied to the Exemplar's weapon ikons. That this spell also bypasses fire resistance and immunity, unlike fireball, all but reinforces the divine tradition's strength in its extremely reliable blasting, another factor you appear to be discounting.
Divine Lance is still a bad cantrip. It is not as heavy a sandbag as it used to be, but unless you are a cleric or have an easy way to sanctification, no one is choosing Divine lance over Needle Darts. Needle Darts being on every list is the boost that the Divine list got as far as cantrips go.
I certainly agree that needle darts is the stronger cantrip, but triggering sanctification nonetheless remains very powerful. You brought up the Sorcerer, so permit me to bring up the Cleric as you also did: a sanctified Cleric triggering even just weakness 5 with sanctification is effectively doubling their damage dealt with this cantrip, dealing practically the same damage as an arcane caster's success with hydraulic push. That ability to significantly punch above one's weight with sanctifications is one of many reasons why the Cleric in particular became such a strong class with the remaster.
As far as avoiding friendly fire with AoE, that tends to be pretty costly with the divine list as far as facing reduced damage vs comparably ranked spells
Is it, though? As demonstrated with divine wrath, the spell is better than fireball in a number of different ways.
and the Arcane and Divine solution to that problem is the much, much, much better option Chain Lightning, that buries all divine spells for blasting with that 500ft range, and solid d12 damage dice.
I've seen people throw chain Lightning around like it's the most powerful spell ever, but in practice it has quite a few caveats:
That's quite a lot of limitations for 52 average damage. Meanwhile, wails of the damned not only has that same enemies-only restriction, but deals significantly more damage thanks to its drained condition, which also happens to be a debuff, and without those same caveats. I would say it's the arcane list that's getting buried here, not that it's lacking in other utility benefits.
Going first and blasting with a big AoE spell like Falling stars in the first round
That doesn't actually sound like a very smart idea to me: if you're concerned about friendly fire, falling stars is an extremely dangerous spell to use, and if you're thinking of blasting over several rounds, you might want to soften the enemies up first, which wails of the damned at the same rank does far, far better (it also happens to deal more average damage on a failure). In fact, the drained condition from wails of the damned makes other divine spells like divine wrath or spirit blast the perfect follow-up. This is, once again, one of the reasons why blasting isn't all about big numbers.
Divine casters can do some decent damage when they are facing the right enemies and they don't have to spend a lot of actions moving around, but it is harder to consistently and effectively blast with a list heavily leaning into Fort save damage spells with anemic ranges and few and far between lower damage reflex save options, even if some of those close range, fort save damage spells do hit pretty hard.
Once more, I think the opposite is true: divine casters do in fact have quite a good variety of different saves to target at high level, but are also exceptionally target-agnostic compared to the arcane list, which constantly hits itself up against resistances and immunities. Not only that, but divine spells are also good for softening enemies up for follow-up, whereas the arcane list isn't as good at debuffing and damaging at the same time. Not only that, but if an enemy has high Reflex saves or is immune to electricity damage, your chain lightning may not be effective at all, and it doesn't appear like you have a solid backup spell in mind either.
As a secondary observation, I recall the times from before the remaster where the divine list was constantly complained about, with threads detailing how limited and situational the spell list was, and how bad it was for things like blasting. Those threads no longer exist now. Instead, we currently have quite a popular thread criticizing the arcane list instead, and while the question of whether the arcane list is weak now is contentious (I don't think it is), the gap between it and other lists has undeniably shortened, including for blasting.
The absolutely most important thing to do as a divine caster that wants to be a good blaster is to read your class options carefully to get spells from other lists that will help you do it. Arcane and Primal Blasters do not need to do that.
Divine casters don't need to do that either, though, the spells divine casters get from other lists just happens to be a bonus. I do think you're right in that it's still worth opting into spells from other lists, but only because the arcane list in particular has a lot of nifty utility spells on the side. By contrast, arcane and primal casters have to constantly watch out for resistances and immunities, and resultingly have lots of similar spells around just for that occasion. They could try to pick up divine spells for more target-agnostic blasting, but spellcasting archetypes aren't great to blast with, so the benefits there are reduced.
I'll make one final commentary on the following:
I didn't mention Divine Wrath or Divine Immolation in the post that this response is responding to, but I will address them here, later.
I actually did address Divine Wrath a bit earlier in this thread.
I think it would make for a much more productive discussion to be a touch less defensive and not worry so much about "addressing" how certain divine spells are strong by attempting to downplay their strengths, particularly as the standards you're using appear to be fairly dependent on ever-changing personal tastes. If you're just looking to state that the divine list is weak for blasting and nothing can convince you otherwise, that's fine too, just let us know and we can have another, more constructive discussion instead, but I do think the evidence is pretty clear that the divine list is in fact excellent for blasting among other things. You're perfectly in your right to disagree, but it certainly appears to be the consensus.
I made a new whiteroom DPR comparison between some animist and sorcerers. Now I consider them after 3 rounds casting in order to see the effectiveness of setup sustained spells and stances.
That said animist trying to sustain Hungry Depths + Invoke Spirits + Earth Bile was considerably weak even in Channeler's Stance. Try stack multiple sustainable spells simply doesn't work well for animists (at last, while we still have such low number of apparitions).
I still have a few questions:
Where is Cardinal Guardians?
I had forgotten about it.
A made a new DPR graph adding the Cardinal Guardians.
The result was curious. In general Cardinal Guardians is currently a trap option.
Its main problem is that it only works with Apparition Spells and Vessel Spells, both for the trigger and the benefit. This causes two major problems. The first is that you only have one Apparition Spell Slot for each of your two highest spell ranks.
So, to benefit from Carginal Guardians at level 15 (which is when you get it), if you cast a Rank 8 Apparition Spell, the next round, to benefit from Carginal Guardians, your best option is to cast a Rank 7 Apparition Spell from another Apparition (+ Earth's Bile) because you no longer have Spell Slots from Rank 8 Apparitions, and then cast a Rank 6 Apparition Spell the next round! This has a very negative impact on DPR, especially since it occurs at the same levels at which the most powerful divine damage spells become available. It's simply not worth it.
Carginal Guardians with Hungry Depths + Invoke Spirits + Earth's Bile improved the situation for this sustained combo a bit. But it's still far from competing with any other blast build. In fact, it's so low on the chart that I bet if I added some damage kineticist builds, it would probably do better than this.
Why did you choose to interpret Sustaining hungry depths or invoke spirits as Sustaining both?
Because it doesn't make sense to do it with just two. You'll end up with a useless hole in your action economy.
If you're going to sustain two actions with the animist, make it Earth's Bile + EoB or one of the Battle Forms Vessel Spells, because at least you can use your third action to Strike efficiently. If you want to sustain blast spells, make it with all your actions, preferably from Apparitions so you don't have to stand still. However, the effectiveness of this in the chart proved to be very low.
Elf Step doesn't do damage or debuff, I have no way to put it on a DPR chart.
Really, it looks like you're making life unnecessarily complicated for yourself by tying yourself up in knots over avoiding just adding one Sustain to one of your other Animist comparisons. That is the whole point of the Elf Step combo on the Liturgist. Even without it, however, the Animist is still right up there with the best blasters, so the Animist is in fact one of the best blasters around.
I don't understand your criticism here. However, I agree that the Animist is a good blaster (in fact, I don't think anyone here ever said it wasn't).
Actually, more critically, I still think it's more an OK blaster, because it suffers from the problem at low levels: divine magic has few powerful damage options (the options it does have are more focused on dealing damage plus some effect, or avoiding FF) at lower levels, and you still have to deal with having fewer spell slots than a sorcerer or an oracle. If you look at the chart, it's the weakest of the options, coming from the back of the line that reaches level 13 onward, which is when divine spells become truly competitive with other blaster options in terms of damage output.
However, I still want to compare it to using sustained spells, focusing solely on burning Apparitions using Apparition's Quickening, which is where I believe it begins to shine as a blaster over other options. The issue is that doing this comparison over three rounds will require me to adjust the classes level by level, as they rapid burning SpellSlots forces me to keep dropping the spell rank. But one of these days, when I have more leisure, I'll do it.
Divine is certainly not in a bad place for blasting these days. They have some really nasty spells every blaster would be happy to take if they could.
But with all this talk of Arcane being weak, lets be contrary:
If playing a campaign spanning all the levels and you want to focus on blasting, the Arcane tradition has the widest range and will give you a good selection of spells covering all the saves, ranges, aoe, multitarget or single target and with a solid mix of damage types sooner than the other traditions.
Especially with how spontaneous casting and signature spells work that matters a lot. Arcane is in general the best equipped for exploiting vulnerabilities, sidestepping resistances or immunities, targeting the weakest saves and having a good blast for any range or situation.
The real problem with the remaining divine tradition regarding blasting is that during the cantrips and early ranks, especially the first 3 ranks, it's very limited. Since most adventures require you to complete these six levels, it can be somewhat frustrating for a player who wants to focus on blasting to play with the divine tradition. This is especially true for short, four-level adventures, and even for 12-level adventures and PFS, where you'll spend the first half of the game struggling with a lack of good blasts and having to play in different ways (likely debuffing and slamming).
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The chain distance is only 30 feet, not 500 feet, so the ability to chain targets is much more conditional than you're presenting it.
I'm quite certain that Unicore is aware of this. I distinctly remember having to target my character with chain lightning in one of Unicore's games, just so that I could continue to chain the effect to additional enemies that would otherwise have been out of range and avoided it. He was rather surprised by it, as I recall.
Blasting is about doing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. That is the key metric that I have always seen in online discussions. A dedicated blaster caster is a caster who can maximize their damage output in the early rounds of combat for as many rounds as possible.
Again, I don't think "dedicated blaster" is the best way to play a caster in PF2, and I personally value spells that can do multiple things, but I am not going to bring those spells into a conversation about blasting. I actually like having at least one decent persistent damage spell I can cast in a day, but for me, decent means I can either land persistent damage on a successful save, or I can do it with a spell attack roll spell that can be hero pointed or Sure Striked. I think landing heavy persistent damage against an intelligent boss can be absolutely encounter defining and a lot of fun, but that is GM and campaign dependent and not about the direct damage output, hence it is not about blasting.
For blasting, persistent damage is less valuable than direct damage because it will not end a encounter before the creature gets to take a turn again.
For a spell like divine immolation's change from flame strike, it took a spell already behind fireball and made it less comparable as a blasting spell. It is a decent option for a divine caster who doesn't have access to better reflex targeting blast spells, and its ability to bypass fire resistances is useful in that position of "this is one of very few reflex targeting blast spells you can have" but against a more flexible blasting list that kind of resistance bypassing ability is not worth trading direct damage for because you just cast a different spell against a target that is going to have resistance or immunity.
As far as when raw damage numbers matter, I agree it is important to not let it be completely arbitrary, and I have never dismissed the high damage single target blasting options of the divine list as universally bad options, only that their lack of range is detrimental to their blasting value because it can be hard to use them in the first round. Breath Fire does exactly the same damage as Fireball when heightened to the same rank, but is a less valuable blasting spell because area and range are important numbers to consider when blasting, even though there may be situations where breath fire is going to be the easier spell to use to hit one or two creatures instead of fireball. Breath Fire is much harder to count on as a round 1 blasting spell and is more likely to be useful as a spell that can be useful in later rounds in encounters, but its super close range makes the caster much more vulnerable to disrupting reactions as well. Range and area are relevant numbers when doing blasting comparison because they affect how much damage the spell itself can do immediately in round 1. The ability to bypass friendly fire is a useful ability but is usually more of a round 2 or 3 consideration than a round 1 consideration, which is how falling stars can be an excellent blasting spell, but not a "cast every round of combat" blasting spell.
Flexibility of damage types (including ability to bypass resistances) is another relevant ability, but when it lowers the damage out put of a spell by 14 points at rank 5, that is a heavy price.
Also, sanctification damage is great for divine casters who can access it, but that is not all divine casters. Being able to do a wide range of damage types is a useful way that arcane and primal casters can target many different types of weaknesses, that does come with the added complexity of needing to know about creatures' weaknesses and resistances to be used to those lists best advantages. The divine list also has its complexities for effective blasting. I would say that the remaster did significantly help reduce and simplify those complexities though.
I had forgotten about it.A made a new DPR graph adding the Cardinal Guardians.
The result was curious. In general Cardinal Guardians is currently a trap option.Its main problem is that it only works with Apparition Spells and Vessel Spells, both for the trigger and the benefit. This causes two major problems. The first is that you only have one Apparition Spell Slot for each of your two highest spell ranks.
Carginal Guardians with Hungry Depths + Invoke Spirits + Earth's Bile improved the situation for this sustained combo a bit. But it's still far from competing with any other blast build. In fact, it's so low on the chart that I bet if I added some damage kineticist builds, it would probably do better than this.
Okay, much appreciated. I do think something is getting lost in the mix, however: to be very clear, the combo I am suggesting, which yellowpete mentioned as well, is to use Elf Step to Sustain earth's bile and either hungry depths or invoke spirits in a single action. You would then be able to use your remaining two actions to cast some other spell, such as a divine spell, and the combination of the apparition spell and vessel spell from different apparitions would cause both to benefit from Cardinal Guardians. This is why I am pointing out you shouldn't be Sustaining all three, nor inserting all three into the same rotation, because doing so means you're spending way too many actions Sustaining. All you need is one action with Elf Step to Sustain that apparition spell and separate vessel spell in one go, and doing so means both can keep triggering Cardinal Guardians on each other, all while giving you space to blast with a third, probably divine spell.
To be very explicit on the rotation:
So with this setup, your blasting turn has you Sustain two spells with one action, earth's bile and invoke spirits, and both spells get that +2 from Cardinal Guardians on top of the status bonus to damage from Channeler's Stance. Your remaining two actions can then be spent blasting with the most powerful spell at your disposal, such as execute.
If you really wanted, you could also include Angwa's suggestion of Maneuvering Spell, which would let you cast hungry depths one turn before all the above, Sustain it during the setup turn, and Sustain both apparition spells and the vessel spell while still giving you two actions to blast with a divine spell during the blasting turn. Again, all of those apparition/vessel spells would be triggering Cardinal Guardians and Channeler's Stance off of each other too.
Blasting is about doing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. That is the key metric that I have always seen in online discussions. A dedicated blaster caster is a caster who can maximize their damage output in the early rounds of combat for as many rounds as possible.
Okay, let's take this at face value. If blasting is just about dealing as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, then why extend blasting across multiple rounds, or focus specifically on AoE damage and range? Because if it's just big numbers you want, it's difficult to get much higher than 10 damage per rank with execute. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like the metrics you're setting here really lend themselves towards the point you're trying to prove, which is probably why they seem to shift around in your posts each time a divine spell just so happens to satisfy them better than an arcane spell.
Okay, let's take this at face value. If blasting is just about dealing as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, then why extend blasting across multiple rounds, or focus specifically on AoE damage and range? Because if it's just big numbers you want, it's difficult to get much higher than 10 damage per rank with execute. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like the metrics you're setting here really lend themselves towards the point you're trying to prove, which is probably why they seem to shift around in your posts each time a divine spell just so happens to satisfy them better than an arcane spell.
Blasting is about doing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. That is the key metric that I have always seen in online discussions. A dedicated blaster caster is a caster who can maximize their damage output in the early rounds of combat for as many rounds as possible.
There are a couple of things I would like to address here:
1. My initial blasting comparisons were always analyzing 3 actions in 1 turn. When I framed the damage total as number of turns it would take for that damage number to kill the creature being targeted, that was to give a context to the raw damage number for the one turn of blasting. 30 points of damage at level 11 against a level 13 creature is generally going to be a much better result than 30 points of damage at level 13 vs a level 15 creature. "How many times would each character in the party need to do this much damage to defeat a creature?" is a valuable way of thinking about what the functional difference is between doing 43.85 points of damage and doing 48.2 points of damage, and that is why I have never turned to Critking's damage tool for doing mathmatical blasting comparisons. My point of comparison is still one character's 3 actions in one turn, but since there is a specific creature being targeted, it is useful to think about what percentage of total HP you just took off with your turn.
2. Later in the exact post that you quote from me, I explain why range and area are relevant numbers to look at when talking about blasting, and I specifically addressed why just looking at raw damage on spells that are short range doesn't inherently tell a complete story about how much damage they will do in a typical blasting scenario. I even point out in that post that Breath Fire and Fireball do identical damage but one of them is considered a better blasting spell and why.
3. Every time you have added another divine spell to be considered for blasting, I have considered it fairly, given credit to situations where it might be valuable, and explained why I think it still has limitations that prevent it from being a central component of a strong blasting build, in my opinion.
4. Deriven is actually the one who pointed out that single target blasting with rank 7 spells is usually a subpar way of contributing overall damage to an encounter. I think there is merit in that analysis because truthfully Martials can usually tear a solo creature apart fairly effectively, and especially damage-wise, at high level, but they might struggle to pull off action denial effects, as they have almost nothing that is going to steal an action even on successful save. Even though I agree, I admit that is getting away from a pure blasting analysis, but as good as 70 is for a base number for a spell's damage, against a higher level solo creature that has a good chance of being reduced significantly when the creature has strong saves. Against the Diabolic Dragon, the average damage of execute was only 21, for example. A two action force barrage is easily going to outpace that from a pure blasting perspective (which is still probably not the best way for a caster to approach solo boss creatures).
Even pulled back away from a particularly bad target to try to blast against for a divine caster, like a Diabolic Dragon, Execute is only going to do 39.25 average against a level 15 creature with an average fortitude save and only 24.25 against a high fort save creature. Those are not great numbers to compare against a rank 7 force garage which would do 14/28/42 damage per action spent without adding in anything like sorcerous potency, which will also have 120 ft range compared to 30ft. But even an arcane sorcerer going nova against a level 15 creature and casting 3 rank 7 force barrages with sorcerous potency is only going to be looking at around 63 points of damage against a creature with 345 hp on average.
That would work out to about 6 turns worth of the same damage to defeat the creature compared to about 8 with 3 action Force Barrages from the same caster, or 9 with execute against an average save or 15 turns if the creature had a high fortitude save.
Keeping martials alive and buffed (assuming those martials are well built and capable of hitting and damaging high AC creatures and this creature isn't very resistant to the kinds of damage those martials can do) as much as possible and the enemy creature as action deprived as possible is going to be the much more effective plan of defeating the creature, which are all places where the divine list really shines.
Blasting on the other hand is capable of dealing with large numbers of lower and equal level creatures much, much more efficiently than martials, which is probably why both of us prioritize blasting that can affect multiple creatures.
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One of the things that turned me away from the animist as a caster was the lack of a slow spell. That spell does a lot of heavy lifting for me. I don't like not having it.
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That is true, the divine list’s best action denial is calm, but that isn’t as effective on a save as slow, so the divine caster is not as good at action denial as other casters but that is also outside the scope of blasting, but it’s a tangent I went on too.
My initial blasting comparisons were always analyzing 3 actions in 1 turn.
Perhaps your initial comparisons, but not here:
Going first and blasting with a big AoE spell like Falling stars in the first round, then blasting with chain lightnings on following rounds when combats get muddled is solid arcane/primal blasting that strongly leaves open 3rd actions for spells like force barrage, power word kill, or focus spells that do more damage or increase the damage of the primary spell.
Nor even in this statement of what you consider blasting to be:
A dedicated blaster caster is a caster who can maximize their damage output in the early rounds of combat for as many rounds as possible.
As mentioned already, if we're just boiling this down to one round, execute is one of the highest damage-dealing spells around and is a divine spell, so that makes things pretty simple.
Later in the exact post that you quote from me, I explain why range and area are relevant numbers to look at when talking about blasting
And yet, here is what you have to say about blasting:
Blasting is about doing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. That is the key metric that I have always seen in online discussions.
On the subject of other factors, you had this to say:
Again, I don't think "dedicated blaster" is the best way to play a caster in PF2, and I personally value spells that can do multiple things, but I am not going to bring those spells into a conversation about blasting.
"Multiple things" in this situation being effects like persistent damage, debuffing, the ability to bypass resistances and damage immunities, the ability to ignore friendly fire, and the many other benefits to divine spells that were mentioned. And yet, AoE and range seem to factor into your valuations when convenient, despite the fact that all of these other effects have a direct impact on a caster's ability to maximize their damage output.
Every time you have added another divine spell to be considered for blasting, I have considered it fairly, given credit to situations where it might be valuable, and explained why I think it still has limitations that prevent it from being a central component of a strong blasting build, in my opinion.
Fairly... by which standard? "I've decided to investigate myself and have deemed myself a fair and impartial judge" isn't really a convincing argument, particularly since as the above shows, your valuations are extremely inconsistent and anything but fair in practice. In fact, this thread's very OP shows you had your mind made up before discussion even began, so I don't think it's for you to say whether or not you've been impartial here.
More to the point, these divine spells I brought up, which you could and should have acknowledged without my prompting, did in fact excel by the metrics you'd set at the time. Execute and spirit blast absolutely fulfil the blasting criterion of dealing as much damage as possible, for instance. When you started bringing up AoE and range, divine wrath and wails of the damned similarly excelled at those metrics. When you started bringing up the ability to cover multiple saves, divine immolation fit the bill. Strangely, the goalposts seemed to keep moving, and each time there still happened to be an answer.
Deriven is actually the one who pointed out that single target blasting with rank 7 spells is usually a subpar way of contributing overall damage to an encounter.
I fully agree, which is why you should perhaps take into account more factors, such as debuffing. This is, once again, something the divine list does a lot better, particularly since spells like divine wrath and wails of the damned can both debuff and blast at the same time.
Execute is only going to do 39.25 average against a level 15 creature with an average fortitude save and only 24.25 against a high fort save creature.
Your math is completely wrong. A moderate Fort save for a 15th-level enemy is +26, and a high save is +29, whereas a full spellcaster's spell DC at 15th level is 36. A 7th-rank execute at that level deals 70x(0.5x0.5+0.4+0.05x2) = 52.5 average damage, way more than a three-action force barrage of the same rank. In fact, even against a high Fort save, execute deals 70x(0.5x0.5+0.25+0.05x2) = 42 average damage, the same as that three-action, 7th-rank force barrage. I'm not sure where you got your numbers, but you should have probably asked yourself if it was sensible for one of the most damaging spells in the game to still struggle next to a heightened, low-damage 1st-rank spell against a moderate save.
Sorry, level 13 caster vs level 15 enemy, like the comparison against the Diabolic dragon I made earlier. Comparing single target blasting spells vs equal level enemies is rarely that useful because multi target ones tend to do a lot more damage in those situations.
Sorry, level 13 caster vs level 15 enemy
You did it again! I don't think you can really claim not to be moving the goalposts anymore, Unicore.
But hey, while we're in the business of doing these comparisons, a 15th-level caster casting an 8th-rank execute against a 17th-level enemy with moderate Fort saves will deal 80x(0.5x0.5+0.25+0.05x2) = 48 average damage, once again more than an 8th-rank, three-action force barrage. The same persists for a 17th-level caster casting a 9th-rank execute against a 19th-level enemy (54 average damage versus 52.5 on the three-action, 9th-rank force barrage), and a 20th-level caster casting that same 9th-rank execute against a 22nd-level enemy (63 versus 52.5). It appears you chose one of the very few level brackets in the game where the difference in DC was high enough for your comparison to look superficially convincing in your favor, due to the inherent -2 from the lack of proficiency bump. Across all other brackets, the comparison doesn't seem to be working out for you so well.
Not only that, but you're also comparing a 3-action spell to a 2-action spell, which leaves a spare action. While we're in the business of blasting as quickly as possible, Quickened Casting + 5th-rank divine wrath deals 19.25 average damage in the 13 vs. 15 scenario, quite soundly beating the three-action force barrage with the combined 58.5 damage, and that's before including the 1.4 extra damage it adds onto the 7th-rank execute. Even against a 15th-level enemy with high Fort saves, that's a total of 54.5 average damage, more than force barrage, and this significant lead persists across all level brackets.
But really, I don't think we're breaking new ground here. It is pretty obvious that if you're facing a boss-level enemy with high saves and haven't applied any debuffs whatsoever, the spell designed to bypass attack rolls and saves is going to come out ahead if you spend all your actions on it and nothing on anything else in the alternative. This is one of the reasons why debuffing is relevant to blasting, as it is a significant force multiplier. Even so, however, as the above proves, it is entirely possible to brute-force superior blast damage with divine spellcasting, and pound-for-pound, spending two actions on execute is likely to come out much farther ahead than spending those two actions upcasting force barrage. Once again, the divine tradition proves excellent for blasting, and that's before even factoring in all of the other goodies it contributes around that.
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Sorry, level 13 caster vs level 15 enemyYou did it again! I don't think you can really claim not to be moving the goalposts anymore, Unicore.
Comments like this are cruel and obviously false. My math reflected the level 13 vs 15 analysis that I had just been talking about and have been pointing back to for much of this thread. Maybe I was unclear and should have stated it again, but that is not engaging in deception or moving goal posts. I am done responding to your posts. I hope you have fun blasting with the divine list.
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The chain distance is only 30 feet, not 500 feet, so the ability to chain targets is much more conditional than you're presenting it.I'm quite certain that Unicore is aware of this. I distinctly remember having to target my character with chain lightning in one of Unicore's games, just so that I could continue to chain the effect to additional enemies that would otherwise have been out of range and avoided it. He was rather surprised by it, as I recall.
One way to really get those raw blasting damage numbers up is to use AoEs and always target your entire party. 4 to 6 more targets per spell is going to really make your DPR shine!
*latest calculations*Small correction: Cardinal Guardians becomes available at 14, not 15. If it's not an upgrade over using divine slots instead, that's interesting, though I can't honestly say I understand that tool and what exactly you have defined there so it's tough to double check the math.
I started from 15 because Hungry Depths is a 3-action spell and this sequence of setup sustainable spells from 3 different apparitions. If I had started at level 14 it couldn't use Apparition's Quickening (because each spell is from a different apparition and you only get a four apparition at level 15) to reduce the number of actions of Hungry Depths and won't able to enter into Channeler's Stance and this not only would require me to make an entire set of calculation only for level 14 but also would make the combination really weak without able to add the rank as status bonus to these spells.
That's the same reason that I calculated lvl 18 all a part. Because it uses Cycle of Souls to enter in the stance as a free action allowing to use Earth's Bile earlier (or just allows to setup without Apparition's Quickening like I made between lvls 15-17).
I think the idea with Elf Step is one of the following:
1. Start 2 sustained spells on round 1 that will buff each other with Cardinal Guardians (only option I see is Earth's Bile + upcast Invoke Spirits), then sustain both at once with Elf Step starting from turn 2 and use the other two actions to cast another blasting spell (possibly choosing whichever apparition spell would get the save penalty that round, but probably just divine spells starting from round 3). Rinse and repeat.
2. Start with Hungry Depths (assuming that it will always hit despite its lower mobility on Sustain), then Channeler's Stance + Earth's Bile + Sustain Hungry Depths on round 2, then the same routine as above from round 3 (Elf Step for both sustained spells + one 2-a blast spell). Even slower setup, but Hungry Depths' damage isn't quite as anemic as Invoke Spirits (+ you get the Stance in there for two spells) so I suspect it turns better in terms of total damage than the first method probably in round 4 (complete guess).
Edit: Actually, 1. is probably improved by doing Stance + Earth's Bile + Quickened Invoke Spirits (only rank 5) instead.
I understand now. But is this right? Being able to Sustain an extra time for free because Elf Step allows to Step twice in just one action? This really looks TGTBT!
I admit it took me a while to grasp the idea, because it's so absurd to me that it hadn't even crossed my mind.
Using a level 9 ancestry feat, which was clearly designed to allow you to Step further to get an extra Sustain per action, is clearly wrong to me.
Technically, this allows you to do absurd things like sustaining four vessel spells from different apparitions at the same time, for example
Round 1: Channeler's Stance (1-action) + Quickened Hungry Depths (2-actions)
Round 2: Sustain Hungry Depths and Step twice (1-action) + Earth's Bile + Stride/Strike (1-action).
Round 3: Sustain Hungry Depths + Earth's Bile in a single action due to Elf Step (1-action) + Embodiment of Battle (1-action) + Strike (1-action).
Round 4: Sustain Hungry Depths + Invoke Spirits in a single action due to Elf Step (1-action) + Sustain Embodiment of Battle (1-action) + Darkened Forest Form (1-action).
Round 5: Sustain Hungry Depths + Invoke Spirits in a single action due to Elf Step (1-action) + Sustain Embodiment of Battle + Darkened Forest Form in a single action due to Elf Step + Strike (1-action).
This is clearly wrong. In practice, the character can perform four Sustain actions in a round and still have an extra action left over to use as it wish? Besides, if it also Quickened due to an allied Haste, they could still perform an extra Stride or Strike! Totaling 6 actions in a round, in practice, because of a level 9 ancestry feat!?
Excuse me, but this is completely out of the ordinary. There's no way this is true. This is clearly too good to be true.
But is this right? Being able to Sustain an extra time for free because Elf Step allows to Step twice in just one action? This really looks TGTBT!
I think the heart of the argument that the liturgist is broken is because the ability says that you can sustain a spell any time you step instead of just letting you step once when you sustain. Elf step is the most obvious exploit of that. More complex is MCing to get skirmishing strike. I have looked closely at the math of it yet myself, but it looks like a lot of setup work to get going with elf step to me.
I am also curious to hear back from people who have put it into play.
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Anyway, I'm a bit skeptical that 2 sustains for 1 action is any more unbalancing than 1 sustain for 0 actions...of which there are a number of existing examples.
No! It is unbalanced! Because it is costless (Cackle costs 1 focus point), it's too early (level 9 is even sooner than Effortless Impulse that's level 12), it comes due to an ancestry feat, and it has no limits (every action compression ability in the game has a once per round restriction or higher).
Now I understood why Teridax and some people said that the class needs a nerf.
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No! It is unbalance! Because it is costless (Cackle costs 1 focus point), it's too early (level 9 is even sooner than Effortless Impulse that's level 12), it comes due to an ancestry feat, and it has no limits (every action compression ability in the game has a once per round restriction or higher).
Now I understood why Teridax and some people said that the class needs a nerf.
Yup! I won't force you to go through those calculations again, because at this point it's not even really about the Sorcerer versus the Animist, let alone arcane vs. divine blasting, so much as seeing just how many spells can be compressed into the same turn with Dancing Invocation and its free Sustains. Forget about the rest of the Animist or even the rest of that subclass, that one class feature could single-handedly throw any build off the rails.
Comments like this are cruel and obviously false. My math reflected the level 13 vs 15 analysis that I had just been talking about and have been pointing back to for much of this thread. Maybe I was unclear and should have stated it again, but that is not engaging in deception or moving goal posts. I am done responding to your posts. I hope you have fun blasting with the divine list.
I don't think this is at all true, and I find it quite pernicious to accuse people of cruelty when they try to apply a bit of critical thinking to the discussion. Even if we assume that you meant a level 13 vs. 15 comparison all along, which wasn't stated or implied originally, the above math and analysis show not only that the comparisons don't favor your point, but that your comparison featured a clear action imbalance and relied on one of the extreme few level ranges that could've superficially lent itself in favor of your point. Equalize the actions or choose any other level range, let alone both, and divine blasting wins once more by a country mile. There are for sure valid criticisms to make of the list, including its lack of good blasting options at lower levels, but I think the case has been made now that a) the divine list is excellent for blasting at higher levels, and b) the Animist can in fact out-blast even an Elemental or Imperial Sorcerer, purely by virtue of exploiting the Liturgist's broken Dancing Invocation feature as much as possible.
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One way to really get those raw blasting damage numbers up is to use AoEs and always target your entire party. 4 to 6 more targets per spell is going to really make your DPR shine!
XD LOL
I understand now. But is this right? Being able to Sustain an extra time for free because Elf Step allows to Step twice in just one action? This really looks TGTBT!
I'm still a bit skeptical myself. You're not taking the Step action. You're taking the Elf Step action. That's not the same thing. The rules for subordinate actions make it pretty clear that "Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions." Developers go to a lot of lengths to keep things in isolation so that combos like this aren't possible. Why would they make an exception here? I agree that it may well be TGTBT.
The limits on the elf step exploit to me is that is does nothing round 1 and it is shut down by being grappled or knocked prone.
The animist is a class built to sustain spells, much like a witch, so I think it needs help with that. All of the animists vessel spells are close range sustain spells that are going to frequently require the animist to move to be kept going effectively, so there will be many encounters facing melee opponents, many of whom can grab effectively. Or, against mobile enemies like dragons, those sustains might be difficult to leverage anyway. Not getting effortless concentration at all is tough for a class that wants it so badly. Elf step Animists only advantage over effortless concentration (other than getting earlier access), is the two step movements. That is not a lot of movement if the enemy is not standing around in close proximity.
I see how it looks amazing, but I am still curious about how often it feels amazing in play.
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Combat doesn't last a single round, though, so I don't think it's very sensible to judge effects exclusively by what they do on round 1. Moreover, it is not terribly difficult for an Animist to avoid getting grappled or knocked prone, as they will usually have a decent Athletics modifier and the effects that require them to get really close will usually mess an enemy up, e.g. nymph's grace and its confusion. Meanwhile, earth's bile doesn't require getting in melee range at all, so Elf Step and Maneuvering Spell at that point mostly just serve to provide tons of free action compression.
I also feel there's yet another double standard in play here, given that when the subject of vessel spells comes up, often the first criticism made is that the Animist is heavily action-taxed as a result. What the above proves is the opposite: not only does Dancing Invocation compress away the Sustain requirements of vessel spells, Elf Step and Maneuvering Spell let this go way overboard and let the Animist accomplish effectively up to six different actions in one turn, each with their own effects. If we're only counting the effects on round 1, then those vessel spells' Sustain requirements don't come into play either and they're just single-action spells, so even on round 1 the class is capable of doing a lot in one go.
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I'm still a bit skeptical myself. You're not taking the Step action. You're taking the Elf Step action. That's not the same thing. The rules for subordinate actions make it pretty clear that “Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions.” Developers go to a lot of lengths to keep things in isolation so that combos like this aren't possible. Why would they make an exception here? I agree that it may well be TGTBT.Nah, it definitely checks out. Compare for example the Sneak Attack feature, it adds damage “if you Strike” an enemy (and fulfil some conditions). But clearly it also works with the likes of Twin Feint, Skirmish Strike etc, even though the Strikes you make as part of those actions are only subordinate.
I agree. IMO it's TGTBT but doesn't fall into the Subordinated Actions rule because Dancing Invocation ability modifies the Step action adding “you also Sustain an apparition spell or vessel spell” to it. So no matter how it's called, if it's directly or via a Subordinated Action, the effect still applies.
Combat doesn't last a single round, though, so I don't think it's very sensible to judge effects exclusively by what they do on round 1. Moreover, it is not terribly difficult for an Animist to avoid getting grappled or knocked prone, as they will usually have a decent Athletics modifier and the effects that require them to get really close will usually mess an enemy up, e.g. nymph's grace and its confusion. Meanwhile, earth's bile doesn't require getting in melee range at all, so Elf Step and Maneuvering Spell at that point mostly just serve to provide tons of free action compression.
I also feel there's yet another double standard in play here, given that when the subject of vessel spells comes up, often the first criticism made is that the Animist is heavily action-taxed as a result. What the above proves is the opposite: not only does Dancing Invocation compress away the Sustain requirements of vessel spells, Elf Step and Maneuvering Spell let this go way overboard and let the Animist accomplish effectively up to six different actions in one turn, each with their own effects. If we're only counting the effects on round 1, then those vessel spells' Sustain requirements don't come into play either and they're just single-action spells, so even on round 1 the class is capable of doing a lot in one go.
Also, Prone stops to be more than off-guard for a part of a round when you take Kip Up (usually LvL 7 and up). It's a thing pretty common to optimizer players that are playing a caster character to invest into Acrobatics to be able to deal with Balance, Escape and specially Prone way easier.
One way to really get those raw blasting damage numbers up is to use AoEs and always target your entire party. 4 to 6 more targets per spell is going to really make your DPR shine!The chain distance is only 30 feet, not 500 feet, so the ability to chain targets is much more conditional than you're presenting it.I'm quite certain that Unicore is aware of this. I distinctly remember having to target my character with chain lightning in one of Unicore's games, just so that I could continue to chain the effect to additional enemies that would otherwise have been out of range and avoided it. He was rather surprised by it, as I recall.
That would be pretty funny.
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*latest calculations*Small correction: Cardinal Guardians becomes available at 14, not 15. If it's not an upgrade over using divine slots instead, that's interesting, though I can't honestly say I understand that tool and what exactly you have defined there so it's tough to double check the math.I started from 15 because Hungry Depths is a 3-action spell and this sequence of setup sustainable spells from 3 different apparitions. If I had started at level 14 it couldn't use Apparition's Quickening (because each spell is from a different apparition and you only get a four apparition at level 15) to reduce the number of actions of Hungry Depths and won't able to enter into Channeler's Stance and this not only would require me to make an entire set of calculation only for level 14 but also would make the combination really weak without able to add the rank as status bonus to these spells.
That's the same reason that I calculated lvl 18 all a part. Because it uses Cycle of Souls to enter in the stance as a free action allowing to use Earth's Bile earlier (or just allows to setup without Apparition's Quickening like I made between lvls 15-17).
...I think the idea with Elf Step is one of the following:
1. Start 2 sustained spells on round 1 that will buff each other with Cardinal Guardians (only option I see is Earth's Bile + upcast Invoke Spirits), then sustain both at once with Elf Step starting from turn 2 and use the other two actions to cast another blasting spell (possibly choosing whichever apparition spell would get the save penalty that round, but probably just divine spells starting from round 3). Rinse and repeat.
2. Start with Hungry Depths (assuming that it will always hit despite its lower mobility on Sustain), then Channeler's Stance + Earth's Bile + Sustain Hungry Depths on round 2, then the same routine as above from round 3 (Elf Step for both sustained spells + one 2-a blast spell). Even slower setup,
It's likely not intended. But as we all know and even the Paizo designers know, any mistake or lack of clarity by them will be exploited by the player base. The way Elf Step and the 9th level Liturgist ability are written, it works. Was it intended? Likely not. But when a designer is pushing creative rules design, I imagine hard for them to make sure that a single ancestry feat doesn't interact with a class ability in an imbalanced way.
We'll see how long it takes for Paizo to fix it and then see what the fix is and then see what happens to the animist once this fix is in. I'll probably fix it myself if anyone plays an animist, but even with Elf Step sustaining two spells is a matter of checking to see if that is worth the up front damage of a bigger blast.
Though it might be better for a martial build like sustaining the battle vessel spell and some kind of aura.
I don't see a lot of casters prioritizing acrobatics as the first skill to boost to master all that often, but maybe that is just table variance. I also don't see how casters are getting kip up at level 7 since they don't get a skill feat that can be used on it until level 8, unless I guess they are blowing a general feat on it at 7 and then retraining later? By levels 13-15 it is a lot more common though, so probably by level 9, when it would really even matter, a lot of animists would, even though athletics is more valuable skill for them as far as fitting in with their class features. It is true that getting knocked prone would otherwise potentially be more costly for them than most other casters.
The risk of getting grabbed is that you have to spend an action escaping and that either means no sustaining, or significantly reducing what new spells you cast. You probably do want to be good at athletics as an Animist so hopefully it will just be one action to escape for you most of the time, but your Fort save never goes about expert so you are going to be pretty easy to grab by most creatures that want to do it. Using any actions setting up defensive vessel/sustain spells is less actions that go toward damage dealing, but is something Animists are going to want to consider anyway, because they do tend to want to be pretty close in for the majority of their abilities.
I learned this playing an Ars Grammatica wizard that liked to get up in the mix and use a lot of protection/abjuration type spells. Temp HP and a wood kineticist/champion ally made getting hit a lot not a big deal, but getting grabbed as any kind of caster is really annoying, and it is going to be even more annoying for an animist who has built their character to exploit elf step as often as possible.
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I prioritize dex and acrobatics with nearly every caster. Acrobatics can be used to Escape. You even get access to Nimble Crawl and that Slippery feat that makes it much easier to escape as your third action. Then again I am a min-maxer.
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Whether Kip Up is taken at level 7, 8, or 10 isn't terribly relevant, in my opinion; it is a universally-accessible counter to being knocked prone, and works just fine for an Animist getting Tripped. I don't think being grabbed as an Animist is really the catastrophic event it's made out to be either, because the Animist can spend one and even two actions Escaping and still have the opportunity to Sustain two spells with Elf Step while also creating some distance, whereas any other caster would have a much harder time Escaping, and wouldn't be able to do all that much at all with one action remaining besides try to get out of reach of the enemy that grabbed them. It is also worth noting that in the event that enemies are constantly trying to knock the Animist prone or grab them, heroism is a spell on the divine list that grants up to a +3 to all saves, which includes DCs, as is blessing of defiance, so the class can in fact give themselves the equivalent of master or even legendary Fort saves as needed.
Whether Kip Up is taken at level 7, 8, or 10 isn't terribly relevant, in my opinion; it is a universally-accessible counter to being knocked prone, and works just fine for an Animist getting Tripped. I don't think being grabbed as an Animist is really the catastrophic event it's made out to be either, because the Animist can spend one and even two actions Escaping and still have the opportunity to Sustain two spells with Elf Step while also creating some distance, whereas any other caster would have a much harder time Escaping, and wouldn't be able to do all that much at all with one action remaining besides try to get out of reach of the enemy that grabbed them. It is also worth noting that in the event that enemies are constantly trying to knock the Animist prone or grab them, heroism is a spell on the divine list that grants up to a +3 to all saves, which includes DCs, as is blessing of defiance, so the class can in fact give themselves the equivalent of master or even legendary Fort saves as needed.
Legendary don't matter much for a boss. I have characters that are Legendary base with an item boost and a status bonus, athletics is set so high with such high stats it doesn't matter much.
Though it might be better for a martial build like sustaining the battle vessel spell and some kind of aura.
Yes, but the simplest thing that comes to my mind is to mix Embodiment of Battle and Darkened Forest Form/Devouring Dark Form.
If we consider that Elf Step could allow using 2 Step in 1-action and that each of these Steps to Sustain a different vessel spell. It's easy for an animist to become a very competitive martial.
For example at level 9 (when you get Dancing Invocation and all this thing starts to work) it can use an Elemental Form (via Darkened Forest Form) with Embodiment of Battle having 28 AC (a fighter have 27 AC at this level) +20 to attack (same that a fighter with a +1 weapon without a status bonus have), up to 2d10+9 to damage on its Strike (a fighter can do 2d12+7 or 3d12+7 in one of its attacks with Vicious Swing) and still have 2 actions to use (and the Elf Step action also allows moving some extra 10 ft per round).
OK this requires a round of setup (you need to cast Embodiment of Battle + Circle of Spirits + Darkened Forest Form) but as pointed by Teridax, if you don't care to waste more rounds setting up, you can also improve your damage output mixing Invoke Spirits with Earth's Bile in another Elf Step action doing basically same average damage of a fireball does at this rank every-round (and maybe becoming frightened 2 if critically fails) while still can Step up to 20ft + 1-action to Strike or do any other thing.
The full setup would be something like:
It's a long setup but during all rounds but the animist still doing a good amount of damage while it's build up. Possibly the encounter could finish before reaches round 5, yet the animist probably would make most of the damage anyway so they aren't lost actions and if any enemy still survives it will have to deal with the full might of this animist that can also moved 10-20ft in each of these rounds.
I don't see a lot of casters prioritizing acrobatics as the first skill to boost to master all that often, but maybe that is just table variance. I also don't see how casters are getting kip up at level 7 since they don't get a skill feat that can be used on it until level 8, unless I guess they are blowing a general feat on it at 7 and then retraining later? By levels 13-15 it is a lot more common though, so probably by level 9, when it would really even matter, a lot of animists would, even though athletics is more valuable skill for them as far as fitting in with their class features. It is true that getting knocked prone would otherwise potentially be more costly for them than most other casters.
The risk of getting grabbed is that you have to spend an action escaping and that either means no sustaining, or significantly reducing what new spells you cast. You probably do want to be good at athletics as an Animist so hopefully it will just be one action to escape for you most of the time, but your Fort save never goes about expert so you are going to be pretty easy to grab by most creatures that want to do it. Using any actions setting up defensive vessel/sustain spells is less actions that go toward damage dealing, but is something Animists are going to want to consider anyway, because they do tend to want to be pretty close in for the majority of their abilities.
I learned this playing an Ars Grammatica wizard that liked to get up in the mix and use a lot of protection/abjuration type spells. Temp HP and a wood kineticist/champion ally made getting hit a lot not a big deal, but getting grabbed as any kind of caster is really annoying, and it is going to be even more annoying for an animist who has built their character to exploit elf step as often as possible.
I usually invest into dex and Acrobatics with most of my casters. Specially because alternatives are typically magical RK skill depending on form the caster primary attribute and as I said acrobatics are very useful for casters to both Escape and Kip Up.
I agree that a martial built animist could prefer to invest into Str but honestly if it will use this Elf Step combo it just need to cast a Battle Form and it will basically ignore your physical attributes and also will give an athletics bonus, so this can be easily ignored too.
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As someone who's played the class without the Maneuvering Spell combo, but with Elf Step, I can attest that the Animist is in fact busted. I've made mention of this in other threads, but even if you were to strip out the Animist's practices altogether, they would still be a full caster with more spell slots than the Druid, a stronger base chassis than the Druid, more spell versatility across traditions than the Druid, and focus spells at least on par with the Druid's, with a focus pool that naturally expands to 3 Focus Points. Even among the supposedly underpowered apparitions, the Medium provides large benefits in action economy and versatility, while the Shaman gives you a better-than-average familiar; it is specifically the Seer that is weak by dint of being extremely niche, and I'd argue they'd be very strong in an adventure full of haunts, spirits, and incorporeal undead. Fix Dancing Invocation, and the gap would be significantly reduced.
My one recommendation, as this is a mistake a lot of people seem to be making, is to not fall prey to hubris and try to do too many things at once: by hubris, I mean the mistake of always using certain extremely strong options even when doing so would be suboptimal. You can be a capable pseudo-martial and an incredible blaster, but that doesn't mean you should try doing both at once. If you find yourself in a turn where you really need to do something else besides Sustain, even if it's compressed with Elf Step or Maneuvering Spell, then don't Sustain; do the thing you need to do first. Although the Animist is genuinely top-tier in many caster features, their greatest strength is their versatility, and the more flexible you make yourself, the more powerful you'll be overall.
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As someone that plays in min-maxed games with min-maxed martials and casters, the animist has a few feats that are somewhat overpowered, mainly the Apparition Quickening and Forest's Heart. Remove or reduce those feats, the animist is on par with every other class with the ability to build a versatile caster much like the druid or cleric.
Then again if those feats are removed, the animist almost becomes subpar. If they decided to errata the Liturgist to do one sustain, they really become average to subpar.
To me the animist seems like a class that was rushed and not tested well. It has some very narrow, overpowered options. But they are so narrow that any other path and you aren't going to be as good as other top tier classes.
If Paizo fixes the feats and one practice that allows overpowered play, the animist goes from a narrow build option with power to average to weak.
I think if they removed the Elf Step exploitation, Forest Heart becomes fine. So mainly Apparition's Quickening is the main culprit for being ovepowered as multiple quickens in a day is really, really powerful.
They kept quicken to one time a day, so I can't help but think they wanted the animist to be slightly more powerful allowing it to quicken up to 3 times a day.
If you reached a boss monster like a dragon, the animist in Channeler's Stance unleashes three quickens over three rounds with as powerful a blasts as they could manage, the damage would be pretty nuts unless the boss was real lucky on saves.
I would think only a level 20 wizard with Spell Combination and Quicken would be able to hit harder because that wizard's first round is pretty nuts.
OK this requires a round of setup (you need to cast Embodiment of Battle + Circle of Spirits + Darkened Forest Form) but as pointed by Teridax, if you don't care to waste more rounds setting up, you can also improve your damage output mixing Invoke Spirits with Earth's Bile in another Elf Step action doing basically same average damage of a fireball does at this rank every-round (and maybe becoming frightened 2 if critically fails) while still can Step up to 20ft + 1-action to Strike or do any other thing.
The full setup would be something like:
Round 1: Enter in Channeler's Stance + Cast Invoke Spirits (2-actions) = Doing small damage of 4d4+5 to the enemies in AoE this round.
Round 2: Cast Earth's Bile (1-action) + Circle of Spirits (1-action) + Sustain Invoke Spirits = Doing small damage of 4d4+5 + 6d4+5 to the enemies in AoE this round (this is already the avg damage of a fireball of this rank).
Round 3: Cast Embodiment of Battle + Circle of Spirits + Step twice (Elf Step) to Sustain Invoke Spirits with Earth's Bile (1-action) = Still damage the same fireball damage of the previous round.
Round 4: Cast Darkened Forest Form (1-action) + Sustain Embodiment of Battle + Step twice (Elf Step) to Sustain Invoke Spirits with Earth's Bile (1-action) = Still damage the same fireball damage of the previous round + maybe a Reactive Strike.
Round 5+: Step twice (Elf Step) to Sustain Invoke Spirits with Earth's Bile (1-action) + Step twice (Elf Step) to Sustain Embodiment of Battle with Darkened Forest Form (1-action) + 1-action to do anything like Strike = Still damage the same fireball damage of the previous round + probably a Strike + maybe a Reactive Strike.
I appreciate that you are looking into this and doing so much work to evaluate what could be a best case scenario for the Animist.
For me, this represents a good economy of spell slots, but a pretty bad comparison to blasting with some pretty big pitfalls. I tried to do a sustained damage druid at very high level and was surprised at how badly it compared to anyone else in the party at doing damage, especially in early rounds where my party needed to clear some creatures off the board. To be fair, I don't think the animist in this example is trying to blast, but is trying to make the most broken use of elf step, which I will come back to.
By the second round, using all 3 actions, the animist is doing as much damage as one rank 5 fireball spell with no damage modifiers and no use of a 3rd action to increase damage. It has only cast 1 spell slot spell for this whole string of events (hence why it feels like an economy of spell slots choice), where as the blaster is going to be using 3 to 6 spell slots in the first 3 rounds, but the encounter should probably be over by this point (or its result a foregone conclusion) or else you are playing in a campaign that does a lot of wave encounters and collapsing encounters.
The thing about wave encounters and collapsing encounters is that they usually don't stay statically in one place and this animist is not moving at all round 1, and then maybe tumbling through for round 2 to get a stride action in, and then is moving 10ft for the rest of the encounter. Invoke spirits can only move 30ft on a sustain. If you kill your targets with it and have to target a new group, you might be out a turn or more of damage from it. Presumably you just stop sustaining it...except that is probably your free action by the time you'd do that, and getting anything new going in its place would take a lot of actions. Earth's bile likewise might be in a precarious place if the focus of the battle field changes.
Again, I don't think shifting battlefields are common in PF2 modules unless the GM plays hardball, but then encounters that don't collapse or significantly move around end up functionally over by round 3.
As someone that plays in min-maxed games with min-maxed martials and casters, the animist has a few feats that are somewhat overpowered, mainly the Apparition Quickening and Forest's Heart. Remove or reduce those feats, the animist is on par with every other class with the ability to build a versatile caster much like the druid or cleric.
Then again if those feats are removed, the animist almost becomes subpar. If they decided to errata the Liturgist to do one sustain, they really become average to subpar.
To me the animist seems like a class that was rushed and not tested well. It has some very narrow, overpowered options. But they are so narrow that any other path and you aren't going to be as good as other top tier classes.
If Paizo fixes the feats and one practice that allows overpowered play, the animist goes from a narrow build option with power to average to weak.
I think if they removed the Elf Step exploitation, Forest Heart becomes fine. So mainly Apparition's Quickening is the main culprit for being ovepowered as multiple quickens in a day is really, really powerful.
They kept quicken to one time a day, so I can't help but think they wanted the animist to be slightly more powerful allowing it to quicken up to 3 times a day.
If you reached a boss monster like a dragon, the animist in Channeler's Stance unleashes three quickens over three rounds with as powerful a blasts as they could manage, the damage would be pretty nuts unless the boss was real lucky on saves.
I would think only a level 20 wizard with Spell Combination and Quicken would be able to hit harder because that wizard's first round is pretty nuts.
The reason I don't think quickening apparition is as powerful as it looks at first glance is because it mostly works against your action compression and blasting feats, as well as it chewing through your ability to leverage the versatility of your apparition spell slots. I think it is good, maybe functionally about twice as good as traditional quickening feats, but the animist has problems (as you point out) that quickly overwhelm it if you start taking away its nicest toys. In many ways, it is like a psychic, where you can have one or two really powerful rounds a day and then it is mostly a focus spell caster that does focus spell casting better than other pure casters.
For many players that is an upgrade, because they play pure casters as only being able to have big spell slot rounds 3 or 4 times a day instead of 1 or 2 and then find the pure caster really falls behind when they are throwing around focus spells and cantrips in multi encounter days. I think the animist might look broken as a caster if you are used to casters not leveraging a lot of high rank spells from slots and from scrolls regularly , but it requires close-in, static encounters to be able to do much with its resourceless abilities, and whether you find yourself in that position a lot or not is going to be GM and table dependent.
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Apparition's Quickening I think sits in an interesting spot in this kind of debate: if the action is too costly due to how it sacrifices the versatility of your apparitions, then it stands to reason that each apparition is valuable due to the versatility it contributes, versatile enough to be worth reconsidering casting a spell for one less action (which, in my opinion, compounds with other action compressors). If, by contrast, we want to argue that the versatility of apparitions is no big deal, then it stands to reason that Apparition's Quickening is extremely powerful by virtue of just letting you quicken spells multiple times a day at no high-valued cost.
Thus, one way or the other, the Animist sits either with between two to four instances of significantly increased versatility, each of which is individually powerful enough to be worth reconsidering the extremely potent benefit that is quickening a spell, or with a spell-quickening feat that is several times more usable than the equivalent on other casters. Both are indicators of significant power in and of themselves, and in my opinion the truth sits somewhere in the middle: the Animist's apparitions provide a ton of added versatility, and Apparition's Quickening is quite a bit more powerful than Quickened Casting. The Animist has a whole heap of power through their class features, and some exceptionally powerful feats. Admittedly, the Animist doesn't have many feats to choose from and there are a few stinkers there too, though in my opinion that just makes the strong options stand out all the more, reducing the number of equal choices to be made overall with the class.
Nah, it definitely checks out. Compare for example the Sneak Attack feature, it adds damage "if you Strike" an enemy (and fulfil some conditions). But clearly it also works with the likes of Twin Feint, Skirmish Strike etc, even though the Strikes you make as part of those actions are only subordinate.
I agree. IMO it's TGTBT but doesn't fall into the Subordinated Actions rule because Dancing Invocation ability modifies the Step action adding “you also Sustain an apparition spell or vessel spell” to it. So no matter how it's called, if it's directly or via a Subordinated Action, the effect still applies.
I concede the point.
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Apparition's Quickening is powerful when you know you'll just have one encounter. Definitely used it to great effect, but way less than I expected to.
When I had multiple encounters its value went down drastically. Part of it was admittedly self-inflicted by using Maneuvering Spell, and hence my spellslots, a lot. By the time I could afford to sacrifice Apparitions it was just not very useful anymore, as well as times I even wished I had a regular quicken. This is definitely a YMMV situation.
Darkened Form was not useful to me, but that is also somewhat build-related as locking myself out of spellcasting was not the way to go. Also, I really wasn't fond of the Apparition spells of Darkened Form.
Lastly, sustaining 2 spells with Liturgist shenanigans was definitely a regular occurrence, but definitely not all the time, for a variety of reasons. Certainly not if you have to rely on Elf Step as your main strategy and your gm is fond of terrain features, like mine, but there are just so many ways to shut it down you it pays to be conservative.
Depends. Apparition's Quickening still good to use when you don't know the number of encounters, but still saves it to not use it more than once per encounter.
For example, at level 15 when you have 4 apparitions, considering that you don´t care about other apparitions and only want to blast with Steward of Stone and Fire and only wants to use the other apparitions as fuel to Apparition's Quickening.
If a GM sents to you an moderate encounter of this level and sents a moderate Troop (Troop (80 XP): One creature of party level, two creatures of party level – 2) with 2 enemies with around 235 HP and one with 285 HP. With lucky (all creatures failing in their saves) you can cut the enemies HP by half or more casting a Rank 8 Volcanic Eruption
+ Rank 8 Eclipse Burst. Considering that you are not the only one fighting and that your allies can also do a good amount of damage, probably you don't need to use Apparition's Quickening during your next round because it will be an overkill and will take more easy with your casting.
The real problem of Apparition's Quickening is that it kills your vessel/apparition's spell options as long you use it. So how do you want to use this spellshape will depend on from how do you want and need the versatility of the other apparitions.
I don’t think anyone’s really claiming that it’s trivial or easy to pull off a perfect setup; part of what this discussion has revealed is that the Animist has a ton of backup options and ways to hedge their bets, and more flexibility to use those than the average class. The Animist can certainly feast, but they can also very much protect themselves from famine, including by simply not putting themselves in dangerous ranges if needed. Adding to that, they’ll tend to have high Strength and good Athletics, so even if they do get grabbed, they’re more likely than most casters to Escape.