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I'm having trouble seeing a solid role for solarian in its basic features. Being the main supported melee class among the 6, it seems a little lackluster imo. It's a lot like the playtest kineticist. I can see some use in its feats. Is it supposed to be treated like a weird kineticist and the value just comes from its special abilities?
It has a decent damage feature for photon mode and reactive strike but is that enough for a melee focus? I feel like I might be missing something.
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Despite some aesthetic similarities you're not really similar to a kineticist at all, or even other utility martials like the Inventor or Thaumaturge. You have basically no tricks base kit, but you might pick up a few via feats. More similar to a ranger maybe in that regard.
You're there primarily to Strike. Your baseline class features are two unique weapons with strike riders and a reaction to give you another Strike. There is literally nothing but hitting things with your weapon until you dig into specific feats.
I don't think you're missing anything, and tbh it does feel a little like it's missing some kind of baseline Solarianness with arrangements removed.
The class is very Strike centric, but not particularly exceptional at them. Its unique weapon is good but not super crazy, the damage buff is a bit weak and conditional, and that's your whole kit.
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Despite some aesthetic similarities you're not really similar to a kineticist at all, or even other utility martials like the Inventor or Thaumaturge. You have basically no tricks base kit, but you might pick up a few via feats. More similar to a ranger maybe in that regard.
You're there primarily to Strike. Your baseline class features are two unique weapons with strike riders and a reaction to give you another Strike. There is literally nothing but hitting things with your weapon until you dig into specific feats.
I don't think you're missing anything, and tbh it does feel a little like it's missing some kind of baseline Solarianness with arrangements removed.
The class is very Strike centric, but not particularly exceptional at them. Its unique weapon is good but not super crazy, the damage buff is a bit weak and conditional, and that's your whole kit.
It's at least a little similar to the playtest kineticist in that its granted attacks were weapons and it's got some blasting using class DC. Plus the disharmony abilities feel a lot like overflow.
But yeah I think I don't like this class very much . I thought for sure that you could at least share upgrades with both your melee and your ranged strikes but nope.
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I think that "for people who haven't played PF2" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
The Solarian stands out for being literally the only class that in SF Core that does melee without jumping through hoops. Mystics and Witchwarpers are caster first, Operative and Soldier have to buy melee capabilities with a subclass, which potentially shuts you out of other options, and Envoys don't even really have that.
But in terms of overall efficacy the Solarian feels somewhat lacking and, again, mostly propped up by the fact that there are minimal alternatives within SF Core.
... I'm also not sure it really works as a tutorial either. The Solarian is a fiddly class with a lot of internal trap mechanics and relatively low throughput that encourages you to try to maximize its odds and ends as much as you can. If you get stuck in the wrong attunement, you have to spend an action or lose important bonuses. The Graviton strike feature can be very handy in certain circumstances and almost useless in others. You have to make sure your build has room to keep Solar Flare up to date or write it off as a class feature, which isn't really a consideration the other classes are expected to make.
Anecdotally, the new player experience I've had with people bringing Solarians to me has largely been trying to go 'all in' on damage and then realizing that damage kind of sucks (1d8/10+5 when a barbarian is doing d12+8 or a fighter d12+4 with +2 to hit is not a great feel*) and missing with solar flare because their dex is somewhat degraded** (in the playtest step 3 was to go supernova which generally had favorable reviews at least). Then I get asked if there are any good melee classes.
.. The frustrating part is that all of this was common criticism in the playtest, and Paizo's solution was to replace Nimbus with Reactive Strike, add that d10 option, and turn Supernova into a level 4 feat.
Reactive Strike is undeniably good, but very GM dependent and doesn't address much of the core criticisms people had.
The d10 feature on the other hand is kind of abysmal. d8/1h + two traits is slightly better than a default martial weapon, but d10 two-hand with no traits is a huge downgrade from the martial baseline. The Doshko is a die size higher and gets parry. TBH, giving up a free hand and all your weapon traits for one die size feels like another sort of trap that can easily make you worse when you think you're making yourself stronger... I also can't help but side eye the other weapon customizer: The Inventor can give themselves a d12 weapon and then add more traits onto it.
The loss of Revelations and Nimbus (okay Nimbus sucked but still it leaves me wondering why there was so much 'take' when the playtest solarian was already bad) sort of add to a feeling of degraded identity and power too. I realize there were problems with the arrangement setup, but it gave some baseline direction and a unique ability in the foundational kit. Without that the class really just is a guy who hits things, and isn't even particularly good at that.
It's really in a rough state.
*I say this not to suggest that the two were playing in parallel or to treat them as the same but just to look at the baseline power levels and emphasize how weirdly behind the curve the Solarian is even right out the gate. They're particularly well equipped otherwise to compensate either. The damage is so much lower you'd expect them to have some significant extra bit like an Exemplar, but it just doesn't.
**I realize this is true of any Str based martial looking to use a ranged backup, but it feels especially impactful on a Solarian because Flare is a core class feature and because their basekit is otherwise so anemic, not to mention having a ranged backup feels more contextually important.
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Is it supposed to be treated like a weird kineticist and the value just comes from its special abilities?
IMO the Starfinder class most mechanically similar to the Kineticist as far as combat style goes is Soldier. Both are dealing AoE damage using their Class DC. The difference being that Soldier is doing it using equipment.
That said, I also agree that trying to directly compare Starfinder classes to Pathfinder classes is going to ultimately be somewhat fruitless. The classes are intended to be distinct even from the ones in the other game.
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I think it makes the most sense when you view the Starfinder 2e classes as standalone classes trying to explain a game to the audience.
The Solarian is also the "Totally not a Jedi, really, completely different, honest" class. Every game needs one of these :-)
But I think that your basic point is that Starfinder 2e classes should be analyzed only with other Starfinder 2e classes in mind. This is presumably going to be the case for the vast majority of campaigns and is almost certainly what Paizo is primarily concerned about and is balancing around.
And with just the starfinder 2e classes the Solarion seems pretty cool and useful to me. Whether or not a Pathfinder 2e class covers more or less the same territory (possibly better) is pretty irrelevant
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Well the comparison is just about how the solarian doesn't do much on its own without its feats.
I can see a combination of stellar rush, supernova, and black hole being ok to use. Concealing your allies and pulling people into reactive strike range seems pretty ok and then exploding. If the budget is meant to be all in the feats I might be able to see that but there's only a few good ones it looks like
Well the comparison is just about how the solarian doesn't do much on its own without its feats.
:squints:
Are you sure that is the complaint you want to go with? Because that seems like a problem that is already fixed. I haven't heard of a GM saying that you have to play a class without its class feats.
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Well the comparison is just about how the solarian doesn't do much on its own without its feats.:squints:
Are you sure that is the complaint you want to go with? Because that seems like a problem that is already fixed. I haven't heard of a GM saying that you have to play a class without its class feats.
As far as core features go, it doesn't have a lot going on. Yeah that's what I'm saying
Which is potentially fine if the class is meant to get most of its power through feat choices (like kineticist) I'm wondering if that's what's meant to be sold. I do like at least a few feats
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That is probably the best comparison point, but while the exemplar gets powerful transcend effects and multiple utility options through starting ikons the Solarian gets... a free throwing weapon.
Genuinely might be the weakest class in the whole system it's profoundly bad.
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I've GM'd for a couple, most of my commentary is reporting back their play, which has generally been pretty poor. In our current game we're mostly propping the Solarian up by being sure to feed him lots of reactive strikes.
And like- ... idk consistently putting out super high damage just isn't a thing, the numbers aren't very high. The numbers are right there.
When they weren't geting reliable reactive strikes, the only person the Solarian was reliably outdamaging was the Envoy.
Yeah vortex is pretty decent, especially if you can throw yourself into a group with it. Sometimes it can feel a little bit slow, especially if you end up rolling bad on initiative, and it's a bit of a drag in highly mobile fights where sustaining it eats into your normal actions.
I've also seen some quibbles over how much damage it actually does baseline and what its default duration is you might want to square with your GM, but nothing dealbreaking.
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That's very much been how I've been playing Solarian to great effect. It works pretty darn well and I was able to completely shut down a very high damage sniper in the last fight by yanking him off his perch with black hole and then proceed to clown on him in melee and running circles around him with stellar rush when he tried to reposition.
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Right?! in a game full of ranged default, you are the one who chooses to default get up-close and personal. yes others can make a melee build, but it's the other way around for the Solarian, you are melee, who could choose to make a ranged build. you are meant to be disruptive to their ranged fighters. Diving the back line as it were.
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Right?! in a game full of ranged default, you are the one who chooses to default get up-close and personal. yes others can make a melee build, but it's the other way around for the Solarian, you are melee, who could choose to make a ranged build. you are meant to be disruptive to their ranged fighters. Diving the back line as it were.
Also solarians are the only class who will be maxing strength. Soldiers even melee ones are going to most likely max con first. This will make them the hardest hitting melee at least for now for SF2 classes. They have lots of movement increasing powers to enable them to close up to targets fast and disruption powers to pull enemy out of cover.
They seem to be a pretty good compliment to the other SF2 classes so far. I do kinda hope they errata the 1d10 upgrade for the weapon option though. It would be nice it could be 1 upgrade option but require two hands. It would make a ton of sense to give up twin weapon shenanigans for a two weapon harder hitting option. The premade seems to indicate that was their initial thought with that and reach anyway.
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Much of the interesting builds I can think of unfortunately would require the equivalent of automatic bonus progression.
A ranged build focused on your various solar flair abilities paired with an area weapon would be cool.
Just having the option to be a switch hitter in general could be a selling point but there's no way to share crystals. Other weapon classes could pull it off with the upgrade duplication thing but I don't think that works for solarian even if you hold your solar flare. Different terms for it's upgrades. If ever they errata this class, they ought to share upgrades with their granted weapons
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Yeah, I definitely hope Paizo either lowers the cost of Reach and Two-handed d10, or make it so the trait budget goes up at certain levels.
I'd also like it if Photon-Attuned Flare could be fire OR piercing damage. Although I might just be assuming fire resistance would be more common than piercing resistance.
Otherwise, though, I like the current Solarian. I know people some people feel losing the Solarian Arrangement is a lose, but to me, I think it's a good thing.
It trades in something that FORCED you to try to stay in one Attunement for options! Which I think suits the 2nd edition Solarian better, especially with all the feats/abilities that have the Cycling trait.
Granted, I also get that this adds to the complexity of the class, which might be the source of confusion.
I just hope we see something like the arrangements come back as a class archetype. Broken Cycle Solarians were one of by favorite options back in SF1e
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In my limited experience with SF2 so far (playing through all the playtest adventures and running #1-00 a couple of times), the solarian performs pretty well in combat. Yes, its role boils down to "get into melee, and hit things a lot," but that's true of most PF2 martials as well.
In Empires Devoured, our party included a ranged soldier, a close-combat soldier with a reach weapon, and a solarian. The two soldiers could reliably damage multiple targets, but the solarian could do more damage against a single target thanks to higher Str and being photon-attuned.
In #1-00, where the players must play pregens, the solarian regularly shined in combat. Dae's solar weapon has reach, which meant that Nimbus Surge was triggered regularly when enemies closed to melee. They also have Shattering Weapon at 3rd level, which is a significant boost to damage output (and better than the playtest version).