I object to gunslinger. Fake out is a great tool to put on any character lacking a good reaction and sometimes you'll get value out of eagle eye to boost perception. Standard example would be an archer, but could also be a halfling caster using the ancestry feats to at least achieve +3 on aid.
For the rest, I'd probably downgrade monk and fighter. Others have very interesting niche uses in free archetype games that make them more valuable, but that's a separate consideration.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Gunslinger should be way higher, fake out is goated - especially because you don’t even need to hold a gun to use it, an unruned gauntlet bow is fine. If your build can have a free hand at the end of it’s turn and doesn’t typically get a reaction, fake out comes at no action cost.
Munitions crafter is also useful for bombs sometimes. And you’re putting this in the same tier as summoner, which is as far as I know *never* worth the dedication.
For the rest, I'd probably downgrade monk and fighter. Others have very interesting niche uses in free archetype games that make them more valuable, but that's a separate consideration.
Nah fighter can stay where it is, disruptive stance makes a nice capstone.
I think it's folly to rank them along one spectrum as there are too many factors to consider re: the base PC & its roles. This makes for several exceptions. It should be fairly easy to think of examples, and then of counterexamples, muddying everything.
Ex. Kineticist with Protector Tree as mentioned above, but a poor MCD if wanting Elemental Blast and costly in making some baseline Kineticist functions work. Yet then at high levels (16th) any Kineticist can Add Element (if not air already) and grant a Fly speed all day to yourself and five others. That's pretty amazing! (four total feats needed)
Or the Monk MCD, a mediocre boost to martial skills, but what if you're a Wisdom caster w/ so-so Focus Spells picking up Qi Blast at 12th? That's worth three feats IMO (and if you're unarmored you might pick up a Stance w/ a defensive bonus). But is it worth +2 Str also (and the likely cost to one's other defenses)?
Same with a Swashbuckler's One For All which many advisors swear by, is it worth the +2 Cha? Not on my -1 Cha Dwarf Fighter or Guardian investing in other skills and maximizing every action (and likely Reaction) already. And a Barbarian can't even use it while raging. But on my face-Sorcerer who often has a spare action because his martial allies lock up opponents so well or he simply plays in a campaign (like PFS) with lots of skill challenges? Much different rating.
I've found Fighter generally worthless to martials after all the Combat Style Archetypes came out (and misleading to non-martials wanting the Fighter's prowess!). But 4th level Reactive Strike sure helps a melee combatant w/ no good Strike Reactions in their main chassis (except most martial classes do have one).
Wouldn't it be more useful highlighting what each class does give you (and seems to give you, but doesn't)? And noting the exceptional abilities (and when they come online)?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
IMO Oracle is a better archetype than Bard simply because it gives access to Cursebound abilities which don't compete with your focus spells for resources and have a lot of front-loaded good options. You don't need to wait a long time to get strong options from it. Which is not to say Bard is bad, but I think Oracle is the best caster dedication in the game now.
Cleric likewise is very good because of the vast focus spell selection. There are some real standouts and some good feat picks for martials.
Summoner I would rate at 1. The Eidolon is awful without Act Together and multiclass wave casting is worse than regular multiclass casting. There just isn't much potential here and it takes a LOT of investment to get things out of it.
Rogue should be in a tier on its own. You can use rogue archetype on any class and improve the class. Whether it's a martial taking something like Mobility or Gang Up or a caster taking Mobility and using it increase their number of proficiency skill ups. It is the multiclass archetype that offers so much to any class.
This is on top of being an S tier class as a base class.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think rogue is excellent for the squishy casters, armor proficency, stealth/thievery+1 skill, best feats in the game (like mobility), and skill training for all your midgame needs.
Champion is also great for squishy casters. Heavy armor for AC and a great reaction on classes that usually don't get a consistent reaction anyways. Many of them even come prepackaged with the CHA for it.
Don't get me wrong i love the rogue archytpe its the one i pick most often in free archytype (i love skills, I love mobility I love gang up) but I am not convinced its better than the champion.Rogue should be in a tier on its own. You can use rogue archetype on any class and improve the class. Whether it's a martial taking something like Mobility or Gang Up or a caster taking Mobility and using it increase their number of proficiency skill ups. It is the multiclass archetype that offers so much to any class.
This is on top of being an S tier class as a base class.
Champion is good, but not nearly as good for casters. Champion is nice for monks or fighters or martials that want or need another useful reaction.
I don't play casters in range to use Champion's Reaction. It doesn't have the feat variation to appeal to casters much. Rogue is always good regardless of class. Champion is mostly useful to melee martials due to the short range on the Champion's reaction.
Don't get me wrong i love the rogue archytpe its the one i pick most often in free archytype (i love skills, I love mobility I love gang up) but I am not convinced its better than the champion.Rogue should be in a tier on its own. You can use rogue archetype on any class and improve the class. Whether it's a martial taking something like Mobility or Gang Up or a caster taking Mobility and using it increase their number of proficiency skill ups. It is the multiclass archetype that offers so much to any class.
This is on top of being an S tier class as a base class.
Champion is good, but not nearly as good for casters. Champion is nice for monks or fighters or martials that want or need another useful reaction.
I don't play casters in range to use Champion's Reaction. It doesn't have the feat variation to appeal to casters much. Rogue is always good regardless of class. Champion is mostly useful to melee martials due to the short range on the Champion's reaction.
In typical printed dungeons the space is tight enough that you’ll often be in range involuntarily, and of course the reaction serves as protection for your backline getting rushed down (which is usually a primary goal of melee enemies). You can also pick up expand aura at 12th level to give you 30ft of range, which is the same as many spells anyways.
It’s especially strong if both backline members have it because if rushed down it doesn’t matter who the enemies target. I’ve seen 4 champion’s reaction parties and the damage mitigation is wild, if the party can stay in range the encounter is pretty much over. Even AOE’s to hit the clumped party don’t matter too much if they’re done from in reaction range and the entire party is mitigating the damage for each other. The party just doesn’t take damage and it’s not like this comes at the cost of much offensive potential.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Champion is also great for squishy casters. Heavy armor for AC and a great reaction on classes that usually don't get a consistent reaction anyways. Many of them even come prepackaged with the CHA for it.
Heavy armor only if you are a medium armor caster (or invest an additional general feat) - it was changed with the remaster.
Charisma is easy for sorcerers, bards etc, but the two points of strength are not as easy, and while you are able to dump dex, you now have a high check and speed penalty.You can invest 3 into strength, add an armored skirt to your full plate, put 1 into dex, put another general feat into fleet and you are good to go, but it is a much higher investment - especially if you want more than a single point in constitution...
|
|
Animist -> Overrated. You can't even get one of the class focus spells. At best I could see someone wanting their L4 divine version of bespell weapon (L8 in the archetype) and L6 grudge strike (L12 in the archetype). Otherwise they are just another 'divine basic/expert/master spellcasting archetype. Wizard is better here.
You can't even get wandering feats (Grudge Strike) with the animist archetype. If you could though, animist might have ended up as one of the strongest multiclass archetypes. Grudge Strike on a fighter or Medium's Awareness on a rogue would be nutty.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Heavy armor only if you are a medium armor caster (or invest an additional general feat) - it was changed with the remaster.
Charisma is easy for sorcerers, bards etc, but the two points of strength are not as easy, and while you are able to dump dex, you now have a high check and speed penalty.
You can invest 3 into strength, add an armored skirt to your full plate, put 1 into dex, put another general feat into fleet and you are good to go, but it is a much higher investment - especially if you want more than a single point in constitution...
It's easy for any non-int caster really. Speed is a non-issue with all the ways to boost it and the check penalty doesn't apply to anything you were going to invest in.
It's easy for any non-int caster really. Speed is a non-issue with all the ways to boost it and the check penalty doesn't apply to anything you were going to invest in.Heavy armor only if you are a medium armor caster (or invest an additional general feat) - it was changed with the remaster.
Charisma is easy for sorcerers, bards etc, but the two points of strength are not as easy, and while you are able to dump dex, you now have a high check and speed penalty.
You can invest 3 into strength, add an armored skirt to your full plate, put 1 into dex, put another general feat into fleet and you are good to go, but it is a much higher investment - especially if you want more than a single point in constitution...
Yea speed is probably the easiest thing to boost in this game. Get your longstrider, boots of bounding or clockwork heels, some spring heels, maybe a spider chair. And if you really need a bunch of speed prey mutagens are another boost, and good for earlier levels before you have your other speed boosts and more competitive mutagens.
Don't get me wrong i love the rogue archytpe its the one i pick most often in free archytype (i love skills, I love mobility I love gang up) but I am not convinced its better than the champion.Rogue should be in a tier on its own. You can use rogue archetype on any class and improve the class. Whether it's a martial taking something like Mobility or Gang Up or a caster taking Mobility and using it increase their number of proficiency skill ups. It is the multiclass archetype that offers so much to any class.
This is on top of being an S tier class as a base class.
Champion is good, but not nearly as good for casters. Champion is nice for monks or fighters or martials that want or need another useful reaction.
I don't play casters in range to use Champion's Reaction. It doesn't have the feat variation to appeal to casters much. Rogue is always good regardless of class. Champion is mostly useful to melee martials due to the short range on the Champion's reaction.
In typical printed dungeons the space is tight enough that you’ll often be in range involuntarily, and of course the reaction serves as protection for your backline getting rushed down (which is usually a primary goal of melee enemies). You can also pick up expand aura at 12th level to give you 30ft of range, which is the same as many spells anyways.
It’s especially strong if both backline members have it because if rushed down it doesn’t matter who the enemies target. I’ve seen 4 champion’s reaction parties and the damage mitigation is wild, if the party can stay in range the encounter is pretty much over. Even AOE’s to hit the clumped party don’t matter too much if they’re done from in reaction range and the entire party is mitigating the damage for each other. The party just doesn’t take damage and it’s not like this comes at the cost of much offensive potential.
I'll never understand why anyone would allow the dungeon map to dictate where the fights take place. It's like most groups seem to walk into a room together in some random haphazard fashion, then stand in some small room where the casters can get attacked. I don't do that and haven't done this since I was very young and first started playing D&D as a child.
We don't position where this would be a worthwhile tactic and we don't spend much time playing at a level where Champion's reaction is what we want the group reactions to be or the damage mitigation would be substantial enough.
Your idea of optimization and mine differ greatly. I can see how this might be useful to some low level group getting their Champion's Reaction at level 6, then playing to level 10 or so. I still wouldn't use this tactic. Distance is the best defense against damage and allows softening of targets and focusing resources like healing on targets that absorb damage best.
I don't bother with heavy armor with casters. It's not necessary. Distance and movement control are better defense than armor. Casters get lots of defensive options. 4th level invis becomes an almost infinite resource as you level up. Once you get to very high levels, blocking true seeing or see invis becomes very easy.
Boosting movement to make up for a loss of 10 foot movement is something I don't find a good exchange. I'd rather have the extra 10 feet of movement. I'm certainly not spending money on expensive materials to reduce a movement penalty or boosting my strength on a caster.
The Champion also doesn't provide other feats that are very worthwhile, whereas the rogue does. Taking a champion's reaction for what eventually comes a minor damage block isn't necessary or a good expenditure of resources. Movement and the ability to strike from long range is much more useful at higher levels in highly mobile combat with lots of auras and gazes and such about.
Yeah, that's "fireball formation" as a reminder not to clump together. And that originated in 3.X while in PF2 AoEs (& Engulf, Trample, et al) are more common, even at the lowest levels. Improving one's "fireball formation" tactics is better served by not being in said formation as Deriven points out. I can see an argument how a party heavy in auras (et al) might encourage said formation, but not how said formation should encourage taking MCDs for their auras.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
"Distance is the best defense" or snarking about fireball formations sounds really good until half the combats in the adventure take place in a 5x5 or smaller box, which isn't exactly a rare occurrence in PF2 design.
As always, you have to tailor your choices to the types of content put in front of you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Staying in champion’s reaction range also becomes more appealing with good use of wall of stone and other wall spells. This provides cover for the party and in the case of enemies that would love nothing more than to sit at range and AOE, can force them into the kill box where their AOE’s get smacked down by champion’s reactions. And opportunity attacks for that matter.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Distance is the best defense" or snarking about fireball formations sounds really good until half the combats in the adventure take place in a 5x5 or smaller box, which isn't exactly a rare occurrence in PF2 design.
As always, you have to tailor your choices to the types of content put in front of you.
Ah, I see you've played Abomination Vaults. ;)
Champion Reaction in there is very good simply because so many fights are in such confined spaces that it's easy to use. For a class that doesn't have many good reactions this is a straight upgrade.
To throw another point in favour of Champion's Reaction, it also becomes far more powerful at higher levels than it is at lower levels, purely due to the fact that monsters often deal multiple types of damage when they Strike, so the resistance ends up applying multiple times. Not to mention that Expand Aura's "always on" mode is at character level 16 and makes you able to use it frequently even when you aren't near the front line.
I agree with the sentiment of nearly everyone in here besides Deriven when it comes to combat ranges and distance. I think in adventure paths especially, it is a common occurrence that encounter maps are less than 60 feet across from one side to the other, and more often than not there are enemies within 40 feet of your back line as soon as initiative is rolled. Plus, casters (besides Bard) don't get Master Perception until level 19, so without tricks like Fan Dancer they often don't get to dictate the distance of combats anyway, as it is common that enemies and the party frontliners will get a chance to close distances before the casters have their first turn.
It is easy to undervalue having long-range options and controlling enemy movement when the adventure by design barely gives you any opportunities to make use of such things. There is a reason that nearly everyone thinks that Slow is one of the best value spell in the game, despite it only having 30-foot range.
This is true. It's to be expected. These games are generally played by more casual people looking for a good time playing RPGs with some friends or a pick up group. I think only a small percentage enjoy the small unit warfare aspects of these types of RPGs. The base game including module design is not designed with people using highly effective tactics in a coordinated manner. It makes the GMs life much more difficult and requires an experienced DM to counter.
If people want to mess around with a group of Champion archetypes positioning to use Champion's Reaction, have at it. Could be a fun option for a more casual group built around crusaders or some other theme of champions.
I still believe the rogue is the more usable archetype by nearly every single class and thus a cut above Champion. Champion is definitely a very good archetype that I mostly use on martials to expand my reactions.
Psychic seems to be nerfed into not worth it by magus any longer. Monk is no longer as good for druids.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
“4 stacking champion’s reactions is for casual groups” is certainly a take
The bard and cleric are probably better at higher level. Past level 10 you can get some of the higher level spell buffs like lvl 6 heroism. Pick something like Dirge of Doom or a higher level cleric focus spell. Maybe grab channel smite to add more smiting power on a fighter.
Rogue is good across all levels as gang up and opportune backstab are great on any martial. Higher level skill ups are great on casters. I like to pick up Reflex save master and use the general feat for the other save to master.
I would think the higher alchemical items may make the alchemist better past level 10.
I would think the higher alchemical items may make the alchemist better past level 10.
Alchemist Archetype is honestly really hard to rank across the levels like that.
In general, I've noticed that the action economy gets tighter and more competitive as the Lvls go up, which makes it harder to use alch items. You can get most alch item usage down to 1A in the very early levels, but the competition for those 1A actions goes waaay up as you enter high level play. Which is bad for alch's comparative ranking.
But, there is a constant drip feed of oddball utility and silver-enough bullet item formulas, and having a more diverse formula book is very much a power plus. You just cannot know what item combos with a PC's gameplan, such as Psychic being able to pop a very good pill to stop the self-Stupefy that comes online at L10.
Even the notion of "item quantity ?= power" kinda destabilizes at higher level.
In high Lvl play, it does sometimes feel like you need an absurd quantity to make an impact, as on paper combats (and marathons of combats) get longer.
But other times, parties will kinda snowball their turn 0 power thanks to building/prep, and when the GM cranks the dial up to compensate, your high Lvl adventure has kinda become rocket tag where the fight's won before turn 2 ends.
In general, the more that happens, the worse the alch archetype gets. Too much of alchemy is built around over time effects, even debuffs. Prebuffing is still an alch super-power even in rocket tag, but it's hard to make reliable in AP play, where scripted ambushes happen all the time.
_____________
I'll say that the biggest ? that makes the Alch Archetype jump up or down the list is how savvy the player is with the Alch action savers. I think more than others, alch archetype really does depend upon the pilot. There truly is 0 power gained if you never use the items.
Knowing which items to add to your book and to prep is an entire post of it's own I'll not get into now.
Item selection aside, if they know how to use Retrieval Belts, collars, item relay familiars, and [injection] mods, then Alchemist is genuinely A+ tier, just below the broken stuff like Timber Sentinel + Deflecting Wave Kin dip. You can honestly prep the most generic items and as long as you get their effects for 1A, alch is still amazingly good.
Not surprising, but popping the value of the alch items in 1A instead of 2A makes all the difference in a game ruled by the 3A economy.
If the player thinks it's normal to use alch items in 2A+, then the ranking drops a whole lot.
Even if a PC is going to spend a lot feats to get in and out of Alchemist, being able to spend every feat on more daily items is crazy value. There's no feat tax. It's honestly not okay balance-wise, and every feat an alch dipper can pick is top tier for a real alch*
My Summoner getting 9 daily items + 4 VVials is honestly stupid. There's a reason the OG consumable archetypes like Talisman Dabbler both lag level and provide fewer per day.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would think the higher alchemical items may make the alchemist better past level 10.There's a reason the OG consumable archetypes like Talisman Dabbler both lag level and provide fewer per day.
A bad reason considering talisman dabbler would *suck* even if alchemist and other consumable printers didn’t exist. Half level talismans are literally a joke. Use your damn gold. Why are you spending class feats to get items that are like a 150th of your (rapidly increasing) treasure by level, what are we doing here.
Alchemist et. al. on the other hand give you consumables that aren’t easily affordable at your level, and thus have the potential to (depending on build and party specifics) ever actually be worth the class feats you sacrifice. If they gave half level items - well, they’d still be better than talisman dabbler, because talisman dabbler *also* still gives you a criminally low number of items - but they’d still be fatally flawed as a concept.