I'm a big fan of the Witch thematically and was a huge fan of the PF1 Witch, as many others did, I found the OG pf2 witch pretty underwhelming, but recently came back to the game as I may have found a group to play with (yay!) and found that the Witch has been remastered.
Now it seems like a fairly obvious power boost, but I do know that I have a habit of overlooking potentially great power boosts. Like completely glazing over oracular warning somehow.
I was thinking of going with a generic toad familiar, using independent plus familiar abilities to get some movement speed for a little scout fellow. I rather like the idea of a winged toad spy. lol.
Was gonna do spinner of threads with phase familiar. Phase Familiar just seems like a no brainer and I like fate witches.
I was thinking something like this for class feats, so have I missed some obvious biggy?
2) Basic Lesson - dreams, for an early control option - retrain to reach spell to avoid incapacitation problems around level 5 ish.
4) Familiar language - seems good to be able to talk to the scout.
6) Greater Lessons - Lesson of shadows - nice focus blast
8) Cackle - to play work with Malicious Shadows, retrain at 16 into steady casting
10) Quickened Casting - No brainer?
12) Coven Spell - seemed fun, kind of wondering if this is more style than substance
14) Patron Presence - Big bad vibes from the winged toad sounds hilarious
16) Effortless Concentration - Again, no brainer?
18) Patron's claim - incredible visual, decent blast with a nice rider and free focus points. What's not to like
20) Witches hut - very much a style over substance choice but realistically I probably won't even get this far and if I do, I almost certainly won't play much more beyond it. So why not go for style?
So come on, tell me, what incredible class defining option have I completely glazed over.
Spirit Familiar (or Stitched Familiar for other traditions) at 8th is pretty good.
Cauldron can be decent too now. Depending on party composition and how the campaign goes.
I'm not sure how important Steady Spellcasting will be. Interrupting spells isn't a common thing to do. It requires doing something to provoke reactions 1) from an enemy that has Reactive Strike who 2) then crits their attack roll. Again, this depends on how the campaign goes, the party composition, and how your GM builds encounters and runs enemies.
Spirit Familiar (or Stitched Familiar for other traditions) at 8th is pretty good.
Cauldron can be decent too now. Depending on party composition and how the campaign goes.
I'm not sure how important Steady Spellcasting will be. Interrupting spells isn't a common thing to do. It requires doing something to provoke reactions 1) from an enemy that has Reactive Strike who 2) then crits their attack roll. Again, this depends on how the campaign goes, the party composition, and how your GM builds encounters and runs enemies.
See I knew there’d be something I missed. You and @shroudb both suggested it and I agree. Spirit familiar looks great.
I could take it at 8 move cackle to 10, take quicken at 12 and retrain cackle into coven spell at 16.
The steady cast retrain was always more of gap fill cause cackle seems pointless from 16 on.
You both also suggested cauldron. I dodged that one cause I am just not much of a crafter. It’s never been my thing.
If you are looking for a gap fill feat at the level 8 range, I would take a look at Ceremonial Knife. An extra slot spell cast is always good even if it is lagging in Rank.
How do people feel about coven
Is it a popular one
Or a bit gimmicky
In theory it’s cool but I find myself coming back to the thought that if an ally needed/wanted spell shaping they’d just take it themself
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Coven Spell is ok-ish. You'd definitely want to talk to your party's other caster(s) to see how well it might fit. I'd usually pick something like Lesson of Death at 10 and Quickened Spell at 12.
If all you want to do is talk to your familiar, Familiar's Language is a bit pointless. You'd be better off taking Enhanced Familiar and give your familiar speech plus another ability.
I agree with the others that stitched/spirit familiar is great and should be a strong consideration. Ceremonial Knife as well.
I'd pick Life over Dreams for Basic Lesson. Sleep before rank 4 is quite limited in combat. Giving an enemy a status penalty to will can usually be accomplished by other means like Demoralize or Bon Mot from an ally. Or give your familiar Skilled (Intimidation) + Independent for a free Demoralize attempt every turn (chances of success will be low, but still...). Life has the BIG advantage of being always useful - even for out of combat healing - while also being one of the few hexes you don't need to sustain.
Coven Spell is ok-ish. You'd definitely want to talk to your party's other caster(s) to see how well it might fit. I'd usually pick something like Lesson of Death at 10 and Quickened Spell at 12.
If all you want to do is talk to your familiar, Familiar's Language is a bit pointless. You'd be better off taking Enhanced Familiar and give your familiar speech plus another ability.
I agree with the others that stitched/spirit familiar is great and should be a strong consideration. Ceremonial Knife as well.
I'd pick Life over Dreams for Basic Lesson. Sleep before rank 4 is quite limited in combat. Giving an enemy a status penalty to will can usually be accomplished by other means like Demoralize or Bon Mot from an ally. Or give your familiar Skilled (Intimidation) + Independent for a free Demoralize attempt every turn (chances of success will be low, but still...). Life has the BIG advantage of being always useful - even for out of combat healing - while also being one of the few hexes you don't need to sustain.
Yeah I was starting to lean away from coven spell.
I'm lowkey leaning away from cackle too tbh.
Good note on lesson of life too.
I was thinking of going with a generic toad familiar, using independent plus familiar abilities to get some movement speed for a little scout fellow. I rather like the idea of a winged toad spy. lol.Nothing wrong with that, but keep in mind you can retrain your familiar's skills every daily preparation. So if today looks like an independent/fly/third ability day, great. But if tomorrow you think some other combo would be better, you can pick that instead.
Was gonna do spinner of threads with phase familiar. Phase Familiar just seems like a no brainer and I like fate witches.Yeah, I'd agree with Phase on this build. The Spinner of Threads familiar ability has a range of 15', so if you want to affect an enemy or a friend who's in melee you have to be pretty close to the front line. And I agree with Basic Lesson as an early feat because you're not going to be recasting Nudge Fate so long as it's "up" on someone you want it on. Pick a lesson whose hex you want to cast and sustain, so that you can have Familiar of Balanced Luck always on (and if you're not close to the action, hey you can always use it on yourself...)
Good point!
I was thinking healing but that doesn’t sustain, anti synergy, and it didn’t really suit the vibe I was going for anyway.
I’m thinking vengeance or protection.
Vengeance seems more the vibe but protection seems maybe stronger.
I’m thinking vengeance or protection.
Vengeance seems more the vibe but protection seems maybe stronger.
I've used Needle of Vengeance on a character played for quite a while.
It isn't all that reliable at damage dealing. But when it isn't dealing damage, it is acting as a damage deterrent and anti-focus-fire countermeasure.
So it is doing work in either case.
That’s settles it :) thanks
Still can’t believe I missed spirit familiar, makes you wonder.
I agree that Puppet is better than Phase because you can always just take Lifelink for a better phase.
Also, don't sleep on feats that grant more familiar abilities, or let you take specific familiars at a discount. You can really never have too many familiar abilities. Maximizing your combat potential requires your familiar being on the front lines. Independent, flight, and life link are the best tools for that, but it leaves you with little for scouting functions or otherwise improving survivability without feat investment.And several of the specific familiars have powerful niches.
I'm lowkey leaning away from cackle too tbh.
Cackle's goated though. Right at level two you have Carrion Mire and Laughing Fit and those can be workhorses throughout your game. Hell you can even get a free action move with marvelous mount. Maybe at level 16 you pick up effortless concentration and retrain it, but honestly you might keep it even then for the double sustain.
*level 2 spells
I'm lowkey leaning away from cackle too tbh.Cackle's goated though. Right at level two you have Carrion Mire and Laughing Fit and those can be workhorses throughout your game. Hell you can even get a free action move with marvelous mount. Maybe at level 16 you pick up effortless concentration and retrain it, but honestly you might keep it even then for the double sustain.
I think I’ll only know of if I agree once I’m actually playing
Blood in the Water is among the best damaging focus spells in the game if you can get it to trigger reliably with an ally using a Wounding rune or throwing an alchemical bomb that does slashing splash damage even on a miss. Once it's on you can just run away and double/triple sustain every round until it drops dead. Similar to Cinder Swarm, but only costs you a focus point instead of as lot.
witch have some decent feat now like cauldron ceremonial knife spirit familiar
and resentment are great
but other than that still not a great class
the focus spell are just not good enough
Ripple in the deep and Faith's Flamekeeper are pretty good. Most of the other patrons kinda suck though, and arcane is left lacking a good subclass.
I've used Blood in the Water on my Lvl 1-20 Alchemist / Witch that made it through Gatewalkers --> Stolen Fate.
It's a good focus spell, I flavored it to be the PC's signature and chose to leave it in my L12 feat slot for the whole of Stolen Fate, but the spell is more niche than you would think, and not S tier.
It's the definition of a paper tiger that looks OP as hell in theory, but in practice it's decent to good. It maybe reached "great" for one fight in the entire AP.
Requirements The target is taking persistent bleed damage or your last action dealt slashing damage to the target.
Range 30 feet;
Targets 1 creature that can bleed
Defense basic Reflex;
Duration sustained up to 1 minutePredators are drawn to the scent of blood, and blood can disperse shockingly far in the water. You summon the spirits of aquatic predators to appear as a spectral swarm around the target. When you Cast or Sustain this Spell, the target takes 2d6 spirit damage (basic Reflex save). If the target takes any damage from the spell, it treats all water as difficult terrain for 1 round as the predators try to drag them down. The spectral predators don’t take up space, grant flanking, or have any other attributes a creature would.
If you deal slashing damage to the target while the spell is active, you automatically Sustain this Spell. If you cast blood in the water while a previous casting of this hex is still in effect, the previous effect ends.
Heightened (+2) The damage dealt increases by 2d6.
The requirements are actually a problem surprisingly often, meaning this is a turn 2 spell in 99% of combats. You're just going to need to move, do at least 1A for the requirements, and then spend the 2A for the spell. Which really sucks for an over time damage spell when generics like Phantom Orchestra are 120ft, comes in a nice little burst, and does sonic damage.
The #1 issue with the spell is the low damage and low scaling of that damage. You need like 3 procs to get a little above even in damage iirc, and 4 different pops of damage is when BitW becomes actually good/better than its peers.
The range is also a big pain point, and while a lot of spells share that 30ft detail, it is harder to spend 1A on things like Extend Spell for BitW.
The most reliable way to get off the spell was a 1A slashing Junk Bomb, as that can do slash on miss. Once the spell is going, I learned that you kinda don't want to throw more bombs, because the secret niche of BitW is...
The spell has no limit nor requirements for the Sustain damage. Which prompted me to re-read the rules and limitations of Sustain... aaaaand there are none.
Sustain spells like Phantom Orchestra require you to maintain range and LoE on your target for each Sustain. BitW is afaik unique in being a spell you stick to a *foe* and then no longer need range nor LoE to keep it going. You just need to spend the actions or proc the auto-sustain. A foe can teleport away, and you then talk with your GM how to math out the damage you'll deal while the foe tries to heal through the ongoing spell. There's a good chance that spending each A for those 8 remaining rounds will kill them. Phantom Orchestra cannot do that.
BitW is a unique spell that does low damage, but is the ultimate "tag and fallback" filler spell. If you land the spell on a target, they need to kill you, dispell the magic, or you can spam Sustain with every available action to chip them down. Again, the damage is low, but you don't need to be a battle Witch and hit them with Slashing for the auto-proc. Even when playing as an Alchemist, who can spam 1A slash/bleed bombs, I soon preferred to just spam Sustain over throwing bombs.
The benefit of BitW over something like Lesson of Shadow's hex is that BitW lacks the attack trait, meaning no MAP concerns. But it is more limited in its target selection, as there's a surprising number of constructs, etc, that either be immune to the damage type, or that cannot bleed. And yeah, those are different things, there's a whole lot of undead that could take spirit damage, but cannot bleed, and are thus invalid for the spell. And it's not good for the main target gap of this spell to be the same gap for Occult/Divine Witches, so that's another minus.
Overall, the role of damage over time sustain spells in pf2 is already a bit niche when damage spells prefer to be nukes, and BitW being one that wants your every A for Sustain spam, makes it even more niche than that.
If you have the spare feat slot, it can make for a *great* "old reliable" that you only need to stick once at 30ft, and can then run away while Sustaining to take down a foe.
But that's a more narrow use-case than you would expect in pf2, especially if you are a main class Witch, which will have the full suite of spellcasting at their disposal.
Be sure to target a non-priority foe, as you allies will otherwise mow them down before BitW has the chance to break even.
For that Alchemist, it was a rather good get, but I didn't have max R spells competing for the action economy.
In hindsight, I think I kinda used the Ceremonial Knife wand I got later more than BitW, as that wand could be 2 Synesthesias, R6 Slows, etc, per day.
Blood in the Water is among the best damaging focus spells in the game if you can get it to trigger reliably with an ally using a Wounding rune or throwing an alchemical bomb that does slashing splash damage even on a miss.Slashing Gust will let a primal or arcane witch consistently activate it without teamwork. And the special sustain bonus lets you cast slashing gust and sustain the hex AND have 1a left to move. You do sacrifice the ability to hold items (wands, staves, etc.), so that's an issue. It's not top-tier damage (2d6+4d4 < 6d6), but still a nice "all-day" combo (IMO).
That's kinda a bad idea. That's an attack spell, so if (when) you miss, you now must spend your final 1A to either manually Sustain, or the spell ends.
As bad of damage as it is, Rousing Skeletons is kinda the only option for Occult casters, as that allows a mobile AoE that'll do some slash on save. This is also how you can meet your pre condition to cast BitW in the first place, in a pinch. Rousing Skele on turn 1, then turn 2 you Sustain that into a BitW. Still kinda sucks, but that's the nature of trying to make BitW work.
oooor you can embrace the Sustain spam and not try to combo with another spell at all.
You can buy a stack of low-ish level Junk Bombs, and just count on the miss damage to meet your pre requirement for 1A. Though, that also sucks, just in a different way. Bombs are martial weapons, which, ouch.