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The recent discussion on wild shaping Druids together with my rebuilding a high level animist made me realize that as far as I can tell there don’t seem to be any decent high level Gish characters.
I’m going to arbitrarily define “decent “ as having more than 60% of the single target damage of a barbarian in melee combat in a sustained fashion. High level is level 16+. Gish is a character with spell capacity at least equal to a wave caster and better than a spell caster archetype.
So, warpriest seems close with its channels but it can’t sustain that. Druids fail at high levels. Magus has difficulty keeping up with a barbarian.
What builds am I missing or misevaluating that manage to be good gishes at high levels?
The character Roshan in my Strength of Thousands campaign is an attempt at a rogue better at spellcasting than a spellcaster archetype. She has TWO spellcaster archetypes, one from Eldritch Trickster racket and one from the free archetype recommended for Strength of Thousands. Roshan is only 10th level right now, so I don't know how strong she will be at 16th level.
However, her combat style has veered away from gish. She maximized her Athletics skill (master proficiency and Armbands of Athleticism) because in a party of mostly spellcasters, she did not have a flanking partner. Instead, she Grappled or Tripped her opponents to get them off-guard to her sneak attacks. That worked so well for the ranged party members that debuffing became Roshan's main goal in combat.
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Since caster archetyping is out you're basically asking for full and wave caster builds that don't totally suck at being in melee?
I suppose you also want to count the captivator archetype that gets you up to 9th rank illusions as a casting archetype?
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Since caster archetyping is out you're basically asking for full and wave caster builds that don't totally suck at being in melee?
Pretty much exactly this
I suppose you also want to count the captivator archetype that gets you up to 9th rank illusions as a casting archetype?
I think so.
I’m looking for a character that can be in melee a lot or cast spells a b lot, choosing which to do as circumstances dictate. It’s pretty simple to do this at levels up to about 12. Druids do this at some levels, for example
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I'm looking for a character that can be in melee a lot or cast spells a lot, choosing which to do as circumstances dictate.
I don't think this exists. Typically even full casters will only cast a spell or two before transitioning to cantripping or focus spells until the fight ends. Even a gish like the magus will maybe open with a spell before transitioning to the usual spellstrike rotation.
It's not really about casting a lot of attacking a lot. You'll simply open with an impactful daily resource or two before moving to unlimited options.
Take the Battle Oracle archetype with Oracular Warning (or Whispers of Weakness) to get curseound 1+. Then spam Sure Strike + Bespell Strikes every turn to increase your (crit) hit chances! Base class is up to you, but Fighter/Gunslinger is always good (and obviously no Barbarian).
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Take the Battle Oracle archetype with Oracular Warning (or Whispers of Weakness) to get curseound 1+. Then spam Sure Strike + Bespell Strikes every turn to increase your (crit) hit chances! Base class is up to you, but Fighter/Gunslinger is always good (and obviously no Barbarian).
Sure Strike is on a 10 minute CD. That nerf happened quite a while ago.
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I’m going to arbitrarily define “decent “ as having more than 60% of the single target damage of a barbarian in melee combat in a sustained fashion.
I appreciate that you have a measurement to go off of. Full kudos for that.
I'm curious and questioning how useful this measurement is. Are there some other martial non-gish classes that struggle to meet this measurement? Inventor? Investigator? Commander? Champion?
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Gish is a character with spell capacity at least equal to a wave caster and better than a spell caster archetype.
Since spellcaster archetypes give more slots and equal or near equal DCs/spell attacks to wave casters, doesn't this limitation rule out actual wave casters?
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I’m going to arbitrarily define “decent “ as having more than 60% of the single target damage of a barbarian in melee combat in a sustained fashion.I appreciate that you have a measurement to go off of. Full kudos for that.
I'm curious and questioning how useful this measurement is. Are there some other martial non-gish classes that struggle to meet this measurement? Inventor? Investigator? Commander? Champion?
I'm not at all sure this is a good measurement. I mostly chose it to simplify comparisons. While DPR isn't by any means the only measure of a characters value it is a relatively easy one to measure and it is one that many people pay attention to and so will know how to optimize it.
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Gish is a character with spell capacity at least equal to a wave caster and better than a spell caster archetype.Since spellcaster archetypes give more slots and equal or near equal DCs/spell attacks to wave casters, doesn't this limitation rule out actual wave casters?
Possibly. Although most wave casters I've seen take a spellcasting archetype to augment their spells.
I think gestalt stated my intended question better and more succinctly than I did. Is it possible to have a wave caster or full caster build that doesn't suck in melee?
Yeah, I think one of the tricks of PF2 is that, even with wave casters, this is not purely a 50/50 split. Either strikes or offensive spell casting is going to end up slighly prioritized and that split will guide your class choice.
I have played the spell heavier cloistered cleric with a bow, who could hit pretty hard with it fairly often, but I was mostly controling the battlefield, debuffing and casting offensive spells.
I also played a monk with a casting archetype in a FA game who dressed up like a wizard and said he was being taught how to be a sorcerer, and did so much casting that my party would forget I was a monk until we got into combat and I dragones kicked like a dragon. With STR and CHA as my two highest stats, I was a glass cannon for sure, but I had a champion and healer cleric in the party so someone had to pack the juice, and those turns where I threw out a two action top rank -1 spell off a scroll and then flurried enemies who had rushed the caster I was doing very impressive damage.
So I think martials like monk and Champion make really good casters that can still be quite beefy, and shouldn’t be discounted from the list. They too will end up at master and master offensive proficiencies with much, much better defenses than any caster first Gish will, even when they lag in the defensive attributes for a whole.
The magus doesn't keep up as a GISH?
No other GISHes keep up. Casters are still the highest damage and effect. Their martial contribution is tiny if they even bother to use it.
The only way the druid GISH works is if you let the druid cast while wildshaped. Then they keep up. Otherwise you have to go to full caster druid and use the wild shape for utility or weaker fights so you don't waste spellpower.
If you house rule that druid can cast while wileshaped, it becomes a more powerful GISH character. I highly recommend using this house rule as the PF2 designers vastly overestimate the power of wildshape and casting together. The action cost of switching out of wildshape to cast and then back in is far too high and essential makes a wildshape druid incapable of being a quality GISH at high level.
If you do it for the druid, just make all casters able to cast while shapechanged. It's really the only way to make high level wildshape worth using.
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It is definitely the case that base class casters struggle to keep up with base class martials in melee. I think the reason form spells don’t fully compensate isn’t really about AC or attacks, it is about how far casters tend to be behind on all defenses, especially fortitude and Reflex. Even when they have the benefit of canny acumen at high levels, the added levels of shifting success values that most martials have are pretty game changing. Even with a lot of temp HP, the risks of getting grabbed, swallowed tripped and poisoned really add up to make casters melee fragile without doing a lot of mitigating spell casting before transforming.
For another example, casters trying to get heavy armor and then counting on bulwark to boost a Reflex save that is probably poor because casting stat and strength eat up a lot of boosts, fall pretty far behind at higher levels. That can lead to getting trapped up close due to immobilizing effects, being left prone, etc.
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Take the Battle Oracle archetype with Oracular Warning (or Whispers of Weakness) to get curseound 1+. Then spam Sure Strike + Bespell Strikes every turn to increase your (crit) hit chances! Base class is up to you, but Fighter/Gunslinger is always good (and obviously no Barbarian).Sure Strike is on a 10 minute CD. That nerf happened quite a while ago.
You're wrong. :-)
That's why I suggested Battle Oracle getting cursebound 1+:
The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll it twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden. You are then temporarily immune to sure strike for 10 minutes.
Cursebound 1 Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed. This applies only to spells, not other magical abilities.
Battle Oracles cannot gain immunity to spells at all while cursebound, so they are unaffected by "cooldown" immunities of spells like Guidance and Sure Strike.
So I stand by my recommendation: Get the Battle Oracle archetype and one of the cursebound abilities (Oracular Warning is amazing for action economy, Whispers of Weakness good to learn weaknesses and getting a bonus to attacks) and then spam Sure Strike.
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Take the Battle Oracle archetype with Oracular Warning (or Whispers of Weakness) to get curseound 1+. Then spam Sure Strike + Bespell Strikes every turn to increase your (crit) hit chances! Base class is up to you, but Fighter/Gunslinger is always good (and obviously no Barbarian).Sure Strike is on a 10 minute CD. That nerf happened quite a while ago.You're wrong. :-)
That's why I suggested Battle Oracle getting cursebound 1+:
The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll it twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden. You are then temporarily immune to sure strike for 10 minutes.Cursebound 1 Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed. This applies only to spells, not other magical abilities.Battle Oracles cannot gain immunity to spells at all while cursebound, so they are unaffected by "cooldown" immunities of spells like Guidance and Sure Strike.
So I stand by my recommendation: Get the Battle Oracle archetype and one of the cursebound abilities (Oracular Warning is amazing for action economy, Whispers of Weakness good to learn weaknesses and getting a bonus to attacks) and then spam Sure Strike.
I stand well and truly corrected. That is a hilarious interaction and I'll definitely have to consider going for it.
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Thanks for the opinions everybody. Appreciated.
It does put the druid wild shape discussion into context.
That's why I suggested Battle Oracle getting cursebound 1+:
Cursebound 1 Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed. This applies only to spells, not other magical abilities.Battle Oracles cannot gain immunity to spells at all while cursebound, so they are unaffected by "cooldown" immunities of spells like Guidance and Sure Strike.
That is a hilarious example of unintended rules interactions. Clearly RAW. Even more clearly unintended.
I suspect that a great many GMs reaction would be to disallow this, RAW be damned. And Paizo will eventually nerf it.
But, extremely well spotted sir. All the Oracle guides slamming Battle Oracle need to change :-)
I see a great many characters grabbing the Oracle dedication :-).
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The magus doesn't keep up as a GISH?
With the exception of Starlit Span, I don't think they do after the psychic archetype nerf although it's close. Even if you assume that the magus can spell strike every round with fire Ray or the like ( just about possible if hasted in a static battle) the fact that they only strike once a round really hurts.
My quick math shows that at level 17 a magus is doing something like 3d12 + 6 (str) + 6 (master) + 3d6 runes + 18d6 fire for 105
A barbarian is doing 3d12 + 6 (str) + 6 (master) + 3d6 runes + 16 (rage) = 58.
But the barbarian gets 3 strikes to the maguses 1. At MAP, obviously, but they do add up. And at high levels the base chance to hit can often get fairly high.
The barbarian gets to poach various nice feats like vicious swing and furious focus which don't work with spell strike.
In practice, the non Starlit Span magus doesn't get to spell strike every round with a focus spell.
Add in the better defences of a barbarian and I think they're significantly ahead. Although the magus DEFINITELY hit my arbitrary 60% threshold.
Double spell strike at L19 helps the magus but not that much. It's hard to substantially beat fire ray.
With the exception of Starlit Span, I don't think they do after the psychic archetype nerf although it's close. Even if you assume that the magus can spell strike every round with fire Ray or the like ( just about possible if hasted in a static battle) the fact that they only strike once a round really hurts.The magus doesn't keep up as a GISH?
I previously crunched the numbers on this in some detail and a damage focused but not damage maxing fighter crushes a magus, even under the incredibly unrealistic and favorable to the magus conditions of the magi getting to spellstrike every single round *and* have two additional map-10 attacks. Magus damage ain’t actually that high.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs7njyq&page=10?Whats-this-issue-with-Magus- and-Gunslinger#461
My high levels gishes were mostly Warpriest, that was using the Marshal archetype, this was before the reword, it was very trip and cast down based though, mostly keeping them down and then striking them with the reaction when they tried to get up.
And a beast summoner. They worked well, admittedly the summoner worked better at combining the two because of how they work.
Though I still believe that the archetype system of the game was one of the most undertilized systems that could have made the game and gishes more fun. Most of the useful archetypes are either from the APG or MC ones with a rare decent one like wrestler sprinkled here or there and the rest being, honestly trash.
It could have archetypes like something like Eldritch Knight, that could spend a focus point to spellstrike with a cantrip, to let every class gish more easily or just be more deliberate with archetypes that grant useful focus spells. Like, imagine if it had an archetype that would let you specialize in fire spells by having a bunch of fire focus spells.
But well the current options are what we got unfortunately.
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Feeling vindication right now for Battle Oracle. The Cursebound interpretation pretty much brings it back in line with how it worked prior to the 2025 Sure Strike Errata (and it worked VERY well even back then, but folks chose to downplay the only 4-slot spontaneous Divine caster with Sure Strike).
What IS interesting is that it seems Paizo might be waiting on hard-errataing it. Normally, they seem very quick to close any loophole, especially if this loophole is contradictory to a stance they've made (such as Sure Strike destroys interesting gameplay).
I'm wondering if they chose not to errata it in the Spring 2026 errata (which they made a point to explicitly say Flames curse can't be resisted) because maybe one class of many having Sure Strike spam as an identity is acceptable vs. all casters being reliant on it.
Only thing, it does mean that "degenerate" Fighter playstyle that I've only heard about is still possible (takes 3 feats: Oracle Dedication, Basic Spellcasting, and a Cursebound feat).
But Battle Oracle is a pretty solid gish. Has great high level feats and can poach a lot of spells to help with survivability. For example, poaching Interposing Earth, Wooden Double, Zephyr Step, Endure, False Vitality, Haste, or Invisibility with Divine Access and Mysterious Repertoire+Gifted Power.
Battle Oracle also works well with Warding Aggression as you can constantly Sure Strike to ensure it stays online.
And if folks don't like the interpretation, you can poach True Target and with all your extra spell slots, you're pretty good at keeping the party Fortuned often by lvl. 15+.
But I do expect an errata in Fall 2026 shutting down the Battle Oracle loophole. I hope the result is that Weapon Trance gets a bonus effect when you successfully Strike.
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Using your Curse to sidestep a spell's Cooldown Limit is an exploit.
I call shenanegans!
=)
It literally says that you bypass cooldowns on spells. That’s what immunities are. Sometimes that’s positive, sometimes that’s negative. If they wanted only negative cooldowns (which is context dependent!) they could have said that. But they didn’t, they just said immunities. And immunities happen for both positive and negative spells.
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It literally says that you bypass cooldowns on spells. That’s what immunities are. Sometimes that’s positive, sometimes that’s negative. If they wanted only negative cooldowns (which is context dependent!) they could have said that. But they didn’t, they just said immunities. And immunities happen for both positive and negative spells.Using your Curse to sidestep a spell's Cooldown Limit is an exploit.
I call shenanegans!
=)
This is clearly RAW.
But you seem to think this was intentional on Paizo’s part. Which seems incredibly unlikely to me.
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It literally says that you bypass cooldowns on spells. That’s what immunities are. Sometimes that’s positive, sometimes that’s negative. If they wanted only negative cooldowns (which is context dependent!) they could have said that. But they didn’t, they just said immunities. And immunities happen for both positive and negative spells.Using your Curse to sidestep a spell's Cooldown Limit is an exploit.
I call shenanegans!
=)
Or whoever wrote it just forgot that you can become immune to a spell to lock out its effect. It's not the first time something like that's happened.
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The very first thing cursebound 1 says is “Spells have an easier time wounding you.” if the intention was for the effects of the curse to be sometimes good and some times bad, I think you choose different language here. Also, the whole remaster approach to curses was to move the good effects off of curses to other parts of the oracle kit.
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Battle oracle aside would you consider a thaumaturge with all the scroll feats a caster? At max level it's one scroll of each level which is more than the 4 spells total a wave caster gets. I'm not going to crunch the numbers rn but I assume thaum reaches that 60% threshold or at least gets close.
As I said above I got my original question wrong.
But yes, a thaumaturge with scroll feats and maybe a caster archetype counts as a good gish.
But the consensus seems to be that, with the possible exception of the magus, starting with a caster yields pretty poor gishes at high levels
No doubt that starting with (full) caster yields poor results. Even a Warpriest has to pour much of their spells & feats into their martial aspect to warrant Strikes in melee (spell slots which likely would've been better as direct damage, but that's a different playstyle/stat allotment/etc., IMO a wholly different set of tastes). In the beginning of PF2, many people presented caster gishes on the forums, which to me only highlighted how steep an obstacle such builds faced. They could manage equality with generic martials via buffs on a timer (usually at a cost to their casting stat), yet still would lag in areas and still the buffs would've contributed more on a martial directly. Lots of investment for mediocre results.
That said, many Druid players on the forum have expressed delight at their switch-hitting abilities. I'm skeptical, yet I've heard it praised too often to dismiss. Just this weekend a local PFS GM asked if anybody's seen such a Druid in play, and nobody had. Hmm.
I enjoy the Focus Spell martials, esp. Monk w/ Qi Blast. It lacks spell utility, but it's a full martial w/ 3 blasts per rest that scale as well as a Fireball. With Druid MCD one can compete playing a Ranger or Champion too. Vigil Domain is a good direction too for a Champion (or 16th+ Ranger via Cleric MCD). The Sorcerer MCD tempts me, if one can afford the Cha (i.e. has Bulwark armor). A caster with one higher proficiency and plus one higher to their casting stat (so plus +3 spell DC) does about 50% more damage. (Using typical enemies for one's level.)
But it's still pretty cool to have that option for groups or to begin combat (plus the side tricks that come with those builds.)
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It literally says that you bypass cooldowns on spells. That’s what immunities are. Sometimes that’s positive, sometimes that’s negative. If they wanted only negative cooldowns (which is context dependent!) they could have said that. But they didn’t, they just said immunities. And immunities happen for both positive and negative spells.Using your Curse to sidestep a spell's Cooldown Limit is an exploit.
I call shenanegans!
=)
This is clearly RAW.
But you seem to think this was intentional on Paizo’s part. Which seems incredibly unlikely to me.
I don’t think it matters much if it’s intentional because it’s straightforward RAW and not overpowered.
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I stand well and truly corrected. That is a hilarious interaction and I'll definitely have to consider going for it.Take the Battle Oracle archetype with Oracular Warning (or Whispers of Weakness) to get curseound 1+. Then spam Sure Strike + Bespell Strikes every turn to increase your (crit) hit chances! Base class is up to you, but Fighter/Gunslinger is always good (and obviously no Barbarian).Sure Strike is on a 10 minute CD. That nerf happened quite a while ago.You're wrong. :-)
That's why I suggested Battle Oracle getting cursebound 1+:
The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll it twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden. You are then temporarily immune to sure strike for 10 minutes.Cursebound 1 Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed. This applies only to spells, not other magical abilities.Battle Oracles cannot gain immunity to spells at all while cursebound, so they are unaffected by "cooldown" immunities of spells like Guidance and Sure Strike.
So I stand by my recommendation: Get the Battle Oracle archetype and one of the cursebound abilities (Oracular Warning is amazing for action economy, Whispers of Weakness good to learn weaknesses and getting a bonus to attacks) and then spam Sure Strike.
As a GM, if a player brought this to me I would tell them absolutely not. It was not intended to work that that way (IMO). It was meant to be a detriment, a penalty making you more vulnerable to things. Not to skirt around limitations built into spells to keep you from spaming them.
I'm of the opinion that if the non-spell combat potential of a full spellcaster doesn't satisfy your gishing needs at high levels, it's mainly because you can do better than that at that point as you can cast spells like weapon storm.
A tangent from there I find interesting is that you could make a gish-flavored caster, one who uses martial-flavored spells like Weapon Storm & Spiritual Armament, even carries a dramatically oversized weapon. They simply would seldom Strike, yet share the gish vibes, while being less risky than a gish, at least while they had slots. Hmm. Add a bit of Deception and shiny, perhaps illusory, armor. Double hmm.
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It is a squishy combination but it is possible to have full 10th level spell casting and a bonus to attack equal to a Fighter in the same character.
A legendary proficiency full caster with the Alchemist Archetype, as first found by ScooterScoots (thank you again!) and discussed in this thread, can do this. The basics:
> Fury Cocktail adds up to a +4 Item Bonus to melee attack rolls (legendary proficiency + Fury Cocktail item bonus + Heroism status bonus = the attack bonus of a Heroism buffed Fighter without help from another character).
> Full casters like the Psychic and Witch are INT casters making the Alchemist archetype easier to access (though the Witch may have to use a racial feat or two to have access to some melee attack cantrips and Heroism).
> Melee spell attack spells include cantrips like Imaginary Weapon, Gouging Claw, and Ignition.
> If you want to reduce the squishiness, Alchemist also grants access to some great damage mitigation tools (like a Numbing Tonic/ Soothing Tonic Combined Elixir) but, when you are already buffing with Heroism and attacking with 2-action cantrips, this becomes action intensive.
In regards to the discussions in this thread about what is allowed and not allowed, as someone who plays exclusively in PFS, I find this part of the game to be frustrating. I love Pathfinder but I feel like I have to a be a contract lawyer to figure out what my characters can and can't do.
Also, and I know the OP clearly stated they think their 60% of barbarian damage metric is flawed but a starting point, it is worth reiterating that it is *quite* flawed.
Even among martials that much of a swing is fine if it brings along other benefits. Maneuver and ranged martials come to mind.
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As a GM, if a player brought this to me I would tell them absolutely not. It was not intended to work that that way (IMO). It was meant to be a detriment, a penalty making you more vulnerable to things. Not to skirt...I stand well and truly corrected. That is a hilarious interaction and I'll definitely have to consider going for it.Take the Battle Oracle archetype with Oracular Warning (or Whispers of Weakness) to get curseound 1+. Then spam Sure Strike + Bespell Strikes every turn to increase your (crit) hit chances! Base class is up to you, but Fighter/Gunslinger is always good (and obviously no Barbarian).Sure Strike is on a 10 minute CD. That nerf happened quite a while ago.You're wrong. :-)
That's why I suggested Battle Oracle getting cursebound 1+:
The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll it twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden. You are then temporarily immune to sure strike for 10 minutes.Cursebound 1 Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed. This applies only to spells, not other magical abilities.Battle Oracles cannot gain immunity to spells at all while cursebound, so they are unaffected by "cooldown" immunities of spells like Guidance and Sure Strike.
So I stand by my recommendation: Get the Battle Oracle archetype and one of the cursebound abilities (Oracular Warning is amazing for action economy, Whispers of Weakness good to learn weaknesses and getting a bonus to attacks) and then spam Sure Strike.
Count me in.
After all, the Too Good To Be True rule is 100% RAW.