(PF) Is blasting viable now that fighter-types have been nerfed?

[GhostwheelZ]

What with the nerfs that Pathfinder brought to the more fighty characters (lack of Tome of Battle, Stormguard Warrior, Combat Brute, Shock Trooper, ability for a rogue to move into flanking every round with Travel Devotion, and so on) and the fact that a few key god spells have been nerfed (glitterdust, solid fog, for example), is blasting now viable for a sorcerer in Pathfinder?

After all, if fighters do less damage without all the above options and spellcasters don't have their full arsenal available to them as easily, does that make potential AoE blasting abilities useful?

I mean, at level 10 a sorcerer can do a 15d6 fireball that deals on average over 50 damage to all enemies who don't make the save just by empowering their fireball. On the other hand, a meleer does, say, base damage (2d6) + power attack (+9) + strength damage (let's say it's 26 at this level for +14) for a total of 30 damage on average, x3, to a single target, assuming they all hit. Is it just me, or does blasting actually look potentially good for racking up big numbers, especially if there are 3+ enemies on the battlefield and you can get them all while missing your friends?

[BTB]

A lot of people dismiss blasting now, because the fact is, there's still a ton of excellent spells you could be using instead. However, especially for sorcerers who can just spam whatever spells they have learned, blasting is a viable option, in some cases maybe even as a focus for your character. However, remember that this should NEVER be the only thing you're good at. Good blasting means good use of metamagic, and having some control/buff/ANYTHING ELSE stuff available to you as well. I personally like Draconic bloodline Sorcerers for blasts, although a lot of people will argue that you'll never be as powerful as, say, an control focused caster, casters are powerful enough that a blasting focus is easily doable without being a determent.

[ThiagoMartell]

Dude, blasting has always been viable, as the Mailman can attest.
Also, fighting types have not been nerfed in Pathfinder. They have different options (and 3.5 is backwards compatible any way - if you used Tome of Battle in 3.5, you have no reason not to use it in PF).

[GhostwheelZ]

Dude, blasting has always been viable, as the Mailman can attest.
Also, fighting types have not been nerfed in Pathfinder. They have different options (and 3.5 is backwards compatible any way - if you used Tome of Battle in 3.5, you have no reason not to use it in PF).
Yeah... even the mailman lost a lot of his main moves--no arcane thesis to be seen for the most part, or practical/easy metamagic, or incantatrix, or Wings of Flurry, or Arcane Spellsurge, and so on so it's much harder to stack metamagic feats in order to break spells.

Only one build though, and compared to earlier spells like solid fog or glitterdust, blasting was way underpowered if all you did was empower a fireball or the like, especially with how much damage a martial adept who was only slightly optimized could put out.

That said, in virtually all the games I've played in for PF (and I've played in quite a few), the DM never let any 3.5 material in, going strictly by pathfinder only. My original post assumes this--so does my previous conclusion stand?

[ThiagoMartell]

Well, if you played in PF games where melee felt nerfed and blasting felt better, who am I to say you're wrong. That's your experience.
In my experience, however, melee was not nerfed in PF. Like I said before, they get other options. Instead of charge -> deal a lot of damage -> repeat, or trip -> attack of opportunity -> repeat, you actually have other stuff you can do. Even Fighters have reliable damage output right out of the box. PF boosted ranged combat a lot, but melee is not bad.

EDIT: Also, you misunderstood what I meant about the Mailman. I said that blasting has always been viable, as in, blasting was viable in 3.5 (then I mentioned the Mailman) and it still is in PF.

[GhostwheelZ]

Could you give examples of both, along with how much damage they'd do using strictly 1st-party pathfinder material? Say at level 10? I'd like a little concrete evidence :-P

[Krazzman]

A level 10 blasting sorc can do an empowered FIreball for 15d6+30 (if crossblooded for blasting) or 15d6+15 if he is not crossblooded.
He uses his 4th level slot for this which he can do...(not so sure thanks to being AFB) 5 times a day? The problem here is that Fire Resistance is still pretty common. So first you have to save against it, Evasion negates it completly and then you substract resistance.

A 10th Level Core Fighter would deal 2d6+9 (Power attack)+1.5*Str-Mod+Weapon Training+Magic Weapon(and properties)+other feats that push dmg. Every round against the sorcerers ~6 blasts a day.

[GhostwheelZ]

What are the other feats? If they're not very "big", then the sorcerer's 67.5 damage on average from the fireball might still be far better damage-wise than the fighter's attack--and gets multiple enemies from afar whereas the fighter has to run from one enemy to another to get hits in.

Also, resistances and evasion are fairly irrelevant, unless you want to say that most monsters have DR--which is even worse, since the fighter's trying to make multiple attacks, each of which is reduced by DR, and very few monsters from the bestiary actually have evasion.

[Psyren]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. That magic is better than melee? Sure it is (and I'm of the opinion that it's supposed to be, though that's not universal) - in game terms, that's why it's a limited resource while melee techniques are at-will.

That's not a commentary on how "viable" one path is vs. another. A barbarian with a greataxe can kill {monsters} just as dead as a sorcerer raining fire - less efficiently perhaps, but if the end result is lewtz and exp, the path taken to get there is less relevant.

To me, "viable" simply means "can I handle level-appropriate challenges, taking into consideration both my class features and WBL?" For the most part, both magic and melee can say yes, thus both are viable.

[Eldariel]

What are the other feats? If they're not very "big", then the sorcerer's 67.5 damage on average from the fireball might still be far better damage-wise than the fighter's attack--and gets multiple enemies from afar whereas the fighter has to run from one enemy to another to get hits in.

Also, resistances and evasion are fairly irrelevant, unless you want to say that most monsters have DR--which is even worse, since the fighter's trying to make multiple attacks, each of which is reduced by DR, and very few monsters from the bestiary actually have evasion.

Level 10 WBL is 62000gp so the Fighter can afford Boots of Speed. Let's assume a basic Fighter with Spirited Charge and Power Attack as the logical lines of attack and Weapon Spec+Greater Focus on Guisarme or something ('cause it's a PF Fighter, we have a billion feats and like 5 that are actually worth taking).

Strength starts at 20 (18 + 2 racial since we're Human or sth), +2 levels, 4 from Strength (+4 item at 16000gp), +1 Weapon, etc.


This puts us at +2/+2 with Guisarme from Weapon Training, +2/+2 from Focus, 26 Strength for +8 total, +1 weapon. Power Attack is at -3/+9 at the moment, and our BAB is +10.

This leaves us at: 10 BAB + 8 STR + 4 Fighter Abilities + 1 Weapon + 1 Haste = +24 to hit, or +21 with Power Attack.

Our damage is 2d4+12 Str + 4 Fighter + 9 Power Attack + 1 Weapon = 2d4+26. We have 3 attacks at +21/+21/+16 (for 10 rounds a day). Vs. an AC 25 target we average 78 damage on a full attack. Vs. AC 33 (highest CR 13- AC in the SRD) we still deal 37 damage on average.

Our move + attack damage is limited to a mounted charge but provided we do just that, we have Lance at +1 Weapon Training and thus +18 base To hit (+20 on a Charge). The damage is 2d4+23*3 or 6d4+69; 74 to AC 25, 37 to AC 33. Vs. the average AC (23) of this level, it's 83 on charge and 89 on full attack.


Accounting for Reflex-saves & Fire Resistance, the Fighter probably comes out on top vs. single targets the party might face vast majority of the time. Of course, if the Fighter is buffed by Greater Magic Weapon and has elementals on his weapon and so on, he's probably even better off. Tripping is also still viable vs. a large number of opponents and of course attacks of opportunity provide extra attacks.

That said, this is an unoptimized Fighter so I wouldn't expect that much. Also, level 11 obviously increases Fighter damage significantly with the extra iterative. And most DR can be penetrated by simply carrying a golfbag of weapons of various materials and some of other types; the Fighter-specific bonuses aren't that major.


EDIT: Oh yeah, conclusion! Blasting is as viable as it's ever been. It also overlaps with other classes though and is still far less efficient than the control spells (which are still insane; Glitterdust nerfed? Cast Pyrotechnics.).

So it's stronger to play a control Wizard (or Sorcerer) than a blaster Wizard (or Sorcerer) but you can play a blaster Wizard (or Sorcerer) as well as ever. It just fits into parties worse and fulfills a less unique niché and is less powerful. But yeah, knock yourself out.

[Corlindale]

I would say that fighter-types generally outdamage caster types in PF - that's not to say they are more powerful, just that they can usually rock a higher damage per round. A lot of iteratives combined with lots of damage boosts on each individual attack (whatever you can get from class features/feats + a couple extra d6's from weapon special qualities). I don't think fighter-types were nerfed, barring a couple of specific, broken builds in 3.5.

You can also make a decent blaster, of course, but odds are you won't outdamage a fighter-type unless you count damage for multiple foes with AOE-attacks. And as has been pointed out, there are better ways to do a spellcaster.

[ericgrau]

They may not have uberchargers and such but for lower op the melee damage has gone up. So casters are even better off helping the melee or hampering foes with non-numerical effects. What PF did buff was area and other multi-target spells via metamagic such as selective spell and dazing spell. As anyone who has played even 1 session with a blaster can attest, there are often 5 or 6 clustered foes on the battlefield but you usually can't hit more than 2 without tagging an ally. In these fights selective spell doubles or triples area damage starting round 2, and >80% of the time in round 1. The other <20% is if you roll high on initiative, and no having a high modifier isn't usually enough to outroll all 7 other people. This made blasting more viable, though I suppose not having ultra high optimization options helped it in 10% of groups too.

Besides that the association between blasting and sorcerers makes no sense. They don't get more rounds in the combat to spam and they know way too many spells to put them all into blasting. They aren't the best general purpose spells to spam either, plenty of control spells are. Finally blasting is more spell level dependent than any other spell type. I tend to make control sorcerers and my one semi-blaster went wizard.

[Snowbluff]

Yeah, and metamagic reduction still exist. As was pointed out in my thread about traits (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=14166560) (i have since concluded melee doesn't get nice things), you can pick up a weak Arcane Thesis at character creation. On top of that, you can get Additional Traits to apply the MM reduction (A total of -2) to another magic spell.

Also, toppling and dazing spell. And magic missile can be a cantrip until they errata Magical Lineage and Wayang Spell Hunter.

[Karoht]

Is it viable? Sure. But if you focus yourself to much on this aspect, be prepared to hit a brick wall when the DM throws out enemies who are either immune to the element of choice, or high Spell Resistance making it harder to land any damage, or high Reflex saves + Improved/Evasion (where applicable). It's the three biggest problems our blaster sorc runs into, and there aren't really that many solid counters for these problems in Pathfinder.

In my experience, DM's tend to forget a lot about buffs. Resist/Protection from Energy, Spell Immunity, Globe of Invulnerability. They also tend to forget about counterspelling to deny action/s. If your DM is the type who has a good memory about using such tools, then be very careful about being blasty focused.

That all said, here are some tips.

1-Acid Arrow
Bipasses Spell Resistance, it's a ranged-touch spell, not a lot of things have Acid resistance. It's a Conjuration spell which means it will also bipass Antimagic Field. It's not the best spell in the game, and it's a poor choice for metamagic in most cases (changing it's elemental damage type is very useful, but tricks like Maximize or Empower are probably a waste), but it has it's uses.
2-Try to convince your DM to allow a few spells from Spell Compendium. Namely the Orb of X line.
3-Ensure that, at worst, Dispel Magic is on your spell list. Don't be afraid to lose some action economy and burn off some buffs before you blast. If you don't want to lose action economy, use Summon Monster to summon up some Babau's who have Dispel Magic at will, and have them spam Dispel Magic, or hold their action to counterspell other casters.
4-Ensure that you have at least some of the Summon Monster spells. Why? SLA's are usually worthwhile, and can protect you and your party by being more than meat shields. See the Babau example above.
5-Always have a least one battlefield control spell per Spell Level. If you can't shoot something and kill it, deny it's ability to see you, draw line of sight to you, or line of effect.
6-Dazing Spell. Fantastic little bit of metamagic. Daze is hard to be immune to, and it can be very crippling. Applied to AoE spells, it gives you the option to blast AND control. Highly recommended.
7-Spell Resistance. Get some yourself, and get ways to bipass it against other enemies. Spell Penetration and Greater Penetration will cost you two feats, I believe Elves get a +2 for bipassing SR, and there is a metamagic feat (+1 level adjustment) which will get you +5.
8-Initiative. Strike first and strike hard are the name of the game for blasting. Get yourself a wand of Anticipate Peril. Completely worth the 750g investment.
9-Knowledge. You need to identify your foes, know what they are resistant/immune to. And you need to do it before you burn that Maximized Empowered Scorching Ray (Fire).
10-Retreat options. If you can't kill it in 2 rounds, you probably want an exit strategy. Defensive spells like Mirror Image, Elemental Body yourself to turn into an Earth Elemental and Earthglide into the ground (great for delivering Touch Attacks Flat Footed, literally), Teleportation, Flight, you get the idea.

Best of luck.

[Eldariel]

Dazing Acid Fog is hilarious in so many ways. Save every turn vs. Daze, almost completely impeded movement, no vision, 1 round/level.

I was wondering what are the best lower level applications, especially with regards to Magical Lineage.

[Karoht]

Dazing Acid Fog is hilarious in so many ways. Save every turn vs. Daze, almost completely impeded movement, no vision, 1 round/level.

I was wondering what are the best lower level applications, especially with regards to Magical Lineage.It's hilarious because Acid Fog is very underestimated due to it's spell level VS it's low damage. Until one applies Dazing that is. And Acid Arrow gets similar treatment.

Heck, Dazing spell is just awesome. Magic Missile? Force 1 guy to make 5 saves or be Dazed, or make 5 guys make 1 save or be dazed. Combo that with Forceful Spell. All for 3rd level spell slot? Dang.

Or with some Trait shenanigans, a 1st level slot. El. Oh. El.

Dazing + Snapdragon Fireworks is pretty efficient. Second Level Slot, every round for 1 round/level force another save or be Dazed. Very efficent and sustained, amazing at low level.
Dazing + Flaming Sphere is nice too for mostly the same reasons.

[navar100]

I disagree with your premise.

Blasting was always viable. It wasn't universal I Win The Combat, but then it didn't have to be nor an obligation for a spellcaster. It's a tactic that works in enough situations. It's enough to Fireball several enemies and let other party members strike them down.

Figher-types are not nerfed. It's not the fault of Pathfinder there's no Tome of Battle. Pathfinder is under no obligation to use it. Since it's not OGL they legally can't. Pathfinder Power Attack works just fine and gives good damage. If you're still bothered you can't mitigate the to hit penalty with Shock Trooper, since you're willing to spend another feat on the idea take Furious Focus from Advanced Player's Guide which eliminates the penalty on the first attack with no AC loss and can do it even when not charging. That allows 3/4 BAB classes who want to melee to do well with Power Attack.