Effective Uses for Heighten Spell?

[HunterOfJello]

Many times in the past I've seen people praise Heighten Spell as a good metamagic feat. However, I've never used it or seen anyone play with it.

What are some effective uses of Heighten Spell metamagic that make it worth taking as a feat?

[paranoidbox]

I mostly use it to power Reserve Feats. The higher your requisite spells the better the damage/effect of the Reserve Feat.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There're the obvious uses; penetrating a globe of invulnerability with lower level spells and raising save DC's. Then there are the optimization tricks; combine with metamagic reducers to cast spells beyond your normal maximum and qualify for PrC's and other options early.

It's personal favorite of mine for a sorcerer. That, sculpt, and widen can really stretch what you can do with lower level spells.

[Vizzerdrix]

On sorcerers, It helps to keep lower level spells relivent at higher levels, so you arent doubling up on save spells and wasting slots. It makes light spells that much harder to dispell, and allows the sorc to prc as fast as other casters.

[Zaq]

Yeah, it's basically for Sorcerers to keep a lower-level spell relevant at higher levels (thereby making good use of precious spells known). It's not worth it on damaging spells more often than not, but there are some good low-level save-or-suck spells that still have good effects at high levels if you can keep the save DC relevant—Glitterdust is the iconic example. Using that example, blinded is a great condition to hand out even into the mid-high level range, so it's still meaningful to cast Glitterdust if it has a relevant save DC. If you have Glitterdust and can Heighten it to get the save DC up to par, you have a spell that fits the "Will save or suck" role in your toolbox without having to spend a spell known on it at each spell level.

And as has been mentioned, it makes powering reserve feats way easier on spontaneous casters.

It's only rarely a good idea on a prepared caster (unless you're doing shenanigans like Heightening Silent Image up for a Shadowcraft Mage to make realer-than-real illusions). Prepared casters usually don't have a hard time getting access to whatever spells they want at a given spell level, so it costs them less to just learn a 5th level Will save-or-lose instead of just Heightening Glitterdust. But for a spontaneous caster who has to be frugal with spells known, Heighten can go a long way.

[Janthkin]

It also lets you optimize around a single spell (e.g., Arcane Thesis) that will remain relevant for most of the character's career.

[AvatarVecna]

Heighten Spell is great when used to enter a casting PrC early. It becomes phenomenal if that PrC is Shadowcraft Mage, where Heightened Silent Image is your go-to spell for most situations.

[Seward]

The primary use is to raise DCs on lower level spells that have broadly useful effects (eg, charm person). It's much more useful on a spontaneous caster than a primary caster. In Pathfinder it's a prereq for a feat that lets you spont a single spell, so prep casters will sometimes have it.

One sometimes overlooked value if you happen to have the feat (or can get it through something like Paragon Surge) is to either bring up a heightened light effect to counter darkness, or alternately to create a heightened continual flame spell (so you can counter darkness with something other than your standard action)

I've never seen it used to defeat globes of invulnerability, and I've had it on several characters, but there is always a first time. That spell just isn't very common among NPC casters (it is short duration, immobile and generally not worth a standard action to cast if the fight has already begun).