Is there any hope at all for Nature (metal) sphere?

[SangoProduction]

The Metal sub-sphere for Nature seems to basically amount to "I do damage." With a side helping of "I also facilitate you using a craft check, with no bonuses."

Well, there's this thing called the Destruction sphere, which is obviously the blasting sphere, complete with extremely well-scaling damage and disables/debuffs (or more damage).

To compare the base spheres:

Destruction sphere targets touch AC, while Metal targets normal AC. Destruction sphere does 1d6 / 2 CL for free, and 1d6 / CL for a spell point.
Metal...scales with object size, with medium being a longsword, unlocked at CL 4. And large (presumably a large greatsword, 3d6) unlocked at level 8, and then huge (4d6) at level 16. But it's weird as it classifies both a bed (which is larger than a person), and a greatsword (which can be wielded in 2 hands, and isn't as large as a person) as the same sized object.
So, it scales really poorly with CL by comparison. In fact, it scales at logarithmic speeds, rather than a linear one and has no implicit option to gain increased damage. Though there's a talent to improve Metal CL by 5 for this purpose, meaning that it's literally best off, relatively, at level 3, and falls off from there.
Metal sphere needs a weapon to exist so it can be magnetized. A destructive blast needs merely your action to cast it.

There's really no contest with the base spheres in terms of damage. So let's look at supporting talents

You can take talents that grant some form of damage-based area denial, such as Acid Rain (which does destructive blast's free damage option), as well as Dangerous Terrain, which is worse than Acid Rain in every way, except that you can also see through it, and both of which are concentration effects (or spell point for 1 rnd/CL).
Destruction sphere has Energy Wall, which is also damage-based area denial, but thanks to being a blast shape, can also benefit from blast types, which can mean entangling anyone who tries to pass the wall. As well as the option to double the damage for a spell point. No concentration options.

There's also the Pinball for Metal, which grants 1+1/5 CL extra targets. Destruction has 1 +1/2 CL extra targets in Chain Blast, but requires each target to be close to the other.

With Metal, you can change the material to penetrate DR. With Destruction, you can ...just change the blast type.

Metal has some utility like sticking you in to really heavy armor, making you ignore some traps and difficult terrain, as well as Scent for metal objects. Oh, and you can speak to the metal. Can't kill The Metal though. Nothing too incredible, in all honesty.


Am I missing something of particular value? I did leave out the essentially useless / stupidly-niche talents for metal. But maybe I'm simply not seeing it in the proper light.

[Alexvrahr]

It looks like most of the talents are about making things out of metal. Basically it's for blowing WBL out of the water?

[SangoProduction]

It looks like most of the talents are about making things out of metal. Basically it's for blowing WBL out of the water?

Unfortunately, anything created whole cloth (or ore, I guess) disappears in an hour / CL. But you can use crafting to create wealth from it. Of course, without magical crafting of some kind, that's just normal craft skill, and does basically zip to the adventurer's budget.

[Kitsuneymg]

I’d love for someone to justify nature as a sphere. As far as I’ve ever seen, it’s generally a sphere that does what other spheres do, except worse. Were it “SR: no” or if you got a free geomancing package with every talent, in could see it being desirable for utility.

I want it to work, but have never been able to make it do so. Add me to the list of people that wanna know what they’re missing.

[SangoProduction]

I’d love for someone to justify nature as a sphere. As far as I’ve ever seen, it’s generally a sphere that does what other spheres do, except worse. Were it “SR: no” or if you got a free geomancing package with every talent, in could see it being desirable for utility.

I want it to work, but have never been able to make it do so. Add me to the list of people that wanna know what they’re missing.

The nature sphere as a whole? Well, you only need to pick the standout talents, even if much of it is really bleh. It's much better after USOP though.
Of the packages, water is the best, for disabling. Primarily in the form of Freeze, which while you don't get the flexibility of material that Creation does, you do get 2x as much thickness per CL, and you can take a talent to entrap 2 people without reducing the thickness.
The fog is also situationally useful, like when you want to get archers to come down off their perch, else not be able to hit you. And Vortex....is useful enough...if you manage to have a situation where you can make use of the top of the funnel. A 5-foot area denial is rarely too necessary or useful. Fog Mastery is also rather potent area denial, with long lasting penalties for walking through it (unless you use Metal's, Earth's or Air's fog).

[Nizaris]

Sadly most of the damage you can deal with the Nature sphere via Geomancing is fire damage. That said, Geomancing damage is SR: no. Without extra talents and not spending spell points, Create Fire at 20th level is a 10ft square dealing 4d6 damage, reflex half and to avoid catching on fire. Blast is a single target touch attack with SR check dealing 10d6.

With the Create Element talent, you can create a colossal ++ 70ft square fire dealing 9d6 damage (reflex half and avoid catching on fire) at-will without spell points that lasts under concentration. If combo'd with Manipulate Nature, you can then move it 200ft as part of the casting forcing more reflex saves.

Without spell points, destruction has better single target damage, but even with spell points it affects much smaller areas of the map. Nature (particularly fire package) can cover greater areas of a map without a heavy spell point investment (if any in the case of fire).

The weakness again is Nature's best damage option is fire, but it's a wide area with SR: no. You get better (and more varied) damage if SR isn't a problem off the spirit talents.

[stack]

Metal can, at least prior to USoP, haven't checked since, pump crit range.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

If your DM allows Spellcrafting, you can probably whip up non-Fire versions of the choicest damage abilities from the sphere, or maybe add Admixture from Destruction to blend Fire and another element