SangoProduction
2020-11-30, 02:17 AM
My recent Spheres in Review have been really bloody negative. I don't think they're unjustly negative. But all the same, I wanted to work on a more positive SIR this time.
Well, what could possibly be more positive than the gold standard of blasting, which single-handedly makes most non-destruction damage mostly obsolete.
Post review analysis: I mean. Some of my interpretations on individual talents have changed. But for the sphere overall, this was pretty much as expected. Holy cow there are so many feats. Please send help!
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Destructive Blast (S): Well, this is kind of the only reason to even take the sphere. Good thing too. It's got great damage potential when you go nova, and enables a very substantial trickle of damage when you're wanting to hold back, or ran out of steam 10 hours ago.
-Bludgeoning is a relatively weak damage type, but it's targeting touch.
Admixture (<S+>): If you have two blast types of the same blast group, you just stick them on one another at no added cost. That's a bit silly. But still, negative energy acid blasts are pretty horrifying to think about, and only cost 1 spell point.
Cascade Failure (<S>): -1 to saves against your destructive blasts until the end of your next turn. With no investment, this is bad. With severe investment, this is broken beyond belief. And taken as Ki Blaster Sage...well, you're a ki blaster sage, you weren't here for balance anyway.
Damage Control (<S>): Freely make any destructive blast nonlethal, and have scaled or purely effects, and bonus damage to nonlethal blasts? Considering nonlethal is the best (custom) blast type (against non-immune targets), that's really awesome, and means you're more than a blaster, and have utility.
Gather Energy (G-S): So long as you don't need to move, you can be an absolute artillery piece.
Wingbind (<G-S>): If you have have frequent fliers, your martials would love for their flights to be grounded.
Spirit Blast (<G>): Does as it says on the tin. If you need ghost blasting, here it is.
Energetic Response (G): If you can threaten at range, this makes you quite an area control god, with your sheer damage potential.
Extended Range(G): Take as much as necessary for your campaign maps.
Selective Blast (F): Well, now you can blast your barbarian and he doesn't even get to complain.
Epicenter (B-G): Immune to your own effects. This has admittedly niche uses. The best I could imagine is just sitting inside a continuous AoE damage zone of yours so that no melees want to touch you. Also useful in suicide blasters...who really have no reason to not just throw it, rather than placing it at their feet. But eh.
Focused Blast (B-G): If you ignore AoE, you lose relatively little by giving up blast shapes for +1 damage per die. You also gain relatively little.
Demolition (F): If inanimate objects infuriate you to no end, here you go. No added cost.
Clinging Blast (B): Continuous damage is only ever useful when you're against casters. And it costs a spell point to do it. Granted, with the sheer amount of damage you can do, this makes it hard to cast. So if you need it, it's probably worthwhile to use. Could choose to just prepare action for someone to cast and then attack, being more effective at no cost, but hey.
Crafted Blast (N-B): You lose a lot from having no blast type, and it's not 1d3+3, it's 1d6, but with 3 sides being 3. Only an average damage gain of 1 per die.
Energy Aura (<S>): If you can stand to be in melee, this is a nice, long duration disabling aura. Damage is relatively inconsequential, although you did only spend a move action on it. Plus it can proc / benefit from Cascade Failure... as a move action.
-This is especially powerful on any blast type that has a good rider effect, lower die damage, and costs a spell point. As that tends to mean a better rider effect, and you spend the spell point only once, while caring nothing for die size.
Sculpt Blast (G-S): Huh. I thought this was just the "flavorful flamebreath with added flex" talent. No. It's...it's actually really impressive, and ignoring the lack of a free option, beats the flexibility and reliability of any other blast shape talent. But lacking a free option does knock it from its perch at S.
Energy Wall (G): Handles swarms, and can spend spell points to provide area control over time.
Energy Tether (G): Assuming you can stand in melee, this allows you to simply control one person's movement with no save, or force them to attack the tether rather than you. With feat / class support, this does have some fun, if niche utility. Also Cascade Failure.
Retributive Blast (G): Again, if you can melee, this enables shoving a few more dice up the enemy's rear end. It's unreliable, but it's an immediate action, which is great for Cascade Failure.
Energy Satellite (G): Pay a small premium to effectively pre-cast a blast before entering a room. It works when it works.
Energy Bomb (F): Infusing food with a destructive blast is just so....eeeeevil. I love it. Oh, and you can grant your Alchemist friend a real bomb, I guess. He may not take the joke so well. You do, unfortunately, have to effectively "prepare" the spell by infusing it into a weapon ahead of time.
Explosive Orb (B-G): Your classical Fireball form. You are more likely to hit more with a burst than a straight line. Only advantage over Sculpt Blast is the free option to handle swarms, and the feat support. Oh, and getting to use Extended Range
Guided Strike (B-G): Well, you'll never miss. Costs a spell point to ensure such successes though. Great for risk-adverse people.
Energy Sphere (B-G): Dealing damage in a particular square isn't incredible And both concentration and moving the sphere are separate actions. But if you can solve that problem, or spend a spell point, it's persistent damage over a few rounds, which stacks well with Cascade Failure.
Energy Leap (<F>): If your GM allows pre-USOP version, this is cool and flavorful, if not incredibly practical. Don't bother with post-USOP version. I absolutely hate the change they did.
Chain Blast (B-G): Spell point, and relatively few targets. But also, if anyone breaks the chain, they break it for every proceeding target as well. But it is not an indiscriminate blast in an area, so it has its merits, though Selective Blast is better for that.
Knight’s Blast (B): Too inflexible as an independent blast type. But if you're using pre-USOP Energy Leap, I love the flavor of it, while giving Energy Leap some more usefulness.
Energy Strike (B): I still don't entirely get the point of turning your touch attacks into normal attacks. But there are some cheese builds that adds damage to damage such that it's complete and utter overkill while being incredibly one-note.
Mutable Blast (B): Due to needing to be contiguous, it's even worse than Chain Blast, at the same cost. But at least one saving doesn't break it for the rest.
Rebuff (B): Best you can say is it's flavorful. Just...not incredibly useful. I mean. Kinda. On occasion.
Blast Trap (N): It's kind of cool, and it can be used as an out-of-combat trap. But it's the smallest unit area you can have, and must be immediately adjacent to place it, and you can only have 1 at a time for the majority of your adventuring time.
Blast Salvo (N): Its literal only use is to have "AoE" against exceptionally spread out targets. But you can no additional effective damage, so it's only good for spreading your secondary effect. Just kill one guy.
Each group is also given a rating based on how well it serves as free Admixture fodder.
Unlike most of my ratings, I am listing the groups as their talents first showed up, alphabetically, rather than from best to worst, as that's actually somewhat complex. Also, I'm 99% sure that most of these violate the Geneva Convention in one way or another...Not hard to see why.
Acid Group (G): Adhesive and Alkali blasts are both pretty incredible mobility inhibitors, when combined with persistent AoE like Energy Wall or Energy Sphere.
Adhesive Blast (G): Entangled is strong. Being unable to move is nice.
Alkali Blast (B): CMB trip is objectively worse than save to drop prone let alone Adhesive Blast. But still can aid in area control. Having someone slip in your Energy Wall is still useful and a little horrifying. Even more so when admixtured with Adhesive.
Acid Blast (N): Essentially a bleed, except it lasts for exactly 1 round.
Air Group (B): Strictly speaking, none of these are great on their own, and mixing them doesn't help much.
Air Blast (B): CMB check knocks down the rating. And bull rush isn't great. But I do have a build (see sig) which features this to deal silly damage.
Gale Blast (B): CMB trip. Bleh. Still useful in area control. Not as useful as others.
Hurricane Blast (<B>): Hey! No CMB check. But wow that's...niche. Hurts Destruction sphere users at least.
Stone Group (N): You don't gain much of anything from admixturing within this.
Stone Blast (G): Flexible physical damage type that ignores anitmagic. Admixture this talent to another to enable you to ignore anti-magic with minimal penalty.
Battering Blast (B): Same as Air blast, but penetrates antimagic with marginally less damage.
Shrapnel Blast(N-B): The most minor of bleed damage on a failed save. At least ignores antimagic.
Light Group (B): There's not much synergy between any of the talents here. But getting to apply a will save, and still deal other stuff is nice.
Blinding Blast (<G-S>): Not a bad blast type normally with the blind, but if you know you are fighting vampires, this is pretty good.
Radiant Blast (G): Free version of Blinding Blast. Just concealment rather than blind.
Incandescent Blast (<B>): If you have someone who likes to target will, this is cool. Also no-point upgrade to damage vs vampires, at the cost of generic down grade. Negative group applies better penalty to all saves, if for less potential time.
Fire Group (B): No real synergy. Sure, a small bit of extra damage, optimistically, but that's it.
Fire Blast (<G-S>): In the early game, this is a relative monster of a damage boost, every round, with no action on your part. As the game goes on, this does not scale...at all, actually. (Without the weak feat support)
Searing Blast(G): Deals +1 avg. dmg per die.
Blistering Blast (<B>): If you have someone who benefits well from reduced Fort saves, this can be nice. Not really worthwhile to set up for yourself, with its unreliable duration. Also Sickened/Shaken from Negative group is better, even if doesn't last as long.
Crystal Group (B): No synergy at all, unless your GM rules that two instances of the entangle stack (or at least overlap and must be individually destroyed).
Crystal Blast (G-S): Indefinite entangle, but can try to break free with a move action, and still leaves difficult terrain. Not guaranteed to break free either, so you're penalizing and soaking actions.
Living Crystal Blast (N-B): Crystal Blast, but +1 average damage per die for a spell point. I couldn't care less.
Razor Blast (N): A...caltrop effect. You realize you can stop them dead in their tracks in other ways, right?
Electricity Group (C): You admixture Daze with anything else, and you've got a recipe for nachos. Electric is particularly juicy for harder saves. But the stand out is actually Shock and Drowning Energetic Aura for two chances at being basically unable to fight at all.
Shock Blast (<C>): Fail save? They don't even get to act. Beyond busted on Energetic Aura. Even when not so abused, it's dealing Destruction sphere damage, and having a chance to daze. Holy hell.
Electric Blast (B): Against certain targets, you can more easily hit. Maybe decent to keep in the back pocket.
Static Blast (N-B): CMB Disarm. Very narrow use. Bonus when wielding metal weapons. Relatively likely when they actually have a weapon.
Force Group (B): No real synergies.
Mana Siphon (<G>): Doesn't cost you anything, and it drains spell points from the enemy, while at least poking at your enemy. If you regularly encounter mages, and you find the Mana sphere morally reprehensible, go ahead.
Force Blast (B): Force damage is useful for... a costly Spirit Blast? The prone isn't worth a spell point.
Invigorating Blast (F):: I mean...daze is nice, and you don't want so much temp hit points to enemies. Makes for a neat opener as it doesn't over-heal. But you'll have a hard time using it supportively. And it costs a spell point. It's kind fun to consider at least.
Cold Group (G): Drown and Frost overlap, and Numbing doesn't have any real "synergy," with either effect. They are still all individually great though.
Drowning Blast (S): Holy sodding hell. For one spell point they don't get a standard action. That alone is awesome. Add to Energy Aura and...my god.
Frost Blast (G-S): Free version of Drowning Blast, and staggered still allows standard action. Still pretty good. Not stupidly broken but good. Especially once martials start full-attacking.
Numbing Blast (<G>): Any blast shape that has a save is a reflex save. Still not good if you're the only one you're using the reflex reduction for, but it's really good if you can use it.
Negative Group (G-S): Yeah. Odd how that works. But Shaken and Sickened are decent conditions, and when both applied at once, they just aren't going to make their next save. Put on an Aura and no one will dare resist you ever again.
Nether Blast (B): Shaken is one of the weakest penalties you can inflict with Destruction sphere. But frightening undead does mean that they run away rather than even trying to attack, which is better than just a large penalty to attack (aka blind).
Gloom Blast (B): Sickened is one of the weakest penalties you can inflict with a blast type, and the cost for a chance at a 1 round blind is literally doing 0 damage with it.
Tenebrous Blast (N-B): The above blasts might not last as long, but at last they provide more penalties.
Holy Group (N-------): Please. Spare me.
Paradigm Blast (N-): It's anti-damage reduction damage for a spell point...but...damage reduction doesn't affect...my brain hurts.
Smiting Blast (N-): Why....Why... Ow.
Sonic Group (N): Actually no synergy. Best possible synergy would be Thunder and Reverb to anti-mage someone. But that's... not good.
Thunder Blast (N-B): Deafened affects an admittedly wide subset of spells, but not universally. It at least lasts a while.
Reverberating Blast (N-B): Relatively poor penalty to concentration, which, again, only affects casters, and you deal enough damage already to make casters unable to cast while you focus them.
Shattering Blast (N): Worthless next to Demolition talent. Sure "reduce hardness by half CL," but also deal reduced die size and not have +1 damage per die from Demolition. You can gain both, but that's really over-investing.
Grandmaster actually makes Knight's Move individually good. And presumably it also extends to Energetic Leap which also becomes really quite nice.
Calamity is just massive battlefield-level area.
Channel Destruction (G-S): Pretty massive area for channeling. Unfortunately, also gives you a reason to take Epicenter.
Fear And Flame (G-S): This is actually a pretty major reason to use Fire Blast. It forces them spend their actions, or else they eventually run off, as they burn to death.
Heavy Hand (<G-S>): If you have custom nonlethal blasts, this flexes them, and makes them more reliable.
Improved Energy Wall (<G>): If you regularly have issues with archers, this tells them to sod off. Probably invites a lot more charging barbarians. But such is life.
Flexible Ghost Strike (G): Use a Blast Shape for Ghost strike. A reasonable GM will probably say that "Reflex for half damage" instead becomes "Reflex to negate." But if you've a RAW DM, then this kicks up to Cheese rating.
Perpetual Sphere (G): Potentially double the duration of your sphere. That makes it pretty efficient.
Energy Snake (G): For another spell point, grant Energy Sphere light (potentially exponential) area denial. But you need to use a move action to increase said denial.
Primal Blast (<G>): If you already wanted the given geomancy talents, then this is fine. Making you SADder is fine.
Shape Expert (G): Improves the free versions of Wall and Orb. Not incredibly substantially, but it is something.
Warp Burst (F): Neat. Also rather action efficient, if you're already jumping into enemies.
Frozen To The Bone (G): Flexing your save is always good. Only doing it with cold damage, less so. Admixture helps at least.
Illusionary Blast (<G>): If you're regularly needing to ignore line of sight/effect, you should probably fix that first. But hey, it fixes Earth Glide and Incorporeal wall cheese.
Imbue With Nature (<G>): If you already wanted the given geomancy talents, then fine. Else it's not worth going out of your way for when you can Admixture Stone Blast.
Focused Blast Type Group (<G>): Not an impressive feat. Very narrow. But it is nice when needed
Arcing Strike (B): Meh. Comes on late, and could have been mitigated by choosing a different blast shape if you aren't Scry-Dying.
Fan The Flame (B): This is not a large damage boost, and you must concentrate on it, or cost a spell point, which isn't a good deal.
Tether Adept (B): If you get it "for free," you won't complain about being Indiana Jones.
Improved Energy Leap (N-B): That's such a tiny boost of area. You probably could have use with better planing.
Rebuff, Improved (N-B): So, an attack definitely hit your friend, and by a wide enough margin that regular Rebuff couldn't handle it. Tell me. What are your bloody chances of matching that roll? Well, you have to spend just to attempt to negate it.
Rebuff, Superior (N-B): Occasional Improve Evasion isn't worth 2 feats plus a talent.
Material Infusion (N): Just...pick a different blast type. You don't have to suffer DR.
Deadly Targeting (N): OK, on average that adds 5% more damage. So at level 20, it's the equivalent of dealing +1d6 damage on an empowered 20d6 blast. Except it's not that reliable.
Corpse Explosion (N): You um...took Corpse Bomb?
Destructive Companion (N-): OK, you really don't want them to hit your pet kitty. But I'm sure Mittens would rather take the hit than you
Atmospheric Imbuement (N-): Admixture is a great and you want it anyway. Take Extra Magical Talent: Stone Blast, and poof, you aren't reliant on the weather. Let alone high-level weather.
Cooperative Destruction (N-): Aid another but for destructive blasts. You literally require Destruction sphere to take this. Just blast em!
I'm rating these without regard to what you're giving up from admixing inside the sphere...often for free. Not the fact that in-sphere admixing is by default multi-target without another spell point or talent. As that's not the point. The point is to deal damage while doing your normal thing.
Morphic Admixture (<G-S>): Depending on your choice of forms, you can really mess someone's day up.
Spellshock Admixture (<G-S>): You can drain mages real well, if they are actually a regular problem in your campaign. And if you're doing it right, you won't even be draining yourself while doing so.
Mind Wrack (G): I mean...yeah. I've not done a full review, but I imagine this could be potent as a means of dealing damage while debuffing as an Eliciter.
Ghostly Admixture (G): Eh. There are some decent ghost strikes.
Nebulous Admixture (G): There are some decent
Time-Thief’s Admixture (G): Not a bunch of incredible debuffs, but the stagger for a decent duration isn't bad.
Umbral Admixture (B): If you have a habit of placing darkness on squares rather than people, then this works. Not the way I prefer to play Dark though.
Space-Rending Admixture (B): I don't have a particularly fond view of Unwilling Teleport, honestly. But if you want it, and want to deal damage, here you go.
Illuminating Admixture (B): Don't even get the opportunity to AoE glow. But...hey. Sure.
Enhancing Admixture (B): I haven't done an in depth review, but from brief look-overs, I never found any good debuffs you'd like to slap on.
Telekinetic Admixture (B): Man. If only you could actually lift them. Bro.
Blood Wrack (N): Blood sphere sucks, plain and simple.
Auspicious Admixture (N): Words suck, just as a general rule.
Result should cost 9-11 points. So yeah, that's your recommended budget. (Note that the "Holy group" blasts are at 3 points. Even if their damage type were relevant.)
In general, a fully Custom Blast tailored to your character setup is going to be substantially more powerful than any blast type you could find. But that's just the thing with custom-made things, isn't it?
Nonlethal is the lowest cost, which is awesome. Several things are immune to them, but with Heavy Hand, you can flex it to Bludgeoning at no cost.
Fire / Cold / Normal physical are relatively low cost and have fewer creatures immune to them.
The rest aren't really worth considering.
+1 Die Size is over costed. Not worth a spell point.
-1 Die Size is awesome, it affords you more disables.
Spell Point: Reduces the point cost by 4. Doesn't earn you a bunch, but might allow you to squeeze in something.
Dazed (S): Arguably, this is undercosted, even at 10 points. Might have made it 13, myself. Possibly 14....or outright removed. If players can do it, then so can enemies, and I don't want to see this anywhere. It's like a WoW Rogue stun locking you to death when all you wanted to do was pick flowers!
Nauseated (G-S): This is probably undercosted by 2-3 points. Sure it lets you move, but doesn't let you "do" anything. And that's real powerful.
Shaken or Sickened (G): This is a very fair price for the debuffs. You can stick both of them on one nonlethal blast, and just have a go at it.
Blind (G): Blind is good, blind is great. Go blind! Takes up almost your entire budget on its own though. For good reason.
Staggered (<G>): There's no good way to cost this. If enemies use magic or SoM, this is mostly pointless. For most regular martials and creatures, this is a game changer. So this is probably undercosted, but would depend on the game.
Entangle & immobile, both versions (G): Impressive. I think they got a good scale of the cost for both versions.
On Fire (<G>): Good early. Retrain later. But all considered, a very reasonably cost.
SR: No (G): A fair price.
Add/Remove Save (G): A fair price for the effect.
Increase/Decrease Duration (B-G): Probably costed per effect, in which case, this is pretty well done. Does mean you can get a free 1 round deafened on every blast for free, bbut it's deafened, and doesn't matter.
Penalty (B-G): If you add a save to this, like Sickened, it's only costing 2 points, next to its 5. Which is probably reasonable. The issue is that it doesn't do enough. But you can just add it to something to fill out your budget.
Drain SP (B-G): Probably overcosted by 2 points. But it's there if you want it. Admixturing it with Mana Siphon is fun.
Concealment for all creatures (B-G): A bit overcosted next to Blind, but...eh.
Bleed Damage (B-G): Bleed damage isn't good. But it is the equivalent added damage from increased die size, every single round, until they spend an action to heal. Which does show just how bad die size is. (Admittedly doesn't stack with multiple casts, but you can swap to a different blast type.)
Atk/DC Bonus vs Specific Material (B): Necessarily narrow target, and costs more than increasing die size. Eh.
Lingering Damage (B): I just don't rate the ability highly, period. Cost be damned.
Prone (N-B): Huh. Relative to combat Maneuver, this is relatively well rated. But Combat Maneuver is overrated. There's no way this is almost equivalent to Blinding someone.
Combat Maneuver (N); Maybe if this was a 3 pointer this could be acceptable, especially at low level against class-based humanoids.
So, on the whole, they did a pretty decent job of balancing and pricing these things, in my personal opinion. The only probably is simply the obvious perfectly well customized effects for your character.
Well, what could possibly be more positive than the gold standard of blasting, which single-handedly makes most non-destruction damage mostly obsolete.
Post review analysis: I mean. Some of my interpretations on individual talents have changed. But for the sphere overall, this was pretty much as expected. Holy cow there are so many feats. Please send help!
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Destructive Blast (S): Well, this is kind of the only reason to even take the sphere. Good thing too. It's got great damage potential when you go nova, and enables a very substantial trickle of damage when you're wanting to hold back, or ran out of steam 10 hours ago.
-Bludgeoning is a relatively weak damage type, but it's targeting touch.
Admixture (<S+>): If you have two blast types of the same blast group, you just stick them on one another at no added cost. That's a bit silly. But still, negative energy acid blasts are pretty horrifying to think about, and only cost 1 spell point.
Cascade Failure (<S>): -1 to saves against your destructive blasts until the end of your next turn. With no investment, this is bad. With severe investment, this is broken beyond belief. And taken as Ki Blaster Sage...well, you're a ki blaster sage, you weren't here for balance anyway.
Damage Control (<S>): Freely make any destructive blast nonlethal, and have scaled or purely effects, and bonus damage to nonlethal blasts? Considering nonlethal is the best (custom) blast type (against non-immune targets), that's really awesome, and means you're more than a blaster, and have utility.
Gather Energy (G-S): So long as you don't need to move, you can be an absolute artillery piece.
Wingbind (<G-S>): If you have have frequent fliers, your martials would love for their flights to be grounded.
Spirit Blast (<G>): Does as it says on the tin. If you need ghost blasting, here it is.
Energetic Response (G): If you can threaten at range, this makes you quite an area control god, with your sheer damage potential.
Extended Range(G): Take as much as necessary for your campaign maps.
Selective Blast (F): Well, now you can blast your barbarian and he doesn't even get to complain.
Epicenter (B-G): Immune to your own effects. This has admittedly niche uses. The best I could imagine is just sitting inside a continuous AoE damage zone of yours so that no melees want to touch you. Also useful in suicide blasters...who really have no reason to not just throw it, rather than placing it at their feet. But eh.
Focused Blast (B-G): If you ignore AoE, you lose relatively little by giving up blast shapes for +1 damage per die. You also gain relatively little.
Demolition (F): If inanimate objects infuriate you to no end, here you go. No added cost.
Clinging Blast (B): Continuous damage is only ever useful when you're against casters. And it costs a spell point to do it. Granted, with the sheer amount of damage you can do, this makes it hard to cast. So if you need it, it's probably worthwhile to use. Could choose to just prepare action for someone to cast and then attack, being more effective at no cost, but hey.
Crafted Blast (N-B): You lose a lot from having no blast type, and it's not 1d3+3, it's 1d6, but with 3 sides being 3. Only an average damage gain of 1 per die.
Energy Aura (<S>): If you can stand to be in melee, this is a nice, long duration disabling aura. Damage is relatively inconsequential, although you did only spend a move action on it. Plus it can proc / benefit from Cascade Failure... as a move action.
-This is especially powerful on any blast type that has a good rider effect, lower die damage, and costs a spell point. As that tends to mean a better rider effect, and you spend the spell point only once, while caring nothing for die size.
Sculpt Blast (G-S): Huh. I thought this was just the "flavorful flamebreath with added flex" talent. No. It's...it's actually really impressive, and ignoring the lack of a free option, beats the flexibility and reliability of any other blast shape talent. But lacking a free option does knock it from its perch at S.
Energy Wall (G): Handles swarms, and can spend spell points to provide area control over time.
Energy Tether (G): Assuming you can stand in melee, this allows you to simply control one person's movement with no save, or force them to attack the tether rather than you. With feat / class support, this does have some fun, if niche utility. Also Cascade Failure.
Retributive Blast (G): Again, if you can melee, this enables shoving a few more dice up the enemy's rear end. It's unreliable, but it's an immediate action, which is great for Cascade Failure.
Energy Satellite (G): Pay a small premium to effectively pre-cast a blast before entering a room. It works when it works.
Energy Bomb (F): Infusing food with a destructive blast is just so....eeeeevil. I love it. Oh, and you can grant your Alchemist friend a real bomb, I guess. He may not take the joke so well. You do, unfortunately, have to effectively "prepare" the spell by infusing it into a weapon ahead of time.
Explosive Orb (B-G): Your classical Fireball form. You are more likely to hit more with a burst than a straight line. Only advantage over Sculpt Blast is the free option to handle swarms, and the feat support. Oh, and getting to use Extended Range
Guided Strike (B-G): Well, you'll never miss. Costs a spell point to ensure such successes though. Great for risk-adverse people.
Energy Sphere (B-G): Dealing damage in a particular square isn't incredible And both concentration and moving the sphere are separate actions. But if you can solve that problem, or spend a spell point, it's persistent damage over a few rounds, which stacks well with Cascade Failure.
Energy Leap (<F>): If your GM allows pre-USOP version, this is cool and flavorful, if not incredibly practical. Don't bother with post-USOP version. I absolutely hate the change they did.
Chain Blast (B-G): Spell point, and relatively few targets. But also, if anyone breaks the chain, they break it for every proceeding target as well. But it is not an indiscriminate blast in an area, so it has its merits, though Selective Blast is better for that.
Knight’s Blast (B): Too inflexible as an independent blast type. But if you're using pre-USOP Energy Leap, I love the flavor of it, while giving Energy Leap some more usefulness.
Energy Strike (B): I still don't entirely get the point of turning your touch attacks into normal attacks. But there are some cheese builds that adds damage to damage such that it's complete and utter overkill while being incredibly one-note.
Mutable Blast (B): Due to needing to be contiguous, it's even worse than Chain Blast, at the same cost. But at least one saving doesn't break it for the rest.
Rebuff (B): Best you can say is it's flavorful. Just...not incredibly useful. I mean. Kinda. On occasion.
Blast Trap (N): It's kind of cool, and it can be used as an out-of-combat trap. But it's the smallest unit area you can have, and must be immediately adjacent to place it, and you can only have 1 at a time for the majority of your adventuring time.
Blast Salvo (N): Its literal only use is to have "AoE" against exceptionally spread out targets. But you can no additional effective damage, so it's only good for spreading your secondary effect. Just kill one guy.
Each group is also given a rating based on how well it serves as free Admixture fodder.
Unlike most of my ratings, I am listing the groups as their talents first showed up, alphabetically, rather than from best to worst, as that's actually somewhat complex. Also, I'm 99% sure that most of these violate the Geneva Convention in one way or another...Not hard to see why.
Acid Group (G): Adhesive and Alkali blasts are both pretty incredible mobility inhibitors, when combined with persistent AoE like Energy Wall or Energy Sphere.
Adhesive Blast (G): Entangled is strong. Being unable to move is nice.
Alkali Blast (B): CMB trip is objectively worse than save to drop prone let alone Adhesive Blast. But still can aid in area control. Having someone slip in your Energy Wall is still useful and a little horrifying. Even more so when admixtured with Adhesive.
Acid Blast (N): Essentially a bleed, except it lasts for exactly 1 round.
Air Group (B): Strictly speaking, none of these are great on their own, and mixing them doesn't help much.
Air Blast (B): CMB check knocks down the rating. And bull rush isn't great. But I do have a build (see sig) which features this to deal silly damage.
Gale Blast (B): CMB trip. Bleh. Still useful in area control. Not as useful as others.
Hurricane Blast (<B>): Hey! No CMB check. But wow that's...niche. Hurts Destruction sphere users at least.
Stone Group (N): You don't gain much of anything from admixturing within this.
Stone Blast (G): Flexible physical damage type that ignores anitmagic. Admixture this talent to another to enable you to ignore anti-magic with minimal penalty.
Battering Blast (B): Same as Air blast, but penetrates antimagic with marginally less damage.
Shrapnel Blast(N-B): The most minor of bleed damage on a failed save. At least ignores antimagic.
Light Group (B): There's not much synergy between any of the talents here. But getting to apply a will save, and still deal other stuff is nice.
Blinding Blast (<G-S>): Not a bad blast type normally with the blind, but if you know you are fighting vampires, this is pretty good.
Radiant Blast (G): Free version of Blinding Blast. Just concealment rather than blind.
Incandescent Blast (<B>): If you have someone who likes to target will, this is cool. Also no-point upgrade to damage vs vampires, at the cost of generic down grade. Negative group applies better penalty to all saves, if for less potential time.
Fire Group (B): No real synergy. Sure, a small bit of extra damage, optimistically, but that's it.
Fire Blast (<G-S>): In the early game, this is a relative monster of a damage boost, every round, with no action on your part. As the game goes on, this does not scale...at all, actually. (Without the weak feat support)
Searing Blast(G): Deals +1 avg. dmg per die.
Blistering Blast (<B>): If you have someone who benefits well from reduced Fort saves, this can be nice. Not really worthwhile to set up for yourself, with its unreliable duration. Also Sickened/Shaken from Negative group is better, even if doesn't last as long.
Crystal Group (B): No synergy at all, unless your GM rules that two instances of the entangle stack (or at least overlap and must be individually destroyed).
Crystal Blast (G-S): Indefinite entangle, but can try to break free with a move action, and still leaves difficult terrain. Not guaranteed to break free either, so you're penalizing and soaking actions.
Living Crystal Blast (N-B): Crystal Blast, but +1 average damage per die for a spell point. I couldn't care less.
Razor Blast (N): A...caltrop effect. You realize you can stop them dead in their tracks in other ways, right?
Electricity Group (C): You admixture Daze with anything else, and you've got a recipe for nachos. Electric is particularly juicy for harder saves. But the stand out is actually Shock and Drowning Energetic Aura for two chances at being basically unable to fight at all.
Shock Blast (<C>): Fail save? They don't even get to act. Beyond busted on Energetic Aura. Even when not so abused, it's dealing Destruction sphere damage, and having a chance to daze. Holy hell.
Electric Blast (B): Against certain targets, you can more easily hit. Maybe decent to keep in the back pocket.
Static Blast (N-B): CMB Disarm. Very narrow use. Bonus when wielding metal weapons. Relatively likely when they actually have a weapon.
Force Group (B): No real synergies.
Mana Siphon (<G>): Doesn't cost you anything, and it drains spell points from the enemy, while at least poking at your enemy. If you regularly encounter mages, and you find the Mana sphere morally reprehensible, go ahead.
Force Blast (B): Force damage is useful for... a costly Spirit Blast? The prone isn't worth a spell point.
Invigorating Blast (F):: I mean...daze is nice, and you don't want so much temp hit points to enemies. Makes for a neat opener as it doesn't over-heal. But you'll have a hard time using it supportively. And it costs a spell point. It's kind fun to consider at least.
Cold Group (G): Drown and Frost overlap, and Numbing doesn't have any real "synergy," with either effect. They are still all individually great though.
Drowning Blast (S): Holy sodding hell. For one spell point they don't get a standard action. That alone is awesome. Add to Energy Aura and...my god.
Frost Blast (G-S): Free version of Drowning Blast, and staggered still allows standard action. Still pretty good. Not stupidly broken but good. Especially once martials start full-attacking.
Numbing Blast (<G>): Any blast shape that has a save is a reflex save. Still not good if you're the only one you're using the reflex reduction for, but it's really good if you can use it.
Negative Group (G-S): Yeah. Odd how that works. But Shaken and Sickened are decent conditions, and when both applied at once, they just aren't going to make their next save. Put on an Aura and no one will dare resist you ever again.
Nether Blast (B): Shaken is one of the weakest penalties you can inflict with Destruction sphere. But frightening undead does mean that they run away rather than even trying to attack, which is better than just a large penalty to attack (aka blind).
Gloom Blast (B): Sickened is one of the weakest penalties you can inflict with a blast type, and the cost for a chance at a 1 round blind is literally doing 0 damage with it.
Tenebrous Blast (N-B): The above blasts might not last as long, but at last they provide more penalties.
Holy Group (N-------): Please. Spare me.
Paradigm Blast (N-): It's anti-damage reduction damage for a spell point...but...damage reduction doesn't affect...my brain hurts.
Smiting Blast (N-): Why....Why... Ow.
Sonic Group (N): Actually no synergy. Best possible synergy would be Thunder and Reverb to anti-mage someone. But that's... not good.
Thunder Blast (N-B): Deafened affects an admittedly wide subset of spells, but not universally. It at least lasts a while.
Reverberating Blast (N-B): Relatively poor penalty to concentration, which, again, only affects casters, and you deal enough damage already to make casters unable to cast while you focus them.
Shattering Blast (N): Worthless next to Demolition talent. Sure "reduce hardness by half CL," but also deal reduced die size and not have +1 damage per die from Demolition. You can gain both, but that's really over-investing.
Grandmaster actually makes Knight's Move individually good. And presumably it also extends to Energetic Leap which also becomes really quite nice.
Calamity is just massive battlefield-level area.
Channel Destruction (G-S): Pretty massive area for channeling. Unfortunately, also gives you a reason to take Epicenter.
Fear And Flame (G-S): This is actually a pretty major reason to use Fire Blast. It forces them spend their actions, or else they eventually run off, as they burn to death.
Heavy Hand (<G-S>): If you have custom nonlethal blasts, this flexes them, and makes them more reliable.
Improved Energy Wall (<G>): If you regularly have issues with archers, this tells them to sod off. Probably invites a lot more charging barbarians. But such is life.
Flexible Ghost Strike (G): Use a Blast Shape for Ghost strike. A reasonable GM will probably say that "Reflex for half damage" instead becomes "Reflex to negate." But if you've a RAW DM, then this kicks up to Cheese rating.
Perpetual Sphere (G): Potentially double the duration of your sphere. That makes it pretty efficient.
Energy Snake (G): For another spell point, grant Energy Sphere light (potentially exponential) area denial. But you need to use a move action to increase said denial.
Primal Blast (<G>): If you already wanted the given geomancy talents, then this is fine. Making you SADder is fine.
Shape Expert (G): Improves the free versions of Wall and Orb. Not incredibly substantially, but it is something.
Warp Burst (F): Neat. Also rather action efficient, if you're already jumping into enemies.
Frozen To The Bone (G): Flexing your save is always good. Only doing it with cold damage, less so. Admixture helps at least.
Illusionary Blast (<G>): If you're regularly needing to ignore line of sight/effect, you should probably fix that first. But hey, it fixes Earth Glide and Incorporeal wall cheese.
Imbue With Nature (<G>): If you already wanted the given geomancy talents, then fine. Else it's not worth going out of your way for when you can Admixture Stone Blast.
Focused Blast Type Group (<G>): Not an impressive feat. Very narrow. But it is nice when needed
Arcing Strike (B): Meh. Comes on late, and could have been mitigated by choosing a different blast shape if you aren't Scry-Dying.
Fan The Flame (B): This is not a large damage boost, and you must concentrate on it, or cost a spell point, which isn't a good deal.
Tether Adept (B): If you get it "for free," you won't complain about being Indiana Jones.
Improved Energy Leap (N-B): That's such a tiny boost of area. You probably could have use with better planing.
Rebuff, Improved (N-B): So, an attack definitely hit your friend, and by a wide enough margin that regular Rebuff couldn't handle it. Tell me. What are your bloody chances of matching that roll? Well, you have to spend just to attempt to negate it.
Rebuff, Superior (N-B): Occasional Improve Evasion isn't worth 2 feats plus a talent.
Material Infusion (N): Just...pick a different blast type. You don't have to suffer DR.
Deadly Targeting (N): OK, on average that adds 5% more damage. So at level 20, it's the equivalent of dealing +1d6 damage on an empowered 20d6 blast. Except it's not that reliable.
Corpse Explosion (N): You um...took Corpse Bomb?
Destructive Companion (N-): OK, you really don't want them to hit your pet kitty. But I'm sure Mittens would rather take the hit than you
Atmospheric Imbuement (N-): Admixture is a great and you want it anyway. Take Extra Magical Talent: Stone Blast, and poof, you aren't reliant on the weather. Let alone high-level weather.
Cooperative Destruction (N-): Aid another but for destructive blasts. You literally require Destruction sphere to take this. Just blast em!
I'm rating these without regard to what you're giving up from admixing inside the sphere...often for free. Not the fact that in-sphere admixing is by default multi-target without another spell point or talent. As that's not the point. The point is to deal damage while doing your normal thing.
Morphic Admixture (<G-S>): Depending on your choice of forms, you can really mess someone's day up.
Spellshock Admixture (<G-S>): You can drain mages real well, if they are actually a regular problem in your campaign. And if you're doing it right, you won't even be draining yourself while doing so.
Mind Wrack (G): I mean...yeah. I've not done a full review, but I imagine this could be potent as a means of dealing damage while debuffing as an Eliciter.
Ghostly Admixture (G): Eh. There are some decent ghost strikes.
Nebulous Admixture (G): There are some decent
Time-Thief’s Admixture (G): Not a bunch of incredible debuffs, but the stagger for a decent duration isn't bad.
Umbral Admixture (B): If you have a habit of placing darkness on squares rather than people, then this works. Not the way I prefer to play Dark though.
Space-Rending Admixture (B): I don't have a particularly fond view of Unwilling Teleport, honestly. But if you want it, and want to deal damage, here you go.
Illuminating Admixture (B): Don't even get the opportunity to AoE glow. But...hey. Sure.
Enhancing Admixture (B): I haven't done an in depth review, but from brief look-overs, I never found any good debuffs you'd like to slap on.
Telekinetic Admixture (B): Man. If only you could actually lift them. Bro.
Blood Wrack (N): Blood sphere sucks, plain and simple.
Auspicious Admixture (N): Words suck, just as a general rule.
Result should cost 9-11 points. So yeah, that's your recommended budget. (Note that the "Holy group" blasts are at 3 points. Even if their damage type were relevant.)
In general, a fully Custom Blast tailored to your character setup is going to be substantially more powerful than any blast type you could find. But that's just the thing with custom-made things, isn't it?
Nonlethal is the lowest cost, which is awesome. Several things are immune to them, but with Heavy Hand, you can flex it to Bludgeoning at no cost.
Fire / Cold / Normal physical are relatively low cost and have fewer creatures immune to them.
The rest aren't really worth considering.
+1 Die Size is over costed. Not worth a spell point.
-1 Die Size is awesome, it affords you more disables.
Spell Point: Reduces the point cost by 4. Doesn't earn you a bunch, but might allow you to squeeze in something.
Dazed (S): Arguably, this is undercosted, even at 10 points. Might have made it 13, myself. Possibly 14....or outright removed. If players can do it, then so can enemies, and I don't want to see this anywhere. It's like a WoW Rogue stun locking you to death when all you wanted to do was pick flowers!
Nauseated (G-S): This is probably undercosted by 2-3 points. Sure it lets you move, but doesn't let you "do" anything. And that's real powerful.
Shaken or Sickened (G): This is a very fair price for the debuffs. You can stick both of them on one nonlethal blast, and just have a go at it.
Blind (G): Blind is good, blind is great. Go blind! Takes up almost your entire budget on its own though. For good reason.
Staggered (<G>): There's no good way to cost this. If enemies use magic or SoM, this is mostly pointless. For most regular martials and creatures, this is a game changer. So this is probably undercosted, but would depend on the game.
Entangle & immobile, both versions (G): Impressive. I think they got a good scale of the cost for both versions.
On Fire (<G>): Good early. Retrain later. But all considered, a very reasonably cost.
SR: No (G): A fair price.
Add/Remove Save (G): A fair price for the effect.
Increase/Decrease Duration (B-G): Probably costed per effect, in which case, this is pretty well done. Does mean you can get a free 1 round deafened on every blast for free, bbut it's deafened, and doesn't matter.
Penalty (B-G): If you add a save to this, like Sickened, it's only costing 2 points, next to its 5. Which is probably reasonable. The issue is that it doesn't do enough. But you can just add it to something to fill out your budget.
Drain SP (B-G): Probably overcosted by 2 points. But it's there if you want it. Admixturing it with Mana Siphon is fun.
Concealment for all creatures (B-G): A bit overcosted next to Blind, but...eh.
Bleed Damage (B-G): Bleed damage isn't good. But it is the equivalent added damage from increased die size, every single round, until they spend an action to heal. Which does show just how bad die size is. (Admittedly doesn't stack with multiple casts, but you can swap to a different blast type.)
Atk/DC Bonus vs Specific Material (B): Necessarily narrow target, and costs more than increasing die size. Eh.
Lingering Damage (B): I just don't rate the ability highly, period. Cost be damned.
Prone (N-B): Huh. Relative to combat Maneuver, this is relatively well rated. But Combat Maneuver is overrated. There's no way this is almost equivalent to Blinding someone.
Combat Maneuver (N); Maybe if this was a 3 pointer this could be acceptable, especially at low level against class-based humanoids.
So, on the whole, they did a pretty decent job of balancing and pricing these things, in my personal opinion. The only probably is simply the obvious perfectly well customized effects for your character.