I don't know if this is a controversial take, but I like this dedication. Even if its a bit on the strong side, I don't necessarily see this causing problems. Worst case scenario, it's either going to be restricted at tables who care about rarity tags, or not allowed in Free Archetype like a few of the other great ones.
Things are always just a problem when someone abuse it in a way that make the game less fun for others, in a table where everyone is concerned about everyone's enjoyment (including the GM's) it will be ok
so now rare and uncommon tags are considered power boost. Opening another whole can of worms for GM who wouldn't want to restrict players to just common options. No longer is uncommon and rare tag just about settings and relevance to the campaign.
I don't know if broken is the right word for this but I can't think of a single build that wouldn't be better just taking the dedication, especially if you're using ancient elf or multi talented. There as so many amazing ikons and extra damage is just one option.
Eh, a lot of casters don't care about this. Most will probably want FA Alchemist, Beast Master, Rogue, or another caster in the same stat. Unless they really value the +1 AC, 10 Movement, or Reroll on status over everything else.
I think you misunderstood how overdamage works and what is strong in white-room scenarios vs non-white-room scenarios. Firstly, overdamage is not just the concept of "Doing extra damage invalidating damage boosts". Overdamage is a problem of specifically burst abilities, that do a lot of damage in one go. Usually to the point where they do enough damage to kill enemies in 1 (maybe 2) hits. In that case, unless a damage increase pushes you over some important breakpoint, damage increases don't really matter, even though they would increase the theoretical DPR of the ability. However, overdamage doesn't really apply to abilities that apply consistent damage (And Strikes are one of the most consistant damage sources). In the case of those abilities, a 25% damage increase will translate quite directly to a 25% time to kill increase. Sure, maybe the damage boost might not make a difference in your last Strike, but it will have made a difference in getting that enemy to being in last-strike range in the first place. So in those cases, a 25% damage increase will statistically translate quite directly into a 25% time to kill advantage. In regards to white-room scenarios, the 2 action Double-Strike and the 15-foot emanation are WORSE in non-white-room scenarios I'd argue. The Double-Strike strat because it requires 3 actions every round to do (And in white rooms moving is usually less of a concern, while it is a big concern in non-white-rooms), and the 15-foot emanation because staying within 15 feet in non-white-rooms actually can be a struggle, even dangerous sometimes. Meanwhile, a +2 damage per weapon damage die in all situations excels outside of white-rooms just as much as in white-rooms. Because a 25% DPR increase will always be a 25% DPR increase. Even if you get to hit your enemies less and your DPR is thus lower, you will still end up having to hit your enemies to end a fight, those Strikes will then hurt more, and the time to kill will thus still overall be lowered by the same percentage. No matter if we increase a 20 DPR per round to a 25 DPR, or a 10 DPR to a 12.5 DPR. Its always the same relative output increase in "Combat Power".
Given that Remaster nerfed multiclass Flurry of Blows, already a 10lvl feat, with d4 turns cooldown, that dedication is unbalanced and being Rare doesn't justify it.
Im going to go the other way with this and say that more Dedications should just be...good. Theres 140+ Archetypes and only around 30 are playable, and about 10 are meta. Also compare this to Beastmaster. If the beast hits, it'll probably do pretty similar damage to one of these items. It provides flanking, debuffs, another hp pool, and utility.
I'm sorry but DPR IS extremly important to anyhting that's not a dedicaced controller or buffer. Overkill damage is the wrong way to look at it. What is really important is how many turns it takes to kill an ennemy. The more it takes, the more action the ennemy have, the longer the fight takes and that means the more things can go wrong or the more ressources need to be expended, especially for bosses or extreme encounters. That much damage can easily make the difference between killing an ennemy in 3-4 turns and doing so in 2-3 turns. Hp in combat is ultimatly a clock that you need to run out. And while you can do a lot of interesting things outside damage, ultimatly every party needs someone running that clock. In that sense gleaming blade helps tremendously. It does more in one feat than what the barbarian archetype do with several feats
Rare should not be a power level check for things. I believe exemplar's class chassis should be allowed in a normal game with aome narrative rehash. I do hope its allowed in pfs2e though.
What gets me is that so few multiclass dedications really get you the 'essence' of their class in any meaningful way. The exemplar does too much, but most don't do enough - to the point that they often do little or nothing. Barbarian is good - you get to Rage, but it doesn't do nearly as much as a true Barbarian's. Swashbuckler is bad; you can get Panache, but it does literally nothing for you (no Precise Strike or Stylish Combatant) Psychic is good, you get to amp a cantrip, but not the unique ones. Oracle is bad, you have a mystery and curse, but can't get the cursebound condition. I could go on, but I think the point has been made.
Oracle does let you get and remove Cursebound per the PFS clarifications. Player Core 2 is just a super messy book in desperate need of errata, and Oracle is the worst part of it.
@@LordTridus The clarification doesn't affect the dedication at all. It states that you can reduce cursebound if you got the condition without having a focus pool, which can happen if you take a cursebound feat but not the focus spell feat. That requires a second feat in the archetype, though, so my point stands.
Speaking of combo...adept regalia thaumaturge and exemplar dedication with the Victor's wreath...means +2 to deception, intimate, and diplo and increased follow the expert bonuses of +2/3/4, +1 status bonus to all svs, reduces frightened value by 2 at end of turn, +2/3/4 status bonus to damage 15ft aura that now also has +1 status bonus to all attacks in a 15 ft aura all without any actions involved. All passive. Now if you want the transcend for 1 action you got an immediate reroll with a +2 status bonus (takes the highest between regalia and this) to end negative ongoing effects. And that's just with 1 dedication and an adept regalia.... that's a lot of bonuses. Makes you think again about weapon implements intensify. Sure you get an additional 2 to hit for your attacks vs exploited target for the turn for 1 action but for no action you can get a +1 to hit with the wreath. So for a difference of +1 to hit you can save an action. Maybe use it for a different intensify such as the tome or if you really want the regalia. I'd pick the tomes. That way you can also get a +1 circ to hit on the first strike via adept benefit meaning equal benefit for no cost on first strike when it comes to accuracy and for 1 action via intensify for tome, a devise a stretegem like d20 roll you could use. That leave the main reason for the weapon implement is the implements reaction vs exploited target, weapons crit specialization, and the +1 to hit (+0 on first attack if you have the tome) over the Victor's wreath. I think opening yourself to take a different implement and savings an action might be a good trade off now. Another combo mainly if you have a bard in the party would be to take the palisade bangles for a +1 circ bonus to ac or +2 for raised buckler or +3 for raised shield and the bards rallying anthem for a +1 status bonus to ac, svs, and resistence. Good for defense for both shield raiser and non shield raiders.
Me (looks at dedication): Wow that is a bit strong. (looks at the low level feats available through the archetype) Oh that explains it. The low level feats are kinda niche. It's a Psychic situation but not quite as bad. People are going to assume this is OP on everything and make fairly suboptimal characters. Aside from certain builds this is a strong dedication, middling archetype.
This. The low level feats make up for the insane dedication power. I agree that the blade may be a bit powerful (I mean, why pick Rogue's sneak attacker from it's dedication if you can get non-conditional and stronger damage?) But then what about the two follow up feats to get a new Archetype? They won't be the best and I think that's....kinda okay.
Well since it's a multi class dedication, you just take it with ancient elf or multitalented without picking up the low level feats depending on whether you have another archetype you plan to go into. Then just grab the higher level feats later.
@@CL-jq1xs Fair enough on the Multitalented, but like... the ancient elf thing is just a demonstration of my point. You could instead take a literally better multiclass archetype and unlock plenty better combinations. Hell, there's multiple dedications that by themselves give you more damage over that level span and have better lower level feats.
First of all, I have to say that I am weirded out seeing you with a solid chest. After the last few videos, seeing you with a dimensional portal through you became the new normal. Second, I agree with you on the stats required. A good change, though too late to be in the remaster. Third, yes, this is a powerful class. My immediate thought is for my higher level thaumaturge. The idea of suddenly getting another item show up in his stuff makes sense. Damage isn't the way to go about it for him. He does enough already. I would be going for flexibility.
Rant videos are fine, when something really ignites your passion! I wouldn't watch your videos if I didn't value your opinion. I totally get what you're saying about the power level of this dedication. I honestly don't usually play Hammer role / pure DPS characters. I prefer weird and "interesting" chars in a more support style. So, the ICONs that really interest me are more: Mirrored Aegis, Scar of the Survivor, Fetching Bangles, or Horn of Plenty. Whilst I would agree that these are quite Potent abilities to be able to mix and match on other classes, I don't see them as being OP in and of themselves. Keep up the good work!
I really see the change you propose to the dedication feat. Giving almost full beneficts of a core mechanic of a class with a level 2 dedication has almost no precedent (that I know of). I think following the Thaumaturge archetype for DMs who want to balance this maybe wise, since it only gives you a partial benefict and grants more (but restricted) access to beneficts through higher level feats, at least follow the design philosophy of "archetype is a half level class". Also, leaving the ikon action instead of the permanent auras forces you to participate in the three action economy, giving you more interesting choices between the ikon actions and your base character actions. Follows a more horizontal type of character growth. Awesome video as usual and sorry for my english, not my first language :)
About the "+2 damage": Efficiency should be measured with action economy, not damage numbers. No damage is "wasted" when you overkill, on the contrary what's wasted is the number of actions required to fill the damage gap. Sure one can talk about numbers like those, but they don't matter, they're just there for the decorum/ego effect. What matters if you want to be statistical is the number of actions required to perform a specific action (minus the rare case when the character would have nothing more to do with more action). That's why feats like Quick jump are so good, and why so many class feats use this action economy compression to find some good use. Is damage the only thing that matters in this question? Not at all, i'd argue anything giving bonuses to attack is even more revelant, but it's still a good effect.
Titan Breaker is arguably better than gleaming blade for non-fighters. Fighters really only want GB over TB because they already have that +2 accuracy over everyone else. Titan breaker giving you just one massive swing helps people with the lower attack bonus.
The problem with things like this is that it leads to cases where you have one player min/maxing to do all the damage, and other players who begin to feel worthless because they can't do nearly as much. If I am the GM, and my players want to do lots of damage, I can double the enemies' HP. But short of redesigning people's character for them, or banning certain options (both taking away player's agency), there is nothing that a GM can do about problems like this. And being that Pathfinder 2e is big in stopping overpowered character types from other games (especially, spellcasters), it feels even worse to those players when things like this slip through.
Banning options is perfectly fine so long as there are good reasons behind it, and there are still plenty of options available. Especially in cases where the option is uncommon or rare, which are "ask your GM first, don't assume they're in by default" tags.
You spent a LOT of time talking about the thing that wasn't your problem. I feel like that part could've been condensed for the sake of getting to the real issue.
Victor's Wreath will in most cases be worth more DPR if at least one ally is benefitting from it as well, for those optimizers out there, assuming your party has no other ready sources of these status bonuses.
Don't forget that other classes can still pick the Exemplar Feats from the Archetype, pickinh things like Fire Damage instead of Spirit Damage, and at lvl 16 picking another Ikon, having 3 Ikons as a archetype
Regarding the gleaming blade's transcendance ability: would you also argue that dual-weapon warrior is too strong? Because it gives you double slice at lvl 2 with the dedication feat, which is the same type of activity: 2 action for 2 strikes with no MAP increase. Buuut... it doesn't need recharging, so you can still move to be able to do it every round for real, or use some defensive ressource or intimidate or whatever. Sure, you don't also get the +2dmg per attack per weapon dice, but having your third action free is well worth it imo
The significant difference is that Flowing Spirit Strike is used with only 1 weapon which can be a big bonk stick vs double slice which requires 2 one-handed weapons. Overall the transedence ability will use bigger damage die ontop of the additional spirit damage which results in a bigger dpr. As far as the extra action thing, you may be right but if the question is which gives you more dpr then it's the transedence ability by no small margin
@@Lucas-qp4ht Doubling Rings. Double Slice requires two weapons, and both of them require runes, or you need doubling rings. Gleaming Blade has no requirement and you can be effectively double slicing with a d12 weapon.
@@LordTridus Ah thx :) Worth noting though is that you'll get the -2 to hit on the second attack with the d12 weapon since the most damaging agile weapons are 1d6. Not sure of the exact math there to evaluate how much of an impact that -2 has, but at least getting an agile weapon as one of the 2 for double slice doesn't sacrifice much in the way of weapon dice size.
You can't remove the immanence ability because the free action draw on the shadow sheath is unfortunately in the immanence ability. I just want a thrower's bandolier that is the shadow sheath without the damage boost lol.
You know what? I like haveing strong or even slightly "op" dedications feats. Its a much better option then the crap where you have to invest way to much to be worth it.
Bad take. You think people are going to just take this and then splash in to weak stuff like researcher, herbalist, or whatever? No. They are going to use this to stack to a whole new level of overpowered on top of their already strong builds
@@MagnificentMelkior "... then the crap..." ... "then splash in to weak stuff"... You are just confirming my point.. you know? Also, you can break pf2e already easily ,when your gm allows certain stuff. So whats the point of releasing new stuff nobody wants? Just think for a moment, except for certain obviously munchkiny ways you HAVE to at least invest 2 feats into any dedication. Only then you can start a new one and obviously sacrificing even more of your base classes synergy. And if more stuff where on that lvl of power and every munchkin would just splash 2feats into every "op" (lol) dedication. If your gm can not handle it, he is not worth his salt. He has enough ways to do that, starting by a simple "no". Just for example Nobody is taking cleric dedication if it isnt for roleplay reasons or maybe for the popular free archetype rule. And the list goes on with this not even being the worst example. I hate the stupid idea that dedications need to kinda suck to be "balanced" especially from the beginning, just because. Munchkins will munchkin anyway. I could go more into it but i wrote already way to much.
I personally do not think its really that big of a deal. Taking away the passive ability makes the archetype really bad actually, because the reality of getting to spark transcendance and then shift the spark back into the ikon is an action tax that you realistically will only want or be able to pay, once every so often as is, and therefore it becomes only marginally beneficial, but still allows you to feel like a demigod badass when you do manage to make it work. The immenance ability at least gives you something from the dedication that you can call on reliably. That said, why Titan's Breaker is not a part of this conversation feels like more proof that the community is overreacting to this? Its a much stronger ikon choice for a fighter or even a barbarian to pick up for damage purposes, because the things that would ignore spirit damage like constructs actually cant ignore them from that ikon, and the extra damage from its transcendence ability is way more damage output than gleaming blade offers. Or even the shield one? Having a shield as a fighter or champion than just fully regens every 10 minutes is way more useful than just more damage from gleaming blade, or any number of the ranged ikons for archery fighers and rangers, or even gunslingers for that matter.
I think it's too strong in comparison to other options but there are also particularly strong dedications so idk. Regardless I would nerf the dedication so that the spark stays in an icon till the end of your turn, so you would have to use an action every turn to activate it. Would nerf it to the level of other "good" dedications imo
A 10% reduction on a second attack is a level 17 Flurry Ranger ability and then the attacks stack to bypass damage reduction on top of that. And as for scaling numbers while I haven't played PF2 so I am not overly sure how big of a math problem it is I don't want to see Disgaea levels of damage...I don't want to spend the time to hand calculate 10^15 damage.
The transcendence ability for gleaming blade is just a reflavored fighter feat, double slice, that works with one weapon instead of two. Not that overpowered, but still a pretty good ability.
@@HarlequinHonor yeah you are right and it wasn’t even changed for the remaster, I was mixing it up with the ranger twin take down and adding a flourish trait to it.
The difference is double Slice is limited to at maximum 2 d8s, while allowing any weapon in the Sword group on Gleaming Blade lets you take two swings with a d12 great sword!
@@ryanprice6059 Max 8 points of damage with an average 4 point spread assuming both attacks hit rather than crit isn't such a big spread. On something like the scythe that has Deadly d10 you are increasing your chances to hit a 20 so the damage there might be a lot higher.
@@kx5360 4 points of on each hit at level 1 is pretty major. That's like an additional sneak attack die or weapon rune at first level (a d6 is about 3.5 damage on average). Some instincts have Rage that give you that much--notably the Barbarian dedication still retains the -1 AC penalty and has no Quick Tempered. So if you want to add flat damage, you can take the defense penalty from Barbarian or just get extra flat damage all the time, no action cost, no problem with the Exemplar dedication. Also the Gleaming Blade damage will scale automatically, while barbs will need to take a level 6 archetype feat to get their unique rage type, which will then stop scaling... Just to compare double slice to Gleaming Blade: Double slice hits twice with d8+4 and a d6+4, average 16 damage Gleaming Blade Transcendence would be d12+6 and d12+6, average 25 damage. So we're looking at a 50% damage boost for our usual 2-action turn from one dedication feat. It's not going to break the game over its back but it's a really meaningful boost. My suspicious is that Gleaming Blade is meant to affect only one-handed swords, but we'll see.
"This archetype dedication feat isn't as powerful as having a Bard in your party"... man, I sure hope so. One of these is a single level 2 feat, and the other is a class. If this archetype was stronger than arguably the strongest support class in the game being in your party, something would be seriously off. That you're even making this comparison at all is not making the argument you think it is. DPR is actually very important since if you can get something down an attack or a round faster, that's less incoming damage for the party. That means less chance for bad things to happen, less healing needed, and so on. It's extremely helpful. If you're downing things via damage, more damage is extremely strong. "Overdamage" is barely relevant here and you're drastically overplaying it because the real gain is getting something down more quickly. Also, Bless doesn't buff skills. Just attacks. Victor's Reach from the archetype at level 2 is literally better than a level 16 Cleric feat. As it stands now this thing is super busted. I thought people were overplaying it originally, but no, it's totally out of line. Compare to something like Monk dedication being nerfed with a cooldown on flurry of blows, and Magus dedication only letting you spellstrike once a minute. Exemplar is miles out of line as it stands. (And lets not even talk about the absolute dumpster fire that is Summoner dedication.) As for ability scores... casters only require one ability score, but they also require high ranks of skills to advance the archetype and martials don't. No martial archetypre requires a legendary skill to take the high end feats in it, but caster ones do. Requiring two stats in comparison is fine.
Honestly it should just be labeled rare and either made to have the stronger aspect kept for a Feat, or having the Dedication besides stat restricted having a level restriction. I feel over-all it would be better to be reworked with the stronger elements locked further inside the Dedication to allow players to have that flavor of Exemplar you can early on even if its at the start not so impressive.
This multiclass dedication is strong, but there is no need to nerf it, because it has the Rare trait. If you want to nerf it in your game, then it should be downgraded to Uncommon or perhaps even Common.
So rare tag means power boost? Didn't rare and uncommon tag always just mean that it is likely to not fit the setting of campaigns in general? Does uncommon mean a slight power boost now?
I don't know if this is a controversial take, but I like this dedication. Even if its a bit on the strong side, I don't necessarily see this causing problems. Worst case scenario, it's either going to be restricted at tables who care about rarity tags, or not allowed in Free Archetype like a few of the other great ones.
Things are always just a problem when someone abuse it in a way that make the game less fun for others, in a table where everyone is concerned about everyone's enjoyment (including the GM's) it will be ok
Honestly. It's def overpowered.
But I don't want it fixed until summoner dedication is made good lmao. Make some dedications not self harming.
so now rare and uncommon tags are considered power boost. Opening another whole can of worms for GM who wouldn't want to restrict players to just common options. No longer is uncommon and rare tag just about settings and relevance to the campaign.
My group never allows multiclassing in Free Archetype anyway. You have to use your main class feats to multiclass feats.
@@valeclaw1697that makes no sense. Op dedications make summoner even worse by comparison
I don't know if broken is the right word for this but I can't think of a single build that wouldn't be better just taking the dedication, especially if you're using ancient elf or multi talented. There as so many amazing ikons and extra damage is just one option.
Exactly I've seen like 3 or 4 ikons people have issues with... out of 21. 100% on the stronger side of things, but won't break the game.
Eh, a lot of casters don't care about this. Most will probably want FA Alchemist, Beast Master, Rogue, or another caster in the same stat. Unless they really value the +1 AC, 10 Movement, or Reroll on status over everything else.
I think you misunderstood how overdamage works and what is strong in white-room scenarios vs non-white-room scenarios.
Firstly, overdamage is not just the concept of "Doing extra damage invalidating damage boosts". Overdamage is a problem of specifically burst abilities, that do a lot of damage in one go. Usually to the point where they do enough damage to kill enemies in 1 (maybe 2) hits. In that case, unless a damage increase pushes you over some important breakpoint, damage increases don't really matter, even though they would increase the theoretical DPR of the ability. However, overdamage doesn't really apply to abilities that apply consistent damage (And Strikes are one of the most consistant damage sources). In the case of those abilities, a 25% damage increase will translate quite directly to a 25% time to kill increase. Sure, maybe the damage boost might not make a difference in your last Strike, but it will have made a difference in getting that enemy to being in last-strike range in the first place. So in those cases, a 25% damage increase will statistically translate quite directly into a 25% time to kill advantage.
In regards to white-room scenarios, the 2 action Double-Strike and the 15-foot emanation are WORSE in non-white-room scenarios I'd argue. The Double-Strike strat because it requires 3 actions every round to do (And in white rooms moving is usually less of a concern, while it is a big concern in non-white-rooms), and the 15-foot emanation because staying within 15 feet in non-white-rooms actually can be a struggle, even dangerous sometimes. Meanwhile, a +2 damage per weapon damage die in all situations excels outside of white-rooms just as much as in white-rooms. Because a 25% DPR increase will always be a 25% DPR increase. Even if you get to hit your enemies less and your DPR is thus lower, you will still end up having to hit your enemies to end a fight, those Strikes will then hurt more, and the time to kill will thus still overall be lowered by the same percentage. No matter if we increase a 20 DPR per round to a 25 DPR, or a 10 DPR to a 12.5 DPR. Its always the same relative output increase in "Combat Power".
Given that Remaster nerfed multiclass Flurry of Blows, already a 10lvl feat, with d4 turns cooldown, that dedication is unbalanced and being Rare doesn't justify it.
Im going to go the other way with this and say that more Dedications should just be...good. Theres 140+ Archetypes and only around 30 are playable, and about 10 are meta.
Also compare this to Beastmaster. If the beast hits, it'll probably do pretty similar damage to one of these items. It provides flanking, debuffs, another hp pool, and utility.
There is no way to design combat encounters where +20% damage is worse than +0% damage.
I'm sorry but DPR IS extremly important to anyhting that's not a dedicaced controller or buffer. Overkill damage is the wrong way to look at it. What is really important is how many turns it takes to kill an ennemy. The more it takes, the more action the ennemy have, the longer the fight takes and that means the more things can go wrong or the more ressources need to be expended, especially for bosses or extreme encounters. That much damage can easily make the difference between killing an ennemy in 3-4 turns and doing so in 2-3 turns. Hp in combat is ultimatly a clock that you need to run out. And while you can do a lot of interesting things outside damage, ultimatly every party needs someone running that clock. In that sense gleaming blade helps tremendously. It does more in one feat than what the barbarian archetype do with several feats
Rare should not be a power level check for things. I believe exemplar's class chassis should be allowed in a normal game with aome narrative rehash. I do hope its allowed in pfs2e though.
What gets me is that so few multiclass dedications really get you the 'essence' of their class in any meaningful way. The exemplar does too much, but most don't do enough - to the point that they often do little or nothing.
Barbarian is good - you get to Rage, but it doesn't do nearly as much as a true Barbarian's.
Swashbuckler is bad; you can get Panache, but it does literally nothing for you (no Precise Strike or Stylish Combatant)
Psychic is good, you get to amp a cantrip, but not the unique ones.
Oracle is bad, you have a mystery and curse, but can't get the cursebound condition.
I could go on, but I think the point has been made.
Oracle does let you get and remove Cursebound per the PFS clarifications. Player Core 2 is just a super messy book in desperate need of errata, and Oracle is the worst part of it.
@@LordTridus The clarification doesn't affect the dedication at all.
It states that you can reduce cursebound if you got the condition without having a focus pool, which can happen if you take a cursebound feat but not the focus spell feat. That requires a second feat in the archetype, though, so my point stands.
I look at it like the Monk's furry of blows, making it a 10 lvl feat would make it still very good dedication.
You say the hp feat doesn't scale well and would replace it with tuffness, and I'd argue against that. Tuff is 1hp/lvl, the hp heat is 1.5hp/lvl
Speaking of combo...adept regalia thaumaturge and exemplar dedication with the Victor's wreath...means +2 to deception, intimate, and diplo and increased follow the expert bonuses of +2/3/4, +1 status bonus to all svs, reduces frightened value by 2 at end of turn, +2/3/4 status bonus to damage 15ft aura that now also has +1 status bonus to all attacks in a 15 ft aura all without any actions involved. All passive. Now if you want the transcend for 1 action you got an immediate reroll with a +2 status bonus (takes the highest between regalia and this) to end negative ongoing effects. And that's just with 1 dedication and an adept regalia.... that's a lot of bonuses. Makes you think again about weapon implements intensify. Sure you get an additional 2 to hit for your attacks vs exploited target for the turn for 1 action but for no action you can get a +1 to hit with the wreath. So for a difference of +1 to hit you can save an action. Maybe use it for a different intensify such as the tome or if you really want the regalia. I'd pick the tomes. That way you can also get a +1 circ to hit on the first strike via adept benefit meaning equal benefit for no cost on first strike when it comes to accuracy and for 1 action via intensify for tome, a devise a stretegem like d20 roll you could use. That leave the main reason for the weapon implement is the implements reaction vs exploited target, weapons crit specialization, and the +1 to hit (+0 on first attack if you have the tome) over the Victor's wreath. I think opening yourself to take a different implement and savings an action might be a good trade off now.
Another combo mainly if you have a bard in the party would be to take the palisade bangles for a +1 circ bonus to ac or +2 for raised buckler or +3 for raised shield and the bards rallying anthem for a +1 status bonus to ac, svs, and resistence. Good for defense for both shield raiser and non shield raiders.
You should do. Video about how to plan a combat and prevent whiteroom room combat
Me (looks at dedication): Wow that is a bit strong. (looks at the low level feats available through the archetype) Oh that explains it. The low level feats are kinda niche. It's a Psychic situation but not quite as bad. People are going to assume this is OP on everything and make fairly suboptimal characters. Aside from certain builds this is a strong dedication, middling archetype.
This. The low level feats make up for the insane dedication power. I agree that the blade may be a bit powerful (I mean, why pick Rogue's sneak attacker from it's dedication if you can get non-conditional and stronger damage?) But then what about the two follow up feats to get a new Archetype? They won't be the best and I think that's....kinda okay.
Well since it's a multi class dedication, you just take it with ancient elf or multitalented without picking up the low level feats depending on whether you have another archetype you plan to go into. Then just grab the higher level feats later.
@@CL-jq1xs Fair enough on the Multitalented, but like... the ancient elf thing is just a demonstration of my point. You could instead take a literally better multiclass archetype and unlock plenty better combinations.
Hell, there's multiple dedications that by themselves give you more damage over that level span and have better lower level feats.
First of all, I have to say that I am weirded out seeing you with a solid chest. After the last few videos, seeing you with a dimensional portal through you became the new normal.
Second, I agree with you on the stats required. A good change, though too late to be in the remaster.
Third, yes, this is a powerful class. My immediate thought is for my higher level thaumaturge. The idea of suddenly getting another item show up in his stuff makes sense. Damage isn't the way to go about it for him. He does enough already. I would be going for flexibility.
Rant videos are fine, when something really ignites your passion!
I wouldn't watch your videos if I didn't value your opinion.
I totally get what you're saying about the power level of this dedication.
I honestly don't usually play Hammer role / pure DPS characters.
I prefer weird and "interesting" chars in a more support style.
So, the ICONs that really interest me are more: Mirrored Aegis, Scar of the Survivor, Fetching Bangles, or Horn of Plenty.
Whilst I would agree that these are quite Potent abilities to be able to mix and match on other classes, I don't see them as being OP in and of themselves.
Keep up the good work!
I really see the change you propose to the dedication feat. Giving almost full beneficts of a core mechanic of a class with a level 2 dedication has almost no precedent (that I know of). I think following the Thaumaturge archetype for DMs who want to balance this maybe wise, since it only gives you a partial benefict and grants more (but restricted) access to beneficts through higher level feats, at least follow the design philosophy of "archetype is a half level class". Also, leaving the ikon action instead of the permanent auras forces you to participate in the three action economy, giving you more interesting choices between the ikon actions and your base character actions. Follows a more horizontal type of character growth.
Awesome video as usual and sorry for my english, not my first language :)
About the "+2 damage":
Efficiency should be measured with action economy, not damage numbers. No damage is "wasted" when you overkill, on the contrary what's wasted is the number of actions required to fill the damage gap. Sure one can talk about numbers like those, but they don't matter, they're just there for the decorum/ego effect. What matters if you want to be statistical is the number of actions required to perform a specific action (minus the rare case when the character would have nothing more to do with more action).
That's why feats like Quick jump are so good, and why so many class feats use this action economy compression to find some good use.
Is damage the only thing that matters in this question? Not at all, i'd argue anything giving bonuses to attack is even more revelant, but it's still a good effect.
Titan Breaker is arguably better than gleaming blade for non-fighters. Fighters really only want GB over TB because they already have that +2 accuracy over everyone else. Titan breaker giving you just one massive swing helps people with the lower attack bonus.
The problem with things like this is that it leads to cases where you have one player min/maxing to do all the damage, and other players who begin to feel worthless because they can't do nearly as much. If I am the GM, and my players want to do lots of damage, I can double the enemies' HP. But short of redesigning people's character for them, or banning certain options (both taking away player's agency), there is nothing that a GM can do about problems like this. And being that Pathfinder 2e is big in stopping overpowered character types from other games (especially, spellcasters), it feels even worse to those players when things like this slip through.
Banning options is perfectly fine so long as there are good reasons behind it, and there are still plenty of options available. Especially in cases where the option is uncommon or rare, which are "ask your GM first, don't assume they're in by default" tags.
@ShaleLee I agree. But it still creates feel bad moments at the table. Especially if you don't catch it before it becomes a problem.
You spent a LOT of time talking about the thing that wasn't your problem. I feel like that part could've been condensed for the sake of getting to the real issue.
Victor's Wreath will in most cases be worth more DPR if at least one ally is benefitting from it as well, for those optimizers out there, assuming your party has no other ready sources of these status bonuses.
So, why I am bringing this up is example number A
Don't forget that other classes can still pick the Exemplar Feats from the Archetype, pickinh things like Fire Damage instead of Spirit Damage, and at lvl 16 picking another Ikon, having 3 Ikons as a archetype
Its not broken, but quite Overpowered, especially on a fighter
Regarding the gleaming blade's transcendance ability: would you also argue that dual-weapon warrior is too strong? Because it gives you double slice at lvl 2 with the dedication feat, which is the same type of activity: 2 action for 2 strikes with no MAP increase. Buuut... it doesn't need recharging, so you can still move to be able to do it every round for real, or use some defensive ressource or intimidate or whatever. Sure, you don't also get the +2dmg per attack per weapon dice, but having your third action free is well worth it imo
The significant difference is that Flowing Spirit Strike is used with only 1 weapon which can be a big bonk stick vs double slice which requires 2 one-handed weapons. Overall the transedence ability will use bigger damage die ontop of the additional spirit damage which results in a bigger dpr.
As far as the extra action thing, you may be right but if the question is which gives you more dpr then it's the transedence ability by no small margin
Don't cost a magic item and more weapon options
@@CL-jq1xs what magic item?
@@Lucas-qp4ht Doubling Rings. Double Slice requires two weapons, and both of them require runes, or you need doubling rings. Gleaming Blade has no requirement and you can be effectively double slicing with a d12 weapon.
@@LordTridus Ah thx :)
Worth noting though is that you'll get the -2 to hit on the second attack with the d12 weapon since the most damaging agile weapons are 1d6. Not sure of the exact math there to evaluate how much of an impact that -2 has, but at least getting an agile weapon as one of the 2 for double slice doesn't sacrifice much in the way of weapon dice size.
You can't remove the immanence ability because the free action draw on the shadow sheath is unfortunately in the immanence ability. I just want a thrower's bandolier that is the shadow sheath without the damage boost lol.
I’m honestly not planning on allowing my players to take Exemplar unless we are like explicitly planning to do a 1-20 campaign
You know what? I like haveing strong or even slightly "op" dedications feats. Its a much better option then the crap where you have to invest way to much to be worth it.
Bad take. You think people are going to just take this and then splash in to weak stuff like researcher, herbalist, or whatever? No. They are going to use this to stack to a whole new level of overpowered on top of their already strong builds
@@MagnificentMelkior "... then the crap..." ... "then splash in to weak stuff"...
You are just confirming my point.. you know?
Also, you can break pf2e already easily ,when your gm allows certain stuff.
So whats the point of releasing new stuff nobody wants?
Just think for a moment, except for certain obviously munchkiny ways you HAVE to at least invest 2 feats into any dedication. Only then you can start a new one and obviously sacrificing even more of your base classes synergy.
And if more stuff where on that lvl of power and every munchkin would just splash 2feats into every "op" (lol) dedication.
If your gm can not handle it, he is not worth his salt.
He has enough ways to do that, starting by a simple "no".
Just for example
Nobody is taking cleric dedication if it isnt for roleplay reasons or maybe for the popular free archetype rule.
And the list goes on with this not even being the worst example.
I hate the stupid idea that dedications need to kinda suck to be "balanced" especially from the beginning, just because.
Munchkins will munchkin anyway.
I could go more into it but i wrote already way to much.
I guees the Dedication is only a option in games where the Exemplar itself is an option.
Exemplar is the rare case where Rarity is about power.
I personally do not think its really that big of a deal. Taking away the passive ability makes the archetype really bad actually, because the reality of getting to spark transcendance and then shift the spark back into the ikon is an action tax that you realistically will only want or be able to pay, once every so often as is, and therefore it becomes only marginally beneficial, but still allows you to feel like a demigod badass when you do manage to make it work. The immenance ability at least gives you something from the dedication that you can call on reliably.
That said, why Titan's Breaker is not a part of this conversation feels like more proof that the community is overreacting to this? Its a much stronger ikon choice for a fighter or even a barbarian to pick up for damage purposes, because the things that would ignore spirit damage like constructs actually cant ignore them from that ikon, and the extra damage from its transcendence ability is way more damage output than gleaming blade offers. Or even the shield one? Having a shield as a fighter or champion than just fully regens every 10 minutes is way more useful than just more damage from gleaming blade, or any number of the ranged ikons for archery fighers and rangers, or even gunslingers for that matter.
Looking forward to the animist video!!
I think it's too strong in comparison to other options but there are also particularly strong dedications so idk. Regardless I would nerf the dedication so that the spark stays in an icon till the end of your turn, so you would have to use an action every turn to activate it. Would nerf it to the level of other "good" dedications imo
A 10% reduction on a second attack is a level 17 Flurry Ranger ability and then the attacks stack to bypass damage reduction on top of that. And as for scaling numbers while I haven't played PF2 so I am not overly sure how big of a math problem it is I don't want to see Disgaea levels of damage...I don't want to spend the time to hand calculate 10^15 damage.
The transcendence ability for gleaming blade is just a reflavored fighter feat, double slice, that works with one weapon instead of two. Not that overpowered, but still a pretty good ability.
@@HarlequinHonor yeah you are right and it wasn’t even changed for the remaster, I was mixing it up with the ranger twin take down and adding a flourish trait to it.
The difference is double Slice is limited to at maximum 2 d8s, while allowing any weapon in the Sword group on Gleaming Blade lets you take two swings with a d12 great sword!
@@ryanprice6059 Max 8 points of damage with an average 4 point spread assuming both attacks hit rather than crit isn't such a big spread.
On something like the scythe that has Deadly d10 you are increasing your chances to hit a 20 so the damage there might be a lot higher.
@@kx5360 4 points of on each hit at level 1 is pretty major. That's like an additional sneak attack die or weapon rune at first level (a d6 is about 3.5 damage on average). Some instincts have Rage that give you that much--notably the Barbarian dedication still retains the -1 AC penalty and has no Quick Tempered. So if you want to add flat damage, you can take the defense penalty from Barbarian or just get extra flat damage all the time, no action cost, no problem with the Exemplar dedication. Also the Gleaming Blade damage will scale automatically, while barbs will need to take a level 6 archetype feat to get their unique rage type, which will then stop scaling...
Just to compare double slice to Gleaming Blade:
Double slice hits twice with d8+4 and a d6+4, average 16 damage
Gleaming Blade Transcendence would be d12+6 and d12+6, average 25 damage.
So we're looking at a 50% damage boost for our usual 2-action turn from one dedication feat.
It's not going to break the game over its back but it's a really meaningful boost. My suspicious is that Gleaming Blade is meant to affect only one-handed swords, but we'll see.
"This archetype dedication feat isn't as powerful as having a Bard in your party"... man, I sure hope so. One of these is a single level 2 feat, and the other is a class. If this archetype was stronger than arguably the strongest support class in the game being in your party, something would be seriously off. That you're even making this comparison at all is not making the argument you think it is.
DPR is actually very important since if you can get something down an attack or a round faster, that's less incoming damage for the party. That means less chance for bad things to happen, less healing needed, and so on. It's extremely helpful. If you're downing things via damage, more damage is extremely strong. "Overdamage" is barely relevant here and you're drastically overplaying it because the real gain is getting something down more quickly.
Also, Bless doesn't buff skills. Just attacks. Victor's Reach from the archetype at level 2 is literally better than a level 16 Cleric feat.
As it stands now this thing is super busted. I thought people were overplaying it originally, but no, it's totally out of line. Compare to something like Monk dedication being nerfed with a cooldown on flurry of blows, and Magus dedication only letting you spellstrike once a minute. Exemplar is miles out of line as it stands. (And lets not even talk about the absolute dumpster fire that is Summoner dedication.)
As for ability scores... casters only require one ability score, but they also require high ranks of skills to advance the archetype and martials don't. No martial archetypre requires a legendary skill to take the high end feats in it, but caster ones do. Requiring two stats in comparison is fine.
Video starts at 8:27
Ofc its an op dedication... its op in comparison to mostly lackluster dedicatiom feats. Oh trained in a skill and a w/e bonus? Yay...
*Fewer attacks, not "less attacks."
Is it officially getting released in this state?
Yep. Paizo's quality control is not even close to what it used to be.
Paizo kinda exploiting that Rare Rank. Let the DM gate the class lmao. But I cannot complain cause I want more power in 2E.
Why wouldn't you want it to be balanced?
Ha At this point you should just film your free book but not a sponsorship spiel and cut it into these videos.
Honestly it should just be labeled rare and either made to have the stronger aspect kept for a Feat, or having the Dedication besides stat restricted having a level restriction. I feel over-all it would be better to be reworked with the stronger elements locked further inside the Dedication to allow players to have that flavor of Exemplar you can early on even if its at the start not so impressive.
This multiclass dedication is strong, but there is no need to nerf it, because it has the Rare trait. If you want to nerf it in your game, then it should be downgraded to Uncommon or perhaps even Common.
So rare tag means power boost? Didn't rare and uncommon tag always just mean that it is likely to not fit the setting of campaigns in general? Does uncommon mean a slight power boost now?
@@CL-jq1xs I think it can mean that. The extra power might be what doesn't fit in a specific campaign. No?
Nah, no nerf, lets us players have some fun too : ) !!!
the issue is that it's fun for the players who pick it and not for players who doesn't.
Brainrot. You people ruined dnd5e too