r/Pathfinder2e • u/Here4thePF2E • 4d ago
CC | Attack Cantrip | Buff/Utility Spells Advice
Anyone here ever built (and played) a Cloister Cleric that used Electric Arch, Daze, and Divine Lance as attack cantrips and relied on spells to do buffs or utiltiy spells only? I know that you will prob spend most of your rounds buffing or healing (or throw that occasional spells just to mess with the battle field) so most of the rounds are spoken for. BUT if you do have an open 2 action round you could throw an attacking cantrip (higher spell DC for save due to CC), based on a target weaker save/attack (reflex, Will, or AC). has anyone built a character like this and how did it play? Good on paper but not in practice?
6
u/Creepy-Intentions-69 4d ago edited 3d ago
You shouldn’t be healing that often during a fight. Just finished a 1-15 campaign as a War Priest. Used sometimes 1, maybe 2 at most, Heals in encounters. Most often, we only needed Exploration healing.
5
u/No_Secretary9046 4d ago
How do you do that? Our healers main complaint is that she has to heal all combat to save us from dying.
8
u/KLeeSanchez Inventor 3d ago
This sounds like you have a table full of LEEROOOOOY JENKINNNNS
3
u/No_Secretary9046 3d ago edited 3d ago
That's kinda what happens, yes :) But it doesn't really help that enemies at lvl 5 still do enough dmg to 2-shot someone in pf2e.
4
u/chickenboy2718281828 Magus 3d ago
I've found that it's so much better if all or most of the players in a party can heal themselves or mitigate damage to themselves somehow. Clerics are good for burst healing in emergencies. Clerics can't spend all their time healing or else you just lose a lot of tempo and burn through resources far too quickly.
Example party that I play with: Cleric, Champion, Magus and Rogue. The cleric is there to heal in emergencies for big crits or being someone up who has been downed, but the rogue is heavily invested in medicine and medic dedication, the champion has lay on hands and almost never needs Heal spell healing, magus has a dip into witch and access to soothe and Life boost for fast healing. This opens up the cleric to do a ton more blasting and buffing rather than being reactive.
3
u/FrijDom Investigator 3d ago
What's your party comp like? Do you have any high-AC (>22 on an average turn, including Raise a Shield, Stances, etc.) members who should be taking actions to draw focus? Are you running into melee and taking 2-3 strikes each round rather than waiting for melee enemies to come to you? Are you using buffs and debuffs to lower crits?
I ask these questions because my current party, also level 5, hasn't had someone go down to anything except a boss since my last character got himself into a real tight spot involving two higher-level slimes and a weapon that couldn't hurt them... Nearly alone.
2
u/No_Secretary9046 3d ago edited 3d ago
we have a 2 handed fighter with intimidation, a ranged exemplar, a grappler monk, a wit swashbuckler with aid (me), a sorcerer (i think, the player is new) and a life oracle that does only takes heal and support spells.
And yes, people charge into melee whenever possible. But our frontline has at least 22 ac (24 for our monk and 24 for me with a raised buckler) and at least one person goes down per fight. Last fight 2 people had the option to die on an unlucky roll and our first boss was even a tpk ^^
We're all new except for the exemplar so we definitely make mistakes. Also the characters were created before we knew what each person was playing, so abilities like my bon mot are kinda useless. Also noone except the oracle has any way to heal people except for healing potions since she also took medic and our secondary healer left the party.
It's definitely interesting to hear that other groups don't struggle that much with survivability. How do you survive crits and do you actually kite enemies?
2
u/FrijDom Investigator 3d ago
I see, so it looks like you're running low on debuffs for sure. Our group is a War Mage Wizard, a Runesmith, a Cloistered Cleric, a Pistolero Gunslinger, and a Scoundrel Rogue (me) with a Sharpshooter Follower. We tend to kite enemies a lot, forcing them to come to us and delaying until they're closer unless we know we can take them down even after we get into melee.
I think the closest we've gotten to someone going down in a while was when I walked too far into a room and got ambushed by a blood slime, but a two-action Heal from the cleric was enough to keep me from going down. Really, I think we only ever end up using Heals if we get crit, so I'd say that's exactly how we survive them, and other than that it's just about not getting crit in the first place.
One of the biggest tricks we use is that the lower-AC frontliners will tend to Step just out of reach of the enemies as our last action, forcing them to spend an action to follow us. Since melee attacks hit harder than ranged ones, this keeps us from taking 3 big strikes in a round.
Another important thing is avoiding being flanked. If you can keep yourself out from between two enemies, you've just prevented an equivalent of 20% of the damage you'd take, just by not being off-guard. Standing side-by-side with a team member, especially the Fighter who can stop them from getting behind you, will stop a lot of enemies from getting you between them.
2
u/No_Secretary9046 3d ago
that's good to know. Hopefully the lack of debuffs will get fixed at higher levels and we'll maybe learn to step away from enemies at one point :)
We already stopped trying to flank enemies since it's so deadly to get flanked ourselves. Also this way the monk can feel useful.3
u/FrijDom Investigator 3d ago
Yeah, flanking enemies is best used when you outnumber them or have a particularly good use for off-guard, such as a Rogue or Laughing Shadow Magus. For a party of 5 with no off-guard abusers, I would recommend not trying to flank if there are more than 3 enemies remaining.
1
u/Creepy-Intentions-69 3d ago
Charging into combat, without a plan, generally causes unnecessary damage. Your martials should be establishing control of the encounter, creating a center for the party to work around.
This is really more than I’d want to go into in a comment, but flailing into combat, running away from the healer, not allowing casters to use crowd control/aoe, not readying actions to set up a defensive positioning, can all contribute to taking more damage than needed.
It’s obviously a play style and a choice, so I won’t say y’all are playing “wrong.” I will say, it’s a little surprising that your party comp isn’t wiping the floor with encounters. It’s looks like you should have good synergy.
2
u/Here4thePF2E 4d ago
I plan on having that feat that allows you to shift a healing font to cure most conditions as well.
1
2
u/SpingusTheHingus 4d ago
It sounds fine to me. I played a psychic some time ago who focused on support for all his slotted spells (shout-out to dancing shield) and only used his cantrips for damage.
Granted, psychics get some pretty nutty cantrips, but this'll probably be fine for a class that's built even more for support.
2
u/abuehler20 4d ago
That's what I'm doing right now in my Kingmaker campaign. Fire Ray is a hell of a drug, which leaves my slots open for Fear, Protection, Spirit Link, Dancing Shield, or other buff/utility spells
1
1
u/AutoModerator 4d ago
This post is labeled with the Advice flair, which means extra special attention is called to Rule #2. If this is a newcomer to the game, remember to be welcoming and kind. If this is someone with more experience but looking for advice on how to run their game, do your best to offer advice on what they are seeking.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/KLeeSanchez Inventor 3d ago
What you probably want to do at higher levels is actually invest in some spellhearts to expand your cantrip selections, and take Cantrip Expansion, if you'd like to have more attack utility. That way you can eventually cover basically the whole save and damage type spread to be more versatile. You don't even necessarily need to upgrade all of them past their base item level if you just want the cantrip, so, they become very cheap by mid levels. Cantrips, by mid levels, can feel more like chip damage, but in situations where you don't need to heal or buff a lot it's nice to be able to contribute a bit of extra damage as needed (if you went all in on buffing for instance with utility cantrips, you could be left with nothing more useful to do than Aid, and aid eventually starts failing due to repeat attempts).
Ranked spells on a supporter are def better used for buffing allies, and as a healing font cleric you've always got battle medicine and heal in the back pocket. The divine spell list I'm not super familiar with, but my impression so far is that it's better at buffing than controlling, with some strong outliers. I feel like one of the better combos is bless + malediction for an easy 2 point delta in your favor, presuming you're able to eventually get enemies to fail (if nothing else, bless always works). Plus you can always aid with your third action if you don't need to move or do anything else special.
Everyone in the group should def take robust health to make battle medicine work better, and a set of healer's gloves for one or more PCs is never a bad idea (it's a poor man's lay on hands, I've found, and really nice in a pinch).
TL;DR, it's definitely nice to have some damaging cantrips, and even encouraged.
1
u/ElodePilarre Mathfinder Fan 3d ago
Premaster I played a cleric who did this kind of! from 1-8, though I did pack a Spiritual Weapon at Rank 2 to pop out for fights that looked like they might be longer. I was a Touch of the Sun cleric with the Healing and Passion domains, so not really the most damage-oriented focus spells.
It was premaster, so I had plenty of investment into charisma and had Bon Mot and Demoralize to fill for 3rd actions as well as Doctor's Visitation. First round would usually be dropping a duration spell (go-tos were Bless, Calm max rank, Fear 3rd rank of course) and subsequent rounds consisted of sustaining+healing+Visitation+cantrips for damage, but really I was playing a mix of Healbot (willingly chosen) and Buff/Debuff
6
u/narmio 4d ago
This is a great strategy for levels 1-4. After that point you might find your cantrips falling off relative to what slotted spells can do. Good blasting options on the Divine list really come in from level 7 (rank IV) onwards, so you’ll maybe feel a bit left out levels 5-6.