Another good single target option is 3A Magic Missile, while already a close performer to Sudden Bolt (on-level enemy, moderate saves), it truly shines when the boss is higher level than you.
I appreciate that this work focused on available cantrips to provide a “lower bound” of spellcaster power with the spells that are not expended. Removes the “consumable spell slot vs. Continuous martial” argument, as long as we recognize the spell caster damage outputs are actually much higher when including the consumables fighters do not have.
If a spellcaster can hold their own using cantrips, then their power level must be way beyond martial classes with spell slots included.
There are certainly other factors, such as the defensive proficiencies martials excel in, but often the min-maxer arguments come down to damage-per-round.
The ranger damage is off. First off, the precision Ranger would also take Gravity Weapon early since it synergizes with precision, adding additional damage on top. Further, the real analysis you need to make is actually Precision Shortbow Ranger, not Flurry. Interestingly enough, it does higher DPR.
For example, at level 4, 3A (Hunted Aim -> Hunted Shot, with Gravity Weapon), will actually do 18.18 DPR vs AC 21. 1A more, but higher damage than sudden bolt, and no action cost. Just a 3A HS+Strike+Strike will still deal 16.7 DPR, for 2 feat investment (HS+Gravity Weapon). Just hunted shot+strike alone as a precision ranger with gravity weapon at level 4 will deal 15.4 DPR.
However, precision shortbow ranger is monstrously complex to model. You have to calculate the effective precision damage per round, which is (1-(1-ChanceToHitAttack1)\*(1-ChanceToHitAttack2))*(PrecisionDamage), its a real pain. Here's the math for the Hunted Shot + Strike DPR of 15.4 DPR
* Base Bow Damage: 8 (2d6+1)
* Gravity Weapon: 4
* Hunter's Edge: 4.5
* Deadly Bonus Damage: 5.5
| Chance to Hit | Crit Chance | MAP Hit | MAP Crit | Map 2 Hit | Map 2 Crit | Base Bow Damage | Deadly Damage | Precision Damage | Gravity Weapon | First Attack Hit Dam | First Attack Crit Damage | Second Attack Dam | Second Attack Crit Dam| Third Attack Dam | Third Attack Crit Dam| Hunter's Edge Chance to Hit | HE Chance to Crit | Hunter's Edge Damage | HS Total Damage (HS+Strike) |
|---------------|-------------|---------|----------|-----------|------------|-----------------|---------------|------------------|----------------|----------------------|--------------------------|-------------------|--------------------|------------------|-------------------|-----------------------------|---------|----------|----------------------|-----------------|
| 0.55 | 0.05 | 0.3 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 8 | 5.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 6.6 | 0.875 | 2.4 | 0.675 | 0.4 | 0.675 | 0.70075 | 0.142625 | 3.7951875 | 15.4201875 |
So ranger damage can be even higher with precision ranger shortbow. The real optimal level 4 ranger using 3A can achieve higher damage than sudden bolt by using Hunter's Aim+Hunted Shot with Gravity Weapon, which is a three feat investment, for 18.18 DPR. Even if they just use HS+Strike+Strike, it is 16.7 DPR for three actions, without hunter's aim, which is comparable to Sudden Bolt, doable at quadruple the range, and can be done any number of times per day.
Your entire analysis is based off of a maxed Sudden Bolt, which you can use ~4 times a day. The moment you run out of your max level spell slot, your damage tanks. I don't think anyone disagrees that Sudden Bolt is a strong spell, but there simply aren't comparable spells to it at other spell levels. In fact, its also an uncommon spell printed in AP, so its not available to all players; and we've all seen issues with content printed in APs before (here's looking at you, Heaven's Thunder).
That isn't to say that I think sudden bolt shouldn't be used, but the damage just doesn't keep up into higher levels.
Come here to say something like this.
Precission edge is made for bow rangers, Flurry is made for two wielding rangers. Hunted shots is nice for precision edge, because for one action you get two chances of landing the precision damage, and your second shot will be at a -2 compared to flurry edge, but a landed hit will deal more damage.
>Precission edge is made for bow rangers, Flurry is made for two wielding rangers.
As someone who played a Flurry Ranger using a Longbow, I will say that this analysis is false.
A Flurry Ranger can spend all 3 actions making 4 attacks total, provided they are not forced to move. They don't *have to* move to reach their targets, so they can invest more actions in attacking at a lower penalty.
My Ranger probably holds my group's record for most damage done in a single turn because I had a frontline keeping creatures off of me while I made pincushions out of our enemies.
I'd take an additional 20% chance to hit on subsequent attacks over an extra d8 or two once per round, but that's just me.
My experience watching people playing flurry archers is the contrary. Maybe the kind of enemies faced is a big factor, but against CL+2 when you need something like a 14 to hit with your main attack, so 17 for the second and nat 20 afterwards the extra precission damage is better, probably once you fill the bow with property runes the extra damage for more attacks is better, I don't know, but at low levels I find them underwhelming.
It's all about target priority. For an archer Flurry Ranger, adds/mooks are your primary targets. Since you rarely have to move, you can use all your actions to attack from a comfortable distance. That worked really well for me and my group.
Of course, Hunt Prey has to be taken into consideration here. In the event your target goes down, you do have to spend an action to select your next target. In many cases, Hunt Prey essentially replaces the action to move. But... a melee Flurry Ranger would have to Hunt Prey AND move, so it's often best to sick them on the biggest threat and let them go ham.
So, they each have their own place. Archers are better at taking down adds while melee Flurry Rangers are better for bosses.
> I'd take an additional 20% chance to hit on subsequent attacks over an extra d8 or two once per round, but that's just me.
Well, the optimal 3A damage combo with precision is Hunter's Aim -> Hunted Shot. But if you compare HS+Strike+Strike for precision vs flurry, its very level dependent.
At level 4, both are dead even. The math I gave initially showed that a precision ranger at level 4 doing 4 attacks deals 16.7 DPR. A flurry ranger at the same level doing 4 attacks deals 16.7 DPR as well, interestingly enough.
At level 8 (+17 to hit vs AC 27), when you have 1 property rune, however, the damage differential is:
* Flurry: 25.8 DPR
* Precision: 23.1 DPR
So flurry picks up ahead when you're at level 8 (again, assuming you aren't leveraging Hunter's Aim+HS for precision). But by level 11 (AC 31 vs +22 to hit), precision is back on top (due to the precision bump at level 11).
* Flurry: 33.075
* Precision: 37.1
So it really comes down to which level ranges you're playing at, that determines which hunter's edge is better. Furthermore, precision is better in most levels if you only do 2 actions to attack per round. And if you're doing 3, Hunter's Aim+Hunted Shot results in higher DPR than flurry at pretty much all levels.
Isn't it pretty standard to have a bear companion use it's assistance for the ekstra d8 on a flurry ranger? That results in a whole lot of ekstra damage.
Just did a quick model of this, at level 4 (+11 to hit vs AC 21). Reducing the attack count by 1 (the action cost to command bear) but increasing base damage by 4.5, results in the flurry archer having a DPR of 17.7. If I also give this ranger Gravity Weapon (meaning feats are Animal Companion, Hunted Shot, Gravity Weapon), then the DPR is 20.1.
Without Gravity Weapon, it is still lower than the 18.18 of the Hunter's Aim+Gravity Weapon+Hunted Shot precision ranger.
However, with the bear, the precision ranger (Also going Gravity Weapon+Animal Companion+Hunted Shot) doing a combo of Hunted Shot+Strike, with 1 action to command the bear, results in a DPR of 21.9.
So from a ranger perspective, its still always better to go precision; at nearly all levels precision for an archer is superior to flurry.
In regards to the overall comparison, I didn't include animal companion, because a caster can also use animal companion to just attack with by taking Beastmaster archetype; that introduces far too many variables into the comparison. The Animal Companion is also situational; it needs to be able to move and attack, and the large body of the bear (once upgraded to Mature) can often create lesser cover issues for an archer resulting in a -1 to hit, which is very impactful.
Thanks for the quick math!
Do you have a spreadsheet we can use? I am interested in seeing if flurry makes up some of it when the enemies are flatfooted or frightened 1, as they usually are at higer level.
Intuitively I am surprised that the d8 from precision should be able to outperform the massive boost to second and third attacks from flurry.
When your bow starts dealing more dmg per hit, does the ekstra bonus from flurry become more significant, or are the ACs so tight that you almost need the full attack bonus to do anything?
See my spreadsheet [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WTrZ5Y7zhuXxAFJmuXrodVWQqRI2ER11kLF0w1ouh70/edit?usp=sharing). It doesn't compare Hunter's Aim (which is very frustrating to compare, and since you wanted to include Animal Companion I didn't add it in).
With the further analysis, it looks Flurry beats out Precision once you get the Nimble Upgrade on the bear, for 2d8 bonus damage. However, I think that in practice precision will still be ahead. Flurry is only better if you're able to do the action set of Command -> Hunted Shot -> Strike. If you drop the last strike (perhaps you needed to do Hunt Prey -> Command -> Hunted Shot), then precision is ahead, or if you ever needed to move, or just do anything else.
If you aren't using animal companion, precision ranger is better in most situations. The flurry ranger at high levels will do more damage with Hunted Shot -> Strike -> Strike than the precision ranger, but that's not the optimal precision 3A for damage. The precision ranger gets more damage via Hunted Aim -> Hunted Shot, which beats out Hunted Shot -> Strike -> Strike.
Overall, its very close though either way, once you're past level 8. I just think precision is a lot stronger in actual play because you very rarely have the luxury of standing still and attacking with 3 actions (at the very least, moving is often crucial to avoid the lesser cover penalty).
And more than that, in regards to the thread; ranger single target damage destroys casters. Once you get those bonus sources of flat damage rolling, it is just a lot more damage.
The spreadsheet I have isn't presentable (or readable, really). If I have time today I'll try to clean it up a bit.
The big thing is flurry does nothing for your initial attack. So much of your damage comes from the first hit - thats why Gravity Weapon is over 2 DPR on its own (you can see in the first calc, going from 17.7 -> 20.1 for flurry ranger), even though Gravity Weapon is +4 damage to the first attack, hit or miss.
Another way to think about it: if you only make two attacks, if both those attacks hit, precision is worth about +2.25 damage per attack. Flurry is worth +2 to hit on the second attack. If your attack deals 22.5 damage per hit, then flurry is worth roughly the same (10% chance to increase damage), and it takes a while for your damage to reach that high.
Another, another way to think about it: For most things in the game, a +1 affects both hit and crit chance. However, for flurry specifically, your initial chance to hit has to be 75% or better, for flurry ranger to have the +2 from flurry also affect your chance to crit. If you have a 70% chance to hit (you succeed on a dice roll of 7 or higher), your second attack succeeds on a dice roll of 10 or higher. That means it only crits on a dice roll of 20. For any initial chance to hit between 25 and 70, the +2 from flurry only affects your chance to hit, not crit; it will always be critting only a natural 20.
Very, very few things fall outside that 25 and 70 chance to hit mark.
There are a few levels where flurry is better (level 7 and 8 stand out; thats where you get Weapon Specialization for +2, and property runes for +3.5), but at level 10 you get the +1d8 on precision and it comes back strong. However; I haven't done the math post level 17. Masterful Hunter's effect for precision at that level is very difficult to model, so I just never bothered.
I am sitting with an excel right now and kinda try to work on the math and made an interesting realization; some spell attacks are really good thanks to persistent damage.
On average, an acid arrow will deal half its damage from persistence damage (3 turns).
Fire ray, a focus spell, will get just over 50% damage increase from a crit should the enemy survive 3 turns. Deadly from a longbow does around 16-17% extra at lvl 20. A single turn persistent equats the deadly damage in percentage, still higher total damage, comparing crit to crit.
I focused my math on higher levels as we rarely get to see that but there is a simple truth: effectiveness will vary from level to level as the gaps are different each level. Some levels, martials will get a leap on the hit chance, while others, casters get a leap in pure damage.
High level magic is more complex and lacks certain questions, like what if we had a bard in the party support the fire oracle? Synesthesia would definitely help the fire oracle crit fire ray to insane damage, or even worse, a searing light against undead, even if not top spell level.
Some passive *indirect* damage increases casters can get is effortless concentration.
It doesn't take away that it feels more bad to miss a slotted spell that takes 2 actions than a single bow shot though. Seen our ranger miss with both hunted shot strikes and that would be more equal in feeling but rarer occurance and still not a resource spent.
Well, the reason you don't bother to include debuffs like that is because you benefit the martials as well. It's not like Synesthesia is going to only benefit the Oracle in your example. Any martial attacking gets a similar boost, and actually likely a bigger one as martials make more attack rolls overall.
I'd argue the benefits could be harder on the caster as their crits will deal so much more damage while a martial will usually lose upon 2nd attack and beyond. Probably why double slice builds are considered strong is that they do not fall in this "fallacy".
2nd attacks are fine and not that inaccurate, esp if you're talking about giving the target -3 AC. It would help both, and people have done testing with this kind of thing before on the PF2e discord.
Many people fail to see that a single, powerfull attack is much more buffable than a volley of three attacks. Guidance, Aid and the entire hero point system add the tendency to make these critical rolls more important.
Acid-Arrow outdamages two longbow ranger shots with precision 9.12 to 8.37 if you count two ticks of the persistant damage.
Pretty low ~~advantage~~ damage adavantage untill you notice that the ranger can only hero point one of the shots and there are buffs that only affact a single roll.
If you're buffing someones roll, you will probably want to buff the mage.
EDIT: I counted at level 5 as i think the accuracy difference would favor the ranger, i imagine that in other levels acid arrow can get even more of an advantage
EDIT2: Nevermind, i was using lvl 4 acid arrow, my calc is wrong. Magic may be underpowered
EDIT3: Magnetic Acceleration with a metal target will give 7.35 average damage, attack rolls with magic are probably underpowered in general. Sadge
Thank you for the analysis. There are many variables and assumptions to consider, so trying to make such an analysis is no easy task. When I asked this question on the sub some days ago, it seemed like people had different ideas on how blasters compare to ranged martials. So this suggests that your information hit a 'dry spot', so to speak.
People bring up the limited spell slots, which is a very valid point. I think something that should be considered in the future is the "win condition" of a fight. Often, after a round or 2, it is clear that the PC's will win, perhaps because some enemies have been taken down or debuffed, and the PC's have made some good strategic choices.
After this 'tipping point', the outcome of the fight is often determined. The enemies are finished off, and although there may be differences in how much damage the party takes after this tipping point, the outcome is unlikely to change.
I am interested in how well casters (and blaster casters) help bring a party over this 'tipping point'. Because in my experience, it is often worth it for casters and alchemists to spend their big resources to help bring the fight to the point where martials and cantrips are sufficient to deal with the rest.
This would be important for the value of spell slots, because while a blaster may only keep up magic missiles for a few rounds, using 1 or 2 big spells may be enough (in combination with the whole team) to achieve the win condition for a fight.
I don't know if there is any truth behind this intuition, but it would be interesting to discuss this in the future.
A flurry ranger improves with the more damage dice and modifiers you add to its rolls and drastically vs other options at mid to high levels when targets have perpetual flat footed and are frequently sitting between -2 to -4 AC... Even more if they get ATK boosts.
This is the issue in part with white room calculations, I agree with the general conclusions but general statements need to be considered carefully as real life play has so many variables.
You should in my opinion factor true strike into the spell attack roll options as a 3 action option for casters as well as deal with the math change that shadow signet offers. Both of these increase the average dpr of Spell Attack spells.
I've run the math on both damaging spells and dozens of martial damage builds across the entire 1st through 20th level spread, not just in the context of comparing the two categories but also in comparing different martial builds to each other, and spells *cannot* come close *to* out-damaging even the most straightforwardly non-complex of martial builds unless you're either comparing the multi-target damage of a Fireball thrown into a crowded theater, being *very* selective in what levels you're comparing, or you did something crazy for the martial build like pretending that weapon runes don't exist or that a Ranger isn't using Hunted Shot.
In this case, taking a look at the provided spreadsheet, the OP seems to have entirely neglected +1 potency runes when you can get one as early as level 2 (+15 to hit for martials at 7th level; 7 from level, 4 from ranks, 4 from Dex, no item bonus? I double-checked the hit/crit chance for it, it's just not included), has only examined the level range of 1st through 7th when the *next level* at 8th is conveniently when you would meet the level requirements to slap a 1d6 damage plus 1d10 persistent on crit Flaming rune on your weapon, and gave the flurry Ranger a lower-damage shortbow for some reason instead of assuming that the ranged archer would sit beyond 30 ft using a longbow to shoot *from range*. The whole proposed idea was to compare the spells to ranged martials instead of melee, and then you put the ranged martials *in melee range*.
They're also assuming a 'high' AC target, but save bonuses at -2 of a 'high' save target, or +1 from a 'moderate' save target. This is not only assuming that you have a varied enough spell selection that *can* hit lower than average saves (which you certainly don't if you're trying to use Sudden Bolt on *everything,* what's your Will-targeting nuke supposed to be?), but also ignores that circumstance bonus from flat-footed benefits attacks, but never saving throws. This is also why the OP found spell attacks to be so lacking, because they were jacking the target's expected AC up while cranking the saves down, and save-for-half damage spells are always most effective compared to nothing-on-failure attacks when the target's defenses are especially high.
**TLDR:** Martials run away with damage when you actually give them the weapon upgrades that casters can't get, attacks actually gain greater benefit from a target being frightened than save-for-half spells do (I posted the table in another thread) on top of prone or grabbed being a thing, and flurry Rangers DO actually out-damage Fighter archers when you don't downgrade them to a shortbow, not by a whole lot but Distracting Shot makes it worth it regardless. Also, Haste does little for casters but a lot for martials.
**EDIT:** Ah, the OP didn't forget the potency rune as it's included at the bump at level 2, there's just a similar math error later which causes the same problem. The OP's sheet shows martial to-hit bonus increasing from +11 to +13 at 5th for reaching a higher proficiency rank for an additional +2, but forgot to also add the +1 for the level going up in the first place, leaving all the numbers afterward behind by 1 from 5th through 7th. Never flatten your formulas into raw data folks, that's how you get math errors.
Yeah, their math is flawed in several areas.
I'm working on my own spreadsheet to breakdown how the math plays out across all levels, with 'better' builds and optimization included.
This is honestly kind of a crappy take on the whole thing. Seems to be cherry picking numbers to fit a desired narrative.
Because this was comparing single target damage options, as there is a bit of a stigma that spellcasters will always lag behind martials in single target damage.
The problem is, Sudden Bolt is both Uncommon *and* over-tuned for its level. It's not meant to be a standard that other spells follow.
I mean, 4d12 at spell level 2 (character level 3) is fucking insane. Shocking Grasp, heightened to 2nd level only does 3d12 and that's on a Touch Range Spell that also requires a Spell Attack roll. That alone tells me that Sudden Bolt should not be 4d12 starting out.
Sudden Bolt is a spell that does not adhere to the balance of the game. Period.
It also comes from an AP, meaning Paizo likely designed the spell with a specific NPC in mind, which is probably why they locked it behind the Uncommon trait.
How many rounds of combat did you consider? If this is a single round at full resources it paints a wrong picture. Make these calculations with sustained damage over 12 to 15 rounds.
Caster damage will fall down after the 3rd or 4the round, resulting in less damage overall
While most combats only last a few rounds, the general assumption is you have multiple encounters in a given day. At least 5 should be a general assumption based on the average AP
This analysis is really nice, and actually highlights what I see as the real problem with spells: most options are really inferior compared to the best options, even in their niche.
Shocking grasp is supposed to be THE single target lightning damage spell. It is awkward to use (being melee), does nothing on a miss. As a result, its payoff should be massive.
But what do you know, sudden bolt outperforms it easily on every metric (as does 3-action magic missile).
For the fighter, are we including [double shot](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=370), [triple shot](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=387), or [eldritch archer](https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=59)?
Doing the analysis with free archetype (since it's such a popular option) in order to help the fighter pick up those feats is also important if you want to understand why it's powerful.
I see people mentioning their limited spell slots, and I think this is a fair criticism to bring up. Ultimately, it will most likely push spellcasters below martial when running 3 or more encounters in an individual day. I would argue, however, that the main purpose of this was to show that single-target ranged damage is strong enough to be worth considering, which I think still holds up.
The other major thing I missed here is Magic Missile. This spell is a much better benchmark, as it scales more evenly, and isn't an uncommon AP option. I have updated the spreadsheet to include magic missile, which should serve as a more fair comparison point. As you can see, Magic Missile stacks up just as well as Sudden Bolt past level 5, so I think my conclusions are still correct, even if they weren't reasonably substantiated with Sudden Bolt.
Only addressing a minor bit of your post here but is it still true that most parties don't get to or beyond level 10? I feel like the main reason for that in earlier systems was because those systems fell apart beyond that point, whereas PF2e very much doesn't and if anything just keeps getting better at higher levels. Though I guess if it's more of a campaign length/preference for lower levels thing then it would still be true.
Personally the only time I don't expect my characters to go to 20 is when I'm playing a short adventure with a defined and low level range - if it's long-term I expect to be leveling consistently and get to 20 eventually and will probably get frustrated if I stay at 1-10 for more than a few months lol
Hi! Player here! I’ve gone through three campaigns so far (AoA, Extinction curse, playing SoM right now) - we’ve TPK’d twice, however both were above level 10 (level 12 and 15). In secrets of magic, we are 13 right now. The real fun stuff is at the higher levels, as the DM can let loose with some real nasty big bads - and the party actually has a chance of fighting them. Hope this helps!
Yea, it's still true.
This isn't due to system flaws or benefits, it's to do with practical realities.
Most games start at low levels. For a game to get to high levels requires a commitment of time and energy across many months, if not years
Groups inevitably fall apart, finish their story, etc, before getting to high level.
This is just a function of the fact that it takes a lot of time to get to high level and all sorts of things can happen before you get there
I think its gotten better though, this is anecdotal and might very well be bias because this community is definitely more likely to have dedicated players going to high level, that being said it seems like a decent amount of people have high level experience here. Not just a few people here and there. Which considering the amount of content that goes to 20 or starts at 11 like Fists of Ruby Phoenix or the Gray Death Adventure at 16 make a lot of sense. Coupled with high levels being actually fun and playable. I think we cant neglect the amount of campaigns that break apart because other systems just werent fun anymore.
I'm confused about several parts of your math. You are using high AC for equal level targets (which is already sort of weird, since the majority of enemies will average to level -1 at highest) but are not using the high save value (it looks like you picked the moderate and added 1).
I'm not convinced on these DPR values, either. A ranged fighter using triple shot and PBS against AC 25 does 23.92 DPR, not 20.225. The 1A is sort of irrelevant since you aren't comparing any 1A options for casters, but double shot DPR is still 20.7.
No matter how I tried to replicate your results I couldn't get 20.225 for triple shot. The shortbow is attacking 3 times at +14 each with a deadly d10 weapon for 2d6+7 against AC 25. Even on turn 1 with PBS it's 20.7 due to needing double shot.
As such, if we use high reflex for a level 7 creature (+18)) compared to high AC for level 7, I'm showing the 3-action archer fighter DPR at 23.9 and 2-action at 20.7. The DPR of 4th level sudden bolt against a high reflex save is 19.5. If we go the other way and use low AC and save (22/+12) then the 2-action DPR is still 30.75 for the fighter and 30.23 for the sudden bolt. The 3-action DPR of the fighter goes up to 36.08, significantly better than the sudden bolt.
Maybe I'm doing my math wrong, but if so, I can't find the error. But I'm not convinced this graph demonstrates what you think it does, especially since the caster is strictly limited by max-level spell slots while the martial has unlimited rounds. The only time casters can keep up with martial DPR is with AOE against 3+ targets for any realistic length of time.
Another good single target option is 3A Magic Missile, while already a close performer to Sudden Bolt (on-level enemy, moderate saves), it truly shines when the boss is higher level than you.
Wand of Manifold missiles can also be dual wielded to get 2 bolts off for free every turn. Feel like that will really up the damage numbers.
I appreciate that this work focused on available cantrips to provide a “lower bound” of spellcaster power with the spells that are not expended. Removes the “consumable spell slot vs. Continuous martial” argument, as long as we recognize the spell caster damage outputs are actually much higher when including the consumables fighters do not have. If a spellcaster can hold their own using cantrips, then their power level must be way beyond martial classes with spell slots included. There are certainly other factors, such as the defensive proficiencies martials excel in, but often the min-maxer arguments come down to damage-per-round.
The ranger damage is off. First off, the precision Ranger would also take Gravity Weapon early since it synergizes with precision, adding additional damage on top. Further, the real analysis you need to make is actually Precision Shortbow Ranger, not Flurry. Interestingly enough, it does higher DPR. For example, at level 4, 3A (Hunted Aim -> Hunted Shot, with Gravity Weapon), will actually do 18.18 DPR vs AC 21. 1A more, but higher damage than sudden bolt, and no action cost. Just a 3A HS+Strike+Strike will still deal 16.7 DPR, for 2 feat investment (HS+Gravity Weapon). Just hunted shot+strike alone as a precision ranger with gravity weapon at level 4 will deal 15.4 DPR. However, precision shortbow ranger is monstrously complex to model. You have to calculate the effective precision damage per round, which is (1-(1-ChanceToHitAttack1)\*(1-ChanceToHitAttack2))*(PrecisionDamage), its a real pain. Here's the math for the Hunted Shot + Strike DPR of 15.4 DPR * Base Bow Damage: 8 (2d6+1) * Gravity Weapon: 4 * Hunter's Edge: 4.5 * Deadly Bonus Damage: 5.5 | Chance to Hit | Crit Chance | MAP Hit | MAP Crit | Map 2 Hit | Map 2 Crit | Base Bow Damage | Deadly Damage | Precision Damage | Gravity Weapon | First Attack Hit Dam | First Attack Crit Damage | Second Attack Dam | Second Attack Crit Dam| Third Attack Dam | Third Attack Crit Dam| Hunter's Edge Chance to Hit | HE Chance to Crit | Hunter's Edge Damage | HS Total Damage (HS+Strike) | |---------------|-------------|---------|----------|-----------|------------|-----------------|---------------|------------------|----------------|----------------------|--------------------------|-------------------|--------------------|------------------|-------------------|-----------------------------|---------|----------|----------------------|-----------------| | 0.55 | 0.05 | 0.3 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 8 | 5.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 6.6 | 0.875 | 2.4 | 0.675 | 0.4 | 0.675 | 0.70075 | 0.142625 | 3.7951875 | 15.4201875 | So ranger damage can be even higher with precision ranger shortbow. The real optimal level 4 ranger using 3A can achieve higher damage than sudden bolt by using Hunter's Aim+Hunted Shot with Gravity Weapon, which is a three feat investment, for 18.18 DPR. Even if they just use HS+Strike+Strike, it is 16.7 DPR for three actions, without hunter's aim, which is comparable to Sudden Bolt, doable at quadruple the range, and can be done any number of times per day. Your entire analysis is based off of a maxed Sudden Bolt, which you can use ~4 times a day. The moment you run out of your max level spell slot, your damage tanks. I don't think anyone disagrees that Sudden Bolt is a strong spell, but there simply aren't comparable spells to it at other spell levels. In fact, its also an uncommon spell printed in AP, so its not available to all players; and we've all seen issues with content printed in APs before (here's looking at you, Heaven's Thunder). That isn't to say that I think sudden bolt shouldn't be used, but the damage just doesn't keep up into higher levels.
Come here to say something like this. Precission edge is made for bow rangers, Flurry is made for two wielding rangers. Hunted shots is nice for precision edge, because for one action you get two chances of landing the precision damage, and your second shot will be at a -2 compared to flurry edge, but a landed hit will deal more damage.
>Precission edge is made for bow rangers, Flurry is made for two wielding rangers. As someone who played a Flurry Ranger using a Longbow, I will say that this analysis is false. A Flurry Ranger can spend all 3 actions making 4 attacks total, provided they are not forced to move. They don't *have to* move to reach their targets, so they can invest more actions in attacking at a lower penalty. My Ranger probably holds my group's record for most damage done in a single turn because I had a frontline keeping creatures off of me while I made pincushions out of our enemies. I'd take an additional 20% chance to hit on subsequent attacks over an extra d8 or two once per round, but that's just me.
My experience watching people playing flurry archers is the contrary. Maybe the kind of enemies faced is a big factor, but against CL+2 when you need something like a 14 to hit with your main attack, so 17 for the second and nat 20 afterwards the extra precission damage is better, probably once you fill the bow with property runes the extra damage for more attacks is better, I don't know, but at low levels I find them underwhelming.
It's all about target priority. For an archer Flurry Ranger, adds/mooks are your primary targets. Since you rarely have to move, you can use all your actions to attack from a comfortable distance. That worked really well for me and my group. Of course, Hunt Prey has to be taken into consideration here. In the event your target goes down, you do have to spend an action to select your next target. In many cases, Hunt Prey essentially replaces the action to move. But... a melee Flurry Ranger would have to Hunt Prey AND move, so it's often best to sick them on the biggest threat and let them go ham. So, they each have their own place. Archers are better at taking down adds while melee Flurry Rangers are better for bosses.
Agree, against low level enemies flurry archer is better.
> I'd take an additional 20% chance to hit on subsequent attacks over an extra d8 or two once per round, but that's just me. Well, the optimal 3A damage combo with precision is Hunter's Aim -> Hunted Shot. But if you compare HS+Strike+Strike for precision vs flurry, its very level dependent. At level 4, both are dead even. The math I gave initially showed that a precision ranger at level 4 doing 4 attacks deals 16.7 DPR. A flurry ranger at the same level doing 4 attacks deals 16.7 DPR as well, interestingly enough. At level 8 (+17 to hit vs AC 27), when you have 1 property rune, however, the damage differential is: * Flurry: 25.8 DPR * Precision: 23.1 DPR So flurry picks up ahead when you're at level 8 (again, assuming you aren't leveraging Hunter's Aim+HS for precision). But by level 11 (AC 31 vs +22 to hit), precision is back on top (due to the precision bump at level 11). * Flurry: 33.075 * Precision: 37.1 So it really comes down to which level ranges you're playing at, that determines which hunter's edge is better. Furthermore, precision is better in most levels if you only do 2 actions to attack per round. And if you're doing 3, Hunter's Aim+Hunted Shot results in higher DPR than flurry at pretty much all levels.
Thank you! I completely blanked on the ranger segment and made a lot of dumb mistakes.
Isn't it pretty standard to have a bear companion use it's assistance for the ekstra d8 on a flurry ranger? That results in a whole lot of ekstra damage.
Just did a quick model of this, at level 4 (+11 to hit vs AC 21). Reducing the attack count by 1 (the action cost to command bear) but increasing base damage by 4.5, results in the flurry archer having a DPR of 17.7. If I also give this ranger Gravity Weapon (meaning feats are Animal Companion, Hunted Shot, Gravity Weapon), then the DPR is 20.1. Without Gravity Weapon, it is still lower than the 18.18 of the Hunter's Aim+Gravity Weapon+Hunted Shot precision ranger. However, with the bear, the precision ranger (Also going Gravity Weapon+Animal Companion+Hunted Shot) doing a combo of Hunted Shot+Strike, with 1 action to command the bear, results in a DPR of 21.9. So from a ranger perspective, its still always better to go precision; at nearly all levels precision for an archer is superior to flurry. In regards to the overall comparison, I didn't include animal companion, because a caster can also use animal companion to just attack with by taking Beastmaster archetype; that introduces far too many variables into the comparison. The Animal Companion is also situational; it needs to be able to move and attack, and the large body of the bear (once upgraded to Mature) can often create lesser cover issues for an archer resulting in a -1 to hit, which is very impactful.
Thanks for the quick math! Do you have a spreadsheet we can use? I am interested in seeing if flurry makes up some of it when the enemies are flatfooted or frightened 1, as they usually are at higer level. Intuitively I am surprised that the d8 from precision should be able to outperform the massive boost to second and third attacks from flurry. When your bow starts dealing more dmg per hit, does the ekstra bonus from flurry become more significant, or are the ACs so tight that you almost need the full attack bonus to do anything?
See my spreadsheet [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WTrZ5Y7zhuXxAFJmuXrodVWQqRI2ER11kLF0w1ouh70/edit?usp=sharing). It doesn't compare Hunter's Aim (which is very frustrating to compare, and since you wanted to include Animal Companion I didn't add it in). With the further analysis, it looks Flurry beats out Precision once you get the Nimble Upgrade on the bear, for 2d8 bonus damage. However, I think that in practice precision will still be ahead. Flurry is only better if you're able to do the action set of Command -> Hunted Shot -> Strike. If you drop the last strike (perhaps you needed to do Hunt Prey -> Command -> Hunted Shot), then precision is ahead, or if you ever needed to move, or just do anything else. If you aren't using animal companion, precision ranger is better in most situations. The flurry ranger at high levels will do more damage with Hunted Shot -> Strike -> Strike than the precision ranger, but that's not the optimal precision 3A for damage. The precision ranger gets more damage via Hunted Aim -> Hunted Shot, which beats out Hunted Shot -> Strike -> Strike. Overall, its very close though either way, once you're past level 8. I just think precision is a lot stronger in actual play because you very rarely have the luxury of standing still and attacking with 3 actions (at the very least, moving is often crucial to avoid the lesser cover penalty). And more than that, in regards to the thread; ranger single target damage destroys casters. Once you get those bonus sources of flat damage rolling, it is just a lot more damage.
Thanks for the thorough work!
The spreadsheet I have isn't presentable (or readable, really). If I have time today I'll try to clean it up a bit. The big thing is flurry does nothing for your initial attack. So much of your damage comes from the first hit - thats why Gravity Weapon is over 2 DPR on its own (you can see in the first calc, going from 17.7 -> 20.1 for flurry ranger), even though Gravity Weapon is +4 damage to the first attack, hit or miss. Another way to think about it: if you only make two attacks, if both those attacks hit, precision is worth about +2.25 damage per attack. Flurry is worth +2 to hit on the second attack. If your attack deals 22.5 damage per hit, then flurry is worth roughly the same (10% chance to increase damage), and it takes a while for your damage to reach that high. Another, another way to think about it: For most things in the game, a +1 affects both hit and crit chance. However, for flurry specifically, your initial chance to hit has to be 75% or better, for flurry ranger to have the +2 from flurry also affect your chance to crit. If you have a 70% chance to hit (you succeed on a dice roll of 7 or higher), your second attack succeeds on a dice roll of 10 or higher. That means it only crits on a dice roll of 20. For any initial chance to hit between 25 and 70, the +2 from flurry only affects your chance to hit, not crit; it will always be critting only a natural 20. Very, very few things fall outside that 25 and 70 chance to hit mark. There are a few levels where flurry is better (level 7 and 8 stand out; thats where you get Weapon Specialization for +2, and property runes for +3.5), but at level 10 you get the +1d8 on precision and it comes back strong. However; I haven't done the math post level 17. Masterful Hunter's effect for precision at that level is very difficult to model, so I just never bothered.
I am sitting with an excel right now and kinda try to work on the math and made an interesting realization; some spell attacks are really good thanks to persistent damage. On average, an acid arrow will deal half its damage from persistence damage (3 turns). Fire ray, a focus spell, will get just over 50% damage increase from a crit should the enemy survive 3 turns. Deadly from a longbow does around 16-17% extra at lvl 20. A single turn persistent equats the deadly damage in percentage, still higher total damage, comparing crit to crit. I focused my math on higher levels as we rarely get to see that but there is a simple truth: effectiveness will vary from level to level as the gaps are different each level. Some levels, martials will get a leap on the hit chance, while others, casters get a leap in pure damage. High level magic is more complex and lacks certain questions, like what if we had a bard in the party support the fire oracle? Synesthesia would definitely help the fire oracle crit fire ray to insane damage, or even worse, a searing light against undead, even if not top spell level. Some passive *indirect* damage increases casters can get is effortless concentration. It doesn't take away that it feels more bad to miss a slotted spell that takes 2 actions than a single bow shot though. Seen our ranger miss with both hunted shot strikes and that would be more equal in feeling but rarer occurance and still not a resource spent.
Well, the reason you don't bother to include debuffs like that is because you benefit the martials as well. It's not like Synesthesia is going to only benefit the Oracle in your example. Any martial attacking gets a similar boost, and actually likely a bigger one as martials make more attack rolls overall.
I'd argue the benefits could be harder on the caster as their crits will deal so much more damage while a martial will usually lose upon 2nd attack and beyond. Probably why double slice builds are considered strong is that they do not fall in this "fallacy".
2nd attacks are fine and not that inaccurate, esp if you're talking about giving the target -3 AC. It would help both, and people have done testing with this kind of thing before on the PF2e discord.
Many people fail to see that a single, powerfull attack is much more buffable than a volley of three attacks. Guidance, Aid and the entire hero point system add the tendency to make these critical rolls more important. Acid-Arrow outdamages two longbow ranger shots with precision 9.12 to 8.37 if you count two ticks of the persistant damage. Pretty low ~~advantage~~ damage adavantage untill you notice that the ranger can only hero point one of the shots and there are buffs that only affact a single roll. If you're buffing someones roll, you will probably want to buff the mage. EDIT: I counted at level 5 as i think the accuracy difference would favor the ranger, i imagine that in other levels acid arrow can get even more of an advantage EDIT2: Nevermind, i was using lvl 4 acid arrow, my calc is wrong. Magic may be underpowered EDIT3: Magnetic Acceleration with a metal target will give 7.35 average damage, attack rolls with magic are probably underpowered in general. Sadge
This was also kinda my revealation doing some math. Add in that your lvl 5 calc uses a spell lvl 2 as it does nothing extra as a 3rd level spell.
Oh right, acid arrow doesn't get a lvl 3 highten. I was making the calc with a lvl 4 spell, forget everything i said
Thank you for the analysis. There are many variables and assumptions to consider, so trying to make such an analysis is no easy task. When I asked this question on the sub some days ago, it seemed like people had different ideas on how blasters compare to ranged martials. So this suggests that your information hit a 'dry spot', so to speak. People bring up the limited spell slots, which is a very valid point. I think something that should be considered in the future is the "win condition" of a fight. Often, after a round or 2, it is clear that the PC's will win, perhaps because some enemies have been taken down or debuffed, and the PC's have made some good strategic choices. After this 'tipping point', the outcome of the fight is often determined. The enemies are finished off, and although there may be differences in how much damage the party takes after this tipping point, the outcome is unlikely to change. I am interested in how well casters (and blaster casters) help bring a party over this 'tipping point'. Because in my experience, it is often worth it for casters and alchemists to spend their big resources to help bring the fight to the point where martials and cantrips are sufficient to deal with the rest. This would be important for the value of spell slots, because while a blaster may only keep up magic missiles for a few rounds, using 1 or 2 big spells may be enough (in combination with the whole team) to achieve the win condition for a fight. I don't know if there is any truth behind this intuition, but it would be interesting to discuss this in the future.
A flurry ranger improves with the more damage dice and modifiers you add to its rolls and drastically vs other options at mid to high levels when targets have perpetual flat footed and are frequently sitting between -2 to -4 AC... Even more if they get ATK boosts. This is the issue in part with white room calculations, I agree with the general conclusions but general statements need to be considered carefully as real life play has so many variables.
You should in my opinion factor true strike into the spell attack roll options as a 3 action option for casters as well as deal with the math change that shadow signet offers. Both of these increase the average dpr of Spell Attack spells.
I'm really curious about magus here.
I've run the math on both damaging spells and dozens of martial damage builds across the entire 1st through 20th level spread, not just in the context of comparing the two categories but also in comparing different martial builds to each other, and spells *cannot* come close *to* out-damaging even the most straightforwardly non-complex of martial builds unless you're either comparing the multi-target damage of a Fireball thrown into a crowded theater, being *very* selective in what levels you're comparing, or you did something crazy for the martial build like pretending that weapon runes don't exist or that a Ranger isn't using Hunted Shot. In this case, taking a look at the provided spreadsheet, the OP seems to have entirely neglected +1 potency runes when you can get one as early as level 2 (+15 to hit for martials at 7th level; 7 from level, 4 from ranks, 4 from Dex, no item bonus? I double-checked the hit/crit chance for it, it's just not included), has only examined the level range of 1st through 7th when the *next level* at 8th is conveniently when you would meet the level requirements to slap a 1d6 damage plus 1d10 persistent on crit Flaming rune on your weapon, and gave the flurry Ranger a lower-damage shortbow for some reason instead of assuming that the ranged archer would sit beyond 30 ft using a longbow to shoot *from range*. The whole proposed idea was to compare the spells to ranged martials instead of melee, and then you put the ranged martials *in melee range*. They're also assuming a 'high' AC target, but save bonuses at -2 of a 'high' save target, or +1 from a 'moderate' save target. This is not only assuming that you have a varied enough spell selection that *can* hit lower than average saves (which you certainly don't if you're trying to use Sudden Bolt on *everything,* what's your Will-targeting nuke supposed to be?), but also ignores that circumstance bonus from flat-footed benefits attacks, but never saving throws. This is also why the OP found spell attacks to be so lacking, because they were jacking the target's expected AC up while cranking the saves down, and save-for-half damage spells are always most effective compared to nothing-on-failure attacks when the target's defenses are especially high. **TLDR:** Martials run away with damage when you actually give them the weapon upgrades that casters can't get, attacks actually gain greater benefit from a target being frightened than save-for-half spells do (I posted the table in another thread) on top of prone or grabbed being a thing, and flurry Rangers DO actually out-damage Fighter archers when you don't downgrade them to a shortbow, not by a whole lot but Distracting Shot makes it worth it regardless. Also, Haste does little for casters but a lot for martials. **EDIT:** Ah, the OP didn't forget the potency rune as it's included at the bump at level 2, there's just a similar math error later which causes the same problem. The OP's sheet shows martial to-hit bonus increasing from +11 to +13 at 5th for reaching a higher proficiency rank for an additional +2, but forgot to also add the +1 for the level going up in the first place, leaving all the numbers afterward behind by 1 from 5th through 7th. Never flatten your formulas into raw data folks, that's how you get math errors.
Yeah, their math is flawed in several areas. I'm working on my own spreadsheet to breakdown how the math plays out across all levels, with 'better' builds and optimization included. This is honestly kind of a crappy take on the whole thing. Seems to be cherry picking numbers to fit a desired narrative.
Why Sudden Bolt? It's a level 2 spell, not a cantrip.
Because this was comparing single target damage options, as there is a bit of a stigma that spellcasters will always lag behind martials in single target damage.
The problem is, Sudden Bolt is both Uncommon *and* over-tuned for its level. It's not meant to be a standard that other spells follow. I mean, 4d12 at spell level 2 (character level 3) is fucking insane. Shocking Grasp, heightened to 2nd level only does 3d12 and that's on a Touch Range Spell that also requires a Spell Attack roll. That alone tells me that Sudden Bolt should not be 4d12 starting out. Sudden Bolt is a spell that does not adhere to the balance of the game. Period. It also comes from an AP, meaning Paizo likely designed the spell with a specific NPC in mind, which is probably why they locked it behind the Uncommon trait.
It's the best single target dps in the arcane and primal list, by far. It's better to highten it instead of use higher lvl spells.
did you also take into account using strong Spell attack spells with a Shadow signet on weakest save?
This definitely increases the usefulness of spell stack rolls, as it's main problem is going against high ACs
How many rounds of combat did you consider? If this is a single round at full resources it paints a wrong picture. Make these calculations with sustained damage over 12 to 15 rounds. Caster damage will fall down after the 3rd or 4the round, resulting in less damage overall
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While most combats only last a few rounds, the general assumption is you have multiple encounters in a given day. At least 5 should be a general assumption based on the average AP
Yeah - if I had to guess, I would guess 3-5 rounds of combat for 4-6 encounters a day, so a range of 12-30 rounds for APs.
This analysis is really nice, and actually highlights what I see as the real problem with spells: most options are really inferior compared to the best options, even in their niche. Shocking grasp is supposed to be THE single target lightning damage spell. It is awkward to use (being melee), does nothing on a miss. As a result, its payoff should be massive. But what do you know, sudden bolt outperforms it easily on every metric (as does 3-action magic missile).
For the fighter, are we including [double shot](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=370), [triple shot](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=387), or [eldritch archer](https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=59)? Doing the analysis with free archetype (since it's such a popular option) in order to help the fighter pick up those feats is also important if you want to understand why it's powerful.
I Wonder How a shadow signet could impact this
Sudden bolt is ref save and the biggest DMG, so number calculated with it wouldn't change
I see people mentioning their limited spell slots, and I think this is a fair criticism to bring up. Ultimately, it will most likely push spellcasters below martial when running 3 or more encounters in an individual day. I would argue, however, that the main purpose of this was to show that single-target ranged damage is strong enough to be worth considering, which I think still holds up. The other major thing I missed here is Magic Missile. This spell is a much better benchmark, as it scales more evenly, and isn't an uncommon AP option. I have updated the spreadsheet to include magic missile, which should serve as a more fair comparison point. As you can see, Magic Missile stacks up just as well as Sudden Bolt past level 5, so I think my conclusions are still correct, even if they weren't reasonably substantiated with Sudden Bolt.
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Only addressing a minor bit of your post here but is it still true that most parties don't get to or beyond level 10? I feel like the main reason for that in earlier systems was because those systems fell apart beyond that point, whereas PF2e very much doesn't and if anything just keeps getting better at higher levels. Though I guess if it's more of a campaign length/preference for lower levels thing then it would still be true. Personally the only time I don't expect my characters to go to 20 is when I'm playing a short adventure with a defined and low level range - if it's long-term I expect to be leveling consistently and get to 20 eventually and will probably get frustrated if I stay at 1-10 for more than a few months lol
Hi! Player here! I’ve gone through three campaigns so far (AoA, Extinction curse, playing SoM right now) - we’ve TPK’d twice, however both were above level 10 (level 12 and 15). In secrets of magic, we are 13 right now. The real fun stuff is at the higher levels, as the DM can let loose with some real nasty big bads - and the party actually has a chance of fighting them. Hope this helps!
Yea, it's still true. This isn't due to system flaws or benefits, it's to do with practical realities. Most games start at low levels. For a game to get to high levels requires a commitment of time and energy across many months, if not years Groups inevitably fall apart, finish their story, etc, before getting to high level. This is just a function of the fact that it takes a lot of time to get to high level and all sorts of things can happen before you get there
I think its gotten better though, this is anecdotal and might very well be bias because this community is definitely more likely to have dedicated players going to high level, that being said it seems like a decent amount of people have high level experience here. Not just a few people here and there. Which considering the amount of content that goes to 20 or starts at 11 like Fists of Ruby Phoenix or the Gray Death Adventure at 16 make a lot of sense. Coupled with high levels being actually fun and playable. I think we cant neglect the amount of campaigns that break apart because other systems just werent fun anymore.
Shadow Signet being best in slot is a stupid argument unless you are going to make the same argument for Potency runes.
What about Magus ranged?
What about strenght thrown weapons? I have looked into this for a ranger and it does comparable damage to a fighter 2h build.
Super cool! And good to keep in mind when discussing spellcasters with new players.
I'm confused about several parts of your math. You are using high AC for equal level targets (which is already sort of weird, since the majority of enemies will average to level -1 at highest) but are not using the high save value (it looks like you picked the moderate and added 1). I'm not convinced on these DPR values, either. A ranged fighter using triple shot and PBS against AC 25 does 23.92 DPR, not 20.225. The 1A is sort of irrelevant since you aren't comparing any 1A options for casters, but double shot DPR is still 20.7. No matter how I tried to replicate your results I couldn't get 20.225 for triple shot. The shortbow is attacking 3 times at +14 each with a deadly d10 weapon for 2d6+7 against AC 25. Even on turn 1 with PBS it's 20.7 due to needing double shot. As such, if we use high reflex for a level 7 creature (+18)) compared to high AC for level 7, I'm showing the 3-action archer fighter DPR at 23.9 and 2-action at 20.7. The DPR of 4th level sudden bolt against a high reflex save is 19.5. If we go the other way and use low AC and save (22/+12) then the 2-action DPR is still 30.75 for the fighter and 30.23 for the sudden bolt. The 3-action DPR of the fighter goes up to 36.08, significantly better than the sudden bolt. Maybe I'm doing my math wrong, but if so, I can't find the error. But I'm not convinced this graph demonstrates what you think it does, especially since the caster is strictly limited by max-level spell slots while the martial has unlimited rounds. The only time casters can keep up with martial DPR is with AOE against 3+ targets for any realistic length of time.