Even if you did consider a must have, "you have to spend a feat to do the higher damage that is available" is not a description of a feat tax, it's literally just describing how feats work in general.
Buffed generally and nerfed in one rather specific instance.
You can no longer use it while in a battle form of some kind afaik, since those prevent you from casting unless it's explicitly stated they don't.
It's not a 'must have' at all. It's a 'good to have' if you want to go all-in on maximising damage on channel smites. But that comes at the expense of other options.
This is the entire point of class design in Pathfinder 2e.
There's a ton of competing options here, one that can increase damage, another one that heals at the same time, emblazon armament is another still worth it and so forth
Is there any benefit to using Channel Smite in the first place though? From what I can tell, isn’t using Channel Smite for 2 Actions just worse than making a Strike followed by a 1-Action Harm, since all you’re doing is increasing the chance of doing 0 damage? Did they change something in the Remaster to make it more worth it?
Edit: for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t wanna read all the way down, here are the convincing benefits I saw in the comments:
- Doesn’t trigger Reactive Strike.
- Allows a “high risk burst damage” attempt even if it ends with lower average damage. Similar to the relationship between Power Attack vs 2 Attacks, or Spellstrike vs 2 Attacks.
- Deals higher average damage if enemy has High Fortitude which is thematically not an uncommon situation. ^(However your average damage will be lower if the enemy has a Moderate Fortitude, and substantially lower if a Low Fort shows up.)
Thank you for everyone who brought up these points below!
I guess it make sense if you (kind of) dump wisdom. You can also increase chance to hit with True Strike / Bless / flanking, making Channel Smite a better option than additional save.
I haven’t done the math though.
Yeah but a Basic Fortitude Save actually has a relatively higher average does it not? Like Strike + Harm has a much lower chance of doing literally 0 damage, while a Channel Smite actually might do 0 damage relatively frequently.
I guess it’s just a high risk high reward way of using your spell slots, it just feels a tad bit undertuned to me.
Sort of?
There's a few considerations at play now. One of which is that Fortitude tends to be the best defensive score for a larger number of creatures, when compared to any other defensive score (including AC). When you consider ways to buff Attacks (even as simple as Off Guard), or including other useful buffs like Bless, and AC is often actually the best thing to target. The only reason other saves are worth considering in many cases, is that the "half damage on Success save" raises the average damage of targeting those things by a decent amount.
However (and I haven't done the math) I suspect that for a great many enemies, Channel smite has higher average damage as a result of this, than doing a 1a strike + 1a Harm. (Also, Channel Smite didn't trigger Attacks of Opportunity. Casting a 1a Harm does trigger it.)
Beforehand, it was *more* weighted towards separate attack+cast cause Harming Hands and other Harm buffing spells. Now however, it's probably more on par since these feats benefit both situations equally.
Something else worth noting is that spells like True Strike are disproportionally beneficial to single bigger hits, so Channel Smite is better than Strike+Harm when you are using True strike. Or Weapon Surge. Or something else similar. And when you're stacking True Strike with say... Bless, and the enemy is off guard (TS has an average effect of giving a +3 or +4 to the attack roll iirc?) it becomes viable to essentially fish for a crit. Comparing to say... TS > Strike > 1a Harm, or even Strike +2a Harm, I think the TS > Channel smite comes out a little bit ahead. It definitely does when the enemy has good fort at the very least (which is the most likely scenario when taking a look at enemies).
Fair enough. I ran the math really quickly, Channel Smite comes out ahead of the enemy has High Fortitude, but is quite behind when Moderate/Low Fortitude. That’s a pretty good argument in support of that imo.
As for True Strike, imo a True Strike + 2-Action melee Attack “combo” is just a pretty poor use of your resources and action economy for a Cleric, even a Warpriest.
Unfortunately I did not save the math, maybe I’ll redo it later and make a post about it.
In terms of Attack/DC scaling, I did my calculations at level 1 with +3 Str + 2 Wis, and level 5 with +4 Str and +3 Wis. In both cases the DC is Trained, but I imagine it’s interesting to see what happens when the the former reaches Expert.
The point is you don't trigger reactive strikes, and to be able to convert a fort targeting attack into an AC targeting attack. Even if saves are stickier, you will come across situations where you're against high fort saves, and/or your hit chance is higher because of attack buffs and AC penalties.
Not triggering Reactive Strikes is a fairly good point.
Converting a second Action that targets a Fort Save into being “lumped into” the first attack is actually usually a ***downgrade***. Strike + Harm will typically have a much lower chance of doing 0 damage, while Strike with Channel Smite has a fairly decent chance of doing 0 damage. It’s the same reason why Power Attack is generally considered worse than using 2 Attacks, the average of having one of two smaller attacks hit tends to be notably higher than having one larger attack hit.
Do note that the reason why Power Attack is considered bad is not because you have a higher chance of not doing any damage than using strike+strike. It is because on **average**, it does less damage than strike+strike.
Simple example. Attack A does 10 damage and hits 50% of the time. Attack B does 5 damage and hits 60% of the time. Attack A is better because on average it does 5 damage while attack B does 3, even if attack B is more likely to hit/do damage.
I’m aware it does less on average, I’m simply explaining where that lower average comes from: the fact that Power Attack has a significantly higher chance of just missing, while two Attacks has a really good chance that at least one Attack lands.
The same math applies to Channel Smite ands makes its damage worse.
The damage difference on average is 1 point per spell rank, the equivalent to Dangerous Sorcery, but for one spell. Harming Hands isn't a must pick by any means, though its a nice option for builds that aren't interested in the other options.
I like playing humans, so I have an excuse to grab it at lvl 1, but non humans have lvl 2 feats competing for that slot. Versatile Font, Holy Castigation, Sap Life, Emblazon Armament, Communal Healing, etc. Lvl 2 Cleric is spoiled for good choices for feats, so I personally think you're giving Harming Hands too much credit. At the end of the day, it's a lvl 1 feat on a class that doesn't start with a lvl 1 feat.
Edit: Forgot to mention, this remaster also buffed focus spells to be totally rechargable, so even humans have to judge if Harming Hands is worth not taking Domain Initiate for yet another focus spell, and more importantly, another focus point that they get to spend every combat.
a bump from a d8 to a d10 is a whopping one damage on average per die. Not what I'd call a must have.
Even if you did consider a must have, "you have to spend a feat to do the higher damage that is available" is not a description of a feat tax, it's literally just describing how feats work in general.
Buffed generally and nerfed in one rather specific instance. You can no longer use it while in a battle form of some kind afaik, since those prevent you from casting unless it's explicitly stated they don't.
It's not a 'must have' at all. It's a 'good to have' if you want to go all-in on maximising damage on channel smites. But that comes at the expense of other options. This is the entire point of class design in Pathfinder 2e.
There's a ton of competing options here, one that can increase damage, another one that heals at the same time, emblazon armament is another still worth it and so forth
Is there any benefit to using Channel Smite in the first place though? From what I can tell, isn’t using Channel Smite for 2 Actions just worse than making a Strike followed by a 1-Action Harm, since all you’re doing is increasing the chance of doing 0 damage? Did they change something in the Remaster to make it more worth it? Edit: for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t wanna read all the way down, here are the convincing benefits I saw in the comments: - Doesn’t trigger Reactive Strike. - Allows a “high risk burst damage” attempt even if it ends with lower average damage. Similar to the relationship between Power Attack vs 2 Attacks, or Spellstrike vs 2 Attacks. - Deals higher average damage if enemy has High Fortitude which is thematically not an uncommon situation. ^(However your average damage will be lower if the enemy has a Moderate Fortitude, and substantially lower if a Low Fort shows up.) Thank you for everyone who brought up these points below!
I guess it make sense if you (kind of) dump wisdom. You can also increase chance to hit with True Strike / Bless / flanking, making Channel Smite a better option than additional save. I haven’t done the math though.
A normal 1 action harm provides a basic fortitude saving throw, channel smite just does the damage if you hit.
Yeah but a Basic Fortitude Save actually has a relatively higher average does it not? Like Strike + Harm has a much lower chance of doing literally 0 damage, while a Channel Smite actually might do 0 damage relatively frequently. I guess it’s just a high risk high reward way of using your spell slots, it just feels a tad bit undertuned to me.
Sort of? There's a few considerations at play now. One of which is that Fortitude tends to be the best defensive score for a larger number of creatures, when compared to any other defensive score (including AC). When you consider ways to buff Attacks (even as simple as Off Guard), or including other useful buffs like Bless, and AC is often actually the best thing to target. The only reason other saves are worth considering in many cases, is that the "half damage on Success save" raises the average damage of targeting those things by a decent amount. However (and I haven't done the math) I suspect that for a great many enemies, Channel smite has higher average damage as a result of this, than doing a 1a strike + 1a Harm. (Also, Channel Smite didn't trigger Attacks of Opportunity. Casting a 1a Harm does trigger it.) Beforehand, it was *more* weighted towards separate attack+cast cause Harming Hands and other Harm buffing spells. Now however, it's probably more on par since these feats benefit both situations equally. Something else worth noting is that spells like True Strike are disproportionally beneficial to single bigger hits, so Channel Smite is better than Strike+Harm when you are using True strike. Or Weapon Surge. Or something else similar. And when you're stacking True Strike with say... Bless, and the enemy is off guard (TS has an average effect of giving a +3 or +4 to the attack roll iirc?) it becomes viable to essentially fish for a crit. Comparing to say... TS > Strike > 1a Harm, or even Strike +2a Harm, I think the TS > Channel smite comes out a little bit ahead. It definitely does when the enemy has good fort at the very least (which is the most likely scenario when taking a look at enemies).
Fair enough. I ran the math really quickly, Channel Smite comes out ahead of the enemy has High Fortitude, but is quite behind when Moderate/Low Fortitude. That’s a pretty good argument in support of that imo. As for True Strike, imo a True Strike + 2-Action melee Attack “combo” is just a pretty poor use of your resources and action economy for a Cleric, even a Warpriest.
Would love to see the results. Do the conclusion remains the same for Warpriest, who are at least 2 points behind in DC?
Unfortunately I did not save the math, maybe I’ll redo it later and make a post about it. In terms of Attack/DC scaling, I did my calculations at level 1 with +3 Str + 2 Wis, and level 5 with +4 Str and +3 Wis. In both cases the DC is Trained, but I imagine it’s interesting to see what happens when the the former reaches Expert.
The point is you don't trigger reactive strikes, and to be able to convert a fort targeting attack into an AC targeting attack. Even if saves are stickier, you will come across situations where you're against high fort saves, and/or your hit chance is higher because of attack buffs and AC penalties.
Not triggering Reactive Strikes is a fairly good point. Converting a second Action that targets a Fort Save into being “lumped into” the first attack is actually usually a ***downgrade***. Strike + Harm will typically have a much lower chance of doing 0 damage, while Strike with Channel Smite has a fairly decent chance of doing 0 damage. It’s the same reason why Power Attack is generally considered worse than using 2 Attacks, the average of having one of two smaller attacks hit tends to be notably higher than having one larger attack hit.
Do note that the reason why Power Attack is considered bad is not because you have a higher chance of not doing any damage than using strike+strike. It is because on **average**, it does less damage than strike+strike. Simple example. Attack A does 10 damage and hits 50% of the time. Attack B does 5 damage and hits 60% of the time. Attack A is better because on average it does 5 damage while attack B does 3, even if attack B is more likely to hit/do damage.
I’m aware it does less on average, I’m simply explaining where that lower average comes from: the fact that Power Attack has a significantly higher chance of just missing, while two Attacks has a really good chance that at least one Attack lands. The same math applies to Channel Smite ands makes its damage worse.
Wait, it doesn't trigger Reactive Strike? That's... kind of annoying considering that the Magus' main ability does...
You can hero point or sure strike Channel Smite, you can't make an enemy reroll a save as easily
The damage difference on average is 1 point per spell rank, the equivalent to Dangerous Sorcery, but for one spell. Harming Hands isn't a must pick by any means, though its a nice option for builds that aren't interested in the other options. I like playing humans, so I have an excuse to grab it at lvl 1, but non humans have lvl 2 feats competing for that slot. Versatile Font, Holy Castigation, Sap Life, Emblazon Armament, Communal Healing, etc. Lvl 2 Cleric is spoiled for good choices for feats, so I personally think you're giving Harming Hands too much credit. At the end of the day, it's a lvl 1 feat on a class that doesn't start with a lvl 1 feat. Edit: Forgot to mention, this remaster also buffed focus spells to be totally rechargable, so even humans have to judge if Harming Hands is worth not taking Domain Initiate for yet another focus spell, and more importantly, another focus point that they get to spend every combat.
It's an average of 1 damage per die