Is Electric Arc REALLY the Best Cantrip in Pathfinder 2e?

welcome to the pathfinder spell book howdy my name is nonat and if you're not aware the pathfinder spell book is one of the oldest series on my channel i haven't done one though in a few weeks but it's time to bring it back i'm older i'm wiser i've played this game so much more that i feel like i can give a much more accurate reading of some of these spells that tons of you are going to yell at in the comments for getting wrong i mean the opinion is getting wrong i'll absolutely read spells wrong i always do but the pathfinder spell book is going to be a comprehensive video series where i go into every single spell in this massive game what it does what traditions can use it my own personal thoughts on it and at the end of each spell i'll be giving it a score out of 1 000 points how many points should i give a spell for any given thing i don't know i want to give them what i feel like sometimes i'm going to give them funny scores because numbers are funny i'm going to be going in alphabetical order through the levels of every spell i thought about going through you know let's do arcane first level spells now primal but there's too much overlap between the different spell traditions so instead i'm gonna be going over each spell mentioning the tradition that that spell can be used by and then giving it my own score each episode will have about probably between 10 and 15 spells somewhere in that range because there's a lot to go over with some of these spells some more than others and there's a lot of spells in this game just can't trips is gonna take us two episodes so let's stop dawdling and start talking about some magic hold up i'm gonna continue dawdling i just wanna give a massive shout out to every single person you see sliding up the side of the screen here these are the amazing known at one's patrons who have pledged to support me monthly using the link in the description to the network's patreon page if you want to be just like these fantastically cool people you can click that link and pledge for as little as five dollars a month and people who pledge 10 or more a month get some really cool benefits like custom pathfinder 2e homebrew so thanks guys okay let's start with the very first cantrip alphabetically acid splash acid splash is really good early on but does tend to fall behind some of the other cantrips it is a two action spell attack roll for 1d6 acid damage that's pretty standard and being a d6 is solid for a cantrip the big reason you use acid splash though is that one splash damage if there's an enemy with four other enemies and five foot adjacent squares to them they're all taking one splash damage which is fantastic and don't forget that the target also takes that splash damage so this is effectively 1d6 plus 1 damage to a single target and then some extra damage around it if you happen to critically succeed you're doing 2d6 plus 1 and inflicting one persistent acid damage it's not as good as some other khan trips for raw damage but it is the only offensive kantrip that can hit more than two targets this is available to arcane and primal casters and i honestly think as in splash is often overlooked in favor of other higher damage can trips that have less targets a big thing holding acid splash back though is its heightens it does not heighten every single level only at spell levels three five seven and nine does it get better and it doesn't really get that much better for starters heightening it to third level this is at character level five you are only doing one d6 plus spell casting mod where there are some cantrips that are already doing that at level one and the persistent damage increasing to two isn't all that great even worse is that the splash damage doesn't even increase until fifth spell level that is character level l9 and unfortunately 2d6 plus spell mod with two extra splash damage at level 9 that's not great again if you can hit you know six enemies at once that's a lot better that's just 12 extra damage from splash and don't forget that especially with the new troop rules that were added in bestiary 3 swarms of enemies often have weaknesses to area damage that other cantrips can't take advantage of so if you're fighting a swarm of rats or a troop of soldiers acid splash is a fantastic go-to can trip however if you're fighting one massive boss enemy it's really not going to do you any good past level one or two overall i'm going to give acid splash about a 637 out of a thousand it's good but it's definitely not up there i like it because it's creative and it's not just deal this damage to a target i like the splash i like the persistent it's a very fancy can cantrip even if it's not all that powerful up next chill touch for arcane divine and occult casters it is a two action spell that has a range of touch on like acid splash's range of 30 feet this one you do need to get close and touch interesting thing about chill touch though is that it has a different effect depending on if the target is alive or undead if the target is alive they make a basic fortitude save against one d4 negative damage if they happen to critically fail that's double damage and enfeebled one for one round enfeebled one of course giving a minus one to anything strength related including attack rolls and damage rolls so that's pretty good on undead creatures it's also pretty interesting it does not deal damage because undead are obviously immune to negative damage but they are flat-footed for one round if they fail and if they critically fail they're actually forced to flee which can be very powerful for those in your party who happen to have attacks of opportunity so never underestimate the power of chill touch on undead albeit undead do tend to have pretty high fortitude saves especially zombies heightening this spell has no effect on undead creatures but deals an additional 1d4 damage on living targets again like acid splash doesn't scale too well at least it scales every spell level but even maxing out at 19th character level as a 10th level can trip 10d4 just isn't that much damage at that point chill touch gets a 473 out of a thousand it's just quite a little bit below average for my tastes dancing lights a two action cantrip for arcane occult and primal casters with a range of 120 feet but it's not quite as crazy cool as it sounds dancing light is good you effectively summon four sources of light each is strong as a lit torch and they can all be ten feet away from each other making it so you can cover a pretty wide area and each round you sustain this spell you can move it up to 60 feet each ball that's fantastic the problem comes with that sustaining dancing lights in combat is not that useful if you need to illuminate a huge room in like a role play or exploration encounter this is very very nice you can illuminate a wide chasm by spreading the balls out as much as possible but in combat you're going to need to spend an action every turn just to keep the dancing lights active which can really inhibit your action economy and as we know action economy is king in pathfinder 2e not a bad spell by any means though as a can trip outside of combat it is incredibly useful and i will go ahead and give it a 720 out of a thousand you know it does what it's made to do it is not a combat can trip so i don't feel right docking many points for it not being useful in combat oh our first controversial spell on this list daze a two action 60 foot range spell for arcane divine occult caster i don't know what happened with my fingers there arcane divine and occult casters the target makes a basic will save against your spell mod of damage now that's not that much damage at level one that's probably three or four damage but keep this in mind that damage is not random if they fail the save they are always taking four points of damage whereas if you're rolling one d6 you know you're only dealing one two six and half the time it's going to be less than that now where the spell really wins me over it's i punched my desk now where this spell really wins me over is with the critical failure effect sure it's not a super common occurrence that a monster critically fails to save but it does happen and that is that monsters who critically fail their save are stunned one for one round that means they lose an action on their following turn turning their three actions into two if you can somehow pull this off on fights with one big enemy you've eliminated one third of their action economy almost refunding one of the two actions you spent on days and that is absolutely insane so few spells inflict stunned or slowed in this game and to be able to put it on a cantrip even if it's not super likely to work is very very powerful plus they take double damage when they do as well so that'll be eight damage and stunned at level one on a can't trip that is insane to think about unfortunately the heightening of days is absolute garbage every two spell levels the damage goes up by one d6 so the damage does not increase from three or four until level five and then it deals one d6 plus three or four days is not something you want to use for damage at higher levels but if you are fighting especially if you're fighting multiple lower level enemies and a crit fail is within the realm of possibilities daze is fantastic you can knock out an action off the enemy side and that just puts things more in your favor sure you're not doing as much damage but pathfinder 2e is not as much about damage as people like to believe damage is good don't get me wrong damage is how you win but conditions are how you do the most damage daze gets an 812 from me i adore this can't maybe not 780. i'm talking a few points for the really really bad heightening but no matter what level you are being able to inflict something with stunned one no matter how low that chance is effectively for no resource it's fantastic detect magic almost deserves a video all its own but i'm gonna do what i can any spellcaster can take detect magic and for two actions they get to sense magic in a 30-foot emanation from them that's 30 feet in all directions and depending on the level of the spell you get different amounts of information at level one all you get to learn is if there is magic you sense 30 feet around you and if there is magic you get a little ping and the gm tells you you detect magic what is nice is that you can ignore any magic you're already aware of magic weapons another spellcaster with an enchantment up anything like that if you know magic is there and you know the source you can omit that meaning if you use this around your party and something goes off you know it's not your party's magic which is important to know what's important to note however is specifically illusion magic if you cast detect magic at level 1 and there is a level 2 illusion in front of you that will not trigger your detect magic illusion magic is only triggered with by detect magic if the detect magic spell is a higher level than the spell of the illusion so if it's a level two illusion you need to be at least level five basically casting detect magic at third level to even detect that illusion i hope that made sense i said detect magic and illusion a lot once you're level five and you can cast this at third level you now get to learn the school of the highest level magical effect around you so if there is a magical trapped rune in front of you and you cast detect magic you might learn your gm will tell you evocation is the strongest magical source you detect you get a little bit more information you know okay evocation i know that's destruction magic things that usually cause explosions or damage of some kind and there's a rune on the ground it's probably a good chance you get to start putting more together with this information which is awesome and then once you're level seven and casting at fourth level you get to learn the five foot cube that the magical source is within that is really hard to say for some reason so effectively in the prior example with the evocation rune if you cast detect magic at fourth level or higher you can narrow it down to the five foot cube space around that rune which can be a safe inference that okay the magic is clearly coming from that rune or if something is invisible and you can't see it you can cast detect magic and you will not be able to see what's producing the magic but you'll know that within that five foot square something magical is happening and you still get to learn the school of magic so if you get illusion you're like okay clearly there's something invisible here detect magic is fun you kind of get different puzzle pieces depending on your level and the higher level you are the more puzzle pieces you get so you get to put things together which is a really cool feeling because that means as your character levels up they get more adept at detecting specific types of magic they get better at refining the information they're gaining and gleaning more information off of it and that's a lot of fun i love detect magic it can be a little bit difficult to use uh to react to as a gm and i do always forget what each individual level does but it's still a fantastic cantrip 892 out of a thousand disrupt undead for primal and divine casters is another pretty typical damaging cantrip two actions 30 foot range you shoot it but you don't need to make a spell attack on this one this one always hits but it is a basic fortitude saving throw and it only affects undead creatures should they fail they take one d6 plus spell casting mod and if they critically fail they double that and become enfeebled one for one round which against undead targets is amazing especially the mindless zombies and skeletons strength is usually all they have going for them strength and con typically so if you can reduce that strength by one that's incredible that's gonna lower their damage it's gonna lower their accuracy and it's positive damage now zombies and skeletons don't tend to have an inherent weakness to positive damage but plenty of other undead do especially the stronger the undead gets the more likely it is to have a direct weakness to positive damage this also goes up by a solid d6 every single spell level so if you're fighting undead disrupt undead is going to be useful regardless of your level so keep this one in your back pocket y'all if you're a druid or a cleric it's great to have on hand because so many campaigns end up fighting at least some undead and having that ready is gonna save your bacon oh uh 904 out of a thousand really really good can trip now for easily one of my personal favorite canned trips divine lance again still pretty typical as far as offensive kanship's go two actions 30 feet spell attack roll for 1d4 damage plus spell casting mod double damage on a crit but what makes this special is that it is the only cantrip that deals alignment damage specifically the alignment damage correlating with your deity if you do not worship a deity or you happen to worship a true neutral deity you can't cast this spell because the damage it deals is always related to your deity if you have a chaotic good deity divine lance can do chaos damage or good damage which hurts lawful creatures or evil creatures and the inverse if you have a lawful evil deity you can deal lawful damage or evil damage but there is no such thing as neutral damage so neutral deities do not get this i should say true neutral deities if you're a neutral good deity this only deals good damage still useful and my favorite way to use this is if i'm not sure if a target is evil or not you know if you are in the middle of combat with someone that you don't think you should be fighting you know they're fighting you but you don't want to kill them you can use divine lance if you use divine lands and deal good damage with it and they don't react to the damage you know they're not an evil person and it really adds that role play layer to combat which i'm always digging for the more role play that's in my combat encounters the better don't get me wrong i love a good slog fest against a gelatinous ooze but you know when you're fighting goblins and they're not evil they're just neutral and they're threatened by you this can give you that information of like hold on hold on they're not evil let's see if we can talk this out that's what i love about divine lance just gives me more information about the people i'm fighting 930 out of a thousand i'm ranking these really high but i think it's just because i like kant trips oh electric arc a thousand out of a thousand i'll see you next week all right all right i have to talk about electric arc two action cam trip for primal and arcane casters and its damage output is unmatched by any other kantrip in the game electric arc has become a bit of a meme in the pathfinder community because it is the single strongest cantrip in the game as far as damage is concerned you can pick up to two targets within 30 feet and they both make a basic reflex save against one d4 plus spell mod in damage which is insane if you have a plus four damage from your spell casting modifier and you hit two targets that is a potential 2d 4 plus 8 on failed saves or if lord help me if they both critically fail their saving throws that is eight d four plus sixteen at level one and the damage increases by 1d4 every single spell level electric arc is never bad unless they are immune to electricity or have a crazy high reflex save don't get me wrong there are times where electric arc is bad and i've seen people just keep trying to use electric arc because it has the most damage even though they're fighting things with massive reflex saves and no will or no fortitude but they just keep using electric arc because it does the most damage don't get stuck in that hole keep an eye on what you're fighting if you're fighting a massive horde of undead yeah electric arc go for it zombies can't dodge if you're fighting birds or snakes or wildly fast things don't keep trying to use it they're probably going to succeed and they're definitely not going to crit fail electric arc gets a 980 out of a thousand it's incredible and you just can't go wrong i refuse to give it a thousand because i think it's overused i think the spell on its own is really really strong but i don't like it for the effect it's had on the game so i'm docking 20 points deal with it forbidding ward is not used enough this is a fantastic can trip why does nobody use forbidding ward divine occult casters get to use this and for two actions within 30 feet you pick one ally and one enemy now the hard part is that the enemy and the ally both need to be within 30 feet of you but so long as they are when you cast the spell your ally gets a plus one to armor class and all saving throws that result from that target creature for up to one minute sure you need to spend an action each turn to sustain this but bards get a focus can trip that's basically just this but multi-target bars get inspired defense which is plus one to ac and damage resistance which is really good of course but this being a cantrip available to any divine or occult caster is insane plus one to ac on anyone is nuts and in those big boss fights giving this to your fighter or your champion will really really hike up their survivability and it's only one action per turn to sustain so you can keep doing your two-action stuff whether that's moving and attacking or casting another spell forbidding ward is incredible and once you're level 11 it's a plus two to armor class fortitude saves reflex saves and will saves on a cantrip this is nuts easy 875 out of a thousand i love this spell so much ghost sound two actions arcane and occult casters only and it's up to 30 feet and this is a cantrip i never ever ever have ever seen used i've been playing pathfinder for about a year and a half now i've never seen anyone cast ghost sound you can just conjure a cacophony of sound that sounds like up to four human shouting i think the issue is the range you can get creative with this the sounds just need to be simple so you could get away with stuff falling over or dogs barking or human shouting unintelligible words but 30 feet is not far and it doesn't increase until character level 5 and that's only 60 feet and then finally at character level 9 it's 120 feet which is a bit more usable but casting this at 30 feet that's gonna leave you pretty close to the source and i feel like casting this from 30 feet away with somatic and verbal components the entire time is gonna make you look suspicious you know if you're sitting there around the corner and you're making auditory sounds you know i am casting a spell making the hand symbols that's sustaining the spell and then the person comes around the corner and there's you know they see there's nobody actually screaming and then they just see you over there like i'm still casting the spell please don't look at me 30 feet is going to be tough to hide especially when you're mumbling and muttering the whole time 120 feet 60 feet that's way better but at level one this is pretty weak this is kind of unfortunate this is the first can trip i guess not the first cancer but i wasn't a fan of one of them i don't remember my memory span is not long it's been 30 minutes ghost sound could be better i think it should start at 60 then 120 and i think then 240 would be fine at ninth level being able to ghost sound at 240 that seems fine to me uh but as is ghost sound is a little bit weak and thus i'm going to be giving it a 375 out of a thousand guidance one of the just classic can trips that everyone takes just because it's good one action available to divine occult and primal casters and you pick any one creature within 30 feet friendly or not that creature then gets basically a free plus one that on its own choice can apply to anything attack roll saving throw skill check perception check and look uh but yeah this basically gives you a plus one to any d20 role you have to make uh then you can use it within one minute that's a lie why did i say that i didn't say that effectively they have to use it on their next turn and then once they use it you can't use it on the same target again for one hour what's nice though is if they do not use that bonus they're not immune to the effect so if you give them guidance they don't use it that turn you could give them guidance again on the following turn and keep doing that until they actually use the bonus what's important to note about guidance though is that it's not only useful in combat if someone is trying to scale a wall you can give them guidance to get that plus one to athletics or give them plus one to their diplomacy check before going in or even in the middle of a conversation albeit that might look a little bit shady uh but guidance has a big plethora of uses it's good at any level because a plus one is never bad plus it's one action verbal not even somatic so that's just fantastic all around guidance is getting a 780 out of a thousand because it's just a never a bad option to take and anyone can take it except for arcane hilariously which is very rare join pasts have you ever wanted to do the vulcan mind meld here you go okay it's not quite the vulcan mind meld but interestingly i believe this might be the only cantrip that's available strictly to a cult tradition which is kind of cool for one action you touch the foreheads of two willing creatures i believe you yourself can be one of these creatures and for the next round the targets can communicate mentally and share thoughts and experiences effectively if one of the targets attempts to recall knowledge the other target can aid them with any lore skill funny enough this lore skill doesn't even need to apply if someone is trying to recall knowledge on arcana and you have lore farming you can do it i think the implication is that you're just sending them your mental capacities to help them search their memory better which is a cool kind of experience this is uh this is from a uh yeah this is from the age of ash's adventure path but it's a cool one you know just being able to help yourself and someone else work together to think really hard that's a fun can't trip and every time you heighten the spell level you can touch an additional target and i don't know how that works because it says you need to touch the foreheads or maybe you like touch touch touch touch maybe you don't need to keep the touch i don't know i like the idea that you have to keep the touch and then to add more people in you need to be like okay okay you i'll touch you with my elbow touch you with this elbow uh you all touch with my leg and then you all think in this weird twister game of big brain uh i love it it's a lot of fun uh this one gets like a 640 out of a thousand i don't know how often it would come up but it's a really cool cantrip no direction you might not think it's that useful but depending on your campaign this can be a lifesaver especially in a survival situation for two actions you learn north that is the spell available to divine occult and primal another kantrip that arcanes just don't get because arcane can't tell direction apparently you become a compass that is it you just know which way is north and if you forget you cast it again and you know which way is north that's the spell again if you're lost in the woods and you know town is to the east then casting no direction to see north and then just go east it's pretty good you know at higher level campaigns and in more streamlined campaigns this is less useful you know if you're dungeon crawling or you're just uh inside a city at all times it's not as useful but hey when someone says oh you should go check out this shop on the north side of town you get to go i cast no direction now i know where to go in town i know exactly where that shop is weirdly enough this is a really strange heightened level to me only at character level 13 heightening this can trip to seventh level can you use it to learn the direction to a familiar location is it just me or does that seem way too high like fifth level maybe even fourth spell level would have been fine you know character level seven character level nine to know the direction to your house or where you're sleeping that night that doesn't seem that powerful though i guess it does take into consideration it's every single place you're familiar with you know it can't be somewhere you've visited one time but you know if you've been to a tavern a few times if you've been to a city a few times you could just no direction your way there and i guess this makes it so you can never get lost again technically so i'm hearing there about it it's a little bit high for me i think spell level 5 would have been fine but overall it's a really funny cantrip in the right context and it's really useful in others also it's a really good twitch stream no direction gets a 580 out of a thousand not super useful but i just really like it and that's where we're going to end this episode of the pathfinder spell book i hope you guys are enjoying it i hope you're looking forward to the second half of can trips in the next episode i don't know if it's going to be weekly monthly bi-weekly i don't know they're going to come out when they come out i'm not good at scheduling i can barely stay on my monday wednesday schedule as is but i do want to remind you to like the video if this helped you out and helped you understand some of these cantrips a little bit better and subscribe to the channel if you want to see even more quality pathfinder 2e content just like this another huge shout out to my patrons over on the known out ones patreon page if you want to pledge and get access to some cool stuff like custom homebrew there's a link in the description thank you all so very much for watching have a wonderful rest of your day and until next time no now ones

Channel: Nonat1s

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Keywords: Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder Second Edition, Advanced Player's Guide, Pathfinder 2e APG, Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Level 1, Pathfinder 2e new features, Pathfinder 2e New Ancestries, Pathfinder 2e Gamemastery Guide, Pathfinder 2e Spells, Pathfinder 2e Cantrips, Pathfinder 2e Electric Arc, Is electric arc really the best cantrip in Pathfinder 2e?, Pathfinder 2e best spell, Pathfinder 2e worst spell, Pathfinder Spellbook, Nonat1s Spellbook

Id: 5UexBa2dx-w

Length: 28min 42sec (1722 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 22 2021