Phantasmal Mage Metamagic ?s

[mike.xulima]

I leveled one to 20th to test some things out and see how a build might go. I especially wanted to see how their metamagic reservoir abilities work.

I can't seem to get Selective Spell to kick in for any spells? Are there any Illusion spells that qualify for it?

Also does Shadow Evocation not qualify for Empower and Maximize? If not which Illusion spells do they work with?

Feels like there's not much use for those 3 for Illusion spells, am I missing something?

Extend, Quicken and Persistent seemed to all work. Extend could not be stacked with the Extend feat though.

[Frostfeather]

I can't answer every question you have, but I can say that metamagic is kinda bugged right now, especially Empower and Maximize (maybe Bolster, too, I can't recall). These types of metamagic simply don't work on a number of spells for no apparent reason, and it's one of the bugs I would most like to get fixed.

I first noticed it on Blade Barrier, Wall of Light, and Sirocco, and someone else on the forums here said Cure Wounds spells are affected, too. Looks like we can add to that list.

[mike.xulima]

Well Selective says it requires AOE spells with the duration of Instantaneous so I was wondering if maybe no Illusion spells qualify? And/or maybe some only target enemies and not friendlies by default?

But if it's bugged then that could also explain it.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Well Selective says it requires AOE spells with the duration of Instantaneous so I was wondering if maybe no Illusion spells qualify? And/or maybe some only target enemies and not friendlies by default?

But if it's bugged then that could also explain it.

Well Selective technically isn't implemented correctly because you can use it on Sirocco and other spells that aren't instantaneous. As for not working on any Illusion spells, that may be another bug?

Honestly it's getting hard to keep the specifics of each bug straight, lol. You should report this stuff in game, more bug reports might get them to look at it a little sooner.

[MjKorz]

Use selective spell on Colour Spray and Scintillating Pattern.

Shadow spells are bad offensively, because their DCs are based on Evocation/Conjuration school DCs, not Illusion. There is never a reason to empower/maximize them. They are decent from a utility point of view only (summons, dimension door).

Also, Phantasmal Mage is straight up inferior to a basic Wizard with a specialization in Divination school. You lose 5 feats and get no advantages, because a diviner Wizard can increase his effective CL and DC just as well.

[mike.xulima]

Originally posted by MjKorz:

Use selective spell on Colour Spray and Scintillating Pattern.

Shadow spells are bad offensively, because their DCs are based on Evocation/Conjuration school DCs, not Illusion. There is never a reason to empower/maximize them. They are decent from a utility point of view only (summons, dimension door).

Also, Phantasmal Mage is straight up inferior to a basic Wizard with a specialization in Divination school. You lose 5 feats and get no advantages, because a diviner Wizard can increase his effective CL and DC just as well.

Why wouldn't I still want them Empowered/Maximized? If I am casting a Shadow Evocation Fireball for example, why wouldn't I want more damage from it? Isn't that why I am getting that Reservoir power for in the first place? I just don't see many Illusion spells that would really benefit from being Empowered/Maximized. Shadow Evocation would have been perfect for that, but you can't apply those feats (Empower/Maximize) to it. Just tried Maximize on Phantasmal Killer and when the subject failed the Will save, the resulting damage wasn't Maximized. That was with the Reservoir power and actual feat.

And Divination doesn't give you a reservoir to use Metamagic feats with. The Phantasmal Mage can get up to 23 Reservior points to play with and use them on spells you couldn't otherwise, such as Quickening 9th level spells. You get 7 metamagic feats you can use as Reservoir pool abilities which means you can save 7 feats which is > 5 feats. At 20th level Extended, Reach and Selective are free too, they cost nothing from the Reservoir pool. And they can use Consume Spell to keep recovering Reservoir points. Divination doesn't give any Metamagic use like that at all. The issue seems to me to be that those feats don't all mean so much when applied to the Illusion school. You also get Exploits and gain the best of both worlds of Wizard and Sorcerer in terms of memorizing and casting spontaneously. And you don't get saddled with 2 opposition schools.

[mike.xulima]

Originally posted by night4:

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Well Selective says it requires AOE spells with the duration of Instantaneous so I was wondering if maybe no Illusion spells qualify? And/or maybe some only target enemies and not friendlies by default?

But if it's bugged then that could also explain it.

Well Selective technically isn't implemented correctly because you can use it on Sirocco and other spells that aren't instantaneous. As for not working on any Illusion spells, that may be another bug?

Honestly it's getting hard to keep the specifics of each bug straight, lol. You should report this stuff in game, more bug reports might get them to look at it a little sooner.

I think I am getting confused because some Illusion spells just don't have any effect on your allies and I haven't used this school much before. Plus I have the character leveled to 20th and he has a +5 bonus from INT. So I think Selective is not making me pick which characters to exempt because he can choose the entire group, although I am not sure. But when I tested with Scintillating Pattern, which notes "all creatures" (vs many Illusion AOE spells that say "all enemies"), I did see a difference in effect. The Selective version didn't make any of my party members save vs it or do anything to them, whereas the regular version messed the entire party up good :)

Still not sure why though it didn't make me select which characters to exempt.

[Frostfeather]

I don't use Selective often, but I believe that it just makes your group not affected without needing to choose anything and regardless of ability score. They probably just copy/pasted the tabletop description even though it doesn't match how it's actually implemented in the game... they do that sometimes.

And yeah, some Illusion spells are already party friendly so Selective wouldn't help those.

[Babbles]

Rainbow Patter, Scintillating Spray - none of these mean anything as there are better base options right up to and including Wierd.

The *only* reason you would take (and *should* if you play no mercs) Selective is to make Nenio's Sirocco a selective lvl 7 spell.

[mike.xulima]

Originally posted by Babbles:

Rainbow Patter, Scintillating Spray - none of these mean anything as there are better base options right up to and including Wierd.

The *only* reason you would take (and *should* if you play no mercs) Selective is to make Nenio's Sirocco a selective lvl 7 spell.

If you're a Phantasmal Mage, it's one of the 7 Metamagic feats you get as part of the class as Reservoir abilities. You don't have to burn a feat on it.

[mike.xulima]

Originally posted by night4:

I don't use Selective often, but I believe that it just makes your group not affected without needing to choose anything and regardless of ability score. They probably just copy/pasted the tabletop description even though it doesn't match how it's actually implemented in the game... they do that sometimes.

And yeah, some Illusion spells are already party friendly so Selective wouldn't help those.

That makes sense. I had also never used that feat before and figured it would, you know, work the way they said it would ;) But it did seem to kick in for Scintillating Pattern.

The strange thing is it will let you use it and burn Reservoir points on it even when it does absolutely nothing. Ditto for the feat, you can apply it to spells and cast them at a higher level for no reason at all. Seems like you should not be able to use a Metamagic feat on a spell that it can't actually enhance.

[MjKorz]

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Why wouldn't I still want them Empowered/Maximized? If I am casting a Shadow Evocation Fireball for example, why wouldn't I want more damage from it?

Ideally, you don't want to cast those spells in the first place. I'm assuming you're playing a dedicated Illusionist since you went for a Phantasmal Mage archetype so your primary goal is to pump Illusion DCs as high as possible at the expense of all other school DCs. Since Shadow Evocation/Conjuration spell DCs are based on Evocation/Conjuration spell DCs, most enemies will resist those spells very easily and will suffer only half the damage or none at all, depending on their feats and your difficulty.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Just tried Maximize on Phantasmal Killer and when the subject failed the Will save, the resulting damage wasn't Maximized.

Damage of Phantasmal Killer spell is completely irrelevant, yo don't want it maximized since it's pointless. The purpose of Phantasmal Killer is to instantly kill the target and for that you need to beat the target's Will and then Fortitude save, which is why it's extremely important to focus on maximizing your Illusion school DCs, if you're playing an Illusionist caster. None of Illusion is meant to do direct damage, Illusion is a school that almost exclusively focuses on save-or-else spells, which is the reason why you always want to maximize your spell DCs as an Illusionist.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

And Divination doesn't give you a reservoir to use Metamagic feats with. The Phantasmal Mage can get up to 23 Reservior points to play with and use them on spells you couldn't otherwise, such as Quickening 9th level spells. You get 7 metamagic feats you can use as Reservoir pool abilities which means you can save 7 feats which is > 5 feats. At 20th level Extended, Reach and Selective are free too, they cost nothing from the Reservoir pool. And they can use Consume Spell to keep recovering Reservoir points. Divination doesn't give any Metamagic use like that at all. The issue seems to me to be that those feats don't all mean so much when applied to the Illusion school. You also get Exploits and gain the best of both worlds of Wizard and Sorcerer in terms of memorizing and casting spontaneously. And you don't get saddled with 2 opposition schools.

First of all, the only metamagic feat you REALLY want with Illusion spells is Persistent Spell. Selective and Heighten spell are optional and nice in theory, but if you're focusing on truly maximizing your Illusion spell DCs, you won't have the feats to get them. Selective you apply to Color Spray and Scintillating Pattern to avoid friendly fire. Maximizing Scintillating Pattern is also a good idea, but it's best to do this via a rod. Heighten is useful when you want to fill your level 5 and 7 spell slots with Phantasmal Killer and/or Phantasmal Putrefaction, because Illusion school doesn't have good offensive spells for levels 5 and 7. When it comes to Quicken Spell, it's best to simply use a rod. There are 2 greater rods of quicken in the game and you get 6 quickened spells of levels 1-9 per rest which is more than enough.

Regarding the Phantasmal Mage vs Divination Wizard comparison: the loss of 5 feats is absolutely not worth it. All exploits are pretty much worthless aside from two: caster level increase and Potent Magic (+2 DC). Caster level increase is useful primarily for dispel purposes and spell penetration, Divination Wizard gets a +2 caster level check bonus from its Foretell (Aid) aura, so parity is achieved in this area. Divination Wizard also gets an effective +2 DC boost by using his Foretell (Hinder) aura which lowers enemy saves by 2 in a 30ft radius, so parity is achieved when it comes to DC bonus as well. Where parity is not achieved, however, is the number of bonus feats: Wizard gets 5, Arcanist gets nothing. Since up to 14 feats can be converted into bonus spell DC via Expanded Arsenal, the Arcanist loses 5 Illusion spell DC relative to the Wizard. Since the main goal of an Illusion caster is to stack Illusion spell DCs, this is a crippling disadvantage that makes the entire Arcanist/Phantasmal Mage class utterly inferior when it comes to DC casting. Only reason to EVER play an Arcanist is to create a Brownfur Transmuter buffbot.

Of course, you can still play an Arcanist, if you simply like the class, but know that it is completely overshadowed by Wizard for the purpose of Illusion casting.

[mike.xulima]

Originally posted by MjKorz:

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Why wouldn't I still want them Empowered/Maximized? If I am casting a Shadow Evocation Fireball for example, why wouldn't I want more damage from it?

Ideally, you don't want to cast those spells in the first place. I'm assuming you're playing a dedicated Illusionist since you went for a Phantasmal Mage archetype so your primary goal is to pump Illusion DCs as high as possible at the expense of all other school DCs. Since Shadow Evocation/Conjuration spell DCs are based on Evocation/Conjuration spell DCs, most enemies will resist those spells very easily and will suffer only half the damage or none at all, depending on their feats and your difficulty.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Just tried Maximize on Phantasmal Killer and when the subject failed the Will save, the resulting damage wasn't Maximized.

Damage of Phantasmal Killer spell is completely irrelevant, yo don't want it maximized since it's pointless. The purpose of Phantasmal Killer is to instantly kill the target and for that you need to beat the target's Will and then Fortitude save, which is why it's extremely important to focus on maximizing your Illusion school DCs, if you're playing an Illusionist caster. None of Illusion is meant to do direct damage, Illusion is a school that almost exclusively focuses on save-or-else spells, which is the reason why you always want to maximize your spell DCs as an Illusionist.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

And Divination doesn't give you a reservoir to use Metamagic feats with. The Phantasmal Mage can get up to 23 Reservior points to play with and use them on spells you couldn't otherwise, such as Quickening 9th level spells. You get 7 metamagic feats you can use as Reservoir pool abilities which means you can save 7 feats which is > 5 feats. At 20th level Extended, Reach and Selective are free too, they cost nothing from the Reservoir pool. And they can use Consume Spell to keep recovering Reservoir points. Divination doesn't give any Metamagic use like that at all. The issue seems to me to be that those feats don't all mean so much when applied to the Illusion school. You also get Exploits and gain the best of both worlds of Wizard and Sorcerer in terms of memorizing and casting spontaneously. And you don't get saddled with 2 opposition schools.

First of all, the only metamagic feat you REALLY want with Illusion spells is Persistent Spell. Selective and Heighten spell are optional and nice in theory, but if you're focusing on truly maximizing your Illusion spell DCs, you won't have the feats to get them. Selective you apply to Color Spray and Scintillating Pattern to avoid friendly fire. Maximizing Scintillating Pattern is also a good idea, but it's best to do this via a rod. Heighten is useful when you want to fill your level 5 and 7 spell slots with Phantasmal Killer and/or Phantasmal Putrefaction, because Illusion school doesn't have good offensive spells for levels 5 and 7. When it comes to Quicken Spell, it's best to simply use a rod. There are 2 greater rods of quicken in the game and you get 6 quickened spells of levels 1-9 per rest which is more than enough.

Regarding the Phantasmal Mage vs Divination Wizard comparison: the loss of 5 feats is absolutely not worth it. All exploits are pretty much worthless aside from two: caster level increase and Potent Magic (+2 DC). Caster level increase is useful primarily for dispel purposes and spell penetration, Divination Wizard gets a +2 caster level check bonus from its Foretell (Aid) aura, so parity is achieved in this area. Divination Wizard also gets an effective +2 DC boost by using his Foretell (Hinder) aura which lowers enemy saves by 2 in a 30ft radius, so parity is achieved when it comes to DC bonus as well. Where parity is not achieved, however, is the number of bonus feats: Wizard gets 5, Arcanist gets nothing. Since up to 14 feats can be converted into bonus spell DC via Expanded Arsenal, the Arcanist loses 5 Illusion spell DC relative to the Wizard. Since the main goal of an Illusion caster is to stack Illusion spell DCs, this is a crippling disadvantage that makes the entire Arcanist/Phantasmal Mage class utterly inferior when it comes to DC casting. Only reason to EVER play an Arcanist is to create a Brownfur Transmuter buffbot.

Of course, you can still play an Arcanist, if you simply like the class, but know that it is completely overshadowed by Wizard for the purpose of Illusion casting.

First of all, the DCs being set to Evocation as I understand it is a bug. So you really can't fault the class for a bug. And it would be nice to have those spells as a backup, and nice if you could Empower and Maximize them.

So you say Persistent, Heighten and Selective are useful for Illusion. You get all three of those as a Phantasmal Mage - you know, for the purpose of Illusion casting.

I'd have to argue Extend is also very useful and you get that too. And you're forgetting Quicken, and you get that too. And the ability to go way beyond what rods do with a deep Reservoire pool (that can be replenished with Consume). There's nothing to stop a Phantasmal Mage from using a Rod either, but they can go way beyond the Rods, and Divination Wizards can't. Divination is also the weakest school and you're saddled with two opposition schools.

You can also have every Illusion spell memorized and cast them as much as you'd like, with other spells memorized as well for added utility/flexibility to boot thanks to the spontaneous nature of how Arcanists cast spells. Any spells that turn out to be not so useful on a given day aren't wasted, you Consume them and get more free Metamagic buffs for other spells you can use. The flexibility an Arcanist has is worlds beyond what a Wizard gets.

Let's agree to disagree because I prefer the Gnome Way.

[MjKorz]

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

First of all, the DCs being set to Evocation as I understand it is a bug. So you really can't fault the class for a bug. And it would be nice to have those spells as a backup, and nice if you could Empower and Maximize them.

So you say Persistent, Heighten and Selective are useful for Illusion. You get all three of those as a Phantasmal Mage - you know, for the purpose of Illusion casting.

I'd have to argue Extend is also very useful and you get that too. And you're forgetting Quicken, and you get that too. And the ability to go way beyond what rods do with a deep Reservoire pool (that can be replenished with Consume). There's nothing to stop a Phantasmal Mage from using a Rod either, but they can go way beyond the Rods, and Divination Wizards can't. Divination is also the weakest school and you're saddled with two opposition schools.

You can also have every Illusion spell memorized and cast them as much as you'd like, with other spells memorized as well for added utility/flexibility to boot thanks to the spontaneous nature of how Arcanists cast spells. Any spells that turn out to be not so useful on a given day aren't wasted, you Consume them and get more free Metamagic buffs for other spells you can use. The flexibility an Arcanist has is worlds beyond what a Wizard gets.

Let's agree to disagree because I prefer the Gnome Way.

There is nothing to "agree to disagree" on, I am not presenting an opinion, I am presenting strict facts: Phantasmal Mage and any other Arcanist can never match a Divination Wizard as an Illusion specialist, because arcanists suffer from a massive DC disadvantage. Perhaps, my initial post was too long, so I will condense everything:

1. All offensive Illusion spells with the sole Exception of Scintillating pattern need to beat enemy saves to work properly, the most powerful spells need to beat two successive saves.

2. Therefore, stacking Illusion spell DCs is the main priority of any Illusionist build.

3. To properly stack spell DCs, you need bonus feats and expanded arsenal. 16-17 feats is optimal.

4. Arcanist has 10 feats, Wizard has 15. Therefore Wizard enjoys a +5 spell DC advantage.

5. Most Arcanist exploits are useless, only CL and DC increases are good. Divination Wizard matches both via Foretell (Aid/Hinder) aura.

6. Only metamagic you really need for Illusion is persistent spell which can be taken on a wizard without loss of Illusion spell DC, rest is situational flavor that is absolutely NOT worth the loss of 5 spell DC.

7. Rods exist that provide metamagic for the Wizard that has no access to Quicken and Maximize.

8. Opposition schools are irrelevant, because you can just pick Evocation and necromancy. You're never going to cast spells from those schools.

9. Shadow spells are irrelevant, because their DCs will be too low and you will do virtually no damage since enemies will save against them.

10. Lastly, Initiative is extremely important for a DC caster like an Illusionist, because acting first allows you to disable/kill entire encounters with an AoE spell like Phantasmal Putrefaction or Weird before the enemies can even act. Divination Wizard gets a +10 initiative bonus and always rolls natural 20s on initiative checks at level 20, Arcanist gets nothing of the sort.

A properly built Divination Wizard wins every Initiative roll in the game on unfair difficulty starting from Chapter 3 and can stack Illusion spell DCs so high that every boss in the game can be killed instantly (again, on unfair difficulty).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2778353915

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2778015981

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2778021190

You can always play an Arcanist out of preference and personal taste, but mechanically an Arcanist can never come even close to the Wizard.

[mike.xulima]

Originally posted by MjKorz:

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

First of all, the DCs being set to Evocation as I understand it is a bug. So you really can't fault the class for a bug. And it would be nice to have those spells as a backup, and nice if you could Empower and Maximize them.

So you say Persistent, Heighten and Selective are useful for Illusion. You get all three of those as a Phantasmal Mage - you know, for the purpose of Illusion casting.

I'd have to argue Extend is also very useful and you get that too. And you're forgetting Quicken, and you get that too. And the ability to go way beyond what rods do with a deep Reservoire pool (that can be replenished with Consume). There's nothing to stop a Phantasmal Mage from using a Rod either, but they can go way beyond the Rods, and Divination Wizards can't. Divination is also the weakest school and you're saddled with two opposition schools.

You can also have every Illusion spell memorized and cast them as much as you'd like, with other spells memorized as well for added utility/flexibility to boot thanks to the spontaneous nature of how Arcanists cast spells. Any spells that turn out to be not so useful on a given day aren't wasted, you Consume them and get more free Metamagic buffs for other spells you can use. The flexibility an Arcanist has is worlds beyond what a Wizard gets.

Let's agree to disagree because I prefer the Gnome Way.

There is nothing to "agree to disagree" on, I am not presenting an opinion, I am presenting strict facts: Phantasmal Mage and any other Arcanist can never match a Divination Wizard as an Illusion specialist, because arcanists suffer from a massive DC disadvantage. Perhaps, my initial post was too long, so I will condense everything:

1. All offensive Illusion spells with the sole Exception of Scintillating pattern need to beat enemy saves to work properly, the most powerful spells need to beat two successive saves.

2. Therefore, stacking Illusion spell DCs is the main priority of any Illusionist build.

3. To properly stack spell DCs, you need bonus feats and expanded arsenal. 16-17 feats is optimal.

4. Arcanist has 10 feats, Wizard has 15. Therefore Wizard enjoys a +5 spell DC advantage.

5. Most Arcanist exploits are useless, only CL and DC increases are good. Divination Wizard matches both via Foretell (Aid/Hinder) aura.

6. Only metamagic you really need for Illusion is persistent spell which can be taken on a wizard without loss of Illusion spell DC, rest is situational flavor that is absolutely NOT worth the loss of 5 spell DC.

7. Rods exist that provide metamagic for the Wizard that has no access to Quicken and Maximize.

8. Opposition schools are irrelevant, because you can just pick Evocation and necromancy. You're never going to cast spells from those schools.

9. Shadow spells are irrelevant, because their DCs will be too low and you will do virtually no damage since enemies will save against them.

10. Lastly, Initiative is extremely important for a DC caster like an Illusionist, because acting first allows you to disable/kill entire encounters with an AoE spell like Phantasmal Putrefaction or Weird before the enemies can even act. Divination Wizard gets a +10 initiative bonus and always rolls natural 20s on initiative checks at level 20, Arcanist gets nothing of the sort.

A properly built Divination Wizard wins every Initiative roll in the game on unfair difficulty starting from Chapter 3 and can stack Illusion spell DCs so high that every boss in the game can be killed instantly (again, on unfair difficulty).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2778353915

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2778015981

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2778021190

You can always play an Arcanist out of preference and personal taste, but mechanically an Arcanist can never come even close to the Wizard.

Then name all the DC stacking feats an Arcanist will miss out on because of the 5 less feats. And remember, they have Persistent Spell for free. Feats do not equal a DC advantage. There is only SF and GSF, there aren't 3 more. No idea how you decided feats directly correlate to spell DCs.

Forget the Exploits then. Their being useless is your opinion, but they have nothing to do with the real discussion which is Illusion magic. But IMO several are very nice to have, as well as the availability of Shadow Evocation - which were it not bugged would use the Illusion DC and allow feats like Maximize and Empower.

Again, where is the "loss of 5 DC" coming from? Which feats are granting 5 extra DC to Illusion spells? Where are your "strict facts" if you're misreading how Spell Focus feats work?

Here's the description of Greater Spell Focus:

Choose a school of magic to which you have already applied the Spell Focus feat. Any spells you cast of this school are very hard to resist.
Benefit: Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against spells from the school of magic you select. This bonus stacks with the bonus from Spell Focus. Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new school to which you already have applied the Spell Focus feat.

Note the fact that it does not stack with any one school, only with SF. There is plenty of room in a 10 feat build for SF and GSF, especially when said build doesn't need to take Metamagic feats.

Rods are not Wizard exclusive. The metamagic bonuses Phantasmal Mages have with Illusion are exclusive. The Phantasmal mage can do both - or alternatively, pass the Rod to another caster in the group so they can both use metamagic manipulation sans the feats.

You don't need the Divination Initiative bonus either if you take Improved Initiative Mythic feat.

Quickening 9th level spells to be able to cast two in a round is extremely powerful, and the Wizard can't do that. Especially with Consume the Phantasmal Mage can do it all day long. When it comes to metamagic spell manipulation, both in volume and depth, mechanically a Wizard can never come even close to the Arcanist.

[MjKorz]

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Then name all the DC stacking feats an Arcanist will miss out on because of the 5 less feats. And remember, they have Persistent Spell for free. Feats do not equal a DC advantage. There is only SF and GSF, there aren't 3 more. No idea how you decided feats directly correlate to spell DCs.

I see you do not know how expanded arsenal works. I suggest you google it or search these forums, because I have already explained its function multiple times in some other threads.

The short story is: expanded arsenal sums all of your spell focus feats into a cumulative bonus and then applies it to a single school. You can sum only up to 14 feats (out of 16 in the game). 2 more feats are needed for spell penetration and then either greater spell penetration or persistent spell. Arcanist does not have enough feats to compete. Only Seeker Sorcerer does.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Their being useless is your opinion, but they have nothing to do with the real discussion which is Illusion magic. But IMO several are very nice to have, as well as the availability of Shadow Evocation - which were it not bugged would use the Illusion DC and allow feats like Maximize and Empower.

Exploits are indeed completely useless for an illusionist outside of CL/DC ones that are matched by Divination school specialization. They have no synergy with an illusionist build, same goes for shadow spells: you have no interest in dealing laughable direct damage as an illusionist when you can simply disable or delete entire encounters.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Rods are not Wizard exclusive.

There are enough rods in the game and if you run out of charges, you can just rest. 6 charges of quicken have always been enough for me since you're going to use them only in special encounters anyway like against bosses that need debuffs. Regular mob encounters you usually disable/delete with a single spell. Wizard gets metamagic for free via rods while Arcanist sacrifices 5 feats to get more metamagic on top of rods which is redundant. Absolutely not an equal exchange.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

You don't need the Divination Initiative bonus either if you take Improved Initiative Mythic feat.

Post yourself having a guaranteed 57+ initiative roll as an Arcanist. If you can't, you're not beating Areelu's initiative on unfair 100% of the time and are thus inferior to the Diviner who has a constant initiative of 63 that is not affected by any randomness.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

Quickening 9th level spells to be able to cast two in a round is extremely powerful, and the Wizard can't do that.

Yes, he can. There are two greater quicken rods in the game. 6 quickened level 9 spells per rest is more than enough for any boss or special encounter.

Originally posted by mike.xulima:

When it comes to metamagic spell manipulation, both in volume and depth, mechanically a Wizard can never come even close to the Arcanist.

Metamagic is not a priority for a DC caster (which is precisely what an Illusionist is) outside of persistent spell which the Wizard gets without losing any spell DCs, DC stacking is. Arcanist loses 5 and is completely overshadowed.

You are arguing about things you understand quite poorly. If you try playing an Illusionist or any DC caster for that matter on any difficulty above normal, you will very soon understand how horrible of a disadvantage is the loss of 5 spell DCs. You do not yet understand just how bloated enemy saves can get in this game:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2780891716

Good luck beating a Fortitude save of 86 as an Arcanist.