Glitterdust

[Destroyner]

I don't understand why this spell is so highly valued. Every guide/build I see online praises how it is such a required and powerful level 2 spell that should carry the early game but it seems like a waste of an action. It is an early game spell so enemy saving throw vs caster DC is pretty bad so if you have a min/max character with feats/stats optimized for it you will have around 20-23 DC against enemies with +6 - +14 will saves. I'm not going to do the math but let's say that is roughly 50% of the time it will blind the enemies. They get to re attempt the save every turn so it nearly never lasts more than a turn or two. The "glitter" part only seems to work against enemies with the invisibility spell on them and does nothing to reduce the concealment of blur/displacement which is what 90% of enemies with the concealment buff will use to attain it. I understand that blind is a powerful debuff but surely it is not more valuable than prone that can be triggered every turn?

I wouldn't say that it is a useless spell by any means but I don't understand why I see so much praise for it. Would it not be better to just heighten/selective grease into most of the slots you would save for glitterdust and just use 1-2 slots for prone immune enemies? Based on the ubiquity of praise for it, I've come to the conclusion that I am likely incorrect in my assessment, but I can't figure out how. What am I misunderstanding?

[Silyon]

Simply put, it effectively negates invisibility and displacement-based concealment. Both are incredibly common effects through the game, especially by demons. Concealment essentially gives you a flat 20%-50% miss chance, similar to Arcane spell failure but for all attacks against that unit. So it sucks real bad, and anything that lets you bypass that roll is automatically amazing regardless of what else it does.

[Aetemes]

Some enemies are immune to grease (winged)...so...lol...I mean I think most guides are trying really hard to justify any spell to use other than grease, cause lol what is that massive spell book for really. Blind is a stupid strong debuff still, just cast both to kill time.

[Moo]

I've definitely used grease a lot more than glitterdust.

[Jonkler]

You have such a strange perspective on the subject. Your point would have made sense if you had to pick one or the other, but it's not the case. You won't succeed on all of your grease attempts and not all enemies are even susceptible to prone, they also target different saves so it gives you more flexibility.

Maybe you are playing on lower difficulties where every grease against a non prone immune character is a guaranteed success, than sure completely disabling an enemy is much better than blind, but it's not the case most of the time. Usually you proc grease on some of the enemies, so you use glitterdust in the next round to attempt to additionally blind whoever is immune/manages to save against the spell. Its the best follow up option in the early game, as the grease is already on the ground and does it's work and you additionally blind everything that's left.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Silyon:

Simply put, it effectively negates invisibility and displacement-based concealment. Both are incredibly common effects through the game, especially by demons. Concealment essentially gives you a flat 20%-50% miss chance, similar to Arcane spell failure but for all attacks against that unit. So it sucks real bad, and anything that lets you bypass that roll is automatically amazing regardless of what else it does.

He literally said it's not working against Blur and Displacement effects.

Originally posted by Destroyner:

The "glitter" part only seems to work against enemies with the invisibility spell on them and does nothing to reduce the concealment of blur/displacement which is what 90% of enemies with the concealment buff will use to attain it.

Also, there's nothing in its description that indicates it overcoming any form of concealment other than invisibility:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Glitterdust

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/glitterdust

It outlines invisible things and gives a -40 to stealth checks. And may blind.

To the OP, others have mostly answered the question. To add to that, there are points where there are invisible/stealthed enemies kicking around and glitterdust is the go to solution to prevent a sneaky Babu from sneak attacking against your flat-footed AC.

[Gracey Face]

How old are the guides? A lot of spells in this game have been broken at one point or another and I wouldn't be surprised if the praise for glitterdust comes from it not working the way it was supposed to at some point.

It is a reasonably good spell, especially at low levels as it doesn't roll against SR, but it isn't that great.

[Dianos]

i had problems with the hunter retriever construct, I mistyped and used grease on it. It was obviously a large creature but ends up his reflexes were a bit too low and can't stand up for the whole fight. Railed it.

[Destroyner]

I must admit I typed this up after getting rekt in a fight against a boss that displaced herself so I probably downplayed the usefulness of the spell due to frustration. With that said:

@Aetemes
That makes sense. It is certainly useful against prone immune enemies when there aren't many other options early game. I think I may be too hesitant to "waste" spell casts when they are so limited so I end up erring on the side of caution too much and under-utilizing them instead. I usually end up needing to rest due to low hp/stat damage/divine casters being out of spells before my arcane users ever run out.

@Jonkler
The flexibility with different saves is true but the disparity between reflex and will saves is usually negligible enough that when it comes to action economy they are somewhat mutually exclusive as a turn one AoE CC. I'm currently playing on hard, so the reason I directly compared the two is because when you need/want a strong first turn CC and already have a less than ideal chance of the spell landing, it seems better to have one that is reapplied each turn automatically instead of a 1 time save or suck. More to your point, I think the reason my perspective is "strange" is that I am too hesitant to use multiple spell slots per fight because even though I'm not currently going for the SGD achievement I always try to limit my rests for some reason. The idea of using both a level 1 and a level 2 spell in the same fight is anathema to me. It does sound like the optimal use is as you said, using one then following up with the other.
tl;dr skill issue on my part.

@fox5s
That's a great point. Coming through on my second playthrough and knowing when I am going to get sneak attacked by babau/those 3 will-o-wisps in the cave and being able to preemptively get visibility on them has been a big benefit.

@Gracey Face
I mostly watch crpg bro on youtube since he tends to make more thematic builds and doesn't do a bunch of dips/mercenaries. Most of them are from within the last year.

Thanks for the answers everyone!

[D-Black Catto]

stop reading these guides, they are written by people who didn't even play the game, they want your views

[Silyon]

Originally posted by fox5s:

He literally said it's not working against Blur and Displacement effects.

...

Also, there's nothing in its description that indicates it overcoming any form of concealment other than invisibility:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Glitterdust

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/glitterdust

It outlines invisible things and gives a -40 to stealth checks. And may blind.

To the OP, others have mostly answered the question. To add to that, there are points where there are invisible/stealthed enemies kicking around and glitterdust is the go to solution to prevent a sneaky Babu from sneak attacking against your flat-footed AC.

Sorry, that would be my common-sense overtaking RAW again. Happens all the time. Because logically speaking, having an outline of the invisible dude is as good at defeating purely visual concealment as see invisibility or true seeing. Not how RAW or the CRPG works though, so I'll duck back in my corner.

[igor140]

My mileage has varied. I have used glitterdust FAR more than grease in my playthroughs. Granted, it hasn't been that often (maybe five or six time across four playthroughs), but I find MOST spells to be flat out bad, with only a few circumstantial gems hidden in between...

I think glitterdust is very effective early game against babaus, shadow demons, and glabadeus (or whatever they're called). About mid-game and later, communal true sight is the way to go. By the time you get it, mythic extended spell (need both feats) will make it last 24 hours.

I hardly ever even take grease, actually. I normally do with Woljif or some other half-caster for the cultists... but a HUGE number of demons are either extremely resistant or flat out immune to trip/ grease. It's easier just to stick swords in them... and it's easier to stick sword in them if they can't be invisible.

If grease could be igniting for long-lasting fire damage like in NWN, D:OS2, or PnP, it would be much better... but it can't, so it's not.

Also, I think people highly recommend glitterdust because it was almost required in Kingmaker, because in the last act, almost every single enemy was invisible and immune to pretty much everything.

[mk11]

In many cases where Glitterdust helps won't you need Selective which means trading for a 3rd-level slot for something like Haste?

[Moo]

Originally posted by D-Black Catto:

stop reading these guides, they are written by people who didn't even play the game, they want your views

Where would you suggest people go for help?

[igor140]

Haste is always good : ) IMO, that spell alone justifies carrying at least one arcane caster.

Originally posted by jeem1972:

Where would you suggest people go for help?

Here is a good place to start... You won't get 100% consensus on what to do, but you will get advice based upon ACTUAL game experience.

I personally like Fextralife. There are a lot of holes and missing information, but it's all actual in-game descriptions. So a lot of times that doesn't answer questions like "Does this feature play nicely with this other feature?" or "What the heck does this actually do?", but it will give you an honest depiction of what that feature is supposed to do. If you have further questions, chances are someone here has tried it.

The other downside of Fextralife is that it will involve TONS of reading and cross-referencing about 20 tabs.

cRPGBro is a youtuber who puts out some really good videos on builds and stuff. On the plus side, he explains everything reasonably well and his builds are really good. The downside is that all he cares about is "BiGgEr NuMbErS nOw!!11!" All of his builds are shown at level 20+, normally using the Trickster mythic path changed into Legend. This means that while his builds are good and his explanations make sense... they're really only designed for the last five hours of the 100 hour game : / So it's often difficult to gauge how well that build will do on other mythic paths or throughout the majority of the game. The other thing he does is explain WHY certain feats are good. He talks quickly, but if you catch it all, he certainly knows what he's talking about.

InEffect (he's got a NeoSeeker page) was-- I believe-- once considered the ultimate authority on all thing PathFinder/ DnD3.5... but his builds for WotR just aren't worth the effort. A lot of them go WAY out of their way to reinvent the wheel to squeeze an additional 3% out of a build in a game where that isn't worth the headache. If you read the comments at the bottom of his pages, several of his builds rely on feats and features that they literally can't get (due to missing stats, BAB, level, feat prerequisites, etc). Even the ones that work are overly complicated and so heavily munchkind'd that it's hard to tell what you're even supposed to do. That kind of build and theory-crafting was extremely valuable in NWN2, but it really isn't necessary in WotR.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Silyon:

Sorry, that would be my common-sense overtaking RAW again. Happens all the time. Because logically speaking, having an outline of the invisible dude is as good at defeating purely visual concealment as see invisibility or true seeing. Not how RAW or the CRPG works though, so I'll duck back in my corner.

It's all good. I get things confused with PnP or other options on occasion as well. You may have been thinking a Faerie Fire which does similar things minus the Blind at a lower level spell slot. And allows you to ignore those Blur and Displacement effects.

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Faerie+Fire

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/faerie-fire

However, it's also on very few spell lists making it harder to access.

Originally posted by igor140:

Originally posted by jeem1972:

Where would you suggest people go for help?

Here is a good place to start... You won't get 100% consensus on what to do, but you will get advice based upon ACTUAL game experience.

I also like cRPGbro's builds as a starting point. However, even when he says something is Unfair viable it's just not always the case. For example, he doesn't seem to understand the intricacies of Expanded Arsenal and just how high you need to stack your DCs to overcome the Unfair stat bloat.

And he doesn't seem to actually know exactly what gear is available to you by the end game. Several times when he's going over gear, he has huge holes that he tries to fill but would be better served with different equipment.

And his guides are also a bit out of date. I recall seeing one that uses the old mechanics of Elemental Barrage that got nerfed into the ground when Enhanced Edition came out.

But like I said before, they still work as a good starting point and will get your far enough into the game that, if you have been paying attention, will get you the rest of the way without too much trouble. And finding out the shortcomings will help you to build better in subsequent runs.

Oh! And most everything he talks about will still work out fine on Core or below. It just won't have the raw numbers needed work the way he says it does on Unfair.