Shifter: Child of the Manticore question

[Nightfall29]

I'm playing a new run through as a Child of the Manticore shifter. One thing that is bugging me though is I seem to have no way to do any melee attacks at all. When in Manticore form, should I not also have the option to bite/claw instead of throwing spikes? You know, for when baddies are right in your face?

[kodama]

Child of the Manticore was designed as a purely ranged archetype that doesn't have access to Point Blank Master feat.

It is also very feat-starved.

Those were two main reasons why on my Child of the Manticore run I decided to go Legend (Trickster->Legend to be specific).

My second class of choice was Mutation Warrior as it gave me access to Point Blank Master and enough feats to pick full Snap Line, Combat Reflexes + Outflank + Seize, Shatter, Trickster Perc 2 Improved Critical Line, Critical Mastery and so on.

Also, Grand Mutagen stacks with stat boost from Manticore Shape and Manticore Aspect (Feral Mutagen, on the other hand, clashes with Manticore Shape).

On top of that, iterative attacks from Shifter's Fury and Legend's BAB progression stack, so MC ended up with 13 ranged attacks per round.

With Lann and Aru in the party, game turned into ranged AoOs crit-fest later on (Core difficulty).

Prior to getting access to Point Blank Master, I simply tried to keep MC outside of melee range, most of the time it wasn't that hard. Also, Greater Invisibility and other concealment buffs from Woljif/Nenio were huge help (while those do not prevent provoking AoOs, chances that enemies will actually hit you are slim, on Core at least).

[Nightfall29]

Thank you for your advice! I'll keep that in mind and plan accordingly. I'm only level 6 so far. I guess I was just thinking he would have a claw or bite attack, since actual manticores do. I can work with it though. Thanks again!