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To be clear, my PFS wizard archetypes into magic warrior because I love the flavor of the character, not because there were no feats I wanted to take as a wizard. I have played an Abjurer, an illusionist, a Conjurer, a necromancer and a evoker. I have used meta magic, spell blending, and spell substitution theses. I have played 2 free archetype wizards and the rest with no variant rules. The PFS wizard is the only one not to take level 2 and 4 wizard class feats. It is strongly misleading to insist that there is only one way to build a fun and effective wizard.
I think that “capstone feats” are way over done in AP back matter. Too many classes have levels with only 2 or 3 feat options, including the wizard. At the same time, some levels of wizard are stacked with good options and retraining and double dipping at other levels is pretty common across classes. Too many good options can also become a problem if it leads into extreme overspecialization and not covering basic things the class needs to do. Even so, I think the “wizards have no good feats” complaint gains traction because level 2 and 4 are light on good options, but those are really the levels where players create character identity, so getting better options there is a good goal.
Edit:
Also the success and utility of a good wizard is always going to be determined by the campaign parameters. This is true of almost every class. You change the build based upon the theme and the tone of the campaign. Saying classes or class options are universally bad because they have niches is really not that productive. A giant barbarian in Abomination Vaults is not a great build choice. A spirit barbarian in that campaign is much better. That is not the typical analysis of those instincts in a general sense but it is true in a pretty tight dungeon crawl with a lot of spookiness to it.
It is pretty enlightening to me that many people's biggest complaints about the wizard appear to be that they want the wizard to be less of the "just cast regular spells class" (from spell slots or items) and more of the "use one of the other cool toys of pathfinder second edition more effective." I can understand where that is coming from, but we also need a class that is just putting all of its power budget into getting you spells and ways to play with those spells. Wizard has some really good options for feats that play with this. I would like to see more as well, but I think the hate fest on wizard feats is misdirected because they look boring on paper, but are fun in play. There are some misses (I am not sure what form retention was really supposed to accomplish, 10 minutes is just not enough time to be worth losing 2 spell ranks on. Hopefully it is getting fixed in the remastery). I am guessing that level 2 and level 4 are specifically the areas where most of the complaints about wizard feats are coming from. I have an almost impossible time passing up on conceal spell and silent spell at those levels, but I am curious what is happening there. Level 1 has very strong options though. Spellbook prodigy is incredibly helpful at lower levels. Learning spells can really be hit or miss early on and not being able to critically fail is pretty important until you can start boosting arcana. But wizards get so much out of the deception skill that is hard not to want to keep it boosted as well, so it can be nice to not need to focus all in on arcana right away but still expand your spell book. Eventually it becomes a feat to retrain into reach spell but it will really help you get to feeling like a wizard faster than any other level 1 feat. Counter spelling is campaign dependent, but it gets way too much hate. There are campaigns where wizards (and all their spell slots) can just shut down big bads, especially once you add on clever counter spell. Spending a spell slot and a reaction to have a decent chance of stealing 2 or 3 actions from a powerful enemy is amazingly effective, especially in a campaign like Fist of the Ruby Phoenix where you can watch your opposition fight in advance. Once you can reflect the spell back, still as part of the reaction, enemy casters have no fun fighting you.
The problem is that a lot of this was permissible in 1st Edition and it broke the game when you did so, meaning Paizo basically nuked it from oblivion to make sure it won't break the game anymore, and replaced it with...basically nothing of substance.
Regarding metamagics, Empower, Maximize, Quicken, Dazing, etc. are all nixed from the game. The only one that stayed is Quicken, and it's relatively minor in effect until later in the game, where you need to double-buff or want to try a wombo-combo with a not-so-high level spell, and honestly, compared to PF1, Quicken Spell got buffed (whereas before it was only spells 4 levels or lower that you can prepare/cast in that highest slot as a Swift Action). You could also mix and match these metamagics, so long as you had the spell levels available. Granted, it introduced metamagic cheese, but that's an issue with the system making it possible, and less of the system itself. Now, all we have for general metamagic is Reach, Widen, and Quicken. The rest is class-specific, in which case they're basically just class-exclusive metamagics. The worst part is, they could have kept Empower, Maximize, Dazing, etc. in this game, and they have all of the mechanics to make it work in this edition without breaking the game. Have Empower only work on spell levels 2 levels lower than your highest, have Maximize only work on spell levels 3-4 levels lower than your highest, and have Dazing include the Incapacitate trait for Stunned/Slowed 1. Pretty easy and balanced stuff, and also maintains value for lower level blasting spells.
You also had bonus spell slots based on your primary modifier. Those are gone now. There is now less opportunity to be diverse due to Paizo wanting spellcasters to literally be 15 Minute Adventurers by way of slaughtering spell slots (because seriously, preparing 5 Fireballs is probably overkill, whereas preparing a Haste or Slow or Time Jump is probably more prudent and a better use of your resources.) And no, I'm not going to count "Ring of Wizardry" as a solution, simply because that's only for specific classes, and because it requires access to an Uncommon Item to acquire. Really, the amount of spells a Wizard had wasn't really what made them overpowered, it was because they accessed them earlier, had the strongest spell list, and had no parity/ridiculous manipulation behind their spells. Wand of Cure Light Wounds? I'll just Summon a creature that can cast it as a Spell-Like Ability at-will. It wasn't because he could do this 8 times a day, it was the fact this could be done at all.
I also absolutely dislike your claim of "Counterspell Wizards are OP," because first, you are listing a specific example where being able to witness how an enemy fights literally tells you what tactics to bring. Not only is this a specific advantage of the Wizard class (assuming you get to prepare before-hand), but of Counterspell in general, since you will both know what spells are going to being cast (meaning you know what to prepare/learn), as well as what levels they are being cast (so you know what slots will be good for Dispel Magic and what slots will be better with other spells). Saying that a specific example in a specific AP is why a specific build of Wizard is good does not translate to it being functional in standard play because these are not typical circumstances of standard play, these are hand-picked, ideal circumstances of play.
When you come across an enemy spellcaster in typical circumstances of standard play, you likely won't know what spells they have (unless they are specific ones, or are common ones you also happen to use), and you won't have the capability to prepare slots to specifically counteract them (unless you are Spontaneous, in which case that's another point against the Wizard class). Even if you do, they could either cast other spells (that you might not have prepared against), do other tactics (like use focus spells, make melee attacks, etc.), or be of a completely different tradition that you cannot learn of or prepare for (in either case, your build does nothing helpful for the encounter).
Secondly, this comes across as no other Wizard types being feasible, in which case that is a talltale sign of bad class design, because that also means Scroll Wizards are bad, Wand/Staff Wizards are bad, and Familiar Wizards are bad (though there is absolutely no saving that last one, Paizo dug their grave with it during the playtest). The factor that the only good Wizard is one that Counterspells should be telling enough that the Wizard needs more to it than just "I counteract enemy spellcasters sometimes. If my dice aren't trash. And they're also Arcane spellcasters."
I haven't looked through the rules for complex crafting in a while, or crafting in general for that matter, but would a Skilled...Yeah I honestly didn't realize the raw power of scrolls until I started doing the math on them. They're priced at 1/10 of a wand (if not lower, wands of 8th rank spells cost 15k gp whereas 8th rank scrolls are only 1.3k), which is shockingly cheap.
** spoiler omitted **
Especially for blasters (whose wands become pretty useless as they level up, vs. control spells which retain their value if they're not incapacitation), that's a great deal. There are usually about 10 encounters per level, and according to "Treasure for New Characters"
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=587
you get about enough treasure to purchase a wand of your highest spell rank - 1 per level (so if you're level 12, your highest spell rank is 6th, you get 1.9k gp leveling to 13, which is more than enough to afford ten scrolls of 5th rank spells costing 150 gp apiece or 1.5k gp total). So you can cast 1 spell of your highest rank - 1 each and every encounter at level 12.
At level 13, same story. Your max spell rank is now 7th rather than 6th. Leveling to 14 you'll get 2.9k gp, and ten scrolls of 6th rank spells cost 300 gp apiece, 3k total.
Always opening with a cone of cold (you start combat with a scroll drawn obviously) at level 12? Yeah, I'd take that. Ditto starting every combat at level 13 with a chain lightning . Not that it's restricted to wizards, as other people have said. But yeah, it's worth it. It deals more damage than an on-level druid focus spell - pulverizing cascade is 11d6 at level 12 (lower than cone of cold's 12d6), and 13d6 ~ 45.5 at level 13 (lower than chain lightning's 8d12 ~ 52)
And as a wizard, you have an extra spell slot of every spell rank you can...
Scrolls are a decent item. Easy to make. One of the few times crafting isn't a bad use for.
I haven't checked those out.
I know you can 4 scrolls of the same kind in 4 days. If you have downtime, you can churn out a lot of lower level scrolls cheaply by spending extra days to reduce the cost. It does require sufficient downtime.
It is my understanding that your crafting acts as earned income equal to your level and skill proficiency. So you reduce the cost by that amount. Lower level scrolls are often very cheap, so you can churn them out for half price with a higher level crafting very, very easily and cheaply.
If you're a level 11 master crafter making a bunch of slow scrolls, you can churn out 4 for half-price very quickly. Or flies. Makes scrolls a very good use of your coin. As a wizard with intel as your main stat, crafting comes easily to you.
And then there's the top-end wizard feats. Like spell combination . Spell combination is horrifying when used correctly. Combining chain lightning with itself gets you very silly blasting ("Why yes, I would like to deal 104 damage on a basic save out of an 8th level spell, thank you"), ditto combining rays with each other and then casting true strike . Or maybe you want a combo-buff so you pick up haste and 4th rank invisibility . Gets even more absurd with quickened spell so that you can toss out the equivalent of 4 spells per turn, and you can recharge them with Drain Bonded Item and bond conservation (multiple times as a universalist).
At least it probably doesn't work with multiclassing for spells on other lists...
I don't think we should consider class balance based on lvl 20 feats hah. Most characters will never see them, and those that do have them for a handful of fights.
Plus not sure chain lightning is the best example, good single target damage but you miss all the bounces!
Both true! But that's sort of what Spell Combination does - murders a single target. Likewise, a double-strength horizon thunder sphere cast out of an 8th (so 2 x heightened to 6th level) deals 91 points of damage on a hit. Which is higher damage than polar ray against a level 20 target.
But anyway, Spell Blending, Drain Bonded Item, Scroll Savant, Bond Conservation, and Staff Nexus all mean that the wizard has a frankly absurd quantity of high level slots.
Math at level 10:
** spoiler omitted **...
You don't need to cast all that often as you gain levels. You need to apply pressure when necessary.
As a caster I rely on focus spells a lot at higher level in mook battles. My druid may drop one chain lightning. change into dragon form next round and enter melee. Use a breath weapon. Maybe drop a tempest surge. I'd be surprise if the fight isn't over by that time.
Then in boss battles I usually debuff and let the martials tear them apart. One slow spell a round. A higher level sorcerer with slow as a signature spell can use slow all day. Wizard would have to memorize slow multiple times to do the same.
Then drop a magic missile to finish someone off and mix in other heals or what not, win easily.
The problem I see with the wizard is having a bunch of spell slots with 50% fail rates isn't a particularly worthwhile ability. Your spell slots aren't as effective as martials for damage and certain high value debuffs are what you use over and over and over again.
A good nearly no cost focus spell that does some damage in mook battles or some other effect is much better than a spell slot you use and are done with.
You never feel bad using a focus spell to do something like you do when a spell slot does nothing.
Wizard's like, "Gee, I have six highest level spell slots."
Monster succeeds on save.
Sorcerer casts slow for the 8th time in a day and drops a damaging focus point spell he gets back nearly every fight and the creature succeeds on its save and is still slowed for 1 round and he does half damage. He shrugs. I'll refocus for 10 minutes and be all good again.
Spell slots are not as valuable as they once were. A good focus spell is every bit as good as a spell slot.
Once the wizard locks in his spell slots if he takes Spell Blending or Staff Nexus, he can't change it until the next day. Where the sorcerer is casting slow or magic missile or fireball or synesthesia while being arcane all day at higher level.
Then give the sorcerer a staff or wand and he has free slots to blow off for mook battles that don't matter.
I've never run short of slots in this game at higher level.
To be clear, my PFS wizard archetypes into magic warrior because I love the flavor of the character, not because there were no feats I wanted to take as a wizard. I have played an Abjurer, an illusionist, a Conjurer, a necromancer and a evoker. I have used meta magic, spell blending, and spell substitution theses. I have played 2 free archetype wizards and the rest with no variant rules. The PFS wizard is the only one not to take level 2 and 4 wizard class feats. It is strongly misleading to insist that there is only one way to build a fun and effective wizard.
I think that “capstone feats” are way over done in AP back matter. Too many classes have levels with only 2 or 3 feat options, including the wizard. At the same time, some levels of wizard are stacked with good options and retraining and double dipping at other levels is pretty common across classes. Too many good options can also become a problem if it leads into extreme overspecialization and not covering basic things the class needs to do. Even so, I think the “wizards have no good feats” complaint gains traction because level 2 and 4 are light on good options, but those are really the levels where players create character identity, so getting better options there is a good goal.
Edit:
Also the success and utility of a good wizard is always going to be determined by the campaign parameters. This is true of almost every class. You change the build based upon the theme and the tone of the campaign. Saying classes or class options are universally bad because they have niches is really not that productive. A giant barbarian in Abomination Vaults is not a great build choice. A spirit barbarian in that campaign is much better. That is not the typical analysis of those instincts in a general sense but it is true in a pretty tight dungeon crawl with a lot of spookiness to it.
No. It isn't true of every class.
I can beat this game with martials, a healer, and a few spells like slow, synesthesia, and magic missile over and over and over again.
Waiting for the wizard to memorize some right spell is completely unnecessary in PF2. Martials are so good in this game that enemies have no way to counter martials. None whatsoever. Martials can beat everything you throw at them and more.
Which is why the old PF1 paradigm of having to counter monster abilities is gone. Back in PF1 a wizard was needed to counter enemy casters because martials had weak saves, not much of a means to counter invis or fly or mind blank, and spells like wind wall or the mobile version completely made archers useless.
That isn't this edition. In this edition martials have excellent saves, fast movement, lots of invis counters, and can absolutely wreck just about everything thrown at them.
So waiting for Mr. Wizard to change out a spell slot isn't necessary. Mr. Wizard does nothing special any more. He's a class that has lost its importance due the loss of power and the change in the paradigm of the game.
Martials don't need Mr. Wizard any more. Which is why Mr. Wizard should be built with that in mind so he can do more stuff that doesn't involve what Mr. Wizard used to do. Each class is fairly self-contained now. The group tactics are helpful to win, but not spells.
Trip is the god maneuver now. Anything that can active reaction attacks and abilities.
Anything that can take actions is king.
Mr. Wizard is just one of many caster options to take actions. Not the best at it, not the worst. Problem is there are a lot of casters that can take actions and do other things like Mr. Bard who can still cast that slow or synesthesia, while boosting the entire party's hit chance or reducing every monster defense with a single action ability while casting a spell.
Mr. Sorcerer has a lot of focus points, can pick up a spellbook to change out spells, and grab heal as an Arcane caster while also using staves and scrolls to extend his casting without the limitation of being locked into prepared spells.
An imperial sorcerer can give someone a 10 minute haste for 1 focus point. Pretty nice.
You don't need a wizard like you did in PF1. Spell slots that fail 40 to 50% of the time if they land at all with the incap trait aren't that powerful.
At least when it comes to counterspell, you can just cherry pick the spells worth counterspelling in the first place. Not like there are that many of them.
Given that the summoning spells require you to have metagame knowledge of the bestiary anyway, may as well extend that to counterspell considerations too.
I'm surprised to see endorsements for staff thesis though. I figured it was wholly worthless since it is at best 1-2 level-2 slots which is pretty pointless. Not like you need nexus to get maximum usage out of the best stave spells in the game anyway (true strike and imaginary object).
Honestly, with how little you need lower level slots in general you can probably fully get away with a flexible blending wizard and roll with 1/1/2/.../4/4 by blending away those soon to be useless school slots. Not like blending those slots away reduces your flex repertoire either.
Do you ever find counterspell useful. It's a hard roll against a boss DC as it is. If Counterspell were automatic, then it would be worthwhile.
And often the target of the spell like a martial is already going to have a good save anyway.
For AoE spells shadow siphon is a better option.
I haven't found much use for counterspell. Seems like a waste of a spell slot.
No offense to you Deriven, I know you have a lot of fun playing PF2 and I think that is totally awesome. But I am pretty sure I would not enjoy playing with any group that is out to "beat this game with martials, a healer, and a few spells like slow, synesthesia, and magic missile over and over and over again."
I play this game to have fun with my friends, and we enjoy cat and mouse adventures. We enjoy going off script and coming up with ideas that are more about story telling than winning a game. Especially because the GM can always beat you. The adventure writer can beat you. Accidentally turning the game into a competition against other players can lead to everyone losing the game.
From the description of your preferred game play, it is exceedingly clear that a sorcerer with a strong focus spell provides everything you are looking for out of a caster in PF2. Awesome! I am glad that class is so rewarding for you, although I recommend trying a psychic sometime as well. It is a lot of fun, very effective and I think it would do all the things you need out of a caster as well.
The PF2 wizard is a very good problem solver and problem maker in groups that like creative dynamic game play. It accomplishes this with spell slots. Spell slots in PF2 have been pretty well tuned to a pretty high level and there is only so much wiggle room on options to make spell slot spells more powerful. Most of them involve interacting with your team mates tactically. I take it as a point of pride that people would say things like "you are listing a specific example where being able to witness how an enemy fights literally tells you what tactics to bring" about the wizard player in my Fist of the Ruby Phoenix campaign because I agree, the player made an exceptionally well fitting character for the campaign based upon our session 0 discussion about what kind of campaign it would be. I always want my players to feel like their characters are good fits into the world they are playing in, and I put a lot of time and effort into doing the same with my characters. I do have a wizard in PFS where the story is more "prepare for anything," but it is prepare for anything within the context of a scenario where you get a lead in story and usually time to learn about where you are going and what you are doing before you get there. I 100% agree that a party that does not enjoy taking their time getting to encounters, doing their research, asking around about the challenges that might be ahead is not a party where a player is likely to have a lot of fun with a wizard. I just don't think the game needs it to be. There are a bunch of other casters that can fit well in that party and everyone will have a great time. I don't think every class needs to be a good fit for every campaign.
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A giant barbarian in Abomination Vaults is not a great build choice.
Having seen/played/run through abomination vaults three times with giant barbarians (and three times without) this is definitively not true at all.
We enjoy going off script and coming up with ideas that are more about story telling than winning a game.
I mean so do lots of people, and nothing about making the wizard more or less frustrating for the people who have problems with it would change that. Mechanically effectiveness and storytelling capability being mutually exclusive is a very tired false argument.
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A giant barbarian in Abomination Vaults is not a great build choice.Having seen/played/run through abomination vaults three times with giant barbarians (and three times without) this is definitively not true at all.
We enjoy going off script and coming up with ideas that are more about story telling than winning a game.I mean so do lots of people, and nothing about making the wizard more or less frustrating for the people who have problems with it would change that. Mechanically effectiveness and storytelling capability being mutually exclusive is a very tired false argument.
Did they just not take giant's stature? The maps of that AP are so small to navigate with a large creature. I guess if they weren't into the becoming a Giant it could work out ok, and I guess the folks I have seen play giant instinct all tend to like the "be big" approach.
Edit: I didn't mean that the wizard was choosing narrative ability over mechanical ability. I was saying that the mechanical abilities of the current PF2 wizard are very well suited for a style of narrative play that is connected with trying to figure out what "script" the enemy is trying to run, and forcing them to go off it. As opposed to a style of play that is about the party just trying to decide what the script is going to be without really knowing what the enemy is going to try to do, and sticking to that script no matter what.
They took giants stature and used it fairly frequently, occasionally they chose not to when it was inconvenient.
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You don't need Giant's Stature to do the extra damage. Main time Giant's Stature becomes good is when you get Whirlwind Attack. Most of the time you just crush things for damage.
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SpellSub is weird because it's best when you can find out about an encounter in advance but not too far in advance.
The idea of it is very cool, because it targets one of the biggest weaknesses of the Wizard in having the wrong spells prepared... but the sweet spot you need for it doesn't get hit all that often from my experience. Most encounters either don't have enough forewarning to let you SpellSub at all, or are telegraphed well enough you can just use the normal preparation feature to fix your spell loadout.
And, indeed, given that we know Wizards are balanced around the latter assumption, SpellSub kind of works contrary to the idea of the class. Time pressures often aren't set up properly to enable it too, either too quick or too slow.
I really like the idea of it, but like so many wizard features your GM has to take extra steps and go out of their way to make it good for you in a way that other options and other classes just don't.
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I really dislike and find no value in the argument that a class is ok if a campaign is run in a very certain tupe of way because every table is different and most classes work fine no matter the kind of campaign it is without extra GM help.
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There are two major changes I would make to Wizard. Both are probably hot takes.
1. Preparing. Spells. Is. Horrible. At least as it is implemented. I have literally never, in my entire 25 years of playing tabletop RPGs, ever encountered someone who felt "Oh yeah. I LOVE doing the spreadsheet accounting to figure out if I need 2 of this, and 1 of that, and 3 of those prepared, and 1 of each of these three spells...". This actually sort of goes for every prepared caster, but we are talking about wizard here.
Honestly, Wizard needs something similar to the 1E Arcanist method of preparing spells. It is literally so good and simple that DnD stole it for it's implementation of wizard.
Paizo is sitting on a good mechanic for wizard spellcasting and what's better is no one can even accuse them of stealing the idea, because they are the one who came up with it.
2. Spellcasting accuracy is god awful. The last game I DMed, there were two fighters in the party. There were several times in the campaign where the fighters would regularly be making one action attacks that did more average damage than a two action cantrip, and had +7 better to hit on the attack than the wizard.
This was +4 from proficiency, +1 from weapon rune, and +2 from flatfooted at early levels, and later levels it was +2 proficiency, +3 rune, +2 flat footed.
That's a 35% better chance to hit and crit. The difference is so large the shock is like a slap to the face to see it in action. This wouldn't be so bad if the chance to hit for the wizard was still pretty good, but it is not. The wizard would often be rolling to hit with a 50% chance or less to land the spell attack. This doesn't even get into the abysmal odds of getting a monster to fail it's save, particularly a boss, and god forbid the spell has the incapacitate tag.
People like to succeed, they don't like to fail. I would rather Paizo nerf spell effects and increase the odds of the spells taking effect, if they consider increasing the odds of hitting to be too unbalanced, than leaving it as it is.
To be fair, Spell Substitution has it's uses. Just not in the way it is often presented. The real strength of spell substitution is not that you can change spells to affect weaknesses on the fly. The main benefit is that you can prepare all (or most) slots as combat spells and switch them out for utility spells, when the need arises. Because you almost always have 10 minutes to spare out of combat, but never in combat (or before combat).
That is especially useful on early levels, where slots are rare any you only want to prepare spells like Jump, Spider-Climb, Charm, Mending, Air Bubble, Lock, Invisibility and so on, when you actually need them and not on the slim chance that you might need them. That is also true for the later spell ranks with things like fly or Dimension Door. So basically the spells you'd normally buy as scrolls, so effectively it's a money saver.
But it's definitely not the Silver Bullet provider.
My experience with it is that it can be both of the things. Like I agree that the key use is memorizing the powerful spells that you want to fire off first thing, but you don’t need to over do it with those spells, because once you have 4 or 5 combat spells you want to cast in any encounter, you are almost certainly going to have time after that encounter to realign what spells you have memorized. So if you cast your fireball spell, a true strike and an acid arrow, you will very likely have time to move things around to get those back. That is a common, “everyday” usage of spell substitution. But it was a fantastic thesis for the slithering, for outlaws of Alkenstar, and Age of Ashes. Many campaigns give you tasks you want to complete by the end of the day, but time to ask around about them, or time to poke around the outside of the encounter space before going in. That is especially where the subbed in utility options have proven, in practice, to be useful. A lot of it is stuff that scrolls can eventually cover, which is why I tend to favor spell blending now over spell substitution, but if you hate scrolls, spell substitution would be pretty great.
It's pretty far from bad. Not an opinion, but a provable fact.
What possible reason would you come up with to show the sorcerer as bad? I would love to hear it.
Your first statement feels like you're not up for an actual conversation but just want to hear reasons to argue against them, making me almost not respond.
I'm not interested in a protracted argument but thought you'd be at least interested in hearing my reasons.
Arcane Sorcerer:
Wizards get effectively an extra highest level slot from Arcane Bond and can further their higher level slot advantage with Spell Blending.
Wizards have much greater flexibility. Today we're travelling overland and I want lots of travel spells. Tomorrow we're fighting ghosts so I can memorize Ghostly Weapons and Magic Missile. The day after we're going to troll land so I'll take some acid and fire spells.
I really enjoy editing my daily spell list based on knowledge and current part composition. Spontaneous casting in general feels much less flexible, almost stifling to me. While I understand many folks are quite fond of it, over the fully Vancian memorize Spells etc, it always feels like a big downgrade to me in actual play.
While Charisma provides some immediate options via demoralize and diplomacy in social situations, int provides you with crafting which can be a significant wealth increase via downtime. It's also provides benefits in more situations. Society is frequently useful in social situations with Arcana and Occultism being useful recall knowledge skills for both monsters and magical things. A good lore really helps flesh out what a character's good at (both mechanically and flavorfully) and crafting even comes up frequently with mechanical devices as an alternative to thievery.
Divine Sorcerer:
The divine list sucks (although is clearly getting at least a little better with the remaster and RoE cantrips). It's full of situational condition removal that's particularly bad for a spontaneous caster. Clerics get ~4 extra max level slots to make up for this but the divine sorcerer is just not good.
Primal and Occult Sorcerers get compared to Druid and Bard and come up lacking there as well. Bard isn't really a fair comparison since they are generally agreed to be notably above the curve.
Druids gets wisdom which helps with will saves, initiative, and several useful skills. They get strong focus spells, medium armor. They don't even need a spellbook, they can just freely choose from the whole primal list every day.
Compared to the Wizard, Sorcerer's do get a faster fort progression which is nice, advancing with the Witch at level 5 to Expert although they pay for it with a slower reflex progression.
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I really dislike and find no value in the argument that a class is ok if a campaign is run in a very certain tupe of way because every table is different and most classes work fine no matter the kind of campaign it is without extra GM help.
*[Investigator has entered the chat]*
Seriously though, this class is pretty much gutter swill if your GM isn't specifically tailor-making the campaign to suit the needs of your class abilities or providing a bunch of opportunities to do your thing, otherwise, you just end up feeling like a nerfed Rogue who has to waste a bunch of time in order to try and get some extra damage once or perhaps twice per combat.