1. Screening is a +1 to AC. Hardly crippling for any offensive character. (compared to the +4 it was in PF1)
Plus the -2 volley penalty for using a longbow within 50 feet. Longbows in Pathfinder 2 are only effective without penalty between 51-100 feet.
So in a game where you're always going to be fighting people +/- 3 levels of you and need a 10+ to hit, a -3 penalty to most attacks is steep and will always put you behind the curve. It's a 30% reduction of accuracy.
2. In responds to suffer that's why I said hyperbole. If you want to play a martial character in 5e then you "suffer" immediately if you're not a fighter, because action surge, more attacks and more ability score improvements blow anything else out of the water. But classes like Barbarian and Paladin can do fine because they have other class features that make up for that. Just because a PF2 fighter has a couple more to hit than you (and likely less damage because of not having rage or Paladin weapon buffs) isn't going to make Paladins and Barbarians unplayable. And of course Paladins and Barbarians have special abilities that do things a fighter can't.
I'm not going to respond to this. Because, as you say later:
I was more referring to the people who keep on bringing up edition wars and business strategy stuff.
5th Edition discussion doesn't belong here. It's largely irrelevant to the discussion.
It's also whataboutism. Pointing out the flaws in 5e (and debatable ones at that) doesn't make the flaws in Pathfinder 2 forgivable or negate its problems.
3. On class feats mostly being actions you're exactly right and that's my point. PF1 was all about take your one style of attack and then take power attack/weapon focus/furious focus/etc to pump as many static bonuses out of it as possible. And a class like fighter did have "mostly" exclusive access to weapon specialization and greater weapon focus.
Which is kinda the catch. It's designing the fighter like a caster. Instead of letting players focus on one or two signature thing, it's giving them lots and lots of options they may not want. It's giving players who might just want to hit things a bunch of martial "spells" and a large hand size of options.
The fighter feats are nearly entirely action economy and giving things to do in battle. They're not pumping up hit (point blank shot is, but they've already said they're likely doing away with volley) so the difference between a fighter double shotting and a paladin archer just taking two shots isn't enough to make Paladin suboptimal or broken. Yes the fighter has a higher average to hit and will crit more, but likely the Paladin will have considerably higher damage mod between Blade of Justice and Righteous Ally. I just don't think its enough to make one unviable and I'll take note of that in the game I DM since we do have a Paladin.
The point is that the game is purposely designed for "balance" over "play". It wants you to play the expected characters that fit into the boxes designed by the game designers and how they conceptualise the classes and ancestries. Playing against type is harder, as is making variant characters.
And while the archer ranger build might be viable at low levels, at high levels the character will get feat after feat that doesn't benefit them and that they do not want. They'll have to pick from options that do not appeal to them and offer no benefit. It's the game telling you that you're playing it wrong. Or to "buy splatbook X" where the paladin gets an archery build with two new feats and six reprints.
4. Casters have never needed to burn feats to progress their spells, metamagic is a fine bonus but hardly required.. Basically most PF1 power melee builds were classes like Cleric or Druid or Summoner coming in with their 3/4 BAB and taking all the martial feats which combined with their powerful spell list made up the attack bonus. I don't think losing scaling hurts them that much either considering they get more of the power of the spell straight up (compare fireball at level 5 in PF1 vs PF2) as well as getting to cast spells in higher levels for the heightened benefits. Similarly a single class DC for all spells make it that lower level spells continue to be useful while in PF1 low level spells by high level were either utility of worthless. I think casters will continue to be strong and gishes are better than ever, even if you don't multiclass into another class.
I think they'll be fine. They seem much more in line with other classes.
But the
point is that having general combat feats and having the wizard take one instead of a caster feat is NOT going to move them from "fine" to "broken".
5. If they want to give double slice (or something similar) to rogue than that is cool. I just don't think its needed for martial feats to be in a general pool for everyone to take unless they're extremely basic things.
Agreed.
I just think the baseline feats that let you get adequate at archery, two-weapon fighting, using a shield, and other fighting styles need to be generic. There's lots of room for other generic combat feats. Like Quick Draw, Blind-Fighting, or maybe even Shield Bash.
The whole point of roleplaying games like Pathfinder is being able to build the characters you want. Pathfinder's whole selling point over 5e is increased customization and options. But the game is applying shackles and needless limitations to that customisation, which is defeating the primary selling point of the game. Instead of freeform creation, it's presenting classes with a bunch of established feat chains built around a single theme, which is a little too like the subclass design of 5e. Having the freedom not to take a subclass' feature isn't really a viable option if the other options don't work with your build. That's not a meaningful choice, that's a choice between optimal and in-optimal... which is the exact opposite of what is being asked for.
That's a huge freakin' design flaw.
