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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6170647" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Well, I'm not sure they made the decision here based on power, but rather based on flavor as Sorceror and Cleric are much in line with the "natural", "organic" spellcasting one would expect to be part of a Ranger's traditional woodsman/survivalist archetype, rather than the studious wizard, locked in his tower, thumbing through pages of ancient tomes to learn obscure, arcane formulas.  Further, I don't think an examination of the comparison from a balance perspective bears it out that Blur is an objectively more potent spell.1st level Ranger with Cure Wounds Daily:- Quick Action to cast so no loss in Action Economy with respect to deployment of their high damage with Double Attack.- Assuming a + 2 Con (and thus a mean of ~ 7 Recovery value), you're actively mitigating 7 HP worth of HP ablation in one fight per day.- This spell has the utility of being active in its payload; eg you are in control of when you deploy it rather than being at the mercy of a low % check.1st level Ranger with Blur Daily:- Action to cast so a net loss in Action Economy of 1 Double Attack to deploy this defensive spell.  For a 1st level elf (Heritage of the Sword feat and 18 dex), dual-wielding short swords, that would be a net loss of 6.6ish damage; or about 1/3 of a level 0 enemy's HP.- A level 0 enemy does slightly more than 1/2 of a +2 Con Ranger's average Recovery (7) on a successful hit, or 4.  Blur negates 1 in every 5 succesful hits.  Therefore, it would take 10 successful hits against a Ranger for Blur to mitigate more HP ablation than Cure does; 8 versus 7.  A Light Armor, 1st level Ranger with + 2 middle attribute will have an AC of 17.  At + 5 to hit, level 0 enemies are only hitting 45 %, and thus checking against Blur's effect, of the time.  As such, its going to take an extremely large number of total attacks against that Ranger for the mitigatory effects of Blur to outdo the restorative effect of Cure Wounds.Given the above, I'd say Cure Wounds is objectively a more effective spell than Blur across the board.  Ranger's currently have access to this spell.For clarity's sake, the comparison I was making wasn't with respect to Animal Companion versus any other feature.  It was the comparative balance of two separate builds which was in dispute; one of which encapsulated Animal Companion + Double Melee Attack while the other encapsulated a variation on Double Attack with an attack spell in the stead of a melee offhand (perhaps with Magic Missile or Color Spray, which would probably only get deployed once per fight given the double check for even attack roll and even number on escalation dice, instead of the secondary attack) + Spell Fist (which in this scenario would really provide only a + 0 or + 1 AC benefit depending on where the default AC for Light Armor would be set) and Shield and Blur.  The Double Attack variation would basically be a wash (ish) so the question would be is + 1 AC (assuming the class starts at AC 13 so gets a default 15 with Spell Fist) and access to Shield and Blur as powerful as an Animal Companion.Gotcha.  I'd have to see it in play but I've got a pretty good handle on extrapolating its effects I think.  1)  Incidentally, I had the stats for a level 1 companion above, where it should be a level 0 companion for a level 1 Ranger.  This would basically be a net gain for the Ranger of (against level 0 monsters) (i) ~ 2.5 DPR with a nice rider (survivability or damage boost), (ii) a pool of 20 extra HPs to ablate, (iii) another PC for positioning and melee control, (iv) 2 extra Recoveries/day.  This creature is also healed when you Rally or spend a recovery while adjacent to it.2)  We already know about what Blur brings to the table.  Depending on the total number of enemy attacks against the Ranger in the combat where it is deployed, somewhere between .5 to 1.25 Recovery value in HPs 1/day at the cost of approximately 1/3 a level - 1 creatures HPs due to action economy loss.  So, for the 1st level Ranger, maybe 7ish "damage-in" mitigated daily at the cost of pretty close to that same 7 in "damage-out."3)  Personally, I would say Shield is flat-out objectively the better spell between the two; its actively deployable (therefore on-demand) with no action economy loss and on an 11 + recharge schedule rather than Daily.  For that 1st level Ranger, you could probably safely average it out to turning 4 damage into 1.8 damage on a per encounter basis so a mean net mitigation of ~ 2.2 HP/encounter.In terms of overall net gain in power and utility, is option # 1 better than, worse than or equal to # 2 + # 3 + a passive + 1 AC.  Take your pick I suppose.  I think a heady player with a tactical mind would get more mileage out of 1.Gotcha! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I'd be curious to see it!</blockquote>

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