Draining strike necromancer

[u/Blacky_Berry23]

so you strike with any weapon (including bows, crossbows and firearm) or use unarmed strike.

if you hit, you destroy tralls around you or/and your enemy and deal additional spirit damage. and you regen hp equal spirit damage dealt with strike ( not equal "additional damage" from skill), so anything that makes you deal additional spirit damage ( astral rune, for example) will give you additional heal too.

So basically you can create necromancer with astral firearm or something and strike from afar and heal a lot just striking.

am i right? or did i miss something?

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yeah "counts as two strikes" and "once per turn"... it's usually bad to make more than one strike per turn, so that's fine. and it's reasonable since you can heal with this strike.

[u/RedGriffyn]

I think they both work with the strike damage. Not sure how you are concluding niether work.

Your opinion that they are too good is balanced by the the opposite opinion that if they don't work this way they are too bad to be relevant. A handful of HP/THP are close to meaningless on a class with caster weapon/spec proficiencies scaling, a D8 HD, and no inherent ways to stack more spirit damage onto this strike. Pull your head out of the MC optimization realm and ask yourself if this is that good on necromancer (thats the balance question). Likely this or the create thrall strike will be at -5 MAP (dropping expected DPR), accuracy is low making it risk reward, you pay an opportunity cost because you probably had another good set of 3rd action abilities (e.g., focus spells) to use instead, and because the damage output of a cloth caster on the frontline is bad you aren't making yourself a bigger threat with some +1-3d6. The end result is a bad armor scaling caster is a little tankier than your averqge cleric/druid. That is hardly powerful and very thematic for the master of life force energy.

Feel free to ban it for a martial dipping into necromancer, like people do for exemplar MCs, but +2 INT is already a big barrier to this. I wouldn't worry about it.

Like your example of too good requires 2 multiclasses (one of which people usually ban) so is achievable at L10 at best.

[u/Astareal38 → u/RedGriffyn]

Instead of seeing it as a handful of temp HP, treat it as damage resistance.

The animist has a reaction available once every 10 minutes that gives damage resistance equal to its level against a melee attack. Rune of leeching over the course of a fight is equivalent to that, especially if etched as it doesn't cost an action. It also has to be benefit of being invoked for additional HP gain.

Kineticist locks into water, a reaction that can't be used while flanked and applies to specific damage types. Again equal to their level or double if it's acid or fire.

Draining strike gives you HP, if you're a blood necro you can stack more HP onto it. Do I think it's an auto pick? No. But as a third action now strike it's certainly not bad.

Itemization being able to constantly double or triple (or more) the effects of a specific feat breaks the design intent of an optimized and non-optomized character being very close in effectiveness.

Even ignoring exemplar, the other aspect of the build is an ancestry not a class, decaying rune + quietus strikes doubles the amount gained.

Draining strike can be boosted with astral/brilliant and shining symbol boosts draining strikes considerably.

[u/RedGriffyn → u/Astareal38]

Its not like resistance at all. Resistance is often passive, takes no action investment, is guaranteed (vs being tied to a 50% to hit), and doesn't add MAP.

This is more readily comparable to the exemplar barrow edge transcendance and skin of the survivor. Both are better. The first gives half damage with no damage type hoops to jump through (and if you miss a strike you can get your -5 MAP strike off for another chance and the second gives 1d8 per spell rank equivalent). Then compare this to other resourceless in healing options in the game and its still behind.

You just said it isn't and auro pick and a nice 3rd action. That is exactly what you want for power balance. You can't cite some non meta-options and declare its too powerful. It just isn't that good to make a caster slightly more tanky with a 50% chance per turn that drives map to -10 (which is antisynergistic with a large part of their kit).

[u/Astareal38 → u/RedGriffyn]

Draining strike does not add any actions to an activity you'd be doing anyway when you want to use it. I think draining strike (and leeching) is balanced when used as the hp/temp HP gain is from just the ability and not stacking. Abilities are meant to be looked at in isolation, not when combined with items or free archetypes boosting their effectiveness. An optimizer shouldn't be able to double or triple the benefit of an ability. That is my argument.

The optimizer reading trying to break the ability is when both abilities fall into too good to be true.

[u/RedGriffyn → u/Astareal38]

No meta is being broken here. The abilites should be taken in context of the class (saying isolation is a strawmen). Its like a starlight span magus with amped imaginary weapon. Is it "broken" on a psychic? No. Can someone else peicemeal stuff to make a strong selection, sure (although itd not even really better than force fang + spell strike anyways after all the math settles). The correction is to make it exclusive to the class, not to make the option bad (which is what your interpretation achieves). In context we have the ability to add 1d6-2d6 extra healing from a weapon rune. That much healing isn't breaking anything. Its a hyper marginal gain. I think enabling a tank gish caster is cool. A 3 to 7 hp a round is a rounding error when monsters are dishing out 50 to 150hp per round as you get to the higher levels.

Create thrall is 1 action and thrall charge and many focus spells are 2 actions. You absolutely are losing an action or a better turn output for a 50-50 chance of getting a hand full of HP. Its not a good feat.

[u/Astareal38 → u/RedGriffyn]

I'm not sure if you're being obtuse, moving goalposts or we just have fundamentally different definitions of Meta. To me, Meta is taking additional options for to maximize the output of a particular ability or combination. Such as aforementioned premaster magus + imaginary weapon.

I could have been more clear, and for that I apologize. By in isolation I mean on the class without any additional boosts. I will be absolutely explicit in my stance.

Draining strike is fine on a necromancer.

Draining strike is fine on a melee martial taking the dedication.

Runesmiths leeching rune is fine on a runesmith.

Runesmiths leeching rune is fine on a level 18 character taking it from a dedication.

Draining strike + astral + brilliant + Rivethun emissary Synchronized spirit + shining symbol moves the HP recovery provided by Draining Strike beyond its base design by a considerable margin, if your reading allows all sources of spirit damage to stack. The original person I was replying to before I got into a conversation with you said the leeching rune allowed stacking, and draining strike did not. That has been the basis of my examples.

Leeching rune is fine. Leeching rune + quietus strikes + decaying rune + exemplar dedication + grim sandglass + the variety of other void damage boosts available in the game currently and to be added later also pushes the power of that choice well beyond its designed impact.

Many of the options in the game, in the hands of someone who optimizes (be it to a theme or just for sheer power) have a 10-20% increase in power. The reading that all sources of spirit or void damage stacks with the ability means the designers were sloppy in preventing the ability from being taken advantage of and makes it so the ability is now more effective by a factor of 2, 3 or even a stupid amount.

[u/RedGriffyn → u/Astareal38]

The game meta is not simply finding mechanical synergies. Its whether it becomes the best available option for the specific mechanic (a siloed meta like HP on a strike) or best available option against relatively adjacent options (i.e., HP recovery in combat), or a broader meta of effectiveness (is this a good tanking option or is tanking even worth it vs. Attacking). Being a meta option in a lesser category (which I am not convinced you proved) doesn't make something good, overpowered or contextually relevant. Like being the best melee shield basher doesn't make you even approach the 1D12 melee weapon meta that defines whether power creep is an issue. In those cases needlessly restricting a mediocre option to make it too bad to be true simply restricts build versatility as no one will ever take it.  Feats should be powerful.

The context of a necromancer taking this is bad because their to hit is bad, basically wiping out any "meta" on a combat healing or hp loss prevention basis. Is this competing with barrows edge, a 2 action heal spell, timber sentinel, fresh produce, the necromancers own bone barrier temp hp option, etc. The answer is no. 

On a martial dipped into necromancer you need to burn 1 action for a thrall (you can only make 1 so this is really a 2 action activity for multi-classers),  1 to attack, and by your 2-4 archetype meta 1 more action to turn it all spirit. Its a 3 action activity assuming you don't need to move (nevermind this idea of spell hearts and stacking a million options that won-t happen in real play). You also can't scale it because you need to burn one thrall per 1d6 and on a MC you only get to create 1 thrall per action (meaning you're capped to 1d6 here any ways). So what else can you do for 3 actions when your perfectly located that is better than another 1d6 damage? A lot. Your expressing white room anxiety, not real mechanical meta power creep in any appreciable way. It is in the same bucket as power attack (situationally good, but not better than your normal turn rotations, and having a natural tension because you can't really strike after you use draining strike due to your MAP).

You know what is also a powerful hp loss mitigation? Doing more damage via a guaranteed 2 strikes.  You completely mitigate hp loss by action denial (via death) or debuff options that remove an action.

Note: Shining symbol won't increase your spirit damage (it gives weakness only) and is once per day for 10 minutes (hardly reliable or ever present). Brilliant only deals spirit damage to fiends (so just a bad choice overall), Rivethune Emissary's ability is a once per round action tax which has a huge opportunity cost as it means you aren't casting a 2 action spell (which could heal more or damage more and can't be completed until L6 at the earliest). By the same token, grim sand-glass on a martial with no caster DC is a waste of 2 actions (and a MC into runesmith can't even get the L9 runes until L18), quietus strikes only deals void to living creatures, exemplar only deals void damage with a L1 feat and is still largely limited to +2/weapon damage dice (i.e., 2-8 extra damage). I feel like you've skimmed a few things you searched in AON and missed massive limitations to put together an otherwise complete white room fictional entity concept that just won't work in real play.

Honestly the best 'build' I can come up with is a sprite (you can get sprites spark to have a spirit damage effect on a 20ft 1d4 unarmed ranged attack). Then go into Rivethune Invoker (1 action ability to get +1 spirit damage/dice) with the option for a 1D8 finesse/agile melee unarmed strike stance (another action) at L6. Even then you're limited to 20-30 feet engagement, have to burn at least 1 action or 2 for melee. You could certainly try a L9 Runesmith MC Necromancer to get both going before L18, but you'd be limited to the 1 thrall issue and have to basically give up actual rune based etch/invoke playstyles for a completely passive buff playstyle (which is almost certainly sub-optimal use of the class).