Kinetic Blade Kineticist: Base or Annihilator?


Advice

Silver Crusade

I want to make a Kineticist that likes to focus on the Kinetic Blade theme. The Annihilator archetype seems like it's meant for this kind of thing but I can't help but feel like it's simply inferior to the base Kineticist for this. Now I may be wrong and misinterpreting some things, but here's how I understand the pros and cons.

Base Class:

Pros:
-When full attacking, you deal the full damage of your blast on every hit. That's a lot of damage eventually.
-Allows you to hit touch-AC if using energy based blasts, meaning even iteratives have a solid chance of connecting.

Cons:
-Can't threaten outside of my turn with the blade if not using the Kinetic Whip infusion. At level 8 the burn gets reduced to zero (if only using the form infusion) meaning you can use it all the time, so not that big of a con.
-Thematically my character would try to be sticking to the "Blade" infusion unless I finagle some personal flavor description.
-You don't get full BAB progression.
-Only .5 Con mod to damage.

Overall feel:
While not right away, you get lots of d6s hitting touch AC multiple times. A lot of spike damage basically. Using energy blasts allows you to still have medium-low strength and still hit often in melee. This frees more points for Con and Dex.

Annihilator Archetype:

Pros:
-Full BAB when using the blast/blade, as well as getting 1.5x Con mod to damage.
-Free combat feats.
-Threatens at all times straight from level 1.
-More "regular" influence on attacks allowable such as Haste for Flurry of Devastation and for more feats to work on my attack options such as Vital Strike and TWF.

Cons:
-No utility talents. This makes me incredibly sad.
-Not as much scaling on the damage.

Overall feel:
You're slightly more front-loaded with bonuses and your damage has more static bonuses than spike damage. You're much closer to a traditional martial class (one weapon damage but have feats and buffs to attack more) instead of the "single blast of increasing power" feel of the base class. It's just that your melee and ranged attacks are simply built into your class instead of having to buy them.

Honestly, I think it really comes down to two things: targeting touch-AC and how much damage per hit. While the Annihilator will overall get more attacks, the base class hits much harder per attack and is much more reliable to hit with those attacks. If anybody wants to weigh in with their opinions please do so because currently I don't see much use for the Annihilator archetype for this character.


Annihilator also has the con of only working with physical blasts, since you can't use devastation with energy blasts for some weird reason..... do not pick fire if you're going annihilator.


Devastating Infusion just alters the regular Kinetic Blast when you wish to; you still can use the Blast at its full power (just with one attack) or the Kinetic Blade at its full power (with the proper Burn cost).

To me, it seems that the Devastating Infusion trades damage adn burn cost for a flurry-like ability.


Don't forget Devastating Infusion can be used two handed, adding 1.5x Con to damage and similarly Power Attack I believe.


I find it hard to give up utility wild talents. The 3rd level and up stuff are the funner parts of kineticist. And the lower level ones provide some that folks screamed back in the playtest that kineticist lacked (energy resistance, out of combat options, etc) that people felt should be available to ones who are mastering an element.

But if damage and sheer number of attacks are what drives a player, annihilator makes a lot of sense too.

Silver Crusade

JiCi wrote:
Devastating Infusion just alters the regular Kinetic Blast when you wish to; you still can use the Blast at its full power (just with one attack) or the Kinetic Blade at its full power (with the proper Burn cost).

Ah, I see. It's an infusion to the element you would normally take at level 1 and not exactly an "element" on it's own that I thought at first. That's certainly something I misread before. So I essentially get an infusion that gives me either range or free melee at the cost of damage if I decide to use it, and I don't have to use Kinetic Whip instead of the basic Kinetic Blade if I want to threaten when not my turn. Thank you for that.

Milo v3 wrote:
Annihilator also has the con of only working with physical blasts, since you can't use devastation with energy blasts for some weird reason.

Unfortunately that's the biggest fly in the ointment for me when it comes to swinging the blade around. I like the idea of hitting touch AC since it means iteratives have a strong chance of connecting. No energy blasts mean no touch-AC on the AoOs and such.

Rynjin wrote:
Don't forget Devastating Infusion can be used two handed, adding 1.5x Con to damage and similarly Power Attack I believe.

Yeah, I noticed that. That's a hefty chunk of damage for sure. I was a little iffy though on whether you can get the 1.5x Con and have it work with Weapon Finesse. Kinetic Blade says "You create a nonreach, light or one-handed weapon in your hand formed of pure energy or elemental matter." It seems that if I make a two-handed weapon to get the 1.5x Con mod to damage, I lose the ability to use Weapon Finesse since it can no longer be considered a light weapon. On the other hand though, it also says, "The kinetic blade’s shape is purely cosmetic and doesn’t affect the damage dice, critical threat range, or critical multiplier of the kinetic blade, nor does it grant the kinetic blade any weapon special features" which makes it sound like I just say "yeah, it's two-handed and it looks two-handed, but it's actually finessable!". I'm currently planning on having high Dex and Con, and so not being able to finesse the two-handed form of the blade means I either need to lower other things to get some more Str or seriously lack in the accuracy department for blade swings.

Does anyone want to sell me on the Annihilator? I know it works better in the short-term, but it seems long-term the regular class gets to do most of what the archetype sets out to do but still gets the Utility talents. I don't suppose anyone can run some quick numbers for the two at level 8 (when the base class gets its first iterative)?


Just one thing about Devastating Infusion, it locks your blast at 1d8 with no dice scaling, so your blasts are going to be individually much weaker than a normal kineticist

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Hazrond wrote:
Just one thing about Devastating Infusion, it locks your blast at 1d8 with no dice scaling, so your blasts are going to be individually much weaker than a normal kineticist

And combined with working with only physical blasts, it will make DR and hardness a total pain to deal with. Fortunately, as mentioned up-thread, you can still use the regular kinetic blade also.

That said, losing out on the utility talents is just too painful for my tastes.


For those worried about iterative attacks, devastating infusion uses full BAB so that'll still be worthwhile with physical blasts.


The Utility Talents are largely meh for anyone who isn't Fire or Water.


Arutema wrote:
Hazrond wrote:
Just one thing about Devastating Infusion, it locks your blast at 1d8 with no dice scaling, so your blasts are going to be individually much weaker than a normal kineticist

And combined with working with only physical blasts, it will make DR and hardness a total pain to deal with. Fortunately, as mentioned up-thread, you can still use the regular kinetic blade also.

That said, losing out on the utility talents is just too painful for my tastes.

It doesn't affect the damage of your Ranged Kinetic Blast, only when you use the Melee Devastating Infusion (Kinetic Blade). That becomes 1D8+Con mod.


In my opinion, the annihilator has to invest completely in two-weapon fighting to stay ahead of the base kinetecist in damage. I ran a preliminary comparison, and the maximum number of attacks he can manage is, it seems, the only way he can keep up. This is including piranha strike.

Meanwhile, for example, the air kineticist can take celerity and gain another iterative on his full damage blast. Or any other utility talent that are universally unavailable to the annihilator.

Some people pointed out that you can still use kinetic blade, but you actually have to invest an infusion slot in order to benefit from it. devestating infusion works like kinetic blade, but it is not kinetic blade. And since the annihilator's infusion slots are pretty set early game, you can assume you're only going to be building around devestating infusion.

Now, there's no question that the annihilator has superior damage to the base kinetecist, but I believe that the base kinetecist more than makes up for it with the ability to attack against touch AC, with the infinitely greater amount of utility, and the option to use a composite blast with their melee attacks to do even more damage at the cost of burn.


sooo... you can use fire blades, they just hit AC instead of touch, but you have the ranged option of hitting touch still, am i getting this right?


the elemental annihilator's devastation infusion can only be done with physical blasts.

This is a 1st-level form infusion that costs 0 points of burn and can be used with any physical blast (but not energy blasts).

if you're using the normal kinetic blade infusion then yes, you can use fire and go against touch AC.


The annihilator only works on physical blasts. That is because of the fact that the many hit, iterative based styles that annihilator can use would end up broken if you could use touch AC (see: every complaint about gunslingers ever).


Occult Adventures wrote:
Devastating Infusion (Su): At 1st level, an elemental annihilator can either shoot her kinetic blast at a target within 30 feet or make a single melee attack as if she were using kinetic blade as an attack action. For this attack, the elemental annihilator's base attack bonus from her kineticist levels is equal to her full kineticist level. A devastating infusion always deals an amount of damage equal to 1d8 + the elemental annihilator's Constitution modifier, regardless of the annihilator's class level or use of composite blasts. When making a melee attack with devastating infusion, the elemental annihilator doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, and if she uses two hands, the attack's damage is equal to 1d8 + 1-1/2 times her Constitution modifier. This is a 1st-level form infusion that costs 0 points of burn and can be used with any physical blast (but not energy blasts). Unlike with kinetic blade, the elemental annihilator can use Vital Strike with devastating infusion. The damage bonus from elemental overflow doesn't apply to devastating infusion's damage rolls. This ability replaces the 1st-level infusion and the basic utility wild talent normally granted by selecting an element.

Ok... kinda pointless to have this restriction... I mean, what's more devastating than cold, fire or electricity??? Ok, fine, a tornado, earthquake or tidal wave... or a falling crumbling debris is as worse as a blizzard, forest fire or thunderstorm, but still X_X

The only thing going for the Annihilator would be the Omnicide then, especially as a Blade or a Whip with 3 attacks each dealing 50d6+50 points of damage.


The Elemental Annihilator simply isn't a very good archetype, IMO. Just the fact than an EA can *never* gain Utility Talents means you can't get two elemental defenses, so you're going to be squishier than the regular Kineticist built for this thing (who can stack two or three of the Water, Aether, and Earth defenses).

Basic Kinetic Blade/Whip build lets you switch hit at almost zero cost, so it's kind of a waste to have to be within melee range of everything (particularly since you have other things to do with move actions.)


No, the annihilator's main advantage is it can switch between a ton of styles- one big blast of the base class, 2 handing, TWF, archery.... it can switch things up as needed, and it is a switch hitter that doesn't need to switch weapons. Heck, weapon focus even applies to everything it does.

So it is actually a rather nice option for elements with poor utility talents and only so many essential infusions. Earth is an obvious example: as long as it grabs entangling with the free infusion from expanded element, it can actually play fairly close to the base class.

The archetype regains normal infusion progression at higher levels, where it matters (since those are the levels where you can manage big fancy combos without burn.

So overall, it plays like a martial character that later gets a few magical tricks once the 'linear/quadratic' problem comes up.


lemeres wrote:
The annihilator only works on physical blasts. That is because of the fact that the many hit, iterative based styles that annihilator can use would end up broken if you could use touch AC (see: every complaint about gunslingers ever).

See also that every single one of those complaints is based in a limited understanding of the rules.

The energy blasts would be in pretty bad shape overall compared to a Gunlinger. Less attacks (you can stack both TWFing and Rapid Shot), less damage (can't Deadly Aim with energy blasts), amusingly less utility (the Gunslinger has better class skills and Utility Shot at least, where the Annihilator loses its utility talents).

And as compared to the physical based Annihilators better to-hit, less damage seems fair to me.


Oh, yes, it won't get quite as bad as gunslinger, but the element is still there that you can get off about 7 attacks guaranteed if you TWF with touch attacks.

The monster design just doesn't handle touch well since it was originally designed as a 'we want the wizard to throw some d20's and get affected by concealment, but we know he would never be able to hit well'. It is possible to make good touch AC monsters (with various psychic things with insight bonuses, or just fast dodge bonus centered creatures), but we still currently have a mostly 'big beefy' centered bestiary right now.

However, I will note that another element of the energy blasts would make things... weird for an annhilator. Because the energy blasts are not only balanced on to-hit/damage, but also based off of SR (which is more common at higher levels). SR, for the energy users, is basically the same as AC. So while the physical blasts lose their weakness to AC since annhilator puts them on par with fighters for to hit, the energy blasts would end up being the exact same as before.


Bah, just go base, grab the feats that give an animal companion and spirited charge. Charge and deal 20d6+20+con at level 9. Half the damage to do it at touch.


PossibleCabbage wrote:
Just the fact than an EA can *never* gain Utility Talents means you can't get two elemental defenses, so you're going to be squishier than the regular Kineticist built for this thing (who can stack two or three of the Water, Aether, and Earth defenses)

I don't think the defense talents alone are worth going multiple element. At least depending on your starting element.

Water is the most replaceable defense- you can just buy an armor and shield, since it doesn't stack. Little stopping you. You would still be better budgetwise that everyone else since you are exceedingly SAD, and you don't spend money on a weapon. Water's great defense comes from its utility talents, such as the one that gives concealment.

Aether can be a nice defense... if you invest burn into it. Otherwise, I view it as too minor to bother wasting two potential talents (1 for not going the same element when expanding, 1 for the expanded defense). People usually expand to aether for the utility talents, and you don't get those.

Earth with DR is great, and you should totally invest tons of burn into it instead of aether,... but it is so great, I vaguely view it as my default for annhilator- you can start off with decent DR, which synergizes well with your dex build that gives good AC. It honestly loses the least- You can still grab most of the nice infusions, and most of the utility talents are not as tactically necessary as other elements (most of which have some kind of flight).

Most of the other elements are not really even worth mentioning for their defenses- yeah, fire should get something like earth to shore that up. But for what the annhilator can choose... it is fine without expanded defense.


The other thing is that kineticist wild talents just aren't appropriate to the level you get them. The very limited flight abilities at character level 6 are an example (it becomes useful flight rather than a jumping ability at character level 10), ice path/air walk at 12, kinetic form to enlarge one size category at level 10 for 1 burn, spark of life etc. There are many abilities worse than these; these are ones I can believe you'd take

It might actually be better to try and contract out these to a real spellcaster or to use magic items. In some ways a kineticist is more the equivalent of a 4-level caster than a 6-level caster, and losing those abilities is not critical.


I think like a lot of things with the kineticist the utility of the utility talents is going to depend a lot on what a typical adventuring day looks like. That Kinetic Form lets you be large or huge for a standard action whenever you want for one burn spent in the morning makes it different from enlarge person. The actual flight or two-step flight abilities are balanced around not costing anything.

As a result they range wildly from "pretty poor" to "absolutely take this one every time." I have enough I like in Aether, Earth, Air, and Water that I don't really feel the need to mess with any of the other elements.


What necromancy is this? o.O

But the Annihilator is a pure garbage archetype. It would be flaming garbage, but you cannot combine it with fire. As Devo noted in 2015 it has to invest all its feats in either archery or TWF and make full round attacks to do more damage than the base kineticist can be doing... and that means it is also not actually a good switch-hitter because if it tries to switch-hit without all the feats its damage will drop below just using normal kinetic blasts. Which removes the whole reason to be an annihilator in the first place. If you are going to give up all the fun bits of a kineticist in order to take the usual line of fighting style feats, then you would be better served in all ways by just playing a lowly fighter.

Also in the guide thread the designer seemed to confirm that you cannot actually weapon finesse the two-handed devastating infusion, meaning you need to build strength to use it.

Dark Archive

guys all th thing you mentioned is correct.However you guys seem like forgetting not gettin blast wild talents until level 11.


Lausth wrote:
guys all th thing you mentioned is correct.However you guys seem like forgetting not gettin blast wild talents until level 11.

7.

You can expand your first element to get a free infusion. And honestly, that is the best choice for this archetype- it lacks the utility talents to make it worth going multielement. So you might as well double down on your main element.

Honestly, you could just treat it as the archetype forcing you to grab the range increasing talents and maybe kinetic blade early on.

This is, again, why earth is a good annhilator element. The only really important infusion you get early on is entangling, and that is kind of 'meh' early on anyway since it is 2 burn (which means you can't do it for free until infusion specialization at level 5).

Most of earth's good infusion blasts past that are high cost combos like deadly earth+grappling, so you wouldn't be using them much until after level 11 anyway.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Kinetic Blade Kineticist: Base or Annihilator? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Advice