My GM had a few questions he was hoping the forums might have the answers to. Please copy and paste the below questions when answering to help avoid confusion.
Does a kineticist need to accumulate burn specifically to activate his defense wild talent? Or does any burn cause the defense wild talent to activate?
If the it is the former, what is the action, if any, to accumulate burn to boost one's wild talent?
If it is the latter, and the kineticist has multiple defense wild talents, are they all increased by the accumulated burn?
Even if it is the former, are all of your defense wild talents increased by the accumulated burn, or do you need to pump them individually, at great cost in burn?
That's all I can recall for the time being.
You need to spend a point of burn to up your defense, like for earth you need to spend an action to add burn to your DR to up the DR by 1. But Whenever you accept burn while using an earth wild talent, the energy surging through you causes your damage reduction to change from DR/adamantine to DR/— for 1 round. So if you accept burn to extend your earth blast your DR turns to DR/-.
The action isn't listed, so either standard or free action.
you pump up one defense at a time.
On a phone, so no convenient copy/paste.
Burn must be accepted specifically on the defense talent to improve it- e.g. increasing the DR of the earth defense wild talent. Burn accepted for any wild talent of the associated element will give the defense a one-round boost- e.g. the DR of the earth defense talent turning into DR/- for a round.
Su abilities default to a standard action, so accepting burn to increase the defense wild talent would be a standard action. Sorry I don't have the citation, but I believe Mark addressed this one.
You must boost each defense talent individually. Trying to max multiple defense talents will end poorly in most cases.
Does a kineticist need to accumulate burn specifically to activate his defense wild talent? Or does any burn cause the defense wild talent to activate?
Your defense is always active, but resets after you've rested and reset your Burn overnight. Your Defense Wild Talent does gain its additional effects when you accept a point of Burn specifically on that talent.
If the it is the former, what is the action, if any, to accumulate burn to boost one's wild talent?
Always a Standard Action.
If it is the latter, and the kineticist has multiple defense wild talents, are they all increased by the accumulated burn?
You accept each point of Burn separately for each Defense Wild Talent you wish to increase separately. There's no two-for-one. You can spend 5 points to increase your Earth Defense, but it won't affect your Water Defense. Our you can put 3 points each into Earth and Water Defense Wild Talents and have spent 6 points total.
Even if it is the former, are all of your defense wild talents increased by the accumulated burn, or do you need to pump them individually, at great cost in burn?
See above.
That's all I can recall for the time being.
Something to note: defense talents have two "boosts": one from accepting burn for the talent itself, and one for accepting burn in the process of using another wild talent. The former, as has been stated, is a standard action, but the latter is part of another ability being used. So, for example, if you want to boost the DR from flesh of stone and take burn to do so, then yes, you'll need a standard action each time, and you have to choose which defense talent it applies to if you have more than one rather than just taking one burn to boost all you have. If, however, you accept burn to use earth blast, you'll automatically get DR/- instead of DR/adamantine.
I believe if you use mud blast and take burn in the process and you have both flesh of stone and shroud of water, you get to both change to DR/- and get the benefit of both the shield and armor bonuses from the shroud. I'm fairly certain this doesn't apply to the boosting composite blasts of aether and void, however (so if you have force ward and flesh of stone and you use an aetheric boosted earth blast, you'll only heal your temporary HP granted from the ward, but your DR remains as DR/adamantine). If anyone can confirm the above I'd appreciate it: I'd hate to be giving someone the wrong information here :P
Does a kineticist need to accumulate burn specifically to activate his defense wild talent? Or does any burn cause the defense wild talent to activate?
I'm not quite sure what you're asking here so I'll try to answer a few possible aspects you're asking about.
1) You get your base defense wild talent, without burn investment, regardless of if you invest more burn or not. A level 2 geokineticist when he wakes up in the morning will have DR 1/Adamantine.
2) His defense WT will only go to DR /- if he spends burn on an earth infusion or earth wild talent. This does include composite blasts, so if you were a geo/water kineticist and spent the burn to do a mud blast then you get the DR /- as well as the AC bonus to both armor and shield, assuming you picked up expanded defense to have both defenses.
If the it is the former, what is the action, if any, to accumulate burn to boost one's wild talent?
The defense WT is like a passive that the kinny can activate/deactivate at will, as an immediate action. If you're talking about expending burn into it then it is a standard action to boost the defense. If you are talking about the improvement caused by putting burn into other things then it is whatever that action is, which then is an immediate trigger to the improvement.
If it is the latter, and the kineticist has multiple defense wild talents, are they all increased by the accumulated burn?
It depends. Each defense gets their boost only if you spend the burn on an infusion/blast or a wild talent of that element. To continue with my geokinny example...
"Whenever you accept burn while using an earth wild talent,..."
Any wild talent that is earth will
Even if it is the former, are all of your defense wild talents increased by the accumulated burn, or do you need to pump them individually, at great cost in burn?
They are only individually increased by individually investing burn into them separately. They are individually enhanced (bonus effect) when you spend burn on a wild talent that is of their element. Composite blasts are of both elemenent and I would argue both get it then. Wild talents that are of multiple elements, like suffocate, I would think would only go towards one of your choice. If you are an aether/air kinny who used the suffocate WT and spent burn, AND you had both defense wild talents I would think you choose which element you are causing the effect and get the enhancement to that defense.
IMO
You have to put burn into the defense talent specifically to get the constant bonuses. The talents might have temporary bonuses whenever you accept burn for a talent associated with its element though.
Might seem worse, but putting burn into your defense talents is usually one of the best uses for burn. It is how you do 'planned burn'- where you take on burn to specifically activate elemental overflow. Starting around level 6, I would probably always put 3 burn into things like the earth talent (I mean...you only lose 2 hp/level due to the stat boost, but you get +3 attack, +5 damage, and DR 6- great deal overall).