A Guide to the Blade Kineticist

As I worked to convert my playtest kinetic blade build to the final released version, I started taking notes on what was good and not, those notes became a short guide, then a long one.

As I'm 5 chapters (out of a likely 7) in, I figured it's high time I open it to community feedback.

This is not a general kineticist guide, those have been written. This is a guide to a specific, but still flexible build; the blade kineticist, who rushes into melee to deliver the beatdown with kintetic blade. As such, options will be looked at through the lens of how they interact with kinetic blade.

The guide (and not much else yet) can be found on my blog.

Open to feedback and comments here.

Open to feedback and comments here.

Thanks for posting this. I've been the most interested in melee kineticist builds. What are the last two chapters you plan to write?

One thing that might be helpful in the elements section or in a future builds section if you add a note for each element on how it does as a primary or secondary element, especially since it seems like Level 7/8 is a big inflection point in the path of a melee kineticist. Your discussion helped me understand some of the trade-offs in more practical terms and it'd be nice to see it spelled out a little more explicitly

Would you agree with some of these assumptions (from the perspective of PFS in particular, where 12 is probably as high as anyone is going to get)?

If you want to maximize expanded defense, the following combos would be best:
1) Earth (P) / Water (S) - gets the two best defenses, and can get an energy blast with water (but no composite).
2) Earth (P) /Aether (S)- gets two strong defenses, but no energy attack and two attacks that do similar damage types.
3) Aether (P) / Water (S) - gets two strong defenses, but only a weak composite blast. Can use loosened telekinetic blast with special weapons to bypass DR.
4) Water (P) / Air (S) - Gets a physical and elemental attack, plus a composite and two defense talents (one good, one weaker).

If you want to go kinetic whip, the following combos would be best:
1) Aether (P) / Aether (S) - get an energy attack composite for when it's needed and whip at level 7; can use loosened telekinetic blast with special weapons to bypass DR
2) Earth (P) / Earth (S) - No energy composite, but can pick up Rare Metal infusion to bypass DR, best defense talent
3) Air (P) / Air (S) - Rarely energy blast + composite, defense becomes a little more useful with reach, no good way to bypass DR except with energy blast
4) Water (P) / Water (S) - Only bludgeoning and cold, but a good defense and decently strong utility talents

If you want to specialize in a single element, and not go whip the following element combos are best:
1) Aether (P) / Aether (S) - get an energy attack composite for when it's needed and can use loosened telekinetic blast to avoid DR; good way to focus on more infusions or utility
2) Earth (P) / Earth (S) - Pick Magnetic-Infusion to mitigate iterative attack penalty and then pick Rare-Metal Infusion to handle DR (may not be tenable without accepting a lot of burn?)

If you go Dwarf, you can start with Earth and expand into Fire and take Fire's Fury for Elemental Overload onto your Kinetic Blade and Whip and gain the FCB to your damage with a Magma Blast blade or whip.

If you go Dwarf, you can start with Earth and expand into Fire and take Fire's Fury for Elemental Overload onto your Kinetic Blade and Whip and gain the FCB to your damage with a Magma Blast blade or whip.

Using a Kinetic Whip on a composite blast is going to be minimum 4 burn cost (which you can negate down to 1 with a move action to gather power). You won't be able to use that without eating a point of burn for each round until level 11, which is fine - but it seems like a lot of resources on something that might just end up getting resisted a lot anyway. In my opinion, fire really only works at lower levels or if you invest in it heavily to help bypass SR, DR, and the like.

Arutema wrote:

Open to feedback and comments here.

Thanks for posting this. I've been the most interested in melee kineticist builds. What are the last two chapters you plan to write?

One thing that might be helpful in the elements section or in a future builds section if you add a note for each element on how it does as a primary or secondary element, especially since it seems like Level 7/8 is a big inflection point in the path of a melee kineticist. Your discussion helped me understand some of the trade-offs in more practical terms and it'd be nice to see it spelled out a little more explicitly

Would you agree with some of these assumptions (from the perspective of PFS in particular, where 12 is probably as high as anyone is going to get)?

If you want to maximize expanded defense, the following combos would be best:
1) Earth (P) / Water (S) - gets the two best defenses, and can get an energy blast with water (but no composite).
2) Earth (P) /Aether (S)- gets two strong defenses, but no energy attack and two attacks that do similar damage types.
3) Aether (P) / Water (S) - gets two strong defenses, but only a weak composite blast. Can use loosened telekinetic blast with special weapons to bypass DR.
4) Water (P) / Air (S) - Gets a physical and elemental attack, plus a composite and two defense talents (one good, one weaker).

If you want to go kinetic whip, the following combos would be best:
1) Aether (P) / Aether (S) - get an energy attack composite for when it's needed and whip at level 7; can use loosened telekinetic blast with special weapons to bypass DR
2) Earth (P) / Earth (S) - No energy composite, but can pick up Rare Metal infusion to bypass DR, best defense talent
3) Air (P) / Air (S) - Rarely energy blast + composite, defense becomes a little more useful with reach, no good way to bypass DR except with energy blast
4) Water (P) / Water (S) - Only bludgeoning and cold, but a good defense and decently strong utility talents

If you want to specialize in a...

Sounds about right. I'll expand the element selection chapter to include this when I next revisit it.

Chapter 6 is planned to be Wild Talents, with chapter 7 as gear. Possibly a chapter 8 for archetype discussion and sample builds.

One thing that I don't understand is that people say you don't qualify for certain infusions and the like until much later than I'm reading.

Case in point: "Level 12: “Only” a utility talent, but what a talent it is. You now qualify for Ride The Blast."

In my PDF, Ride the Blast is listed as "Level 6". What am I missing that makes you unable to take it until level 12?

One thing that I don't understand is that people say you don't qualify for certain infusions and the like until much later than I'm reading.

Case in point: "Level 12: “Only” a utility talent, but what a talent it is. You now qualify for Ride The Blast."

In my PDF, Ride the Blast is listed as "Level 6". What am I missing that makes you unable to take it until level 12?

Every wild talent has an effective spell level. A kineticist
can always select 1st-level wild talents, but she can select a
wild talent of a higher level only if her kineticist level is at
least double the wild talent’s effective spell level.

Ah... Well ok then. I just assumed that the level written there was what level you qualified for the talent and not the effective spell level. You would think they would just say "You have to be X level to take this" instead of "You have to be 2X level to take this", although at that point they would have to say "Spell level is X/2".

I guess I need to go completely rethink my Kineticist's progression. Good thing you pointed that out before I went and brought it to my local table.

Ah... Well ok then. I just assumed that the level written there was what level you qualified for the talent and not the effective spell level. You would think they would just say "You have to be X level to take this" instead of "You have to be 2X level to take this", although at that point they would have to say "Spell level is X/2".

I guess I need to go completely rethink my Kineticist's progression. Good thing you pointed that out before I went and brought it to my local table.

It's kind of brutal, honestly. Almost every element has their best / most useful infusions at level 3 (available after 6th level) but unless you double down on the element at 7, you won't see one until 9. And with the penalty on Extra Wild Talent, you can't get another until 10.

Chugging through the wild talents section now. There's a lot more of them than I thought. Hopefully, I will have it up by tomorrow night.

One thing that I've been concerned with the more that I thought about it, and it's now reflected in my build.

What advantage is there for using kinetic blade before the aforementioned level 5? You're forced into a melee situation, you can't make a full attack with it, you're limited to a single extra infusion if available, you're even dealing less damage than ranged at levels 3 and 4 because kinetic blade doesn't apply elemental overflow's damage.

My build doesn't even have kinetic blade until level 5 for these reasons. At level 5, though, things become different, as you said. Level 5 is where haste can first start coming into play, and thus you can benefit from full attacks and thus double your blasting damage. However, without a party wizard, you are still limited in your options, as a ranged kineticist will still be dealing more damage than you. A ranged kineticist can use gather power and empower to deal more damage at a better range than you can with move - attack of kinetic blade.

Level 7 is when I expect to actually begin making use of my melee capabilities, as my whip will now be in use... along with my combat reflexes feat. In addition, at level 6 I picked celerity, because I'm an air kineticist. I noticed that you didn't value air very highly for the melee build, but in my opinion it's pretty on par with earth because of celerity. Self-sufficiency is very valuable, especially in a party that's going to lack a wizard or otherwise can't provide haste.

In effect, I feel that the kinetic blade build is strictly inferior to the ranged builds... until such a point where you can reliably get multiple attacks. Thus, my build is a switch-hitter. Focuses on melee when he can, but will be equally able to go at great distances. 240ft with a casual infusion at level 1 thanks to air's reach, flight to snipe when needed, celerity to keep the party just as close or just as far as they want to be.

Those are just my thoughts on the matter. I spent a lot of time wanting to build a melee kineticist, but my delving just showed that you're gimping yourself early levels by taking kinetic blade. What are your thoughts on that matter?

EDIT: Also, level 13 is a huge power leap, because quicken allows you to charge an enemy with ride the blast and THEN make a full attack with kinetic whip. It's effectively better in all ways than pounce, but at a hefty cost. Remember that if you every really need to, you can just quicken a ride the blast and be pretty much anywhere you want for your melee placement. It is a very powerful option.

The main reason I see melee as good at low levels is that you do not need Precise Shot and its feat tax Point Blank Shot to contribute without taking a -4 to most attack rolls.

In going through the wild talents section, I think air may deserve a boost in ratings. It lacks a defense that works well with melee, but it gives incredible utility talents.

My reading of celerity however is that it uses up your standard, so unless you take burn every single fight, only your party benefits. It feels like a poor tradeoff compared to a wizard or sorc who can just cast haste (or later on, the cleric or oracle who can cast blessing of fervor.

A thing of note, celerity functions as haste, and even has the same duration if you use a burn. Burn is like your spells per say, so i like to think that 1 burn is almost cheap for a powerful ability like haste. Plus you have the option of ending low challenge encounters without spending resources simply by being a celerity buffer every turn. But those are just my reasons for picking air.

Back to the low level thing though, i almost feel as if targeting touch ac means the firing into melee penalty is negligable in comparison to normal ac. Plus you can always target enemies that arent in melee. The archer there, the wizard here, the dude closing in on the combat. I just feel that avoiding the -4 penalty isnt quite a good enough reason to focus on melee early levels. You're certainly putting yourself into much more danger.

Ok, here is my contribuition. Water defence is total crap. Why? Simple. Kinetic blades action economy prevents you from Gathering Power and also locks you into single weapon 1H combat style. This means your off-hand is totally unemployed. As such, every melee kinny should do himself a favor and pick up a mithral heavy shield. Cost very few and saves yourself a lot of burn even if you actually have the water shield.

My second addition would be to not write off energy blasts. Not having to optimize for to hit makes a lot of space for more COS and other stuff that makes you much more resilient.

Ok, here is my contribuition. Water defence is total crap. Why? Simple. Kinetic blades action economy prevents you from Gathering Power and also locks you into single weapon 1H combat style. This means your off-hand is totally unemployed. As such, every melee kinny should do himself a favor and pick up a mithral heavy shield. Cost very few and saves yourself a lot of burn even if you actually have the water shield.

Just a thought on that; Mark said somewhere that if you choose a one-handed form for the blade, you can wield it with two hands, complete with 1.5x Con.

Dekalinder wrote:

Ok, here is my contribuition. Water defence is total crap. Why? Simple. Kinetic blades action economy prevents you from Gathering Power and also locks you into single weapon 1H combat style. This means your off-hand is totally unemployed. As such, every melee kinny should do himself a favor and pick up a mithral heavy shield. Cost very few and saves yourself a lot of burn even if you actually have the water shield.

Just a thought on that; Mark said somewhere that if you choose a one-handed form for the blade, you can wield it with two hands, complete with 1.5x Con.

Mark said you can use it 2H for power attack, the COS modifier remain the same, unless you are talking about Devastating Infusion, but that is restricted to the Annihilator. Let me remind you that PA is bad for kinny since the base blast damage is so high that the loss of accuracy outweight the damage bonus.

A little trick I imagine would work well is to take Amateur Swashbuckler when you get Whip, and buy some Swordmaster's Flair. You get a free Swashbuckler deed and can trigger the special abilities of the item with your Panache point. In particular, gaining +5' reach for 1 minute as a Swift action is golden. Getting to trip a charging enemy is pretty badass too, especially if you've worked on your Tripping efficiency for Bowling Infusion. You will easily regenerate Panache again by killing things with your one-handed piercing Earth blast (or critting with it). The item is extremely affordable at 2500 gp.

BTW, I wouldn't worry about not being able to move and melee in the early levels. Just be a switch-hitter and use ranged in the rounds where you move. Being a melee Kineticist doesn't mean you're not allowed to use ranged blasts. ;o)

Ok, here is my contribuition. Water defence is total crap. Why? Simple. Kinetic blades action economy prevents you from Gathering Power and also locks you into single weapon 1H combat style. This means your off-hand is totally unemployed. As such, every melee kinny should do himself a favor and pick up a mithral heavy shield.

Your off-hand doesn't count as free if you have a heavy shield (that's why you also can't use that hand for casting or holding a weapon). You can certainly get a darkwood buckler, but Water's defense basically starts at +3 AC (assuming 1 Burn, which is worth it). At higher levels, the AC bonus over what you can normally afford becomes greater. I'd certainly consider that better defense than Aether's. Earth & Water combined should be perfect for a meleeist.

Dekalinder wrote:

Ok, here is my contribuition. Water defence is total crap. Why? Simple. Kinetic blades action economy prevents you from Gathering Power and also locks you into single weapon 1H combat style. This means your off-hand is totally unemployed. As such, every melee kinny should do himself a favor and pick up a mithral heavy shield.

Your off-hand doesn't count as free if you have a heavy shield (that's why you also can't use that hand for casting or holding a weapon). You can certainly get a darkwood buckler, but Water's defense basically starts at +3 AC (assuming 1 Burn, which is worth it). At higher levels, the AC bonus over what you can normally afford becomes greater. I'd certainly consider that better defense than Aether's. Earth & Water combined should be perfect for a meleeist.

You may still want to gather power to apply a substance infusion to your blade. Bucklers will be discussed in the equipment section, but aren't a bad idea if you don't go water.

A thing of note, celerity functions as haste, and even has the same duration if you use a burn. Burn is like your spells per say, so i like to think that 1 burn is almost cheap for a powerful ability like haste. Plus you have the option of ending low challenge encounters without spending resources simply by being a celerity buffer every turn. But those are just my reasons for picking air.

I was going to give celerity a low rating, but you've convinced me otherwise. Being able to add an extra hit for multiple rounds for 1 burn is incredibly good.

Back to the low level thing though, i almost feel as if targeting touch ac means the firing into melee penalty is negligable in comparison to normal ac. Plus you can always target enemies that arent in melee. The archer there, the wizard here, the dude closing in on the combat. I just feel that avoiding the -4 penalty isnt quite a good enough reason to focus on melee early levels. You're certainly putting yourself into much more danger.

If an energy blast is you only blast, what's your backup plan for when things are immune to it? I haven't had a chance to playtest a low-level build with just energy yet, so I'm curious to know your tactics.

EDIT: Chapter 3 has been updated with revised ratings and new text on specific element combos.

Perhaps ill take that infusion that helps against immunity if i feel ill run into something immune to lightning. Coukd always retrain that choice once i hit level 7, i guess.

I think depending on party composition Air is going to be really strong for any Kinetic Blade/Whip build. The damage from blade/whip was balanced around having access to haste, which can be accomplished by the Air kineticist as early as level 6. Now if you have a dedicated haster in your party it is not a major concern, otherwise having Air as a primary can let you haste the party yourself for 1 burn per.

At 6th level you get your stat bonus for elemental overflow and a +2 bonus so I would start the day with 2 burn + 1 in overflow. First fight I would haste for 1 burn activated your stat bonuses. Next time use your buffer for haste and then just use burn. The benefits of being able to double your damage at level 6 is pretty impressive and you helping your party every fight. If you want flight as well I would say retrain your level 4 wild talent into Flight at level 6 or just wait til 8.

I think depending on party composition Air is going to be really strong for any Kinetic Blade/Whip build. The damage from blade/whip was balanced around having access to haste, which can be accomplished by the Air kineticist as early as level 6. Now if you have a dedicated haster in your party it is not a major concern, otherwise having Air as a primary can let you haste the party yourself for 1 burn per.

At 6th level you get your stat bonus for elemental overflow and a +2 bonus so I would start the day with 2 burn + 1 in overflow. First fight I would haste for 1 burn activated your stat bonuses. Next time use your buffer for haste and then just use burn. The benefits of being able to double your damage at level 6 is pretty impressive and you helping your party every fight. If you want flight as well I would say retrain your level 4 wild talent into Flight at level 6 or just wait til 8.

Wait, can you do that? I thought a caveat of the retraining was that you couldn't make a character that would otherwise be impossible through normal levelling.

At 6th, 10th, and 16th levels, a kineticist can replace one of her utility wild talents with another wild talent of the same level or lower. She can’t replace a wild talent that she used to qualify for another of her wild talents.

No restrictions on the levels of the talents.

Occult Adcvntures wrote:

At 6th, 10th, and 16th levels, a kineticist can replace one of her utility wild talents with another wild talent of the same level or lower. She can’t replace a wild talent that she used to qualify for another of her wild talents.

No restrictions on the levels of the talents.

Am I just reading this totally wrong?

Arutema wrote:

Occult Adcvntures wrote:

At 6th, 10th, and 16th levels, a kineticist can replace one of her utility wild talents with another wild talent of the same level or lower. She can’t replace a wild talent that she used to qualify for another of her wild talents.

No restrictions on the levels of the talents.

Am I just reading this totally wrong?

Nope, looks like Taenia and I missed that bit.

Johnny_Devo wrote:

Arutema wrote:

Occult Adcvntures wrote:

At 6th, 10th, and 16th levels, a kineticist can replace one of her utility wild talents with another wild talent of the same level or lower. She can’t replace a wild talent that she used to qualify for another of her wild talents.

No restrictions on the levels of the talents.

Am I just reading this totally wrong?

Nope, looks like Taenia and I missed that bit.

However, it doesn't specify which element, so one fun trick is to switch low-level original element wild talents into expanded element wild talents. For instance, if you go expanded air, you can swap a 1st-level wild talent to air cushion at 10th while simultaneously grabbing wings of air.

EDIT: I just realized that it doesn't count as a trick any more if I devised it. Blast!

Arutema wrote:

Johnny_Devo wrote:

Arutema wrote:

Occult Adcvntures wrote:

At 6th, 10th, and 16th levels, a kineticist can replace one of her utility wild talents with another wild talent of the same level or lower. She can’t replace a wild talent that she used to qualify for another of her wild talents.

No restrictions on the levels of the talents.

Am I just reading this totally wrong?

Nope, looks like Taenia and I missed that bit.

However, it doesn't specify which element, so one fun trick is to switch low-level original element wild talents into expanded element wild talents. For instance, if you go expanded air, you can swap a 1st-level wild talent to air cushion at 10th while simultaneously grabbing wings of air.

EDIT: I just realized that it doesn't count as a trick any more if I devised it. Blast!

So at level 10, If I took air as a secondary tree, I would be able to take celerity and retrain whatever I took at level 6 into wings of air?

Mark Seifter wrote:

Arutema wrote:

Johnny_Devo wrote:

Arutema wrote:

Occult Adcvntures wrote:

At 6th, 10th, and 16th levels, a kineticist can replace one of her utility wild talents with another wild talent of the same level or lower. She can’t replace a wild talent that she used to qualify for another of her wild talents.

No restrictions on the levels of the talents.

Am I just reading this totally wrong?

Nope, looks like Taenia and I missed that bit.

However, it doesn't specify which element, so one fun trick is to switch low-level original element wild talents into expanded element wild talents. For instance, if you go expanded air, you can swap a 1st-level wild talent to air cushion at 10th while simultaneously grabbing wings of air.

EDIT: I just realized that it doesn't count as a trick any more if I devised it. Blast!

So at level 10, If I took air as a secondary tree, I would be able to take celerity and retrain whatever I took at level 6 into wings of air?

Presuming you grabbed air cushion with Extra Wild Talent by then, yes.

Actually the retraining rules I was referring to were from Ultimate Campaign not the ones build into the class (I had totally forgotten those). In that case you have to pay for the retraining (Gold and in PFS Prestige) but I had forgotten that applied specifically to feats and may not affect class abilities.

FAQ is:

Retraining: Can I retrain a feat to replace it with a feat I didn't qualify for at the level I originally gained that feat?
Yes. As long as the new feat is a valid feat for your current character, you can retrain the old feat and replace it with the new feat.

For example, if you are a 3rd-level rogue who took Improved Initiative at 1st level, you can retrain that feat and replace it with Weapon Focus. Even though Weapon Focus has a prerequisite of "base attack bonus +1" (which means you couldn't take it as a 1st-level rogue), it is a valid feat for your current level (3rd), and is therefore a valid choice for retraining.

(Note: Likewise, the fighter class ability to retrain fighter bonus feats does not require you to meet all of the new feat's prerequisites at the level you originally gained the feat.)

If you can't retrain then I would probably grab Celerity at 6, Wings of Air at 8 and at 9 get Whip and aerial evasion w/Extra talent (just cause I really like evasion)

Do add Amateur Swashbuckler to the feat list! Together with Swordmaster's Flair, it's far superior to Lunge (at least for a Geo or Tele).

I may be way off-base in this idea, but I have actually built a fire/earth kineticist with the idea of using Fire's searing flame and earth's DR to make it far more painful for anyone hitting me than for me, making it a very strong combo for good expanded defense.

Then go Kinetic Whip and Entangling, use nova mode with magma composite when you really need to go nuts.

But my plan is to mostly get around 7 burn early to max out Searing Flame's damage, eventually stack it with fire shield.

By level 12 he'll be able to deal a reliable 30 fire damage when hit, soaking 11 off each hit with DR. Use entangling infusion with the whip and general mayhem to make it hard to ignore me, get the size increase wild talent to increase reach to 20 and just mess up the whole battlefield.

Between DR, the fortification mimicking bonus, grabbing fire's 20% blur to melee hits when it's hot enough, and the fire shield I hope to be very hard to kill, but impossible to completely ignore due to combat reflex AoOs and the reach, as well as general damage.

Grab Wall infusion and ride the blast at higher levels for positioning and zoning out things during indoor or ground combat.

That build sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun!

That build sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun!

The playtest magma kineticists were getting a lot of mileage out of that, particularly against grapple monsters. The final version is even better against high-Ref enemies since its a sure thing, particularly at level 8+. Also, Suede, since you're brave enough to put in all that burn to the defense, one great trick is to throw in the last point right before the biggest nastiest enemy is about to attack you to get the doubling for 1 round. That can get it so hot that you melt a manufactured weapon! (for instance, 7 burn at 12th level, with the doubling, is 48 damage per hit; even if the GM decides to halve the energy damage against an object, that's still going to burn the weapon to nothing very quickly unless it's adamantine or something).

Ooohhh, that's a good point I hadn't considered, about saving the last point for getting the big bad's attention.

That's a lot of damage, especially if I can get it to hug me.

But it's not quite as brave as it sounds, I'm planning to do everything I can to push my con, so even with 7 or 8 burn at level 12 I'll still have around 150hps and more than 10 DR/Ada or -.

I want to melt weapons.

Ooohhh, that's a good point I hadn't considered, about saving the last point for getting the big bad's attention.

That's a lot of damage, especially if I can get it to hug me.

But it's not quite as brave as it sounds, I'm planning to do everything I can to push my con, so even with 7 or 8 burn at level 12 I'll still have around 150hps and more than 10 DR/Ada or -.

I want to melt weapons.

Sounds awesome! If they hug you after you double it for a round, that's 48 damage for the attack and then 96 at the end of its turn for a total of 144 damage on the enemy's turn! :D

Checking the wording on Flame Shield. Is it meant to damage weapons like Searing Flesh does? It's currently lacking any wording that it affects weapons which strike you.

It could seriously change my rating of fire if it does.

Checking the wording on Flame Shield. Is it meant to damage weapons like Searing Flesh does? It's currently lacking any wording that it affects weapons which strike you.

It could seriously change my rating of fire if it does.

Searing Flesh

Element(s) fire; Type defense (Su); Level —; Burn 0

Your body becomes painfully hot. Whenever a creature hits you with a natural attack or an unarmed strike, that creature takes 1 point of fire damage per 4 kineticist levels you possess (minimum 1 point of fire damage). A creature in a grapple with you takes double this amount of damage at the end of each of its turns.

Weapons that strike you also take this damage, though the damage is unlikely to penetrate the weapon's hardness. By accepting 1 point of burn, you can increase this damage by 1 point per 4 kineticist levels you possess until the next time your burn is removed. You can increase the damage in this way up to seven times.

Whenever you accept burn while using a fire wild talent, the surging flame causes your searing flesh to deal double its current amount of damage for 1 round (a creature in a grapple with you takes a total of four times as much damage as normal). You can dismiss or restore this effect as an immediate action.

That said, I personally don't think it's worth it when you compare fire's defense with the more consistently useful defenses of the other elements. You'll need to be doing 10 points of fire damage to exceed hardness of projectiles and hafted weapon with no special materials and 20 fire damage to deal with any other metal blade. The earliest you can reasonably achieve the first break point is level 5 with 4 points of burn out the gate, and the second break point is level 9 with 6 points of burn. Those two numbers don't leave a lot of extra burn to do much else. In a very high level game as a secondary defense it might be worth entertaining, but I can't see taking it seriously if you're playing below 12 or so.

Energy damage is halved before applying hardness. Even at maximum (7) burn, Searling Flesh deals a maximum of 8 point per 4 levels. Whitch has an horrible scaling thanks to breaking points. Even using a more sensible calculating method of 2 damage per level, you need at least level 11 to be able to deal a single point of damage to nonmagical iron weapons.
A +5 Weapon Hardness can never be pierced without the doubling up for accepting burn in the last round. Adamantine +5 only get 10 damage from a level 20 Kin doubling up his searing flesh.

You can't retrain wild talents.

The retraining rules are very clear in which specific class abilities can and cannot be retrained, and wild talents aren't listed.

So until they expand upon those rules to include the newly released kineticist class, retraining your class abilities is mere conjecture at best.

Also, directly from the retraining rules for class features:
The class feature you wish to retrain can't be one that you used as a prerequisite for a feat, class feature, archetype, prestige class, or other ability. You must retrain those elements separately before you can retrain this class feature.

I think your numbers are off, Dek. A +5 base weapon has hardness 20, Ada would be 30. A 20 Pyro will be doing 40 before doubling up (8x5). Doubled up that's going to break even a +5 Ada weapon very quickly, Dealing 10 damage to it's 90hp per attack after halving the damage from energy.

And on a much more reasonable level, I've never seen an enemy with an Adamantine weapon, rarely a special material at all. Generally it's +1 or +2, so you're looking at by passing 5 to 14 hardness, and it won't go up that much more unless the GM is purposefully throwing in high hardness weapons to counter you.

And that's ignoring the damage it does to anything with natural attacks. I think you're underestimating what it can do.

Also, if the weapon is wood or partially wood, while deciding which material is what level of strong or weak to different energies is technically 100% GM discretion because we provide no baseline, I think it would be a significant stretch to say that fire isn't effective enough against wood to avoid the most punitive case of halving before hardness.

I think your numbers are off, Dek. A +5 base weapon has hardness 20, Ada would be 30. A 20 Pyro will be doing 40 before doubling up (8x5). Doubled up that's going to break even a +5 Ada weapon very quickly, Dealing 10 damage to it's 90hp per attack after halving the damage from energy.

And on a much more reasonable level, I've never seen an enemy with an Adamantine weapon, rarely a special material at all. Generally it's +1 or +2, so you're looking at by passing 5 to 14 hardness, and it won't go up that much more unless the GM is purposefully throwing in high hardness weapons to counter you.

And that's ignoring the damage it does to anything with natural attacks. I think you're underestimating what it can do.

First, I don't think you read my post with the needed attention. I invite you to reread carefully every line of text.

Third, I never intended to question the usefulness against natural attacks, only against actual weapons.

To Mark, fair point, but I think that wooden weapons are reeeeally uncommon, to say the least. Clubs and quaterstaffs are not exactly the best weapon evah. I don't think you want to take 7 burn just to melt paesants weapons in a tavern brawl. And is totally usless against ammo like darts or arrow since it has already hitted you.

Lastly, I want to point out that the scaling of Searing Flesh makes it mostly usefull at very high levels. The fact is that his scaling is cubic with levels. First, base damage is level based. Second, more levels make you able to put more burn into it. Thirdly, higher levels bring more attacks per round to the table, enhancing his performance.

Two levels of Brawler, (or one level of Cleric, one level of Monk, Weapon Focus and Crusader's Flurry) should get you Flurry with your kinetic blade.

I like the idea of a Geo/Pyro, but I'd rather put a point in Flame Shield and sink the rest into DR. (It's not possible to stack up Flame Shield with more Burn, right?)

Two levels of Brawler, (or one level of Cleric, one level of Monk, Weapon Focus and Crusader's Flurry) should get you Flurry with your kinetic blade.

Doesn't work, trust me I tried. Hard.

The only workaround I found was shaping the blade as unarmed strike, witch is legal since is a light weapon. Then use it to 2WF since unarmed strike occupies this wierd design space where is considered a single weapon but you can 2WF with it. It is visually quite impressive being completaly coat with flames/lightning/whatever and puching/kicking people. But I wouldn't blame any DM for just saying "no way" since it's quite litterally anti-RAI cheese.

Casual Viking wrote:

Two levels of Brawler, (or one level of Cleric, one level of Monk, Weapon Focus and Crusader's Flurry) should get you Flurry with your kinetic blade.

Doesn't work, trust me I tried. Hard.

Kinetic blade is his own weapon and is not in the "fighter close weapon group", nor is a monk weapon, and neither is the favored weapon of any divinity that i know of.
They made it pretty airtight when it comes to dual wield/flurry it.

That's not how I read it.

"You create a nonreach, light or one-handed weapon in your hand formed of pure energy or elemental matter." So good, so far. I'll create a Kama.

"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." That's fine.

"nor does it grant the kinetic blade any weapon special features." Ok, so it's not a Monk weapon. It can't be Blocking, Trip, Reach, Grapple or Distracting either. But it's still a Kama. "Is the favored weapon of deity X" is not part of "Weapon Special Features", nor is "Is part of the Fighter Weapon Group X".

Then you wouldn't be able to apply weapon focus(kinetic blade). You would need weapon focus (kama). We know it is not the case. The weapon, regardless of his form, function as a "kinetic blast" weapon.
That is also why the solution I proposed does not work by RAW. It requires very specific interpretation on a varius number of points that are not quite RAW. Thus, cheese.

Finally a guide that almost gets the defense ranking right. Except for overvaluing water, you go it right. Kineticists don't buy weapons, so they have plenty of money for magic armor and a magic buckler. Water's defense is easily replicable by magic items. Aether and Earth give benefits that are much harder to get.

Aether allows you to spend burn without becoming easier to drop. With your stat bonuses in con, you can remain at full effective hp for most of a PFS career. ...and many of those HP come back. ...and many hits won't do any secondary effects. ...and you then have your nonlethal to keep you from dying. A smart way to do this is to burn on defense at the beginning of the day to get max elemental overflow. You then have some points to spend for burn during the day.

Finally a guide that almost gets the defense ranking right. Except for overvaluing water, you go it right. Kineticists don't buy weapons, so they have plenty of money for magic armor and a magic buckler.

That's simply not true. At 1st level, Water gives you a +2 buckler for 1 Burn, which would cost on the order of 100 times what you can afford with your starting money.

At 10th level, two Burns buy you a +5 buckler, which would still cost you 40% of your WBL to buy. You do have better things to do with that money, such as boosting your two equally important main stats and buying the rest of the mandatory item suite, and maybe one of those hideously expensive diadems. Or you could just sink that money into a Ring of Invisibility or some Winged Boots for your Geo.

At higher levels, Water rises further, whereas the buckler is stuck at a +5 enhancement.

Bottom line: Whatever way you cut it, Water gives you a +2 to +3 AC bonus over what you can reasonably afford to buy without hurting yourself in other areas.

The Aether defense, on the other hand, starts out as Vigor (whoo!) and slowly graduates into a poor man's False Life. The return rate for invested Burn is stingy, and the regeneration rate is just sad, unless your party is willing to hold siesta after each fight. You claimed Water's defense was easily replicated by items? A False Life wand for 4500 gp will do a better job than Force Ward.

Philo Pharynx wrote:

Finally a guide that almost gets the defense ranking right. Except for overvaluing water, you go it right. Kineticists don't buy weapons, so they have plenty of money for magic armor and a magic buckler.

That's simply not true. At 1st level, Water gives you a +2 buckler for 1 Burn, which would cost on the order of 100 times what you can afford with your starting money.

At 10th level, two Burns buy you a +5 buckler, which would still cost you 40% of your WBL to buy. You do have better things to do with that money, such as boosting your two equally important main stats and buying the rest of the mandatory item suite, and maybe one of those hideously expensive diadems. Or you could just sink that money into a Ring of Invisibility or some Winged Boots for your Geo.

At higher levels, Water rises further, whereas the buckler is stuck at a +5 enhancement.

Bottom line: Whatever way you cut it, Water gives you a +2 to +3 AC bonus over what you can reasonably afford to buy without hurting yourself in other areas.

The Aether defense, on the other hand, starts out as Vigor (whoo!) and slowly graduates into a poor man's False Life. The return rate for invested Burn is stingy, and the regeneration rate is just sad, unless your party is willing to hold siesta after each fight. You claimed Water's defense was easily replicated by items? A False Life wand for 4500 gp will do a better job than Force Ward.

If you are playing a game that will be entirely low-level, you have a point. For E6, hydrokineticist is great. But the fact remains that you can easily spend money to get AC. Talking about buying a +5 buckler is a straw man, because it's more efficient to split your money among many AC boosts. Yes, you do have a bit of an AC advantage, but you have to compare it to what you lose.

Water only helps against regular AC attacks. It doesn't work against most spells and rays. Save spells? Nope. Guns? Nope. Magic Missiles? Nope. Aether affects everything that does hp damage. It runs out, but by the time it does your party should have killed some of the enemy.

By the time you get the wand of false life, you're already getting more Temp HP than the wand would give you and you can do it all day every day instead of 50 combats.

At 12th level with 5 burn, the aetherkineticist has 42 temp hp. That's 42 more points of damage than a hydrokineteicist can take before they go down.

As for regen, it never takes more than about 15 minutes, and that's when it's completely down. If your party doesn't search the bodies of the fallen or the search the room then you might not be at full strength.