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Guys, have you tested this class? Lets do a lvl 5 hypothetical. So, let me get this right.

1. With a shield raised or reactive shield (a feat that you always have to basically take at lvl 1). You have basically a 27 ac. To get that 27ac you either have to use an action to raise your shield or use a reaction to do it. If you use a reaction, then you can't react to help you allies. So, 1 action to probably move to the enemies (I don't see many enemies choosing to get in melee with a mountain), because they probably won't come to you unless it's a bigger monster of some sort. I use another action to use hampering sweeps and I use my last action to raise shield. That action tax is bad enough. I put no damage on the enemy and I can't even use the trash taunt that's put in my kit.

2. Enemies have around a +18-22 to hit at lvl 5 for the most part and you want to give it another +2 to hit you while using hampering sweeps? Again, your AC is 27, and you use hampering sweeps. Now the enemy has around a +20-24 chance to hit you. So, a 13 plus can crit. Oh, you have 2 enemies around? Enemies now have a +22-26 to hit you because since they can't leave your reach, they circle around you to make you off-guard? Now they may need an 11 to crit. Meaning, 50% of the time the first attack from both will crit. Second attack, a 15+ could crit and the third attack they need to hit on an 11. Do crits do like 20 damage an attack.....? Hell, no. My experience gming and playing. Crits are at 40+ at lvl 5.

3. Oh, but you can taunt to get some damage mitigation. In that example, you couldn't taunt because you had no actions left and even if you did taunt and not move to get the damage mitigation; you now give another +2 to hit. 24-26, if they stack. Now they can crit on a 9. Oh, but now you get crit resistance for the attack(4+1/2 lvl=7). If you max con and have toughness (83 hp). Lets just use 40 as crit damage and the enemy is attacking you 6 times. 2 crits you're down to 17 hp (33 damage * 2).

4. Ok, as a gm, I know enemies are usually 1-3 lvls above the pc's for the most part. This class makes an already deadly game, even deadlier for the guardian with no respectable mitigation options until lvl 10 with Tough Cookie (the second best feat the guardian has up to lvl 10) and the only one that really helps you stay alive, but it's only once a day. Oh, the healer can heal for 50 hp every turn, but me getting 41 temp at that lvl can only be done once a day? I digress...

5. And you guys want to nerf the best thing this class has? Shame on you! Lets nerf lay on hands too... Oh, and lets nerf the fighters reactive strike while we're at it.

6. Now, if it had to be nerfed... I would like it if the action of hampering strikes action gave you 1 reactive strike reaction per enemy within reach. If you hit them with the reactive strike, movement is stopped. If not, they continue to move. That way, you're doing damage. Which is a weakness for this class anyway.

What's the best way to nerf Hampering Sweeps?

Squared in reach are greater difficult terrain for you enemies?

Why does this need to be nerfed? As the guardian stands at the moment. This is the only and I mean only reason to play this class over a champion or fighter.

Over the weekend I ran 3 mock battles with my group each at a different level and party comp.

Encounter 1, party level 4
Party: guardian, commander(melee), barbarian, ranger(bow)
Enemys:4 durauger 2 flaming skulls

Encounter 2, party level 8
Party: guardian, commander(ranged), barbarian, thaumaturge
Enemys:zombie dragon (elite) 2 sulpher zombies

Encounter 3, party level 15
Party: guardian, commander(melee), commander(ranged), gunslinger
Enemies: 2 beneficial worms.

Our findings: both classes feel incredibly solid, our guardian player did find that intercept attack was a much more engaging and reliable mechanic compared to taunt. Especially in the high level build where he had three reactions to intercept and had 10 feet of movement on each. Also tough cookie is a very silly feat.

Onto commander more good news both our commander testers got a lot of active use out of their abilities, stand outs being form up, plant banner, quickening banner, and fortunate blow. In our last test we had two commanders to see how they play in multiples and surprisingly they very rarely where stepping on each other's toes and managed to work around each other very cleanly.

Criticisms: our guardian found that it was actually not super common for the situation to line up where taunting actually made sense, and as such his threat methods where basically never online. Also there for the commander tactics, there are enough "generally useful" commands like strike hard or form up that preparing the more niche options like pincer attack doesn't make a lot of sense.

On the upside my guardian player and both commander players where very satisfied with gamefeeland feel both classes as they stand are very effective at filling their rolls.

Interesting, the guardian in 6 sessions in my case felt very underwhelming. 5 deaths while taunt was active and 1 whole session that every enemy critically passed his taunt. The guardian could only really protect allies within 10-15 ft of him because of heavy armor and was constantly crit, due to the fact that enemies had +2/4 to hit if off-guard.

When will this hit stores?

Can't Wait!!!

Ever since the game released, people have asked for blasters to be better, and have been met with different variations of "but casters have spells, they're too versatile, they can't do high damage!". Alright, that's fair. Ever since then my group and I have been waiting for the famed Kineticist, the class that doesn't have slots but is a magic user that can be a real blaster. What we got in this playtest is as far away from that as it can possibly be.

Let's start with Blast. TL;DR: it's basically a bow. Maybe a slightly worse bow. d6 agile, or d8 but with pretty bad range. d4 with high range if you want to snipe people with wet noodles. "But it's ranged, it should be balanced with a bow!", you may be thinking. And yeah, except this is not a Fighter with a bow. It's not a Ranger or Inventor with a bow. The blasts do the same damage as a Champion with a bow. The class that explicitly doesn't have any damage booster feature because it's tanky as a brick and has the best reactive ability in the game. Not only we're competing with that low of a bar, but we're probably losing to it, because Kineticist also hits with a secondary stat and has a random 2 level delay on their Expert attack proficiency.

But it also has non-blast impulses, and those might make up for it, right...? Well, let's take a look at those. The average overflow impulse does 2d4 + 1d4 per 2 character levels, which is ever so slightly worse than a cantrip like Spout or Scatter Scree (1d4+4 + 1d4 per 2 character levels). But they're AoE! Yes, they are, but they also cost 2+1 actions, and are on a class that only goes to Master DC and will probably want to Apex Str or Dex instead of their key. Some, like Tidal Hands or Aerial Boomerang, are a little stronger, but they also come with area shapes that make you spend even more actions setting them up (cones and lines). And let's keep in mind we're comparing them to cantrips, the weakest feature of a class that has full spellcasting. And Scatter Scree is also an AoE that's basically a...

Ok, I’ve posted in like 3 YouTube videos, so I’ll keep this brief and just to damage. I dm’d two 6hr sessions with 7 combats at lvl 6. To sum it all up. The kineticist was the worst at skills and damage. The alchemist did 176 damage total and the kineticist did 125. If it was close… I wouldn’t have been so disappointed. Also, everything that the kin could do as utility, could be replicated with a low lvl item or spell. You don’t need 10 lights for instance.

I know this is pretty late, but they do stack. Pistoleros were meant to do more damage due to the shorter range.

Yes, they stack!