Am I the only one who is disappointed at the way Paizo has thus far handled the positive energy kineticist? Ever since they released the positive blast I have been trying to make a character based on it work from a mechanical or even a thematic standpoint, but I just can't seem to do so.
For starters, it is incredibly difficult to actually do damage with it unless you are in an undead-heavy campaign. The recently released Photokinetic Infusion allows you to do a pitifully tiny amount of damage with it, but even then it is nonlethal. What was the point in applying a damage reduction to the nonlethal damage here? Even if they allowed Merciful Foliage to apply to positive blasts fully, it would still be one of the weakest options available to the kineticist. And even if you are in an undead-heavy campaign, the Positive Energy blast doesn't do even remotely as well as any physical blast or even the Fire energy blast. By taking this blast, I simply feel like I have locked myself out of using the kineticist's signature ability.
However, I wouldn even mind this if it was even remotely better at healing. But even in this regard, positive energy is just actively worse than anything else available. As an energy blast, you are actually healing less than either a water or aether kineticist with every use of Wood Healer. You could argue that it gets better with the Healing Burst talent, but even then it isn't useable. Unlike the cleric's channel energy (which healing burst is obviously based on) you cannot take any of the feats that alter your burst. So, for example, you cannot take Selective Channel to remove enemies from your healing burst. This means that the ability will rarely be useable in combat without some seriously careful positioning. And out of combat, you rarely need a massive burst of healing like that. Couldn't they have made it so that Wood Healer counted as Lay on Hands for the purposes of feats and other features? And wood-based healing burst count as channel energy? At least then the positive blast kineticist would have a little uniqueness vs. its aether or water healing counterparts.
Frankly, I don't see why Negative energy kineticists get their own element, while positive ones don't. Thematically, kineticists draw their power from different elemental planes. It doesn't really make sense for positive energy kineticists to draw their powers from the First World rather than the Positive Energy Plane or even a deific influence. I'm still holding out the hope that the positive blast gets its own element in the future. Or, at the very least, I'm hoping we get an archetype in the future that allows positive energy users to be remotely useful. Hell, I'd even love a cleric archetype that trades spellcasting for positive blasts and unique domain-inspired infusions. I feel like there is a lot of interesting design space for positive energy (both in terms of kineticists and channeling clerics) that has only very recently been explored by archetypes like the Blossoming Light and the Angelfire Apostle. I've written up a couple homebrew items myself, but that was more for theorycrafting purposes than anything.
Is there something to this I'm missing? I know Kineticists of Poryphyra supposedly has usable positive energy stuff, but unfortunately my main group and DM sticks pretty rigidly to 1st party material. Has anyone else managed to make positive energy really shine? (no pun intended) I know this came out as a long ranty post, but as someone who generally loves playing healbots and support characters (but hates keeping track of the cleric's monumental spell list) I was super excited for the possibility of a support kineticist.
