Ryuujin-sama's page

Im not going to say the name of a PF 1e class I want, but more the concept I want. I want a character who channels primal magic into themselves in order to empower themselves in combat. Barbarian doesn't quite hit this and summoner is a different vibe. Basically I want more a Champion with like the heaviest or hardest Druid dedication to them, but as a bespoke class with primal magic baked right in.

Kind of sounds like the 4e D&D Warden which was a Primal Defender and had the highest Hit Point total in the game. Like a 4e Fighter it defended its allies and made it harder for their enemies to attack their allies. Like a Druid they were Primal and had a Polymorph like effect. Their dailies were mostly about transforming themselves in a way to better help their defending for an encounter, like a tree form that gave them reach and may have allowed them to slide their enemies around when they hit, forms that made the area round them difficult terrain for their enemies, forms that may have added a knockdown effect to their hits, or forms that made them more resistant to their enemy's attacks. For those not familiar with 4e Primal was a Power Source and Primal classes tended to have the highest HP for their Role. Defender was a Role based around defending their allies or punishing their enemies who attacked their allies. Using the Marking mechanic. A Fighter might be equivalent to a Defender because of the Reactive Strike, both Champion and Guardian would definitely fall under Defenders.

For me I think the problem is a lot of the stuff I want is almost in the game but not quite, stuff that feels too big to be an archetype but maybe too close to existing ideas to be a new class.

I want a class that's almost like the Inventor, but focuses on actual inventions, gadgets, and special abilities rather than being a martial with only one or two added gimmicks.

I want a class that's almost the Wild Druid, but sacrifices raw magical power for more interesting and flexible shapeshifting.

I want a primal magus-adjacent class that uses primal elemental and nature magic to disrupt enemies. Imagining battlefield controlling auras and zones of space, elemental themed special attacks...

I want a class that's like the Ranger without the obligate nature themeing and like the Investigator without being objectively bad in every way.

There's also in general just a handful of PF1 classes that I'm reasonably confident will never be brought back but still can't play in PF2 and feel bad about it (inquisitor, mesmerist, spiritualist, ninja, for starters) but it's kind of past the point thinking about those.

The Inventor thing kind of reminds me of the first version of the 5e Artificer Unearthed Arcana before they changed it, also the homebrew Artificer than one person made before the final version of Artificer came out.

The Wild Druid shapeshifter thing kind of sounds like what people expected for the 1e Shifter, but hopefully much better than what we got in 1e. Definitely one of the concepts I have really been looking forward to since 3.0 D&D, the closest I have seen was probably the 4e D&D Druid who went on a Wild Shape focus, though the 3.x Shapeshift Druid variant was interesting but gave up too much, while still technically being just as much of a caster as a normal Druid, while also not having the Shapeshift be anywhere near as good as just Wild Shape with the only real benefit being that it was at will. The 1e Shifter kind of felt like it was going this way, but was so underpowered and still wasn't at will shifting.

Primal Magus-like kind of sounds a bit like how the 4e Druid, who did not focus on Wild Shape, kind of worked. It was a controller so its abilities were mostly focused on controlling enemies, and some of their dailies were auras. A class focused on Auras is also a concept that I have really wanted. The closest right now is Kineticist probably, and sadly you can't grab a bunch of Aura Stances, I would love to be able to combine a number of them but stances are mutually exclusive except for a very high level Monk.

What I have seen on Youtube is you can use Beastkin unarmed attacks in Were Hybrid Form, and that you lose the Silver Vulnerability, though no mention of that removing the restriction on the Fast Healing feat of being turned off for a round when taking Silver damage.

There might have been more but I don't remember anything else from what I saw.

I missed Clang. Which is technically not a reaction, which is weird. It does require the enemy to critically miss you, not sure how often that would ever happen. Not sure it would come up much, but even if it did I don't think it changes my opinion.

I didn't include the level 7 thing because that for the most part just lets them use one of their reactions before their turn and is a once per combat thing.

Personally I would remove the limit on how often it could be done, and bake it into the level 1 class features, make it so it isn't poachable from Multiclass Dedication. Maybe put a once a round limit on it if necessary, but I feel like it needs to scale to more often as one levels. And since you normally can only do Intercept Strike once per round early on anyway, only able to do it more often from feats as you level, that basically takes care of the scaling anyway.

Also not sure where people are getting 5 reactions per turn?

A guardian can get a 2nd reaction, per round, at 8th level with a feat. This can only be used on Intercept Strike, but Intercept Strike is what triggers Armored Counterattack.

At 14th level with another feat the guardian can get another reaction per round, for three total now, but this can only be used on Intercept Foe. This cannot trigger Armored Counterattack as the rules are currently written.

And at 20th level they could use their one level 20 feat on Boundless Reprisals which increases the number of reactions they have per round by the number of enemy turns. Now at this point I can see how someone might want a restriction of once per Turn on Armored Counterattack since there would potentially be a number of enemy turns where they would have two Intercept Strike reactions to trigger it.

Yeah not sure how well the Ankylosaurus could be portrayed by the Awakened Animal, I assume just choose to be large and maybe have the option to pick a tail attack or something. But a slow moving armored form would probably better fit it. Would also help if they could pick a tail attack like what the Ankylosaurus instinct Animal Barbarian apparently gets.

Can we get any more info on the Ankylosaurus Animal instinct for Barbarians?

Does it seem possible/plausible for an Awakened Animal to be a Dinosaur?

Can Werecreatures cast spells or use impulses? Or does it have the usual Battle Form restrictions?

Any dinosaur options for Werecreatures?

I just remember trying to build a character, possibly with Lizardfolk or possibly with Beastkin heritage to try and create an Ankylosaurus person and it sounds like there might be new options that could better replicate that now.

Why not make this simpler?

When you Taunt, allow you to make a melee strike for free, no MAP, if the Taunted enemy attacked someone who wasn't you last turn. This would be BAKED IN on the Taunt action

This way:

1. You deal more damage to enemies who don't focus you.

2. You have an incentive to be close to enemies, not far.

3. You kinda want to Taunt every turn and enemies start reconsidering not attacking you.

Kind of reminds me of the level 12 feat Armored Counterattack but fixes my issues with that feat. I feel like Armored Counterattack should not come in at level 12, should not be limited to once per minute, and shouldn't even be a feat but instead baked into the base Intercept Strike/Foe.

And that is another thing, I feel Taunt shouldn't have a save and shouldn't lower the Guardian's AC. Instead it should make it harder for the enemy to harm the Guardian's AC and if the enemy still dares to attack the Guardian's ally then the Guardian gets the stride in and free action counterattack. And at the same time the Guardian should get resist all/hardness equal to what the current Intercept Strike provides when they Taunt an enemy, or perhaps even all the time to just be beefy no matter what. This provides a real Catch-22 to the enemy, they can try and hit the now harder to hit ally and take a retaliatory strike in the process or try and go for the high defenses Guardian and even if they hit deal less damage than they would like.

As I read it it will never come into play unless the enemy you Taunted makes a hostile action against someone, without including you in that action, on your turn after you Taunted them but before you are out of actions.

It would make more sense if it said Until the End of Your Next Turn. Though that still falls into the problem that they are no longer Taunted at the Start of Your Next Turn.

Mitigate Harm also seems pretty bad, the only thing that might make it merely mediocre is if Chain Specialization is actually not Resistance and stacks with it. But that would still not be nearly enough damage reduction on a Critical Hit to really seem good. Also as far as I can tell neither damage reduction comes into effect when you Critical Fail a save, which seems fairly likely if you Taunt someone and they use a Save feature/spell against you.

Would definitely like Swarm, though perhaps with more options for what kind of Swarm you are than what Owlcat's version had. Things like Aeon, Dragon, Elemental, maybe Golem, would be nice. Trickster would probably be good. It would make sense for some kind of Demon/Devil option and some kind of Angel/Azata style option.

Not sure if Eternal Legend is going to go more towards the Legend path of Owlcat's Wrath of the Righteous or not but the name reminds me of one of the Epic Destinies from 4e. I think it was actually called Eternal Legend and made the character 25% taller and 50% heavier, or something like that, gave them reach and some other stuff.

Maybe I missed something about Cloud Storage. It doesn't seem like you can ever do more than 1 Bulk at a time, but it talks about costing points from the Vitality Network equal to the Bulk removed with a minimum of 1. That makes it sound like you could have bigger Bulk eventually but I don't see any way to increase it. Unless it is future proofing for possible future feats?

Karmagator wrote:

Sanityfaerie wrote:

It's not the only thing driving this feeling, but making all soldiers automatically be good at melee weapons feels... off. I like that that's a class path.

I'd prefer that as well, but on the other hand a class path would really have to do way too much heavy lifting as far as I can tell. I'd have to solve the STR/DEX split dilemma and make melee weapons actually something you want to play over your other options. Otherwise it'd have to go melee-only, which I think is a bad idea.

There's two easy ways to have the classpath solve the STR/DEX split.

- Have melee area weapons be a thing. The melee path gets to use Class DC (still CON) on melee area weapons.
- Continue to have Con-based Class DC and class DC applied to ranged area effect weapons. The class path swaps your primary stat and class DC to use str.

The second of those two is even pretty close to free as far as power budget is concerned. Of the two... I'd probably go with the latter, actually, as it enables Athletics-based maneuvers (assuming those are a thing in SF2).

Oh, huh... and if they *are* a thing, there should totally be some sort of oversized mechanical fist weapon that you can use for athletics maneuvers and also hit people really hard with, because that is definitely a soldier image.

I like the Con DC Save area thing for the big guns, with the Soldier being the best at it. But I will admit I do really like the idea of of area Melee weapons as well, and especially Power Fists.

Maybe I missed it but I don't think I saw how many spell slots they have per rank.

The class is only mad if your want to use your class DC on certain abilities as it keys off charisma

Otherwise it isn't mad unless you don't like having to make choices at character creation

Why would Class DC use Charisma? The Key Ability/Attribute is Str or Dex. Cha is used for Domain stuff if you grab them with feats, but that is not the same thing as Class DC.

Yeah I kind of hoped for something a little closer to Binder, and yeah I would have preferred no casting except for what a specific Apparition might grant. And yeah it would be a lot more work to balance Apparitions that were more like the Binder's Vestiges.

Have they clarified if Skybearer's Belt even improves the Exemplar's Bulk Capacity? RAW it talks about allies in your aura, and you are not your own ally, so it shouldn't by RAW improve your own Bulk Capacity. Even though that is completely at odds with the flavor of the ability.

Definitely feel like you need to optimize for Leap on an Animist.

Actually thinking about it I am not sure Additional Ikon can even be used with Mated Birds in Paired Flight, since you can only have your Spark in one Ikon at a time, the only exception is Twin Stars which has both halves of the weapon invested with the Spark.

It would seem like both weapons would need to have the Spark for the Immanence for Mated Birds in Paired Flight, let alone the Transcendence, and unless the whole bonded thing listed before the Immanence somehow lets different weapon Ikons share the Spark or something, but that could cause some weird stuff with different kinds of Ikon Weapons, it would seem like two different Weapon Ikons could not be used at the same time.

So I have seen this suggested before that it can get rid of any negative effects, but some of the things people bring up don't seem to have saves at all, so how would you ever succeed at the new save if there is not specific DC for a success.

I would hope it would be RAI, but yeah needs clarification. Now trying to figure out what would be the best/most thematic weapon for it.

Watching a video of some people going over the playtest and they suggested a Starknife for the Fated Shot Ikon and that made me wonder how things like Ikons and feats that specify a Ranged Weapon work with Thrown Weapons that are technically a Melee Weapon. Yes you can make ranged attacks with thrown weapons, but not sure if they count as a Ranged Weapon for Ikons and Feats like Through the Needle's Eye.

Now of course Starknife can already be used by Mated Birds in Paired Flight.

Also like the idea of going Dwarf and making your Ikon Weapon a Dwarven Thrower, grab Twin Stars, maybe Titan's Breaker for Ikon if it can work with a thrown hammer, maybe Whose Cry is Thunder, Hurl at the Horizon, Mated Bird's in Paired Flight assuming it works with Twin Stars, Infinite Blades Celestial Arrow, maybe Seven-Colored Cosmic Bridge or Eternity-Incinerating Blaze just for more effects as you throw all your crazy hammers. Dwarf Thoring it up. Though Infinite Blades Celestial Arrow almost sounds more like a Loki kind of thing with duplicate weapons raining down.

Though I do have to wonder how any Throwing Weapon Ikon attacks work before you manage to get Returning on your weapon.

You have two Focus Spells at first level though? Admittedly it does require either Refocusing or using Apparition's Whirl to switch your current Primary Apparition to use the second Apparition's Vessel Spell Focus Cantrip.

You would then gain a third Focus Point once you get your third Apparition at 4th level, and of course since 3 is the max number of Focus Points you don't get a 4th when you get your 4th Apparition at 12th level.

The designer specifically clarified that it wasn't an error, they get Master in Fortitude and treating Will Success as a Critical Success.

Another, highly unlikely, way of reading the is that it goes from +2 damage per weapon die to +4+1dy per weapon die, basically doubling the damage dice, or even more at later levels. This obviously seems unlikely to be the intent, but is technically a way to read the ability and definitely needs clarification on just how the feature works.

Also speaking of Titan's Breaker in general does spirit damage from other sources, such as Spirit Strike, also ignore Hardness and Construct/Object immunity to spirit damage. What happens when you change the damage type of your Spirit damage to something like Electricity or Bludgeoning from one of the Dominion Ephithets.

I do wish there was a way to sustain it as a free action, as is you have fewer actions to move or strike than a Wild Shape Druid. There is the Sustaining Dance, but that isn't as much movement as a normal Stride, usually, and isn't helpful if you don't need to move and would be trying multiple strikes or maneuvers.

Alright, time for my regular massive post on an initial read-through of playtest classes.

Darkened Forest Form just seems like a straight-up better wild shape since it’s only one action.

I'm not sure it is a better wild shape, it doesn't seem to get anything better than Elemental forms, it only lasts 1 minute except with a specific combo for Animal Forms, and it is Sustain so it takes an Action every round to keep it going. That said being able to shift forms as part of the Sustain Action is nice.

Mythic Heroes aren't supposed to be equivalent or equal to non mythic heroes. Mythic rules, at least as in PF1e, is not a thing that one or two characters have, but rather something all the player characters have and also at least some of the enemies you face, but not all enemies so that you can feel like a mythic hero mowing down the chaff.

keftiu wrote:

My hopes are for something like a new Archetype 'slot' for Mythic Archetypes, with options like turning into an Angel or (hopefully!) a Protean alongside more 1e-style "you're exceptional at what you do" stuff.

Yeah I really want to see something more like the Owlcat version where you can become a demon vs the more generic mythic "archmage" and "trickster" from PF 1e.

That is a thing I have been hoping for for awhile now, a PF2e equivalent to Wrath of the Righteous, and I was assuming it would work off of Archetypes as well, so making a special archetype like field for it fits my thoughts, and I would love to become Angel, Demon, Swarm, Dragon, Aeon, etc. kind of thing.

Though a playtest, maybe in a few months, would be helpful.

One thing about Mono Fire and the Metal composite is that you can pick up a composite at level 8 with a feat if you are single element. So you could grab any of the composites that include fire, including the very useful Molten Wire.

Yeah they specifically call out that multiple Suns don't stack for the bonus damage to Strikes, Fire Spells and Fire Impulses but don't say you can't have more than one Sun out. I really like the idea of multiple Suns out that have Safe Elements so you don't have to worry about hitting your allies, though I don't think you can get more than 2 out with Safe Elements, because you only get 1 free Sustain. Each Sun doesn't do as much damage as Flying Flame but covers a larger area and can sweep through an area for a smaller action cost once you have them going. And any actions not used on Sustaining them can be used on Flying Flame as well.

I would probably go for Ignite the Sun, not as much damage but fewer actions and no Overflow, and you can sustain it to make it bigger and fling it through enemies for nice consistent damage on the following rounds. And it gives you and hopefully your allies +1d6 fire damage on attacks/spells/etc maybe +1d8 if you have the Fire Impulse Junction. Also hopefully Safe Element would allow one extra action as you start it up to allow it to not hurt your allies as you sweep it around, not sure exactly how that works with things like this with a Sustain.

That said if you don't need to move and can get your free action Channel every round, and don't have to worry about killing your allies somehow, spamming All Shall End in Flames to keep killing yourself and reviving is some shenanigans.

I think there was one in the playtest, or maybe I just wished for one, because I remember brainstorming ideas of builds that combined stances.

Look just let me do fire and cold damage to everything around me constantly, also maybe lightning too. Kind of surprised we didn't get auras like Thermal Nimbus for other energy types, or maybe a piercing damage aura as flying needles fill the air.

Yeah hard to say what is my favorite, just too much good stuff.

Always did like the idea of an aura build so Thermal Nimbus and Crowned in Tempest's Fury are both cool.

I also really like Earth's armor up kind of stances, though sad both of the big ones became stances and can no longer be combined. Assume Earth's Mantle and Rebirth in Living Stone. Though I guess you can combine RiLS with Armor in Earth.

Fresh Produce is nice and thematic, same with the Timber Sentinel and just at will trees.

Kind of conceptually like all the powers that turn you into your element, though not sure how good off hand they all are.

Definitely like the Winter's Sleet stance, seems like it could be fun for a melee water kineticist. Kind of sad we lost the cold damage aura stance, though I guess you could just spam Winter's Clutch now but it is not as constant as an aura stance.

Kind of wish an all stance/aura build was possible. Grab something that transforms your body, constant fire/cold aura, enemies always tripping and sliding around in your aura. But now we can't even combine two stances let alone an all stance build.

Giving the Shifter any spellcasting or Focus point stuff would definitely disappoint me. Making it an Archetype would as well, as it is a concept that is definitely big enough for a full class and could easily have something like Druid orders or Sorcerer bloodlines where how you shift or what you shift into could be different. Kind of like the archetypes from the 1e Shifter.

Hmm start Fire with Impulse Junction and grab Earth or something with d8s and then Two-Element Infusion. Might be better to start dual and grab the Impulse Junction at 5, not sure. Combine the elements for a blast with 60ft range and d8 damage dice, half fire half bludgeoning or what have you. Maybe grab the Fire Aura option as well when you can but that might be 9th before you can get all that.

Now the question is what exactly happens to the damage? Do the dice become d10s with half and half damage? Do half the dice increase? If you have the Aura it should add the same amount of extra damage because it doesn't matter how much of the damage is fire to trigger it, just that you are dealing fire damage.

Kind of sad some of these things don't work on a Cold damage Fire Blast and that the Fire Aura Junction won't increase the Cold damage on a variant Fire Blast either.

Really tempted by a Conrasu Kineticist, going for the heal others with their sunlight ability, grabbing Wood and maybe Water and grabbing a bunch of healing impulses, and if free archetype grab Battlefield Medic. Grab some damage and defense impulses but also have like 4 or 5 methods to heal a person per battle. Ocean's Balm, Torrent in Blood, Sea Glass Guardians though that doesn't have the 10 minute thing, Fresh Produce, maybe Timber Sentinel though it is more damage prevention than healing, Dash of Herbs, Sanguivolent Roots doesn't have the 10 minute thing and is overflow but could be a good main attack every other round or every round when you get free action Channel Element. There is the Ambush Bladderwort but that seems like I would probably rather just use Sanguivolent, though it does have immobilized.

Also really tempted by a Fire Kineticist focusing on up close and personal with the Weakness Aura and Thermal Nimbus, Fire Impulse Junction, try to deal fire damage as often as possible in a round, and multiclass Fire Oracle for the persistent fire damage on fire damage. Maybe Furnace Form if spamming Elemental Blasts. Probably Ignite the Sun to add another die of damage to fire impulses. Not sure what Ancestry for that one though.

Ryuujin-sama wrote:

Red Griffyn wrote:

The real secret is how to reliably get a fire shield or similar mechanic on a melee kineticist so if anyone hits you you get to proc the fire weakness again not on your turn. I think the L1 feat to add weapon traits will more than make up for fire immunity (make it B/P/S) so I'm not sure adding cold damage really helps here? Either way, I don't know what I don't know. Just having fun exploring the mechanics and the numbers are what are more exciting to me. Helps me gauge if a feat/ability is cool/worth it or more of a trap option. This class looks like it has great flavour, but I won't want to play it if the specific mechanical niche isn't obvious or worthwhile.

Reminder that the Aura Junction for Fire gives Fire Weakness equal to half your level, but only against your impulses so it won't work with any other form of fire you have or your allies' fire.

Also you have thermal nimbus which IS an impulse and benefits from that fire weakness while making your allies resistant to it.

So you can essentially deal 4 fire dmg per turn to anyone in your aura as a level 4 pyrokineticist.

5 at 5th level maybe, but you can't have the Aura before then. Though with half level on both it might still be 4?

The real secret is how to reliably get a fire shield or similar mechanic on a melee kineticist so if anyone hits you you get to proc the fire weakness again not on your turn. I think the L1 feat to add weapon traits will more than make up for fire immunity (make it B/P/S) so I'm not sure adding cold damage really helps here? Either way, I don't know what I don't know. Just having fun exploring the mechanics and the numbers are what are more exciting to me. Helps me gauge if a feat/ability is cool/worth it or more of a trap option. This class looks like it has great flavour, but I won't want to play it if the specific mechanical niche isn't obvious or worthwhile.

Reminder that the Aura Junction for Fire gives Fire Weakness equal to half your level, but only against your impulses so it won't work with any other form of fire you have or your allies' fire.

The level 5 Dual Gate Kineticist who Forks the Path should have three elements. The level 5 Single Gate Kineticist that Forks the Path should have two elements and the impulse junction of their first element.

The resistance junction disparity between fire and everyone else is where the pain is. But that seriously overlaps with a very strong stance you probably want.

You mean stacks right? I assume you mean Thermal Nimbus which specifically calls out the Fire Resistance Junction as stacking with it.

Well that depends on if you are currently in the element of your elemental weapon or not.

Unless you have taken Elemental Weapon multiple times so that you have a weapon you can switch to at all times.

I do kind of wish that Cycling Blast when combined with Elemental Weapon would let you strike with the Elemental Weapon instead of using Elemental Blast as part of that action. Then you could take Elemental Weapon twice for two separate elemental guns and just cycle blast between the two to avoid reloading, so long as you are from a region that grants access to guns of course.

In the level 6 playtest I ran, the party found Melee blasts to be very effective against most of the creatures they fought. The two Kineticists each were STR focused, and so, when they got swarmed by creatures, they often did their best damage, and were well set up to use their overflow impulses.

That would be a terrible tactic if surrounded by creatures with AoOs, but I don't think you need to worry about always being in that situation. In that situation, an elemental weapon would probably be pretty effective to use, but you would want to step away to make it.

Why? If you can step aside to make the Elemental Weapon, why don't you step aside to make a ranged Elemental Blast? If you can't step aside to make your ranged Elemental Blast then you can't step aside to form an Elemental Weapon.

As far as I understand it a Kineticist can only hurt/effect a golem if it has a specific clause saying it takes extra damage from Fire if a Fire Kineticist, or a specific clause that it takes extra damage from Bludgeoning if one of the other Elements, or Slashing for Air. Though Air and Water might be able to do a little something if the Golem has a clause about taking extra damage from Cold or Electricity.

I think the only thing that can harm a Golem that a Kineticist can do is if they can do the damage type listed in the Golem Antimagic feature.

Maybe an Elemental Weapon can do it, depends on what traits the weapon actually has and if it counts a magical ability.

Also even if the Golem had the Elemental Trait matching the Kineticist's Element I am not sure Extract Element would even work because of the Golem's Magic Immunity.

So reading a Reddit thread gave me an idea. But I am not entirely sure how some of these feats would interact. And since this idea focuses on Elemental Weapon this thread seemed like a good place to put it.

So I saw someone talking about using Cycling Blast to regather element and create a new Elemental Weapon gun that is already loaded, thus getting around needing to spend actions to reload.

This would of course require Dual Element, or Universal Gate, and having taken Elemental Weapon at least twice for elemental guns.

I am not sure if you could use the gun's strike in place of the Cycling Blasts's elemental blast. My assumption is not so you would have to shoot, cycling blast to switch elements and then use third action to shoot again. Dealing with normal MAP of course. If on the other hand you can use the Elemental Blast from Cycling Blast as a ranged gun strike that is much better and as far as I can tell you can use Cycling Blast basically every action.

Another idea, requiring even more class feats, is also grabbing Flexible Blasts in the hope that you can somehow do Str based Ranged Elemental Weapon attacks. This is another one where I assume not, but it would be a cool idea to use a Str based gun shot.

Of course all this would use up a lot of class feats which means not much in the way of Impulse feats.

Yeah at 1st level it seems like Dedicated and Dual are the leaders, with Universalist hurting. The higher you get the more Universalist pulls ahead with Dual kind of staying in the middle at all times, and also the higher you get the more Dedicated falls behind. Universalist best benefits from the 9th and 15th level feats that can be changed each day, and of course the level 12 feat to change a feat out in a 10 minute period or the level 20 feat to change an Impulse as an action which is outright amazing for a Universalist.

While I do like the three feats at 1st level for Dedicated, it quicky falls behind and it would be nice if Dedicated could get more higher level Impulse feats to continue the focus on a single element idea.

Dual could possibly use a few extra feats as they level as well, but I feel like that is less important. What would be nice is if they could have both of their elements gathered at the same time, or combine then into a single hybrid element as some have talked about in other threads.

Universalist does feel like it might need more feats early on. The longer you go the more you can spread out. Don't want it to step on the toes of the Dedicated or Dual, but until they get some more feats under their belt, or hit the 10 minute switch out at 12th or 1 action switch out at 20th, they might feel really limited. Of course when they can switch their Impulses out on a whim they also would tend to overshadow the other two gates.

Do any of those other things say they are your Gathered Element transformed into it and goes away if you lose your Gathered Element? I do not believe so.

The rules seem pretty clear that they are mutually exclusive as they both turn your Gathered Element into either a Weapon or Shield and go away if you lose your Gathered Element for some reason.

Then again maybe that isn't what they meant and the wording is poor or they didn't think about this interaction.

After all my interpretation of Stoke Element is different from a lot of people here, which means the more common interpretation makes Stoke Element better than I viewed it, though still of questionable worth.

Air reaction reposition? Push?
Earth reaction turn the ground beneath them into quicksand or just pull them part way into the earth. Stuck/immobilized needing to spend an action to be able to move, and possibly a check as well.
Fire reaction Massive Damage for daring to attack me!
Water reaction uh push or reposition? Inflict slow on someone who attacks you or otherwise cost them actions? Maybe a reaction to cause them to start drowning?

That is kind of how the Legendary Kineticist did it. Though their Blast was more of a Con based Cantrip that scaled by 1d6 every other level, for most elements though the more variable earth used d4s and there was a feat for Blue Fire that used d8s.

It was a single action Cantrip with Flourish so you couldn't spam it a bunch in one round, and then they gained Infusions that cost an action to alter the blast, though in that version the blasts were also Focus point using abilities and would require spending either yet another action to Gather Power to avoid the Focus Point cost or use a Free Action to Burn and take Stunned +2 to avoid the Focus Point cost, so again an action cost.

Now I am not really for the whole Focus Point thing, but I do like the idea of using extra actions to alter a blast. Though I would prefer more of a cantrip damage blast for that than a strike damage blast. Though a strike with enough runes could add up some damage.

Some people talk about the Legendary Kineticist being overtuned or too powerful but I don't see it since they can go all out to do 10d6 in an area, something the current version can do as well with the highest level abilities.

Someone in one of these threads, don't remember who or which thread sadly, had the multi charge idea as well. With Gather Power gathering charges of element equal to Con mod, and then Overflow Impulses would list how many charges they used, or buffs they get based off the number of charges expended when using them.

If we needed a resource that sounds like a reasonable take. Though admittedly I also like the idea floated in another thread about variable action costs for Impulses, possibly in place of Overflow.

Yeah Fire's damage is horrendous, but it does have options for increasing allies' damage, and their own.

Furnace Form and Ignite the Sun can eventually give themselves +2d6 fire damage on their blasts, for a Sustain and two rounds worth of buffing up. Kindle Inner Flames would be some more buffing, for another round of setup, but sadly doesn't add the +1d6 fire damage to more than one strike each.

That said even if Kindle Inner Flames did provide +1d6 fire damage to every strike three rounds of buffing and not really striking much if at all is a bit much. That said it might be worth it for a Dedicated Gate if Stoke Element provided a Status bonus to the +1d6 fire damage each of these provided and lasted for the full duration of the buff so the +1d6 fire becomes +1d6+5(+10 for Ignite the Sun) and thus combining each with a Stoke Element on the round before, though that would then mean at least 4 rounds, allowing a Dedicated Fire Gate to provide allies with +2d6+15 fire and themselves +3d6+20 fire for the combat, whatever may possibly be left after 4 rounds of buffing.

But isn't the cost of the Overflow that you lose your Gathered Element? So how would the Dual Gate switching element work with that?