Verzen's page

While being able to blast cold and lightning (and poison) is definitely important, I mostly care about blasting acid, it's my favorite damage type and so far completely neglected by pf2e. The final kineticist would be the perfect opportunity to give us the option to play an acid blaster.

I'd be down for that.

I have doubts if the designers will put other energy damages to kineticists. Because not only in playtest they haven't but also Elemental Sorcerers don't have access to other energy types than fire.

IMO then main concept in 2e is that elements are the 4 basic states of matter (solid, liquid, gaseous and plasmatic) and most of them does only physical damage.

1) There's no reason why they wouldn't be able to do an update to sorcerers elemental bloodline in the book.

2) Kineticists could deal cold or electricity damage in PF1E.

3) Your last point doesn't make sense.

4) Even if they don't do an errata with sorcerers bloodline, you'd think a kineticist has more control over their specific element than an elemental sorcerer would.

Anyone know if this is going to be an option when kineticist comes out?

I LOVED my cold kineticist in PF1E where the only damage type I dealt was based on cold damage.

I just saw the last WOTC plans for our comrades on the other side of the d20 and one of their plans is to develop AI-GMs.

It got me wondering a few things:
Can it actually be a thing? A lot of adventures are quite streamlined and even if there's not tons of content to absorb (which is what AIs do the best) I'm wondering if an AI can actually be good enough to provide at will content to players when there's a dearth of game running. Maybe not for today, but for tomorrow...

How would you accept AI-GMs? Even considering that they won't be as good as human GMs (and I'm sorry to say that but I'm pretty sure an AI can be better than some human GMs), would you accept to play under AI-GMing? Will the lack of human interaction with the GM reduce the pleasure or will it be fine as long as you get along with the players?

Complementary GMing. That's one thing AIs do the best: helping us. A big part of our hobby can be fully automatized. Combats, for example, especially now that a lot of us are moving to VTTs. Just use an AI for combats and other simple scenes and, as a GM, you can use your time and energy on what's important (story, roleplay, character development). Is it something that would appeal to you?

Yes. 100%.

AI will even be capable of CHANGING the story around and "documenting" any changes we wish to make.

For example. I want to go east and explore east. I dont want to follow this campaign module. AI will be able to adjust and create narratives that allow us to go east.

I wouldn't be surprised if, in 5-10 years, that we'll have fully automated AI GM's that have their own distinct voice that helps narrate.

I'm mildly concerned that we haven't heard any news of elemental eidolons yet; they seem like something that would have been talked about already. The book is still over half a year out though, so I have hope.

There was a goofy water elemental that my party named Squidicus that I'd love to graduate from recurring joke to full character.

Look what I just found...

https://twitter.com/paizo/status/1563640057885765634?lang=en

The devs have mentioned wanting to make such a thing, but it hasn't been mentioned for this book - and was so beloved/infamous in 1e that I think it would be headlining if it were. Rage of Elements is very tightly themed to the elemental planes; something as general as Synthesist is a poor fit.

From what we know, the big mechanical draws are the 2e Kineticist class, an Elemental Instinct for Barbarians, an Iron Order for Druids, and new Geniekin options for the new Metal and Wood planes.

I'd be surprised if elemental Eidolon doesn't make it in.

If not - why not?

Verzen wrote:

Adexian wrote:

- Likely going to be Fridays, time TBD but EST

- English

- 2 group members already, looking for 2-3 more & A GM

- While we are not entirely familiar with pathfinder 2E as a system we all have a basic knowledge of it and have played a one-shot before. We have over a years experience with 5E.

-Though it would be preferable if DM already had access to the adventure on roll20 or other VTT, we are willing to pay for the adventure on roll20. However, if we have to pay for it, we will be setting up the roll20 and giving the GM GM status when they join.

I an definitely interested in playing.

I'm a very experienced ttrpg player.

Played for 30 years.

I'm also very familiar with pf2e rules and can help yall out.

Sounds good, just send me a message with your discord or some other way we can contact you

Sent my discord info.

I wish they made mutagen alchemist viable.

- Likely going to be Fridays, time TBD but EST

- English

- 2 group members already, looking for 2-3 more & A GM

- While we are not entirely familiar with pathfinder 2E as a system we all have a basic knowledge of it and have played a one-shot before. We have over a years experience with 5E.

-Though it would be preferable if DM already had access to the adventure on roll20 or other VTT, we are willing to pay for the adventure on roll20. However, if we have to pay for it, we will be setting up the roll20 and giving the GM GM status when they join.

I an definitely interested in playing.

I'm a very experienced ttrpg player.

Played for 30 years.

I'm also very familiar with pf2e rules and can help yall out.

I always wanted to play a single target acidblaster in pf2e and I really hope that rage of elements will finally give me that option. I don't care the slightest bit about control, support and AoE, I just want to blast acid every turn like Octavia in kingmaker and be as powerful and accurate as an archer. But the playtest analysis makes me worried that the final version will still be way too much of a generalist to fulfill this fantasy and have caster accuracy (just without true strike or any buff spells).

I too would love this fantasy.

Also doing the same with electricity, sonic, cold.

Radiation is weird and strange. Sometimes its phrased as a corruption, but othertimes not. It is very heat intensive, but then the whole thing is about earth not fire. I can see Radiation being the hybrid for earth and metal.

Also yeah having single element expandable later is a lot easier to balance than having multiple elements from the start. No idea why they aren't doing it like that, maybe because of how they want to do the archetype?

Aether and Void should 100% still be elements and it would be incredibly bad if they don't return as elements. The fact Aether is not a base element from the start but metal is being made into its own really makes me question the logic.

Also yeah there really is no need for every combinarion to have its own damage type. In fact hybrid blasts shouldn't be unlocking damage types just combining the damage types used for the base blast. Ex: Air's Electric Blast + Water's Water Blast == Charged Water Blast, or Fire's Fire Blast + Earth's Earth Blast == Magma/Lava Blast.

I really just want dual gate to just only be combined blasts rather than individual blasts. *So earth and water is always mud.* it just makes things easier.

Everyones feedback is valuable, I don't think this conversation should be continued any further.

You literally ignored everything I said and ironically told me my feedback isn't valuable.

Verzen wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Nefreet wrote:

Lollerabe wrote:

The line about the class being pretty good if it was released as it were concerns me a bit. That was not my impression whatsoever. Had it been released in its playtest version it would've been close to unplayable for me personally.

Same. I did not enjoy the class as presented, and I said as much in my feedback, plus the vast majority of Forum comments gave it bad reviews.

I'm curious about what ranges of specific feedback they received from the surveys.

You can only take forum comments as a datapoint so far. The number of people posting on the forums is relatively small, definitely less than the thousand-ot responses they got for the playtest, and when you factor in the fact that A, people are about three times more likely to complain about something to others than to praise it, and B, a lot of those comments are actually about a handful of issues that were discussed, debated, and repeated over and over, it wouldn't surprise me to find out the response to the kineticist was overall more positive than we on this forum might have assumed from the chatter.

I'm not saying the class hasn't got issues or that I'm glad they're roping it in for another round or so of polishing, just that there is almost definitely a discrepancy in our experience and that of the developers.

A lot of people who do the playtests though are also yes men and their votes are noise. They aren't hyper critical, so a lot of those responses probably praised paizo, since whatever paizo does is treated as gold rather than realizing paizo might make a mistake. That's another thing to look out for. Personally, I'd pay 70% of attention to the minority that criticizes to see what those criticisms are and the other 30% the praise who loved it.

There's no particular reason to assume criticism is inherently more value than praise. If the majority of people liked something it means there was something that the majority of people...

Criticism is always more valuable than praise.

If I write a book, and someone just praises it, I've learned nothing in how to improve it. If someone criticizes it and I see how it could improve, then I've learned how to do things better.

A good example is my personal life. I make chainmail necklaces. I've had a lot of people say how gorgeous my necklaces are. Do I learn anything from that? No. Of course not. However, someone who was judging my necklace in a competition pointed out where a lot of the rings weren't closed all the way and showed me examples and what they'd like to see. I can then take that data in order to improve my craft for when I create more necklaces in the future.

Furthermore, a lot of times when people criticize a product, it's because they've critically analyzed parts of the product and it's up to the developer to figure out if their analysis is valuable or not.

But just saying, "Yeah. I like it." doesn't really offer much data to determine if the class is actually good or not.

I'm not meaning to come across as insulting, but this is all stuff basic psychology and statistical understanding would show you, especially when taking polls.

It's the same reason why "phone polls" are useless. It's also why asking people to show up to take a poll is also useless in terms of data.

Because each one provides intrinsic biasness that provides what the poll taker wants to hear rather than what's at the heart of the matter.

Double blind studies are the best form of data consistency in which biasness is left out. In these studies, people are chosen at random rather than asking them to fill out a form, which tends to reduce, but not eliminate, a lot of the bias in the system.

We must also analyze players experience, educational background, and a bit about their psychology to understand where they are coming from in their criticism or praise as well.

But I'd bet money, due to psychology, most fans praise developers of a new product of what they are fans of over criticizing that product when it comes to polls.

I'd also bet money, due to psychology, that the minority (critics) will voice their displeasure the loudest on the forums over the majority who fills out the polls which will be the quietest.

Verzen wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Nefreet wrote:

Lollerabe wrote:

The line about the class being pretty good if it was released as it were concerns me a bit. That was not my impression whatsoever. Had it been released in its playtest version it would've been close to unplayable for me personally.

Same. I did not enjoy the class as presented, and I said as much in my feedback, plus the vast majority of Forum comments gave it bad reviews.

I'm curious about what ranges of specific feedback they received from the surveys.

You can only take forum comments as a datapoint so far. The number of people posting on the forums is relatively small, definitely less than the thousand-ot responses they got for the playtest, and when you factor in the fact that A, people are about three times more likely to complain about something to others than to praise it, and B, a lot of those comments are actually about a handful of issues that were discussed, debated, and repeated over and over, it wouldn't surprise me to find out the response to the kineticist was overall more positive than we on this forum might have assumed from the chatter.

I'm not saying the class hasn't got issues or that I'm glad they're roping it in for another round or so of polishing, just that there is almost definitely a discrepancy in our experience and that of the developers.

A lot of people who do the playtests though are also yes men and their votes are noise. They aren't hyper critical, so a lot of those responses probably praised paizo, since whatever paizo does is treated as gold rather than realizing paizo might make a mistake. That's another thing to look out for. Personally, I'd pay 70% of attention to the minority that criticizes to see what those criticisms are and the other 30% the praise who loved it.

Source?

Basic psychology.

People tend to gravitate toward conformity and acceptance rather than criticism, as criticism is contrary to group coordination and success.

It's part of evolutionary theory as there can only be a limited number of leaders and many, many followers for any specific group, we are evolutionarily programmed to fall in the mold in order to associate with said group and thrive in a social/group like setting.

In any organization that has fans and followers, like D&D for example, they are far more likely to find what they like about what the leaders of D&D are creating than to find flaws in the system seeing as they are falling in line with group think.

People are far far less likely to be a fan of a series and yet still criticize the same developers that they are a fan of.
This psychology drifts off a bit if the series they are a fan of drifts apart from the source material. Those criticizing are still fans, but fans of the old rather than the new. (I.E. Sonic the Hedgehog movie where fans criticized how he looked simply because they want Sonic to be how he looked originally or like the new mario movie with marios voice change)

Essentially - to put it simply,

Fans of a series are less likely to criticize the series they are a fan of
Fans of a series that do criticize are more likely to criticize based on a failure to maintain series cannon.
Rarely do fans of a series criticize the developers direction of a series when it comes to new ideas/concepts/or creations. They are much more likely to side with the developers than to not side with the developers.

Nefreet wrote:

Lollerabe wrote:

The line about the class being pretty good if it was released as it were concerns me a bit. That was not my impression whatsoever. Had it been released in its playtest version it would've been close to unplayable for me personally.

Same. I did not enjoy the class as presented, and I said as much in my feedback, plus the vast majority of Forum comments gave it bad reviews.

I'm curious about what ranges of specific feedback they received from the surveys.

You can only take forum comments as a datapoint so far. The number of people posting on the forums is relatively small, definitely less than the thousand-ot responses they got for the playtest, and when you factor in the fact that A, people are about three times more likely to complain about something to others than to praise it, and B, a lot of those comments are actually about a handful of issues that were discussed, debated, and repeated over and over, it wouldn't surprise me to find out the response to the kineticist was overall more positive than we on this forum might have assumed from the chatter.

I'm not saying the class hasn't got issues or that I'm glad they're roping it in for another round or so of polishing, just that there is almost definitely a discrepancy in our experience and that of the developers.

A lot of people who do the playtests though are also yes men and their votes are noise. They aren't hyper critical, so a lot of those responses probably praised paizo, since whatever paizo does is treated as gold rather than realizing paizo might make a mistake. That's another thing to look out for. Personally, I'd pay 70% of attention to the minority that criticizes to see what those criticisms are and the other 30% the praise who loved it.

If kineticist is going to be a 1 action cantrip for their elemental blast any way to get an intrinsic +1 to hit bonus at 4 and a +3 to hit bonus by level 20? That way it keeps up with normal damage.

A 1 action attack cantrip that scales up with the same to hit bonus would be a very unique ability for kineticists to have.

Little disappointed I didn't hear anything about kinetic defense. Kinetic defense really helped define you as an embodiment and avatar of that element.

I just thought of this - but what if, at level 1, we had the choice how we cast these abilities. Similar to how psychics choose where their power comes from.

So for example at level 1, I can choose if I want to use burn 'or' use action tax, or other options in which said overflow abilities are taxing on us.

This, I think, would benefit every playstyle for those that want burn and for those that don't.

I'd so much prefer a burn mechanic for the class.

They should have included one for a playtest.

I absolutely love your ideas. The skill one is very flavorful and fixes some stuff with their skills and the infusion blasts are amazingly flavorful as well.

When will the "final thoughts" be from the design team?

I'm not the biggest fan of making elemental blast into requiring runes.

If elemental blast added con to damage and scaled up to 6d8+con, but be a 1 action cost blast, I think it would be fairly balanced.

A guy who swings for 4d8+14+ 3d6 would deal roughly similar damage to someone making an attack. Even slightly undertuned. Could probably increase it to 8d8+con and be about even with other ranged.

Just have a 1 action attack cantrip.

I wonder if the solution is just to not allow people to be universal at level one. Maybe it is something that they have to build towards, with people that don't getting some other kind of bonus. This could make becoming a dual gate a feat choice that could be made at higher levels.

Or maybe you even keep the choice of single or dual gate at first level, and then give them an upgrade choice at some other level. A single gate could choose between becoming a dual gate, or getting some bonus ( I could see this being the only way to gain legendary proficiency). And duel gates get to choose to become universal or gaining a bonus.

Boring solutions.

Allow dedicated to increase DC with their blasts by 2 and all impulses increase by 1 die size.

Dual gate - all blasts deal both damage types. When activating an aura, they activate two auras at once for two actions total. Each impulse is considered both elements.

Universal - As it currently is.

This will allow dedicated to be the best with one element and hit the hardest.

Dual gate would be the best at combining damage types and auras but each impulse is slightly weaker than dedicated.

Universal can treat their elements like a buffet.

Unicore wrote:

How many single target blasting feats do you need though if they are self contained like the current impulses? If there is one good one, then literally every character chooses that one and then spends the rest of their feats on Utility powers.

Preferably applying different conditions/effects. The matter of the current version incentivizing picking the best one I agree is a problem. But it is a fundamental problem with the entire system not just kineticist and impulses.

Heck, Spellcasters are built around that entire logic where the only offensive spells that actually matter (outside of niche situations) are you two highest level and Electric Arc.

Uh.. at level 20, pretty much every spell slot above level 10 is stronger than what a kineticist can throw out.

11d6 does piddly damage compared to 20d6, 18d6, 16d6, 14d6, 12d6. That's 15 rounds of spells that deal more damage than what kineticist can "do all day."

If your "all day" effect is so low that a wizard can effectively do it all day, but better, there's a problem. Rarely does anyone last 15 rounds of combat per day before sleeping.

I think the difference between the gate choices needs to be smoothed out. Dedicated Gate is the winner at very low levels but gets almost nothing else out of the bargain, while Universal deals with a little bit of a feat bottleneck at low levels in exchange for being amazing at high levels. For dual... well, you get cycling blast which is cool.

I personally like the idea of the 3 free feats for dedicated, 2 for dual, and 1 for universal. But dedicated needs some end game love and universal needs some beginning game love.

I think the gates are the most interesting part.

The once per day change on the feat, only, compared to dual and dedicated which cant change their feats...

I'm a bit confused what you mean by "swapping out what element you're attuned to". A universalist doesn't attune to a single element, they can channel whatever element they want. Unless you're talking about the 1st level feat you can swap out each day?

Yeah I don't think they realize you can both use earth and fire skills at the same time or something? As long as you gather the appropriate element for it.

Universalist are already the most powerful gate - You want them to be even more powerful?

You're doing universalist wrong.

Entirely wrong.

For example - You're human - Take the ancestral feat that gives you an additional class feat at 1st level.

You now have two class feats at 1st level

Use two of those feats to pick up two elemental feats.. any elemental feats of your choice at 1st level and the 3rd one? You can choose a different one once per day.

So you should have a total of 3 feats as a human as a possibility.

Verzen wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Sentinel seems mostly like a waste of a lot of feats, doesn’t it? By the time it would be different from a single general feat, you’ve had 2 attribute boosts. So even if you start with a 10 dex (probably a bad idea for save reasons), the sentinel dedication is maybe giving you a +1 to your AC?

For a single feat, you can keep dex at 10. It's not a bad idea for save reasons either since bulwark exists.

You can then use your increases on Strength, Con, then your choice of char/int/wis if you want more sociability, skills, or perception.

You're assuming that their stat increases would be given to dex, but with this build, no stat increases are provided with dex at all.

In fact, I'd wager that this is essential for a strength build since if you want 16 str, 18 con, the max dex you can have is like.. 12. Or 14 if you give yourself two negatives. If you have 10 dex, you can get full plate which is 6 AC, 0 dex or 19 AC (6+2+1) if you can wear it at level 1 or 20 AC at level 2.

Meanwhile if you go strength build and put 12 into dex rather than 10 WITHOUT the full plate, at most you'll have 2armor+2trained+1level+1dex = 16 AC at level 1 or 17 AC at level 2.

So you're spending a feat for a 3 AC gain by wearing full plate. So if you start out as champion multiclass for 1st level then switch to sentinel (if you are doing PFS) before you hit level 2 so you can do the free change up, then you'll have significantly higher AC by 3 if you put 12 into dex.. or 4 if you did not.

To get anything functional out of sentinel, you are spending a minimum of 2 class feats and a general feat. to be able to leave your Dex at 10 and never boost it. It also will only really cover your reflex save at level 10.

Starting with a 12 Dex is very easy, and by level 10, a 16 is all you need for light armor. With a single general feat you can pick up medium armor and be perfectly fine.

To get more back to the OP:
Unless you are playing with free archetype feats,...

You DO realize you stay as trained with the general feat, right? You don't go up to expert or master?

37 AC with medium armor at lvl 20

vs

42 AC with sentinel dedication at lvl 20

Champions get 44 AC

This is NOT counting any runes or shield bonuses or other bonuses. Just the armor itself.

Are you saying taking a general feat to just get medium armor prof is better than sentinel? By level 20, you're 5 AC behind sentinel.

Verzen wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Sentinel seems mostly like a waste of a lot of feats, doesn’t it? By the time it would be different from a single general feat, you’ve had 2 attribute boosts. So even if you start with a 10 dex (probably a bad idea for save reasons), the sentinel dedication is maybe giving you a +1 to your AC?

For a single feat, you can keep dex at 10. It's not a bad idea for save reasons either since bulwark exists.

You can then use your increases on Strength, Con, then your choice of char/int/wis if you want more sociability, skills, or perception.

You're assuming that their stat increases would be given to dex, but with this build, no stat increases are provided with dex at all.

In fact, I'd wager that this is essential for a strength build since if you want 16 str, 18 con, the max dex you can have is like.. 12. Or 14 if you give yourself two negatives. If you have 10 dex, you can get full plate which is 6 AC, 0 dex or 19 AC (6+2+1) if you can wear it at level 1 or 20 AC at level 2.

Meanwhile if you go strength build and put 12 into dex rather than 10 WITHOUT the full plate, at most you'll have 2armor+2trained+1level+1dex = 16 AC at level 1 or 17 AC at level 2.

So you're spending a feat for a 3 AC gain by wearing full plate. So if you start out as champion multiclass for 1st level then switch to sentinel (if you are doing PFS) before you hit level 2 so you can do the free change up, then you'll have significantly higher AC by 3 if you put 12 into dex.. or 4 if you did not.

To get anything functional out of sentinel, you are spending a minimum of 2 class feats and a general feat. to be able to leave your Dex at 10 and never boost it. It also will only really cover your reflex save at level 10.

Starting with a 12 Dex is very easy, and by level 10, a 16 is all you need for light armor. With a single general feat you can pick up medium armor and be perfectly fine.

To get more back to the OP:
Unless you are playing with free archetype feats,...

For that single general feat of medium armor, it never goes to expert or master. It stays at trained.

So your answer is - Fighters should be better at elemental blast than kineticist and wizards should be better at elemental damage than kineticists?

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

cheezeofjustice wrote:

Verzen wrote:

I think this class would have a lot of its issues fixed if it got expert class DC at level 1, changed the elemental blast from a combat ability into more of a 1 action attack cantrip that is based off of class DC, and got up to legendary in class DC much like how fighter gets expert in weapons at level 1.

You could even make it so they can still use runes on a sort of conduit item that allows them to add runes to their elemental blast.

This then would allow the kineticist to actually specialize in one aspect and that's blasting. Right now it tries to be a martial and a spellcaster(sort of) and does neither of them really well and causes the entire class to be worse off. If we need to focus, we should focus on this aspect and make it so when it comes to blasting, they can land them relatively consistently compared with other blasting options.

This would literally turn the Kineticist into a fighter that attacks with Constitution and presumably elemental damage, which is inherently better than physical. Which in the structure of the game even if the cantrips we're physical the accuracy would consume power budget so it would be lower utility. And high accuracy, high single target damage at the cost of utility is the exact opposite of what the Kineticist was in 1e.

A class whose entire gimmick is a mastery of elements should probably do more than shoot lasers and they should probably not rob one of the most requested ports of one of the key parts of its identity.

Is that necessarily a bad thing? Gunslingers already cheated off the Fighter with having Legendary in Firearms at the same scaling of Fighters. So we have precedent that it's okay for other classes to have the same scaling as others, so long as it isn't a complete overwrite of the class. Even despite that, as it stands, a Kineticist with Legendary Class DC wouldn't be any better than or poach from any class because 1. It doesn't exist

...

Hard to be a master of elements when wizards have an easier time hitting enemies with their elemental spells and your elements hit like wet noodles when they do hit.

Personally I think Assume Earths Mantle should be lowered to level 1 and scaled up with level to what it is in the playtest so if you want to play a strength based kineticist as found in Earth and what earth eludes to, you can right from the start.

Sentinel seems mostly like a waste of a lot of feats, doesn’t it? By the time it would be different from a single general feat, you’ve had 2 attribute boosts. So even if you start with a 10 dex (probably a bad idea for save reasons), the sentinel dedication is maybe giving you a +1 to your AC?

For a single feat, you can keep dex at 10. It's not a bad idea for save reasons either since bulwark exists.

You can then use your increases on Strength, Con, then your choice of char/int/wis if you want more sociability, skills, or perception.

You're assuming that their stat increases would be given to dex, but with this build, no stat increases are provided with dex at all.

In fact, I'd wager that this is essential for a strength build since if you want 16 str, 18 con, the max dex you can have is like.. 12. Or 14 if you give yourself two negatives. If you have 10 dex, you can get full plate which is 6 AC, 0 dex or 19 AC (6+2+1) if you can wear it at level 1 or 20 AC at level 2.

Meanwhile if you go strength build and put 12 into dex rather than 10 WITHOUT the full plate, at most you'll have 2armor+2trained+1level+1dex = 16 AC at level 1 or 17 AC at level 2.

So you're spending a feat for a 3 AC gain by wearing full plate. So if you start out as champion multiclass for 1st level then switch to sentinel (if you are doing PFS) before you hit level 2 so you can do the free change up, then you'll have significantly higher AC by 3 if you put 12 into dex.. or 4 if you did not.

Sentinel

Verzen wrote:

I think this class would have a lot of its issues fixed if it got expert class DC at level 1, changed the elemental blast from a combat ability into more of a 1 action attack cantrip that is based off of class DC, and got up to legendary in class DC much like how fighter gets expert in weapons at level 1.

You could even make it so they can still use runes on a sort of conduit item that allows them to add runes to their elemental blast.

This then would allow the kineticist to actually specialize in one aspect and that's blasting. Right now it tries to be a martial and a spellcaster(sort of) and does neither of them really well and causes the entire class to be worse off. If we need to focus, we should focus on this aspect and make it so when it comes to blasting, they can land them relatively consistently compared with other blasting options.

This would literally turn the Kineticist into a fighter that attacks with Constitution and presumably elemental damage, which is inherently better than physical. Which in the structure of the game even if the cantrips we're physical the accuracy would consume power budget so it would be lower utility. And high accuracy, high single target damage at the cost of utility is the exact opposite of what the Kineticist was in 1e.

A class whose entire gimmick is a mastery of elements should probably do more than shoot lasers and they should probably not rob one of the most requested ports of one of the key parts of its identity.

As opposed to right now where they are the lowest DPS class in the game?

I think this class would have a lot of its issues fixed if it got expert class DC at level 1, changed the elemental blast from a combat ability into more of a 1 action attack cantrip that is based off of class DC, and got up to legendary in class DC much like how fighter gets expert in weapons at level 1.

You could even make it so they can still use runes on a sort of conduit item that allows them to add runes to their elemental blast.

This then would allow the kineticist to actually specialize in one aspect and that's blasting. Right now it tries to be a martial and a spellcaster(sort of) and does neither of them really well and causes the entire class to be worse off. If we need to focus, we should focus on this aspect and make it so when it comes to blasting, they can land them relatively consistently compared with other blasting options.

I've said this before - but i REALLY hope the "dual gate" is strictly hybrid stuff. That would be so much fun having their unique schtick by hybrid and only hybrid.

Dual gate's action economy is weird with gather power. It would flow better if it was "Hybrid Gate"

What if paizo just made gather element as a free action then made every overflow impulse a variable 1-3 action activity? IMO, that would be much more engaging and allow us to mix and match.

It's one of the issues with "Dual element" and why I think they should just be a hybrid element of its two parent elements. Water and earth? You fling mud and create a hardened mud shield. Fire and earth? Lava. Etc. That way you aren't juggling two separate concepts at once with your character. It feels very off.

Yes

An always passive elemental incarnation ability right from lvl 1 so earth feels hard to hurt.

I think it might be best if the 3 free feats dedicated get can be changed out after gaining a level so you're always 3 free feats ahead, but you're not stuck at 3 level 1 feats. You can pick higher level feats, too.

Not familiar with 1e. What are substance infusions?

They added a status effect to your blasts. Like one might cause the enemy to be pushed back 5 ft, another might immobilize them, etc etc.

Elemental blast so far Is a bit bland. What if they brought back substance infusions?