The best fire infusion I see is the Unraveling Infusion simply for a potentially long range dispel.
For utility talents the best fire ones seems to be Fire's Fury(for straight dmg boost), Fire Sight(For the ability to see through fire and smoke), Flame Jet along with Greater Flame Jet(psuedo-flight ability), From the Ashes(Phoenix-like come backs can be a hell of a surprise), Smoke Storm(the ability to cause a smoke cloud from an open flame is nice, and so is the possibility of sickening things in the smoke cloud), and finally Trail of Flames(because using a withdraw or run action for a 1 round wall of fire in each space you moved through is hilarious).
The best fire infusion I see is the Unraveling Infusion simply for a potentially long range dispel.
For utility talents the best fire ones seems to be Fire's Fury(for straight dmg boost), Fire Sight(For the ability to see through fire and smoke), Flame Jet along with Greater Flame Jet(psuedo-flight ability), From the Ashes(Phoenix-like come backs can be a hell of a surprise), Smoke Storm(the ability to cause a smoke cloud from an open flame is nice, and so is the possibility of sickening things in the smoke cloud), and finally Trail of Flames(because using a withdraw or run action for a 1 round wall of fire in each space you moved through is hilarious).
Flash Infusion is fairly strong albeit short hard control, and all 3 of the fire substances still work even if your enemy is immune to fire damage, giving both pure pyros and hybrids tools to work with in case of immunity(you don't need to worry about dealing damage in these cases, so stick to things like Flurry of Blasts or blade/whip, reducing the damage for Unraveling/Flash since you won't deal damage anyways, to do what you can to attempt to score an unravel or flash on the enemy). Searing Flames is incredibly important, since it will reduce fire resistances to manageable levels within 1-2 rounds. Unraveling is just so great though, as an unilimited free Dispel magic tool (Ask your GM first if targetting magical traps with your blast is a-ok).
EDIT: As a Side note, while they take longer to come online, Flamejet/Self Telekinesis come with a few advantages, such as no fly checks(although admittedly that's not much of a problem for kineticists, most of the time), but they can also be used in environments that flight can't be, such as that weird underwater adventure, and don't have any weight limitations on speed, so what you take with you when flying out of combat can easily be "as much as you can carry", the biggest downside really is that repositioning around enemies if necessary can be more difficult, since you're restricted to a straight line.
|
I'd like to get more opinions on this, do you all think elements as a whole should be rated, or left black?For what it's worth, I think that it's important to minimally split your offense / utility ratings for each element into whether it's a primary or expanded element. I've not had the time to actually play the class, but in trying to build one that works for me, it's become abundantly clear that certain elements have a lot of their utility front-loaded, while others hold it in the back end. This is particularly punishing in PFS where most players will never see beyond the first 3 levels of utility talents in their expanded element.
To drive the point home, try taking Earth as an expanded element for any other element as a primary. You end up with all the talents you've categorized as yellow or red. The composite blasts might be worth it, but you're certainly not dipping Earth for Kinetic Cover or Earth Walk.
In contrast, Air or Water have a lot of useful low level utility talents. Air Cushion is yellow for a primary Aerokineticist, but could be very useful for Aether- or Pyrokineticists who have invested in their leap abilities. Water has Slick and Kinetic Healer early making those also reasonable pickups.
I imagine a lot of these things will change as more talents are published to fill in some gaps and maybe even out the curve, but I can't help but feel that if you don't rate the elements separately or add a second section rating pairings then you're going to be missing the mark for some folks.
So what I'm getting here is that possibly a third rating would be useful, something for how the element fares as a secondary element? Like stated, Air's a GREAT back up, while Earth is more of a main. I'd rather not have to cover all cross combinations though, since that's a bit more complexity than I'd like to give someone just looking at this class for the first time, which is really whom this guide is intended for.
My own wondering for the kineticist: when is it better to double down on your primary element at level 7, and when is it better to take a second element? Like, would an Earth kineticist be better picking up more earth to get things like metal blast and rare metal infusion sooner, or would it be better to grab a second element like aether or water? Would a Fire kineticist always be better off grabbing a second element or is blue-flame blast worth doubling down for? That sort of thing
This is honestly a fairly difficult question to answer from a pure mechanics standpoint. It honestly ends up depending on what your goal is, and mixing the elements creates a lot of interesting nuance.
In play, doubling down on your first element is a fairly good option, because you're otherwise missing out on a third level infusion until level 9, which is a pretty long wait, but then you're limiting yourself in kineticist's depth of versatility. Blue flame and eruption or flash at level 7 are strong choices that are very likely worth doubling down for in a campaign that has enemies that don't resist/are merely resistant to fire, but, with fire, that doubling down, while Blue flame is incredibly powerful, leaves you dry if you're up against a devil or other immune creature that isn't vulnerable to draining(if you even took draining, since fire is probably the only one that really really needs to take it and even then, it's fairly poor power outside a very small subset of circumstances).
The only thing I can say for certain, it's never worthwhile to stick to a single element for primary and both expanded elements. If you're playing a monokinetic, picking up aether for your last element is always the best option for Aetheric boosted composites at level 16, unless you really need that talent for some reason(though considering, level 15 is when Cloud, Fragmentation, and Explosion become available, so you'd have to wait until 17 for them if you don't take your primary then.)
I love your alchemist guide, and I'm a bit jealous that you finished this up while I'm still piecing together stuff for a guide of my own for kineticist( partially inspired by your alchemist guide even), but good job!
I want to disagree with some of your choices(for example, Force Ward is very likely the weakest of the defenses, best left at orange , but Searing Flesh is VERY strong, and can easily punch through resistances on creatures mid-late game for a fair amount of damage with only a few points of burn investment, even if immunity still ignores all damage and avoiding fire for campaigns where you'll expect a heavy amount of fire immunity is still smart practice), but I think I'll leave most of that to my own guide, when I find more time for it.
So would you please explain why you think Searing Flesh is so strong? As far as I can tell you get 1 damage per 4 levels min 1 and then you can boost it by 1 per 4 levels 7 times. And I understand it that would mean that you can boost it till lv4 as the boost doesn't have the min 1 part and you're only getting 1 point from it for 7 levels. So at lv7 you do 1 fire damage to US, NA and weapons and for the cost of 7 burn you could raise that to 8 fire damage per hit. at lv8-12 it goes to 2 damage up to 16 damage per hit. That seems really underwhelming to me so I'm curious if I'm missing something that you see that makes it so strong.
Also I don't see why you value force ward so lowly. I feel it's at least third strongest defense, above air and fire at lowest. The start is basically get one use of burn free, and then have fast healing on top of that. Then if we spend 6 points, 1 less than the fire's max, we're getting 4xlevel in temp HP. Unchained Barbs don't get that much till lv20. And if we accept burn while it's up we heal our level for free, on top of the increased fast healing for having put burn into it.
lets take a look at the defenses when you add in Burn and Elemental Overflow.
Lv6, for instance: +2 Attack, +4 Damage, +2 Dex and +2 Con(and aaalll the bumps that come with that), and 18 points of Nonlethal Damage. The 15% chance to negate sneak attack and critical hits isn't bad either.
Aether:15 temporary HP that regenerates at 2 a a minute. Not bad at all.
Air: 35% chance ranged attacks don't hit. Mundane, physical attacks that are siege weaponry or similarly sized.
Earth: DR 6/adamantine. Two hits dealt no damage or 12 less. Beat that, Invulnerable Rager Barbarian. :p
Fire: 4 points of fire damage dealt to anyone that attacked you with unarmared strike, natural check, or grapple. You won't damage weapons that aren't wooden like this either. Jump to level 20 for a moment: 12 damage. If you're hit.
Water: +7 armor bonus or +3 shield bonus. No Max Dex, no armor check penalty, and no arcane spell chance failure or weight. Solid choice.
Combo time: Earth and Water. Grab a light shield(so your hand is free) and have fun shrugging off quite a few attacks. By the time you can do this you'll have 42 points of Nonlethal damage though.
Lv7 Halfling*, 20 point buy.
Str 5, Dex 22, Con 19(16+1) Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 9
Toughness, +6 HP from FCB
Average HP/Overflow Hp: 70/89
Nonlethal Damage: 42
Armor Class(No Magic Items) 29 =10(base)+6(Dex)+1(Small)+10(Water)+1(Light Shield)+1(Dodge feat)
Damage Reduction 6/adamantine.
Edit: never mind, Expanded Element doesn't give you the defense infusion of the second element...
you gonna do water soon? Im making a hydrokineticist for another game and i would like some advice on what would be good to take later on
lets take a look at the defenses when you add in Burn and Elemental Overflow.
Lv6, for instance: +2 Attack, +4 Damage, +2 Dex and +2 Con(and aaalll the bumps that come with that), and 18 points of Nonlethal Damage. The 15% chance to negate sneak attack and critical hits isn't bad either.
Aether:15 temporary HP that regenerates at 2 a a minute. Not bad at all.
Air: 35% chance ranged attacks don't hit. Mundane, physical attacks that are siege weaponry or similarly sized.
Earth: DR 6/adamantine. Two hits dealt no damage or 12 less. Beat that, Invulnerable Rager Barbarian. :p
Fire: 4 points of fire damage dealt to anyone that attacked you with unarmared strike, natural check, or grapple. You won't damage weapons that aren't wooden like this either. Jump to level 20 for a moment: 12 damage. If you're hit.
Water: +7 armor bonus or +3 shield bonus. No Max Dex, no armor check penalty, and no arcane spell chance failure or weight. Solid choice.
Combo time: Earth and Water. Grab a light shield(so your hand is free) and have fun shrugging off quite a few attacks. By the time you can do this you'll have 42 points of Nonlethal damage though
So I feel a fun defensive combo would be Earth and Aether. Why yes I'll have DR equal to my level and a bunch of temp HP. Who cares if I burn all my HP away
See my edit. :(
See my edit. :(
No need to fear; expanded defense utility talent is here!
You made an awesome class. Thanks for all the work and your continued presence here on the boards.
|
|
you gonna do water soon? Im making a hydrokineticist for another game and i would like some advice on what would be good to take later on
Yep, water's next on the docket, just had to get to sleep earlier last night to try to get my sleep schedule in order. I'm thinking of offering a little critique of each element too, possibly a rating on how they fare as a solo and secondary element too.
It sort of feels like this has become the unofficial kineticist hang out, which I don't really mind. Just give me time on this, as some ratings may change after Saturday. I'm doing an all kineticist group (avatar world setting) set at level 10, a little higher than I normally play (I stick to 3-8 myself unless playtesting) so we'll see if something improves or such by the time I'm done.
|
I saw you updating Kinetic Fist, I'm pretty sure it doesn't get elemental overflow bonuses based on the final line of the power. "This extra damage ignores spell resistance and doesn’t apply any modifiers to your kinetic blast’s damage, such as your Constitution modifier."
This makes it pretty solidly red unless you have a lot of natural attacks, multiclass monk/brawler, or are an elemental ascetic.
|
|
I saw you updating Kinetic Fist, I'm pretty sure it doesn't get elemental overflow bonuses based on the final line of the power. "This extra damage ignores spell resistance and doesn’t apply any modifiers to your kinetic blast’s damage, such as your Constitution modifier."
This makes it pretty solidly red unless you have a lot of natural attacks, multiclass monk/brawler, or are an elemental ascetic.
I meant the bonuses to attack roll, which to me were pretty important for this. Not to mention that once you're at 5th level (getting your first infusion specialist), it's free to do. It's a very boring style compared to the normal kineticist, but damage wise it's quite solid, and thanks to the lack of need for dex (also for dcs of form infusions), you can focus on strength and con, which makes you a solid frontline fighter.
It does lack the ability to really open up thanks to a lack of being able to use gather power adeptly though, but again at 5th level you're getting 3 attacks with +2d6 damage to them, so the damage there would probably be around 1d4+2d6+str(at this point it could easily be +5) x3. 39 damage for a full attack routine at 5th level isn't that bad, and that's standard, as well as coming from a full bab with elemental overflow's attack boost considered, and it's both bludgeoning and slashing damage (and piercing for the bite), making for a decently powerful attack routine.
I'm not saying it's great, and sure I have a soft spot for natural attacks, but I think it's at least viable.
How are you getting 2d6 from the infusion? It's 1d6 per 3d6 of the normal blast min 1d6, which would mean that you don't get 2d6 till your blast is giving 6d6 which is lv11 for a simple blast or lv7 when you get composite blasts.
|
|
How are you getting 2d6 from the infusion? It's 1d6 per 3d6 of the normal blast min 1d6, which would mean that you don't get 2d6 till your blast is giving 6d6 which is lv11 for a simple blast or lv7 when you get composite blasts.
GDI, you're right.
I was thinking it started at 1d6, and then increased after every 3d6, not that I'd have to wait until 6d6 until we hit 2d6, that's on me. Composite it does get better, but that's a heavy cost, I'll go change kinetic fist.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You do have a point about the bonuses to hit, and when you have a claw/claw/bite or better, it is basically a slower scaling sneak attack that is easier to pull off and is not as resisted.
I'll grant that it's better than I initially thought with that, but it's still not great. Especially when the best race for natural attacks has a -2 to CON.
Moving on, Extreme Range is Green for utility more than offense because of how it stacks with ride the blast. If you are air, extreme range + air's reach + snake + ride the blast lets you be the Flash, immediately going where ever you want on the battlefield. Hell, you could be in the inner sanctum of a dungeon and immediately bug out to the entrance, assuming there aren't any closed doors blocking your way.
|
|
You do have a point about the bonuses to hit, and when you have a claw/claw/bite or better, it is basically a slower scaling sneak attack that is easier to pull off and is not as resisted.
I'll grant that it's better than I initially thought with that, but it's still not great. Especially when the best race for natural attacks has a -2 to CON.
Moving on, Extreme Range is Green for utility more than offense because of how it stacks with ride the blast. If you are air, extreme range + air's reach + snake + ride the blast lets you be the Flash, immediately going where ever you want on the battlefield. Hell, you could be in the inner sanctum of a dungeon and immediately bug out to the entrance, assuming there aren't any closed doors blocking your way.
I will admit that's a nice combo, but that more speaks of the value of ride the blast than extreme value. To me, in and of itself extreme range isn't terrible, it's probably high orange, but that just means that ride the blast is that much better, and yeah I freaking LOVE air's reach, it's so good!
|
|
Does a Telekinetic Kinetic Fist basically give you brass knuckles made of force? i like the visual on that.
I think it has no visuals, but would be a tactile telekinesis effect. You would basically be hitting people like Superboy.
If you're interested in it with no burn take a look at the Elemental Ascetic
I thought you could only have one substance and one form infusion on a blast. Extreme Range and Snake are both form infusions
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I thought you could only have one substance and one form infusion on a blast. Extreme Range and Snake are both form infusions
Correct. However, I have seen much hilarious shenanigans involving things like greater windsight + air's reach snake ride the blast when there aren't doors in the way. You can attack from around so many corners and walls that they don't stand a chance of noticing you!
As far as i can tell the zero cost is always and forever for the infusion and the other stuff is only for the flurry. Because a monk doesn't get the infusion at 0 cost
Hmm, thought occurred, use smoke storm with Fire Sight and then you get a chance to do the full round gather power plus the move action gather without folks noticing.
|
|
Hmm, thought occurred, use smoke storm with Fire Sight and then you get a chance to do the full round gather power plus the move action gather without folks noticing.
Remember, it is noisy too. Is there a feat/ability as of yet that can dampen this? It feels more like trait territory myself, I've been so focused on getting these abilities hammered out that I haven't seen if the PFSRD has a feats section like Archives does.
EDIT: talents section is tentatively done. Planned additions to it include:
-solo/secondary ratings
-a short blurb before each element talking about what it does well
-possible inclusion of associated blast for each type of infusion, since I originally just thought those were just flavor
Work on the guide will probably slow as of now since I really wanted to make sure I got out the things I put up particularly, the more unique facets of the class. I have some other work I need to get to involving this class, so while I do plan on trying to get to updates on this, the rate will be slowed from the current break neck pace I have been working on. As of now I'm accepting music suggestions for what I should listen to while editing this guide, since while I enjoyed the Fire Emblem soundtrack, I can't listen to it again.
I think I'm going to write up a Elemental Annihilator using Water/Earth.
A level progression will be made as well. ^_^
Hmm well if you could make a ring of invisibility don't know why you wouldn't be able to make a ring of silence if your GM is even slightly flexible.
On Another side note Air seems to suck hard if you want to play an elemental Ascetic.
On another note, fire actually seems to have a decent amount of infusions that work well with Elemental Ascetic Archtype.
Hey Jolly,
I'm loving the discussion happening on this thread so far and happy to see someone making a guide.
I agree with the majority of what you have so far. My only surprise is the rating for internal buffer.
I feel like it should be given more credit. Internal Buffer is pretty much a freebie. Free extra 1-3 burn over your daily max.
If you prep it up the night before...
It can give you 1-3 free burns per day (which don't count against your maximum burn limit).
It also works on utility talents (which you mention).
It allows you to cheat the maximum burn per round 1-3 times a day.Meanwhile, if you can't prep it up the night before:
It allows you to activate your Defence power in the morning without losing that burn (for those who don't like putting a burn into Kinetic Defence in the mornings)
At higher level it allows you to reach elemental overflow and keep all those burns for the offensive.
Wow, you've even got me thinking it's worth more than listed... good job. :) My only real problem with internal buffer is, I pretty much never have left over burn at the end of a day. Unlike people who are worried about spending burn too early, I use burn regularly and oft run out before I should. :P
Any chance we can get some feats? Past level 1 im really just confused at what to take for my Hydrokineticist
Wow, you've even got me thinking it's worth more than listed... good job. :) My only real problem with internal buffer is, I pretty much never have left over burn at the end of a day. Unlike people who are worried about spending burn too early, I use burn regularly and oft run out before I should. :PHey Jolly,
I'm loving the discussion happening on this thread so far and happy to see someone making a guide.
I agree with the majority of what you have so far. My only surprise is the rating for internal buffer.
I feel like it should be given more credit. Internal Buffer is pretty much a freebie. Free extra 1-3 burn over your daily max.
If you prep it up the night before...
It can give you 1-3 free burns per day (which don't count against your maximum burn limit).
It also works on utility talents (which you mention).
It allows you to cheat the maximum burn per round 1-3 times a day.Meanwhile, if you can't prep it up the night before:
It allows you to activate your Defence power in the morning without losing that burn (for those who don't like putting a burn into Kinetic Defence in the mornings)
At higher level it allows you to reach elemental overflow and keep all those burns for the offensive.
If that is your playstyle, consider maxing out your buffer at the start of your adventuring day. Now your elemental overflow is started at a higher point, and you can still spend those points later as you wish.
If that is your playstyle, consider maxing out your buffer at the start of your adventuring day. Now your elemental overflow is started at a higher point, and you can still spend those points later as you wish.Wow, you've even got me thinking it's worth more than listed... good job. :) My only real problem with internal buffer is, I pretty much never have left over burn at the end of a day. Unlike people who are worried about spending burn too early, I use burn regularly and oft run out before I should. :PHey Jolly,
I spend 3 Burn on Force Ward, and 2 Burn on Enveloping Winds at the start of my day (half my burn, 12th level). My Elemental Overflow is just fine without using the Buffer. :P
|
|
Hey Jolly,
I'm loving the discussion happening on this thread so far and happy to see someone making a guide.
I agree with the majority of what you have so far. My only surprise is the rating for internal buffer.
I feel like it should be given more credit. Internal Buffer is pretty much a freebie. Free extra 1-3 burn over your daily max.
If you prep it up the night before...
It can give you 1-3 free burns per day (which don't count against your maximum burn limit).
It also works on utility talents (which you mention).
It allows you to cheat the maximum burn per round 1-3 times a day.Meanwhile, if you can't prep it up the night before:
It allows you to activate your Defence power in the morning without losing that burn (for those who don't like putting a burn into Kinetic Defence in the mornings)
At higher level it allows you to reach elemental overflow and keep all those burns for the offensive.
I think people are considering orange as a bad rating, when it's more because it's not a main feature. I don't think it'd be terrible to trade out, but it's not a bad ability. I just feel like it's a slow burn until it's great, but free burn is nice.
|
|
Well, no. The whole point of orange is sub-par. Whether because it's very situational, or not enough of a boon/bonus, it does mean that it's not a particularly wonderful thing to have. Marking it orange indicates the ability is inherently of little value, though not necessarily an active detriment to your character (red is fully detrimental, at the very least by virtue of wasting a level/slot/whatever, for example).
Consider it from an Archetype-swapping perspective, really. If burn is orange, and another archetype's ability replacing it is blue, then to anyone reading the guide, the meaning is very, very clear: "You are replacing not-good with quite-good so you should do this".
May I direct you to the description of orange in my guides:
Orange: This is an okay option, but you can do better.
That's not bad, that's okay. I consider it an okay option. Not bad, not terrible, just okay.
The reason I state that it's okay is because you can make a character out of entirely orange options for a lower op game, especially if your GM is playing at a lower level. I've talked about this before, but not recently so I'll bring it up again here.
To me, the scaling goes as follows
0%-25% usefulness: red
26%-50% usefulness: orange
51%-75% usefulness: green
75%-95% usefulness: blue
95%-100% usefulness (or needed to make a specific build work): purple
As you can see, orange isn't terrible, people are thinking I dislike it when I don't, it's what it is, a buffer, but it's not nearly as useful as the things I rate green. It's generally a once a day thing that requires a day of prep time to come to full use. I'll admit that I am slowly thinking of boosting it to green due to ratings on one of my other guides (alchemist in particular), but right now I'd still consider it orange since its use depends on if you have that prep time. I think my issue with it is the slow scaling of it, as for most of my games, it'd be stuck at 1, which limits the value to me.
Also archetypes are more complex than a one option swap most of the time, so while you cold swap an orange for a blue, you might also be swapping a green for a red, which is just as big a difference.
And archetypes are up, not super impressed by a lot of them which is a shame, but I also feel like there's a lot of design space there for future archetypes. Most archetypes are generally a +1/-1 to the class itself, although these were more +0/-2, which was a shame.
EDIT: Sections of the guide that are on hold until the class hits the archives of nethys/srd
-races: finding the racial favorite class bonuses is annoying, might do uncommon races first since they're unlikely to have these
-feats: i want to have a list of the new OA feats, since finding them on the pfsrd is not my favorite thing
-magical items: see above
|
|
At this point I think it might earn green just due to its competition, so I think I'm going to fold to peer pressure and pop it up to green with a new description. I'm not happy that it's green simply due to its competition, but I think it really needs to be emphasized how much better it is than the options it's competing with now.
EDIT: in the same vein, metakineticist is bumped to green, although I'd probably separately rate maximize as red. Also I believe metakineticist din't have it's rating changed after Mark's clarification, which also makes sense to why it was still orange.