Has anyone yet suggested using the Empower Spell-like Ability and Quicken Spell-like Ability feats to empower and quicken the kineticist's spell-like abilities for free, three times a day?
I don't think it works on blasts or defense wild talents, since they are too high in level*, but you might get some interesting combinations with certain utility powers.
Having read the entire guide now, I can say that for sure you rate energy blasts too highly. They are strictly inferior to physical blast for DPR, since the accuracy payoff is not that great when cosidering that you don't have to deal with iteratives. First hit is nearly always a hit assuming you have overflow, witch you should always.
This means you should stay the hell away from pure fire. Fire sucks at damage until they get expanded element and can get some physical blast like plasma/magma. Once you get there their damage is the higest thanks to Burning and Fire's Fury. Fire to me is a god candidate for exanding into since most of the good infusions are low levels. The only positive note i can find is getting Eruption at 7 instead of 11.
Additionally, against someone with X amount of fire res, doing all fire or half fire half physical has no actual impact on damage. Actually, if your damage is too low compared to the resistance, half-half is your best bet. Try the number if you don't believe it.
The drawback of half-half blasts is that they suffer from both the fire res and the DR of a given enemy, but unless said DR is 30 or more pure energy blast still sucks balls compared to physical
Final note: has anyone found a way to increase burn damage?
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Of the 4 magic items for kineticists in Occult Adventures, three of them (hollow rod, overflowing rod, vril staff) need to be held in hand to work, preventing Gathering Power. Considering how much these items already cost in gold, this makes these items largely useless in my opinion, except possibly for an Overwhelming Soul. Anyone got a reason to ever get one of these?
Having read the entire guide now, I can say that for sure you rate energy blasts too highly. They are strictly inferior to physical blast for DPR, since the accuracy payoff is not that great when cosidering that you don't have to deal with iteratives. First hit is nearly always a hit assuming you have overflow, witch you should always.
How do you calculate that? Touch ac vs basic ac. Unlike a melee type, or even ranged type, we get one attack. It has to hit, or that whole round was for nothing. Especially at the higher levels where the tough monsters have very low touch ac and very high ac.
I find the ToHit far more important than damage, which is why I always question the people suggesting Deadly Aim. My tk blasts missed often, my electric has never missed...
Here you can see some numbers. Scroll up in the thread if you want more contest. Or just pick a level, an equal CR monster, and see how many physical blast you miss. You'll be surprised.
If you don't want to read the whole thing or find it confusing, a TL;DR would be
At level 11 (when you can use composite blast without burn) the Physical Blasts DPR WITHOUT Composite is only two below the Energy one WITH it.
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Having read the entire guide now, I can say that for sure you rate energy blasts too highly. They are strictly inferior to physical blast for DPR, since the accuracy payoff is not that great when cosidering that you don't have to deal with iteratives. First hit is nearly always a hit assuming you have overflow, witch you should always.
This means you should stay the hell away from pure fire. Fire sucks at damage until they get expanded element and can get some physical blast like plasma/magma. Once you get there their damage is the higest thanks to Burning and Fire's Fury. Fire to me is a god candidate for exanding into since most of the good infusions are low levels. The only positive note i can find is getting Eruption at 7 instead of 11.Additional note: has anyone found a way to increase burn damage?
I will entirely go to bat for additional accuracy, like shamelessly. While first attack SHOULD hit, in my experience if it doesn't, you're out a turn's worth of value since you lack itinerant attacks. For those going for debuffs, that miss can straight up be crushing, especially with high burn cost moves. This isn't just for fire, this is just a general thought here.
I honestly don't see the drop in damage for non itinerant attacks being insurmountable, although 1/2 con hurts. Having the safety of knowing you're going to hit allows you to make attacks more confidently, which is something I like.
I do like pure fire since it's the only elemental composite blast, although part of the reason for the lower ranks on the other is from copy/paste work, so I suppose I could alter those some. I really don't agree with fire as a secondary though, since it doesn't add a lot of utility, its composite blast don't add much to anyone else's abilities, and other elements make for better composite blast. If Fire Jet (greater) were fire exclusive, maybe. But self TK/Wings of Air are better than it, and adding fire damage to your collection is rarely a strong move with how much it's resisted.
Sure, I love burning infusion, but it's things like burning infusion that make me think fire's a better solo element since you have to focus on it to make it really great, and to get blue fire blast, which takes advantage of burning infusion more since you're not needing to split damage between two things that could possibly both be resisted.
Also what do you mean by burn,do you mean like the burning infusion's burn?
EDIT: Consider that this guide isn't also a start to finish creation guide, it's more all purpose. Sure, if you follow everything and straight up mug for combat efficiency and accuracy, you're going to have higher to hit and physical blast will be better. But for people just checking this guide out because they need a feat or talent suggestion, that bar is going to be a lot lower, making physical attacks that much more risky to try and use consistently.
I agree with Sphynx. I think people are WAY overestimating the increased damage of physical attacks.
Most of the kineticist builds I've seen so far on these boards that rely on physical attacks have great damage, but very low attack modifiers for their respective levels. Damage is meaningless if you can't deliver it reliably in the first place.
Secondary Fire gives you Eruption, Fire's Fury and Burning from the damage department, Smoke Storm on the battlefield control, Flash as debuff and finally Unraveling for basically everything. I'd say is a sweet deal for a secondary element.
In play experience with level 7 pyrokineticist that expanded into air with air blast. 20 Dex, 23 Con, I prefer using fire blast on things with high AC. Even against hardness where energy or physical blasts get reduced equally. I've yet to hit with a physical blast after couple tries and will stick with shooting energy blasts and hitting on a rolled '2'. Rest of the party prefers I hit, even with lower damage, rather than whiffing with the big blasts when we're all getting missiles in the face by a giant robot. Plus, the energy damage has been considered respectable by the rest of my PFS party members who are themselves well-optimized.
If I fight low AC targets I'll switch up.
If I fight magic immune targets (like golem) I'll use air or plasma.
Fire immunity? Switch.
Hardness? Energy. Never plasma because the hardness will reduce the bludgeoning and the fire damage at same time (effectively doubling effective damage reduction against my attack).
Fire resistance? Searing flame and fire.
Until then, high accuracy energy blasts are my best friend.
I agree with Sphynx. I think people are WAY overestimating the increased damage of physical attacks.
Most of the kineticist builds I've seen so far on these boards that rely on physical attacks have great damage, but very low attack modifiers for their respective levels. Damage is meaningless if you can't deliver it reliably in the first place.
I guess what we need to calculate is how much our miss chance is with physical, which for me was about 40% (guessing). That means for it to equal out, the physical damage would have to be 1.5x more than the energy damage. Maybe I was just unlucky though...
i want to assume, that if you get gm handouts, then they would at least be of equal VALUE in between the characters.
so if a gm hands out a +4 dex/con belt worth 50k to a kinetit "because he needs it" then the rest of the party will also get about 50k worth of equip for themselves.
which would mean they would get a +4 and a +6 item, giving the overwhelming soul a +2 to his ability at all levels compared to a kinetisist.
no matter how you sugarcoat it, dex/con is way harder to raise compared to dex/cha.
and if the gm just gives for "free" the kinetit that bonus "because he needs it" then i would call dibs on it even if i was an overwhelming soul, because con is con.
I think you're making my point, not yours.
You do realize that they're both "belt" category, right? So either you're losing Dex because you want to add Con to the price of the belt, or you're not having Dex, just con, or you're stuck with just Dex. All 3 of those prove my point.
And of course the players will have, roughly, the same value in items... and this is a bonus to Overwhelming, in that they'll likely get their cloak or amulet sooner (or a better one), but those things aren't affecting the subject matter on why it's still better to be a defense-only-kineticist-burner than an Overwhelming Soul.
Wouldn't a blast count as a ranged weapon for the feats?They don't work. Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip require full round actions, and a blast is a standard action. You can't use them together.How are the targeting feats?
Ranged Disarm, Ranged Trip, and Trick Shooter?
Imbicatus, I think what he's stating is that shooting a bow is also a "standard action", so obviously the feat is stating that by changing it from a standard action (to use the Kinetic Blast), into a full-round action, you can use the feat. That is perfectly logical.
Imbicatus, I think what he's stating is that shooting a bow is also a "standard action", so obviously the feat is stating that by changing it from a standard action (to use the Kinetic Blast), into a full-round action, you can use the feat. That is perfectly logical.Wouldn't a blast count as a ranged weapon for the feats?They don't work. Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip require full round actions, and a blast is a standard action. You can't use them together.How are the targeting feats?
Ranged Disarm, Ranged Trip, and Trick Shooter?
Shooting a bow is not actually a standard action. Using the attack action is. Attacking with a weapon (melee or ranged) is not a standard action because you can use it to attack during attacks of opportunities (given the right feats for ranged weapons) or use it to attack multiple times during a full attack action. You can't do that with a spell or spell like ability unless it says otherwise or the spell grants use of a weapon (like flameblade).
So despite being a ranged weapon, you would not be able to use kinetic blast for feats that require specific actions. Keep in mind that using kinetic blast is not using the 'attack' action, you're using the 'kinetic blast' action. Both are standard actions, and both result in attack rolls and/or damage to the enemy, but they aren't the same thing.
[Edit] Designer ninja allowance means it's okay to use!
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Mark says Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip is fine.
Now the question comes down to which blast damage is used for the feats.
Mark says Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip is fine.Now the question comes down to which blast damage is used for the feats.
I'd go with physical blasts since that's what deadly aim applies to. Deadly aim ain't used for the maneuvers but it's a prerequisite feat so I'd say the same limitation applies.
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Mark says Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip is fine.
I posted a follow up to that, because action economy rules say it's not.
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Mark says Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip is fine.
Mark says Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip are not fine.
This chain of post amused me greatly. Glad to see I don't need to worry about it, although it wouldn't have been great anyways.
Mark says Ranged Disarm and Ranged Trip is fine.I posted a follow up to that, because action economy rules say it's not.
When I read his quote, he said it should work which is different than explicitly saying it does. Which of course obviously you caught.
This is way my Stance of Deadly Aim, Power attack, Piranha Strike is to pass them. I had and argument over on another forums with a user about is it worth it to take this feats.
With my Earth Blade Kenticist build I seek to help the damage gap with Combat Reflexes with Whip and Kinetic Form.
Oh and a note to anyone, over on my build forum it was said that you can Quicken Ride the blast to get a psuedo-pounce.
Whoops. Good catch, Imbicatus!
I'm confused on why...
An attack made as a standard action tends to be a special action. It is why there was errata/FAQ's on using things like trip during a full attack action.
SLA/SP/SU actions aren't under that umbrella, so to speak.
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So while a kinectic blast has an attack roll, it is not an attack action.
It cannot be used in a full attack without a special infusion such as kinectic blade, whip, or devastating infusion. In order to use the ranged attack with ranged trip or ranged disarm, it would need to be something that can be used as an attack action.
You could use it as an elemental annihilator, but that's it.
You know, figuring out how (and whether) this class actually works is starting to look like it might be harder than figuring out whether a Paladin falls . . . .
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Of the 4 magic items for kineticists in Occult Adventures, three of them (hollow rod, overflowing rod, vril staff) need to be held in hand to work, preventing Gathering Power. Considering how much these items already cost in gold, this makes these items largely useless in my opinion, except possibly for an Overwhelming Soul. Anyone got a reason to ever get one of these?Glove of Storing bro. Yeah, it's an extra ten grand, but that free action draw and stow lets you get up to some gather power shenanigans and still use your rods.
Good one. Didn't even think that Gather Power is its own action, so juggling is fine. When I first got the book, I went straight to items before reading the updated class, so I thought a couple levels of Alchemist for an extra arm (and even more Con) would work, but that had already been headed off. Then I figured only a Tiefling with a prehensile tail could manage a rod or staff and still gather power. Gloves handle the issue nicely, but they are another pile of cash just to effectively use the only class-specific items available.
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Rods: I would think they were meant to be usable with Gather Power, given that they're specific Kineticist items, but that ruling is sorely missing from the description.
Yeah, the class specific items frankly suck.
They really do. They're horribly overpriced for what little they offer. My guess is that since Kineticists can do their thing "all day long", anything that permanently bolsters blast damage is considered extremely powerful. In practice, of course, it doesn't work that way at all. In particular, the fact that you only get one blast per round makes a +1d6 per blast much, much less powerful than, say, a +1d6 per arrow, which is easily affordable to an archer (who, by the way, can also do her thing "all day long").
I hope future books will bring some "per-day" items for the Kineticist, which can no doubt be made much more affordable than the "all day" ones. For instance, a Kineticist's equivalent to the Plume of Panache would be nice -- a gem that works like the Kineticit's Internal Buffer, but recharges once per day for free. To stop high-level Kineticists from carrying a sack full of those, you could say a Kineticist has to attune himself to a given gem for 24 hours before it recharges for him, and you can't have two attuned gems. You could then have more expensive gems with two Burn charges, etc...
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Rods: I would think they were meant to be usable with Gather Power, given that they're specific Kineticist items, but that ruling is sorely missing from the description.
Yeah, the class specific items frankly suck.They really do. They're horribly overpriced for what little they offer. My guess is that since Kineticists can do their thing "all day long", anything that permanently bolsters blast damage is considered extremely powerful. In practice, of course, it doesn't work that way at all. In particular, the fact that you only get one blast per round makes a +1d6 per blast much, much less powerful than, say, a +1d6 per arrow, which is easily affordable to an archer (who, by the way, can also do her thing "all day long").
I hope future books will bring some "per-day" items for the Kineticist, which can no doubt be made much more affordable than the "all day" ones. For instance, a Kineticist's equivalent to the Plume of Panache would be nice -- a gem that works like the Kineticit's Internal Buffer, but recharges once per day for free. To stop high-level Kineticists from carrying a sack full of those, you could say a Kineticist has to attune himself to a given gem for 24 hours before it recharges for him, and you can't have two attuned gems. You could then have more expensive gems with two Burn charges, etc...
I'd prefer that instead of working once a day, they be only one use but expensive. So if you want to buy a bag of them you can, but there goes your money.
As a regular voter in RPG Superstar, few things are more annoying than attuning.
Great work so far on the guide!
Maybe this isn't the best place to coment this, but... would Elemental Grip on a Blood kineticist be able to hold any creature with blood in it? Just wondering.
In light of you comments I decided to recheck the math and I've concluded that indeed, if you don't optimize for it, physical is not actually better than energy, and actually Blue Flame blast is as good as it sound if you don't plan on investing on your to hit.
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In light of you comments I decided to recheck the math and I've concluded that indeed, if you don't optimize for it, physical is not actually better than energy, and actually Blue Flame blast is as good as it sound if you don't plan on investing on your to hit.
That's good news, I guess. It makes the different elements equally viable. Good game design!
And it means if you have both a physical and an energy blast at hand, you can likely gain an advantage in DPR by picking the blast type more advantageous to your enemy. Physical for low AC or high resistance, energy for high AC or DR.
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Great work so far on the guide!
Maybe this isn't the best place to comment this, but... would Elemental Grip on a Blood kineticist be able to hold any creature with blood in it? Just wondering.
Thanks, it always means a lot to hear that people are liking the progress that I'm making!
And sadly, I don't think blood is considered an element as well as the blood focus ability stating only its infusions work on only blooded targets, so I don't think it would work, although it would be every kind of awesome and thematic.
In light of you comments I decided to recheck the math and I've concluded that indeed, if you don't optimize for it, physical is not actually better than energy, and actually Blue Flame blast is as good as it sound if you don't plan on investing on your to hit.
Glad to see the math works out on this one. I mean I love optimizing my accuracy, but I also like when an ability does the work for me like with energy blast.
Also yeah, has Mark weighed in on the 'staff' issue? I'm assuming the balancing point here was "If you've got a staff, gather power would be broken" which I'm almost certain isn't true. A glove of storing could work, but man, that's just pitching gold away to make an item work that really shouldn't need that level of investment, especially with the class needing a dex/con belt to hit full potential (as has been stated earlier.)
As an aside, I've been doing a lot of sample builds for another project, and I'm finding that it's hard to avoid taking either extended range or kinetic blade (and by extension weapon finesse) with these early builds. The lack of solid level 1 blast for a few elements is rather annoying for designing characters, at least for some elements, especially in the case of ones that only have one (subpar) infusion like pushing.
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I saw on another thread a comment about using a melee conductive weapon with energy Kinetic Blades or a ranged one with Kinetic Blasts. Is this on the guide?
EDIT: Sorry, that last post shouldn't have gone through, I don't know why it posted.
I haven't gotten to magic weapons yet, although it seems like it could be another point towards strength (or agile weapons), but I'm not sure it would be applicable to melee attacks since those require kinetic blade to be attached to it, and that decision is made when you attack, so it might not be possible for melee. I'd like clarification on this though.
Personally, it feels like the kind of thing that will be errata'd, as it's quite a bit stronger than other options with how much it breaks the damage curve somewhat, as well as the basic theme of the class (at least in my opinion).
One important note is that you have to build yourself around the conductive weapon to make full use of it, and even then you're applying touch attacks against regular AC.
Although, as I think about it, you get to apply rapid shot, haste, and other ranged feats to it.
Hmm. And it's only a +1 bonus, so you can get a conductive bow for as cheap as 8300+bow cost.
And you can get the regular ranged feats that work with the kineticist before you get the weapon...
Actually conductive seems pretty scary.
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One important note is that you have to build yourself around the conductive weapon to make full use of it, and even then you're applying touch attacks against regular AC.
Although, as I think about it, you get to apply rapid shot, haste, and other ranged feats to it.
Hmm. And it's only a +1 bonus, so you can get a conductive bow for as cheap as 8300+bow cost.
And you can get the regular ranged feats that work with the kineticist before you get the weapon...
Actually conductive seems pretty scary.
You don't even have to build yourself around it that much aside to get longbow prof (which can be done in a single trait with hunter's eye, making it even easier), since you have a normal full bow attack routine with rapid shot, multishot, and the other longbow feats.
The 'problems' come in at accuracy though (deadly aim is a HUGE no here) since even on the conductive attack (against full AC), it's vague if you get the elemental overflow attack and damage boost (I'd rule no), and then you have your other attacks coming off of a 3/4ths BAB, so your itinerant attacks would also be in the same boat. Wind's celerity could help mitigate this for the cost of a burn, but even then you'd need to pump your accuracy deeply.
As a main playstyle, it also removes form and possibly substance infusions from the mix (again, it's unclear if you can modify something being used with conductive, but as stated before, I'd rule no), making you basically a reverse elemental annihilator in talents since all infusions are basically moot. To get the most of it, you'd have to go pure fire to get a composite energy blast or fire/water/air+aether to get a slightly more janky composite blast.
I'm not sure it's broken simply due to the accuracy issues, but it is something to think about.
Doesn't conductive weapon only work once a round? I'm not even sure if it works on bows (does it transfers the damage to ammunition or do you gotta enchant the ammo?) and if not, rapid shot would only work on like conductive thrown weapons, which can get pricy.