|
So I read all of the forum posts and the "sucking counts as airbending" guide and Jolly's more positive guide. Thanks Jolly! And I saw the ranking of fire at the bottom of the kineticist elements in a recent forum ranking by Jolly.
So I guess I was surprised when my lvl 7 fire/fire kin was pretty good this past weekend. (Hi gamer group! I had fun with all of you!)
I based my build roughly off of Jolly's fire/fire/aether kin in the guide but made it fire/fire/fire instead and chose the dual talent human trait to start with super high dex and con.
I mean, the damage is absolutely top notch. At night, put 1 burn into the buffer. My strategy was in the morning I got 3 burn putting burn into 3 extra searing flesh. This 3 burn was enough to get me +2 attack, +4 damage via ele overflow and also get +2 con, +2 dex which further helps things, and also an additional +3 damage with fire's fury.
I know searing flesh isn't amazing, but it consists of points that are relatively well spent. Keep in mind that if you do spend a burn later while grappled or whatever you can make searing flesh do pretty good damage for that one turn. And I think most intelligent monsters will realize after a certain point that no only do you have a trillion hit points but they are damaging themselves each time they attack you.
After the initial morning, don't get any more burn. Just do move action gather power and then an empowered (burning/extended/fan of flames) infusion. At this point, even with 3 burn, I still had more HP than anyone else in the party.
Damage is really amazing if you calculate all of the bonuses in. By the end of the day, I hit lvl 8, so in the future I will be able to do empowered, burning and then either extended or fan without extra burn.
At 10th level I will be flying all of the time. When I hit 11th level, I will be able to do blasts that still do big damage and blind the BBEG every single f***ing turn with a really high save and no extra burn. And soon after that I will be able to dispel and attack.
I can already do the firesight-smokestorm combo.
And it is all with touch AC, so the only time I missed all night was when I rolled a natural 1.
Downsides:
* Horrible will save. Getting a clear spindle ioun stone in a wayfinder is a top priority. (Counterpoint: Fort and reflex saves are both ridiculously high. Like, super-duper-high.)
* Had to switch to a crossbow for negligable damage against an advanced template will-o-wisp, but then again everyone except the evocation-specialized sorceress also sucked against the will-o-wisp.
* If they are immune to fire I am hosed. If they are just resistant, there is still hope. Note that I can still smokestorm them though. I view this like when you have a rogue against something immune to precision damage--occasionally it will not be your fight.
Anyway, I am just surprised by the negative tone about kineticists on the forum, because that wasn't really my experience playing one.
Also, those who think they don't do good damage probably haven't really added up all of the fiddly bits and actually calculated things. Moreover take into account that only needing 2 stats (CON and DEX) makes you free to tank pretty much everything else in a point buy.
I love the kineticist it just needs a lot more love because it is a different animal them the other classes.
Most new classes fall into existing types and have plenty of options off the bat.
Examples:
-Spell casting classes have spells wich there is a long list to choose from. Most(if not all) there power comes from spells and there are no shortage in this game.
-Martials have many feats to choose from. There are countless builds for martials and there is a variety of weapons, armor, shields as well.
-Skill based classes have many skill points/class skills to choose from. They can get by with a good diplomacy check, stealth check, etc.
All these classes have good magic items that enhance there abilities.
But since the kineticist is in a category all it's own it doesn't benefit from these options or at least as much. But one day it will get enough love that it will have plenty of options.
Anyway, I am just surprised by the negative tone about kineticists on the forum, because that wasn't really my experience playing one.
One thing I've noticed is that first responses about classes tend to be disproportionately sampled from players who are playing games extremely above the expected Pathfinder baselines, with challenges far beyond them as well (or at least, they are generally building characters with extremely-above baseline numbers and have said that those are necessary to survive in their games). These are some of our players who are highly invested, skilled analysts in the context of how things would work in their own games (a skill honed by playing in dangerous extremely-above baseline games where they have to be great at that skill to survive), and quick thinkers, so that investment and quick thinking leads to them responding first. I noticed the same thing happened after hunter came out for a while too, as well as any class that (unlike hunter and kineticist) was reined in from its playtest (even APG summoner had a short thread about it being weak just after the final version hit, even though it eventually wound up causing problems in baseline games that warranted an unchained version).
I'm really glad you're enjoying your pyrokineticist! In my experience as well, searing flesh has also been a fairly useful deterrant, especially if, as you suggest, you amp the burn when they try to grapple you. A lot depends on what you face. If the whole adventure was with those will'o wisp, you'd be sadder (though searing flesh ignores SR and thus magic immunity, so if you can get up some electricity resistance, it's in a bit of a standoff if it tries to touch you; it'll probably go after someone else though).
So far, I've tried to gather some data from games with more baseline difficulties, and what I've seen so far from those numbers is that kineticists are usually doing well in those (exception; sometimes kineticists who go physical blast and prioritize Con over Dex are having accuracy issues before getting Precise Shot, but I suppose going Con over Dex would be like a thrown weapon or archery build going Str over Dex) and occasionally they are actually causing problems in some low-op games because the class was built to be pretty useful at the baseline (high power floor) as long as you have good Dex and Con, even without a fancy build.
Hey Mark, is searing flesh intended to have any benefit to invest burn in from levels 1-3? The accepting burn part lacks the "(minimum of 1 fire damage)" text the normal progression of searing flesh does.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey Mark, is searing flesh intended to have any benefit to invest burn in from levels 1-3? The accepting burn part lacks the "(minimum of 1 fire damage)" text the normal progression of searing flesh does.
Oh copyfitting, the kineticist's bane (I'm sure you'll agree, it was important not to lose any of the wild talents we currently have in there, so I had to really cut words on some of these). Honestly my preference would be to do some funky math with the ability (and I may just find a way to fit this in there [and convince the others that it isn't too hard of math to make the player do] if we ever have a second printing but for now this isn't how it works) where you multiply your level by (1+burn spent) before the division by 4 and rounding down. This would make the levels between multiples of 4 actually relevant. Right now, it doesn't have that text in it at all, though, but I highly recommend it for home groups that can add in some house rules.
One thing I've noticed is that first responses about classes tend to be disproportionately sampled from players who are playing games extremely above the expected Pathfinder baselines, with challenges far beyond them as well (or at least, they are generally building characters with extremely-above baseline numbers and have said that those are necessary to survive in their games). These are some of our players who are highly invested, skilled analysts in the context of how things would work in their own games (a skill honed by playing in dangerous extremely-above baseline games where they have to be great at that skill to survive), and quick thinkers, so that investment and quick thinking leads to them responding first. I noticed the same thing happened after hunter came out for a while too, as well as any class that (unlike hunter and kineticist) was reined in from its playtest (even APG summoner had a short thread about it being weak just after the final version hit, even though it eventually wound up causing problems in baseline games that warranted an unchained version).
One thing I will note, in my experiance even those really good theory builders miss damage and details here and there. The class is, well complex might be the wrong word, but intricate and different. A toxic combination for most theory crafters. The easiest way to know if something is good or bad is to compare it to your baseline within the metagame. Except Kineticist is so far outside the meta it seems bizarre to try and understand it.
It also just lacks content and thus room to perform system mastery. Two problems hopefully solved by time. The addition of KoP into our home game has made for a one shotting kinetic fistter. Though that is partly thanks to the addition of pounce. When he is forced to resort to kinetic blast I ussually have to add a few points from this or that he forgets about. We are at lvl 4 now and the damage definately dwarfs that of any ranged weapon our party has while the choice of damage type on his physical blast has come into play as well. None of us have been as powerful in combat, except for me who rolls x4 crits and is playing a very min maxer high level build without anyone in the party yet noticing I am casting.
How do the energy shooting Kineticists like cold and fire compare to the physical shooting Kineticists like Earth in terms of damage? I can imagine that gives water a huge advantage as an element since it has a physical and an energy blast, unlike fire which is all energy or earth which is all physical.
How do the energy shooting Kineticists like cold and fire compare to the physical shooting Kineticists like Earth in terms of damage? I can imagine that gives water a huge advantage as an element since it has a physical and an energy blast, unlike fire which is all energy or earth which is all physical.
Typically physical does more damage single-target and energy does more AoE (if the foe has unusually high AC, this could change things in energy's favor for that target). However, energy is more reliable damage which you sometimes would prefer to have (if the monster has 10 hp left, then you'd rather have a 90% chance to deal 20 average damage than a 70% chance to deal 30 average damage, even though the latter is more than 10% better damage per round). In fire's case, fire's fury is a large boost for fire that allows it to do damage closer to a physical blast, and when combined with energy's AoE damage advantage, it makes fire's AoEs the most damaging of all. That and fire has the most damaging energy composite (void can create an equally damaging composite, but it has a damage split and thus negative/fire is more likely to be a no-go composite than fire/fire, but your advantage is in having two different basic blasts that do energy damage). Earth may not have an energy option, but metal blast with magnetic (or rare metal for DR) is an extremely good physical composite with a variety of damage types and no split on its damage (splits can sometimes get you double-resisted if you're unlucky).
How do the energy shooting Kineticists like cold and fire compare to the physical shooting Kineticists like Earth in terms of damage? I can imagine that gives water a huge advantage as an element since it has a physical and an energy blast, unlike fire which is all energy or earth which is all physical.
I can't speak as much as I would like to on experiance for this, but... I think I have theory built enough by now to very safely say it depends. There are just too many factors for it to be a simple answer of X is always X.
For example, energy blasts do full damage on AoE. If you are playing a game where the GM floods you with enemies (Just ask my party about the flying monkeys while I was GMing...) then obviously energy is great! Buuuuut, choice isn't as great once you start factoring in more and more. Water doesn't have all the cheap infusions that fire does so you cannot capitalize on it as early. And you do start out with only 1 blast so that advantage of having 2 won't be relevant until 7th. Where as fire will be hot very early on and is the only way to have an full powered energy composite that is pure. Void is the only other one. But Void can also go the gravity route and-
I mean, I think you get my point. The pros and cons of each are very, very complex. Even Aether, which on paper just sucks in terms of blasting has unique options are arguably the most combat capable wild talents.
Void can actually do some really impressive damage when you start stacking boost onto a physical composite. Void's trouble though is that it doesn't come online until very lategame because boosting is almost always worse than metakinesis and your burn per round limit prevents you from combining them effectively until at least composite specialization. That and since you need to eat burn to pull it off it's very nova-y.
That burn per round limit really sucks sometimes.
The class is, well complex might be the wrong word, but intricate and different. A toxic combination for most theory crafters. The easiest way to know if something is good or bad is to compare it to your baseline within the metagame. Except Kineticist is so far outside the meta it seems bizarre to try and understand it.
I'm not sure I'd agree with this. Kineticists have a lot of fiddly bits, but part of the problem I think is that there isn't all that much you can optimize.
So Kineticists kind of end up having a less severe version of the Tome of Battle problem, where they're great out of the box and it's not hard to build a good one and it may even seem outright overpowered in some games.
But then there's only so much you can do to optimize them beyond that and you end up hitting a ceiling pretty quickly, which makes them look less spectacular compared to other classes once you hit a certain optimization level.
|
|
How do the energy shooting Kineticists like cold and fire compare to the physical shooting Kineticists like Earth in terms of damage? I can imagine that gives water a huge advantage as an element since it has a physical and an energy blast, unlike fire which is all energy or earth which is all physical.
As Mark already said, Fire's Fury (which also benefits from the 1.5x empowered multiplier) makes it compare more to a physical blasts damage but with touch AC.
I guess I like the single element build because you can get (Greater) Elemental Focus (Fire) to get really nice DCs. And if you go with the single element for all 3 you get an even bigger DC boost. So I think single element builds will be a lot more successful at cranking out those big DCs and actually making the abilities stick on the BBEG.
I can see water and air would be nice as well because you could still stick to that one element to get good DCs but have a choice of energy or physical.
It just seems to me that fire has the answer for a single element build, however, what with fire's fury, searing flames, and pure-flame infusion. You will eventually be able to get by most of the problems with those.
I do plan on (at lvl 14) taking Elemental Grip just in case there is a fire elemental or salamander so I am not completely pointless. I have a question for Mark about this, though. As written, it would seem that if I use elemental grip as a fire/fire/fire that it has the fire attribute and so a fire elemental which is immune to elemental traits and fire would not be able to be held. I think the intention was for this spell exactly to be able to hold a fire elemental, but if elemental grip has the fire descriptor and fire elementals are immune to fire can it affect them?
"A wild talent always has the elemental descriptor or descriptors (aether, air, earth, fire, or water) matching its element entry. A wild talent that can be used with any of several elements gains the appropriate elemental descriptor when used with an element."
Thanks again for the very fun class!
I'm not sure I'd agree with this. Kineticists have a lot of fiddly bits, but part of the problem I think is that there isn't all that much you can optimize.
I don't disagree, but that was part of the intended point of my second paragraph. I was trying to express that, but as a separate note.
I still would hold to the fact a lot of the minor advantages of their fiddly nature have not been worked out by most players.
I guess I like the single element build because you can get (Greater) Elemental Focus (Fire) to get really nice DCs. And if you go with the single element for all 3 you get an even bigger DC boost. So I think single element builds will be a lot more successful at cranking out those big DCs and actually making the abilities stick on the BBEG.
I'm not sure I feel a +1 is really all that impactful. Certainly not compared to having options. I think N. Jolly had the right idea with Aether. Aetheric Boost and having some of the best wild talents opened up is amazing. The only other element I would consider is Earth for physical blasts and, again, a great wild talent list.
|
|
I'm not sure I'd agree with this. Kineticists have a lot of fiddly bits, but part of the problem I think is that there isn't all that much you can optimize.I don't disagree, but that was part of the intended point of my second paragraph. I was trying to express that, but as a separate note.
I still would hold to the fact a lot of the minor advantages of their fiddly nature have not been worked out by most players.
It is more that with elemental overflow and fire's fury and changing burn levels, you have to be on your toes about re-calculating everything as all of the bonuses keep changing. And then you have to multiply that by 1.5 etc etc. And it is at least a little confusing how form infusions use DEX for DC but substance ones use CON. Or how the effective spell level of a blast is kin/2 but the utility ones are their spell level. It definitely takes reading over the entry several times.
I am remembering how I though Jolly's build was illegal because it had Extra Wild Talent (Expanded Def) which I thought was not allowed because it is a defense power which is excluded from that. But then Mark and several other pointed out to me that expanded defense was a utility power that grants you a defense power, so is okay.
I think it is a fun class, and yes there aren't an amazing number of options to make things super-difficult, but there are enough exceptions that you have to read things over pretty carefully. As, as I said before, on the fly calculating things as your burn level changes is a bit awkward. That is one of the reasons I decided just to get 3 burn at the beginning of the day and leave it at that, possibly taking one from the buffer if I needed more.
|
|
I'm not sure I feel a +1 is really all that impactful. Certainly not compared to having options. I think N. Jolly had the right idea with Aether. Aetheric Boost and having some of the best wild talents opened up is amazing. The only other element I would consider is Earth for physical blasts and, again, a great wild talent list.
Except it is not really just +1:
Affinity of the elements trait
with fire (play with true N alignment): +1
Elemental focus fire: +1
Greater elemental focus fire: +1
Choose fire again at lvl 15: +1
Now +4 DC is pretty serious business. Yes, someone who is a hybrid could get all except that last lvl 15 +1, but would they? Maybe they wouldn't because they were trying to focus on all elements equally and wouldn't want to boost just one.
But yeah, aether does look very fun. I'll have to try that for my next character! And aetheric boost does look pretty good. With an anticipated end lvl of 16, though, I think it is better to stick with fire because I will still be getting the essential fire abilities up to lvl 16.
I like aether and air best of the elements...so far. Earth is a good one as well. Fire just really lacks in the utility department. Void and wood have even less options and really need some help.
I'm not sure I feel a +1 is really all that impactful. Certainly not compared to having options. I think N. Jolly had the right idea with Aether. Aetheric Boost and having some of the best wild talents opened up is amazing. The only other element I would consider is Earth for physical blasts and, again, a great wild talent list.Except it is not really just +1:
Affinity of the elements trait
with fire (play with true N alignment): +1Elemental focus fire: +1
Greater elemental focus fire: +1
Choose fire again at lvl 15: +1
Now +4 DC is pretty serious business. Yes, someone who is a hybrid could get all except that last lvl 15 +1, but would they? Maybe they wouldn't because they were trying to focus on all elements equally and wouldn't want to boost just one.
To retort, and try convince you to convert... I think that you would still get all that as an aether "hybrid." Particularly since for all purposes aethric boost is still using your fire and blue fire blasts. I don't really see it as being a hybrid honestly. Just feels like getting more bang out of expanded element.
The 16th level endgame does dampen it. But I think I would rather have another +1 for 1 burn to my overwhelming firepower and be able to steal one OP talent.
Air's probably my favorite. It's a lot of fun and it's pretty flexible compared to some of the other elements.
I want to like Water, but I'm a big fan of cold stuff and... cold is a really crappy energy type. Fire gets lots of extra goodies to try to help compensate for how common fire resistance is but Cold doesn't really get any special support outside one infusion.
As an aside, I sort of think that's my biggest issue with the kineticist. Not the balance, but the design. It's very easy to pick winners and losers for elements in specific roles and consequently it becomes very easy to label one based purely on an element. I build a fire kineticist and that means I'm a damage dealer. I build an aether kineticist and I have all this utility. But if I want to build a telekinetic meat grinder or a pyromancer who uses his powers defensively and to support allies? SoL. That's debatably not a bad thing but it does bug me.
Also where's the acid damage?
I played up to 10th level with an Aero/Water Kineticist and I loved it. Damage wise I held my own, and although he eventually fell victim to a TPK with the rest of the party, he lasted the longest. Just be smart about how you build and understand what your strengths and weaknesses are. It's pretty sweet hitting touch AC from 120' away every round.
He was slightly insane, and believed he was the Son Of Gozreh due to his powers.
I will for sure play a kineticist again in the future.
People just want everything...not every PC has to be the best at everything. Any perceived weakness is amplified and blown out of proportion on these boards.
I want to like water but you have to wait so long to get a swim speed(20ft only!) and breath underwater.
While Air is breathing underwater as soon as level two. How's that for making any sense?
He was slightly insane, and believed he was the Son Of Gozreh due to his powers.
That sounds like a super-fun PC concept. I bet RP was a blast!
I want to like water but you have to wait so long to get a swim speed(20ft only!) and breath underwater.
There's a reason my hydrokinetisist is an Undine.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I love the class. Flat out love it.
I don't think I can ever play it, as it seems by 7th level I'm behind the curve on attack and damage no matter what I do.
What am I missing?
I'm an Air Kineticist that uses electric blasts. Currently my character has a +6 to attack (+3 BAB, +3 Dex) that is almost always at +7 due to Elemental Overflow and sometimes +8 due to Point Black Shot. This means I generally don't miss unless I roll something like a 5. All further points will assume I have Elemental Overflow maxed. My damage is at 3d6+3 (I have 17 Con), which is an average of 13.5. However, I can Empower which gives me 1.5x damage putting me at ~20 damage and still have 1 burn to use on something like Extended Range. So overall it's 75% hit chance with ~20 damage, giving me an average of 15 damage a round without trying to focus on my accuracy too much.
Compare this to my Warpriest friend who likes to use a Flying Blade and Power Attack. He gets a respectable +11 if using his War Blessing (+3 BAB, +4 Str, +2 Class stuff, +1 Blessing, +1 Masterwork). He's not hitting Touch though so he still needs to roll about a 7 to hit. He capitalizes on AoO when possible but frequently goes in with his "boop gauntlet" (a Cestus) so his average damage/accuracy is harder to pinpoint but it goes like this: 1. Blade AoO is at +14 with 1d10+9, DPR at ~12. 2. Blade normal attack is at +9 with 1d10+9, DPR at ~8. 3. Cestus is at +11 with 1d6+6, DPR at ~6.
As we can see, compared to a Warpriest optimized for AoO, I'm still doing 25% more DPR compared with his best-case scenario (granted, no spell buff) to my "Yeah, this is what I always do". If we compare to a raging Barbarian that started with a 16 str and a greatsword, the Barbarian is at +11 (+5 BAB, +5 Str, +1 masterwork) to hit doing 2d6+13, giving an average DPR of 13. So I'm doing better than a baseline optimized 2-handing Barbarian.
Switching gears, if I go with a physical but keep everything the same, I'm looking at 3d6+6 damage and needing to roll ~11. Empowering my damage gives me a DPR of ~14. This could be increased if I took stuff like Weapon Focus and min-maxed more.
Looking forward to level 7 (and not considering belts or other magical gear), Elemental Overflow really comes into play at this time (assuming +2 to Dex and Con). Electric Blast damage would be 4d6+6 at +11 (+5 BAB, +4 Dex, +2 overflow). This means I'm only missing on a 1 on average, giving me a DPR of ~29. This is assuming that the creature doesn't have SR though which really puts a hamper on things. Against a creature with SR, the average roll needed to overcome it's SR is 11, giving it a DPR of ~17. That's without Spell Penetration. Also at that point I can choose to hit people with Magnetic Infusion giving my allies a much easier time to hit if we feel like it's better to do that (we've agreed that it's a yes, since a +4 to attack rolls to everyone else in the group is more beneficial than me doing ~10 extra damage). Don't neglect the little bits you can do other than just straight blast for damage.
I honestly don't see where people are coming from when they say that the Kineticist severely lags behind in accuracy/damage. Sure, there's not many options to optimize the Kineticist to the point of what some other classes could reach, but the floor is high enough that you really don't need to put much into optimizing to do well.
Also where's the acid damage?Sitting in the corner, crying that the development team doesn't want it to play with the other elements anymore.
Should have had it accessible through Wood, goodness knows that element desperately needs some shoring up.
Kineticists of Porphyra II has Poison as an element, using acid as its energy core. It's 3rd-party sure, but it can a decent solution.
The writing and the design of the kineticist is a big mess with its awkward wording, needlessly complex mechanics, multiple talent types, and a resource system that's rather unfun to manage. Otherwise, it's a pretty decent and fun class.
For a blasting class it is complex but it is nothing compared to the medium or occultist as far the word complex is concerned.
I love the class. Flat out love it.
I don't think I can ever play it, as it seems by 7th level I'm behind the curve on attack and damage no matter what I do.
What am I missing?
You're saying that your empowered blast doesn't keep up with damage.
Do you have an idea of what your power curve is that you're behind on? / How much damage are you "needing" to do at lv7?|
|
For those saying that the class is complicated:
Yeah, it certainly reads pretty complicated. Once you play just a little bit though you quickly get the hang of it. Three of the most complicated bits to it is that you have bonuses changing around depending on how much burn you have, keeping track of how much burn a combination of infusions will cost after your various reductions, and remembering your overall options.
The first one quickly becomes streamlined when you're just boosting your defense talent until you activate your desired level of Overflow at the start of the day. In my case, I'll be one or two points below my wanted threshold at the start of the day and then take burn to cast Haste on everyone in the party for the entire fight.
The second one becomes streamlined just through practice. You know you take away X cost based on Infusion Specialization and Y based on how long you gather power for (if you do). It just becomes basic algebra on par with any other mathematics you have to do for Pathfinder: Burn = Infusion costs - (X+Y) and there you go. Not really any more complicated than keeping track differing bonuses based on Power Attack, Arcane Strike, whether the bard is buffing or not, etc.
The third one is, once again, based on simple practice. You know what your favorite combos are and you'll generally stick to them.
Case in point, right off the top of my head I know that I can Kinetic Blade for free after moving and can Empower it for free too if I don't use a move action for something. It's no more difficult than remembering that you don't get your iteratives if you use your move action on something else.
|
|
I haven't actually played one myself but I DMed a PFS scenario recently that featured a geokineticist as a villain and she was a terror. Between strong defenses, utility, and damage potential, I'm not sure what all the complaints are about. Had I run her to her full potential I'm confident she could have killed a couple of the PCs or potentially caused a TPK.
I will agree the class feels a bit overly complex. The bad guy in question is level 8 and had three different class features that granted access to 'free' burn but they're scattered across the text (and in some cases nested within other class features that already do other stuff). The 'free' burn stuff is cool but could stand some streamlining.
Has anyone had experience playing a melee GeoKineticist or Hydrokineticist? If so, how do they perform? The eye test tells me the Kineticist class is fatally flawed, particularly when you're in melee with so few hp because you're using burn. However, I haven't tried one yet so I don't know. Do they have trouble hitting with their iterative attacks? Does burn drain your hp to the point where you can't stay in melee?
I imagine if you pick Cold damage then Hydro would easily land those iteratives. Combine that with a scale option for armor or a shield(a gold saver) and the high Dexterity and Constitution the Kineticist sports and you should do just fine.
For a Geo I'd grab a level of fighter first, focus on Strength instead of Dex, and walk around with a Heavy Shield in Fullplate. Be hard to hit and hard to hurt(thanks to Flesh of Stone).
Actually, Hydro/Geo is a tank in melee. Between the DR, Shield Bonus, huge hitpoint pool, and high dex, you're very hard to take down. You can gather power to mitigate the burn for your single attack K.blade until 8th level. Then, when you actually have two attacks, your 'infusion specialization 2' makes K.whip burnless as well.
Has anyone had experience playing a melee GeoKineticist or Hydrokineticist? If so, how do they perform? The eye test tells me the Kineticist class is fatally flawed, particularly when you're in melee with so few hp because you're using burn. However, I haven't tried one yet so I don't know. Do they have trouble hitting with their iterative attacks? Does burn drain your hp to the point where you can't stay in melee?
I've done the math. If you do enough burn to power your elemental overflow then your HP is ahead going down to tied with a standard fighter in terms of HP.
|
|
The eye test tells me the Kineticist class is fatally flawed, particularly when you're in melee with so few hp because you're using burn. However, I haven't tried one yet so I don't know. Do they have trouble hitting with their iterative attacks? Does burn drain your hp to the point where you can't stay in melee?
As was shown before, they're fine when it comes to accuracy (insanely so if you're using energy blasts for touch-ac targeting). You have zero problems hitting with your iteratives in melee if using energy blasts.
Consider other 3/4 BAB classes at 12 Con, level 6. That's giving you 9hp (max) each level for 54hp. As a Kineticist you should have at least 16 Con which puts you at 66hp. You want to have 3 points of burn to have your Elemental Overflow going, so take away 18 health (seems like it hurts) which puts you at 48hp. But Elemental Overflow will most likely be giving you a Con bonus giving you back 1hp a level, so now it's 54hp (the same as the 3/4 class).
Extending this to 11th level. The general 3/4 BAB with 12 Con is sitting at 99 health. With a base Con of 16, a +4 belt (maybe even +6 since you're not buying many other things), and then +4 from Overflow gives you 24 Con. That puts you at a nice 165 HP. You need 5 burn to activate your maximum Overflow so that's 55 HP down putting you at just a bit over the other 3/4 BAB class with 110HP. You'll pull a bit more ahead if you have the +6 belt. If you roll for your health then you're almost always going to pull out ahead due to how much of your health is based on static bonuses and not on luck.
And that's not even considering what defense talents you may be pumping up. If you're Aether or Geo, then your effective HP pool is even larger due to DR or a special regenerating force field. Keeping with our 11th level comparison, a Geokineticist would give themselves DR10/adamantine. If you're Aether, then your force field is a regenerating 36hp health pool.
As you can see you're pretty much always neck-and-neck with other 3/4 BAB classes that have 12 Con based purely on health. Depending on your defense talent, your effective health pool is much larger. In fact, you're much better off even after that since their "death" threshold is nowhere near as big as yours. They go down at 0hp and then they have 12 more health before being dead. That's a buffer of 12hp between "out of the fight" and "dead". You, on the other hand, have a ton of non-lethal damage. Your buffer between "out of the fight" and "dead" is 79hp (55 non-lethal + 24 con). That's more than 4 times their buffer zone before you even need to start making stabilization checks, and 6 times the buffer zone than other characters get total. Let's not forget that your stabilization check is easily made since it's a Con-based check which you have in spades.
Has anyone had experience playing a melee GeoKineticist or Hydrokineticist? If so, how do they perform? The eye test tells me the Kineticist class is fatally flawed, particularly when you're in melee with so few hp because you're using burn. However, I haven't tried one yet so I don't know. Do they have trouble hitting with their iterative attacks? Does burn drain your hp to the point where you can't stay in melee?
One of my players has a hydrokineticist who is the front-line tank of the party, and she's been very, very effective.
She's a halfling hydrokineticist (picking up air as her second element) with a one level dip in MoMS for crane fighting, who fights defensively. Because she attacks by channeling her cold blast through kinetic blade (and later, kinetic whip), she's aiming at touch AC, so the penalty for fighting defensively is negligible. And because her damage is just her cold blast, the fact that she's a small halfling with an 8 strength doesn't stop her from doing a ton of damage.
Defensively, her AC is INSANE. (At level 5, her AC was something like: 10 + 1 (size) +5 (armor) + 3 (shield) + 1 (deflection) + 5 (dex) + 7 (dodge -- fighting defensively (+2), with 3+ ranks in acrobatics (+1), crane style (+1), the cautious fighter feat (+2) and a trait (+1)) = 32.) Her saves are great (good fort and reflex progression + high dex and con scores give her great fort and reflex saves, and iron will, the monk dip, and the halfling bonus add up to good will saves). And, after burn (usually 3 burn), she still has more HP than anyone else in the party.
And if anyone tries to get past her to more hittable party members, her reach with kinetic whip and combat reflexes means she can easily tag them before they can do so.
The only thing that's slowed her down are reflex-for-half-style spells and effects, and CMD-targeting maneuvers (grappling and tripping, mostly). I shudder to think of what will happen when she gets the aerial evasion talent (eliminating reflex-for-half attacks) and the wings of air talent (eliminating tripping). Combine that with a regular freedom of movement spell or a talisman of freedom, and she'll be pretty much untouchable...
|
|
Stuff about the hyrdokineticist...
Start using some stuff that has SR. Considering the other feat investment she's had she probably doesn't have Spell Penetration. That will throw a bit of a wrench in her strategy of being able to dump her accuracy and rely on touch attacks to carry her through. It'll essentially make her about as accurate, if not a bit less so, than other martials at the table.
|
Has anyone had experience playing a melee GeoKineticist or Hydrokineticist? If so, how do they perform? The eye test tells me the Kineticist class is fatally flawed, particularly when you're in melee with so few hp because you're using burn. However, I haven't tried one yet so I don't know. Do they have trouble hitting with their iterative attacks? Does burn drain your hp to the point where you can't stay in melee?
I've played a similar build to Porridge, and can confirm that hydrokineticists can melee just fine. You have good AC. You get enough rewards from investing in Con that you have plenty of HP. If you use an energy blast, you'll have no problem hitting on the iterative attack.
Taking burn is not an necessity, but a strategic choice. Do you want to amplify your damage for a round and get some boost in future rounds from overflow? Empower metakinesis. I haven't crunched the numbers on it all, but I suspect empowering for 2 rounds beats composite blasting for 1 round when you're using kinetic blade. If only due to the limited selection of energy composite blasts.
I think the Kineticist struck a cord for players, because:
1) Many at-will abilities; the warlock pleased a lot of players with the Eldritch Blast class feature, which was an at-will ability. The Kineticist has similar abilities that grant at-will powers.
2) Resemblances to characters with elemental powers; while the class is inspired by supernatural misfits in fiction, it resonates a lot with characters from anime, manga, comic books, video games and cartoons as well. If you're a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender or Fairy Tail, you'll love playing as a Kineticist.
3) Lots and lots of options; so far, we have 7 elements to choose from, and 3rd-parties recently added more elements to the mix. The class on its own offers diversity and adaptability.
I hope in the next two years we will see 3-5 new elements and expanded ability lists for every element.
Also by then I hope to see at least 12 class specific feats and 15+ class specific magic items.
I think the Kineticist struck a cord for players, because:
1) Many at-will abilities; the warlock pleased a lot of players with the Eldritch Blast class feature, which was an at-will ability. The Kineticist has similar abilities that grant at-will powers.2) Resemblances to characters with elemental powers; while the class is inspired by supernatural misfits in fiction, it resonates a lot with characters from anime, manga, comic books, video games and cartoons as well. If you're a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender or Fairy Tail, you'll love playing as a Kineticist.
3) Lots and lots of options; so far, we have 7 elements to choose from, and 3rd-parties recently added more elements to the mix. The class on its own offers diversity and adaptability.
You forgot 4) Constitution based class; because there are defense nuts out there who love the sight of all those hit points, even with burn.
I don't care about new elements, I just want more to do with the ones they currently have.
Also the Harrow Deck Medium. :-)
I'd love more options for existing elements. Especially Wood.
Stuff about the hyrdokineticist...Start using some stuff that has SR. Considering the other feat investment she's had she probably doesn't have Spell Penetration. That will throw a bit of a wrench in her strategy of being able to dump her accuracy and rely on touch attacks to carry her through. It'll essentially make her about as accurate, if not a bit less so, than other martials at the table.
Yeah, I should have done more SR creatures before she hit level 7. Now that she's expanded into air, she can just switch to air blasts... :/
|
Yeah, I should have done more SR creatures before she hit level 7. Now that she's expanded into air, she can just switch to air blasts... :/Stuff about the hyrdokineticist...Start using some stuff that has SR. Considering the other feat investment she's had she probably doesn't have Spell Penetration. That will throw a bit of a wrench in her strategy of being able to dump her accuracy and rely on touch attacks to carry her through. It'll essentially make her about as accurate, if not a bit less so, than other martials at the table.
Yes, but air blasts target normal AC, making the iterative attacks much less likely to hit.