I will say that for a ship-based game, air is actually stronger than water. You can breath under water faster than water, you can have a 24/7 gust of wind going to propel the ship, and you can fly at will, negating the need for most swim checks.
I dunno; at his level, he can start with water manipulator, which, having seen it on a fellow pirate in my Skull and Shackles game, is absolutely incredible on a pirate for restricting the enemy ship. Our pirate is water/air right now, and his control of enemy ships has been almost incontestable once he got water manipulator.
If you do choose to go the melee route, I'd get Kinetic Whip and Combat Reflexes.
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I will say that for a ship-based game, air is actually stronger than water. You can breath under water faster than water, you can have a 24/7 gust of wind going to propel the ship, and you can fly at will, negating the need for most swim checks.
OP mentions playing an Undine. They can get swim speed and water breathing as racial traits.
7 is a good starting level for kineticists because of expanded element. Water/air can be quite the strong combo. I'm fond of water blast+electric blast into charged water blast myself. This also gives you simple blasts of both types (physical/energy).
Also, seconding kinetic whip and combat reflexes.
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One of the big ones is that at level 7, you should have a physical and an energy blast. It is incredibly useful to have both. it doesn't matter if you switch elements, this is nigh-required.
Extended range is always useful because you'll usually have over 30' of range. Extreme range isn't useful in most games, but a pirate game is one of the exceptions. You essentially become a super siege weapon. You can fire every turn, you don't take range penalties out to your max, you get a fixed bonus on top of your dice, and you don't take a penalty shooting at medium size targets on deck. For your warning shot, take out their flag.
Iterative attacks are not as important because you are doing heavy damage and you only have 3/4 BAB.
Being an undine lets you breathe water through an alternate racial trait, so that frees up utility talents.
As Mark S mentioned, Water Manipulation means that within long range no ship can escape you, no matter how fast. Or that no ship can pursue you.
Ride the blast combined with extreme range lets you go underwater, close with the enemy ship incredibly fast and then blast it under the waterline or jam the rudder.
Air will let you fly eventually. That's the biggie for this one. A miss chance also helps for ranged combat.
Aether also has lots of good utility talents, and an awesome defense ability. Spending burn on THP makes sense because it gives you your overflow right away and as long as you boost con, you stay within your level of net hp. On top of that, these THP regenerate and if they don't get through to your real hp, it doesn't get to pass on additional effects.
Still, double water does get you an added talent. That's tempting.
Yeah, I'm grabbing swim speed and water breathing from undine, it seemed too useful to pass up!
Is melee the favourable option compared to range? And I was considering just staying pure water, but now I look at it, are there any real advantages to doing so? Air does seem quite tempting. Thanks for the replies guys :)
At level 7, the big advantage of mono is that you will have another 3rd-level talent of your choice, so you could grab whip if you want to go melee (otherwise, you'll get whip at 9) or a variety of other goodies. Our group's S&S kineticist is a switch-hitter who usually acts as a siege engine as Philo mentioned but isn't afraid to mix it up in melee if the enemies close in. Ranged kineticists can gather power before they blast (generally empowering or using a fancy infusion) and add elemental overflow to damage, plus keeping your distance prevents many enemies from responding at full force, so there's advantages to both styles.
Speaking of range, air's reach is another point in air's favor. Being able to Fly a few hundred feet up past their range increments and still be able to blast people in the water is very nice, and really lets the otherwise sub-par air defense to be useful.
And with extreme range you can hit 960'. That's hard for many modern snipers. If you get ride the blast you can zip up that high in one action, blast the next, and then be back on the deck the turn after that.
Air will let you fly eventually. That's the biggie for this one. A miss chance also helps for ranged combat.
Well, much earlier and easier access to flight.
Water gets a 'flying' option through the ice path ability at level 12. That talent has a prerequisite (admittedly, it was a level 1 prerequisite; when looking at level 1, your options can be counter on the fingers of a clumsy shop class teacher.). Air just gives you a straight flight talent around that level.
Comparing ranged and melee... about even, I guess? The ranged blast is only a single attack, but it gets overflow bonus and you have the spare move action to cover an empower to get 50% more damage. Melee gets iteratives and can benefit from haste.
REALLY, you want to be able to do both. Ranged for when it is too far to melee, melee when enemies get in your face. Kineticists' main advantage is that they can do both fairly easily without switching weapons. Level 7 is about the right level to get all the basic feats you need to get by in both areas (ppoint blank shot, precise shot, weapon finesse). So maybe just grab weapon focus (which applies to both melee and ranged), and you are fine.
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So what feats would people view as must-have, or does that depend on whether or not I'm going melee? I've seen toughness being touted as pretty much essential, as well as point blank shot and precise shot. But if I decide to focus on melee, 2 of those feats seem a bit pointless.
I've found that most playstylew have two particular feats they rely on. Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot for physical ranged, Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration for energy, and Weapon Finesse with an eventual Combat Reflexes for melee. Elemental Focus and its Greater version are also amazing for Fire. I'm a huge fan of Iron Will to patch the save.
Let me bullet point some general tips since phone posting is hard.
- Keep a spiked gauntlet on to always threaten in melee
- Undine with the water breathing alternate racial couples well with Water Dancer
- Before level 5 remember you can still attack at ranged and then move into melee to save burn
- You might have the spare feats to take the Animal Ally and Boon Companion line if you want. Consider it.
- Wood isn't the greatest element, but you can take it as a secondary and learn Expanded Defense to give you a surprising amount of AC when you pour burn into them. Bonus if you start with Ice Blast for the nice Composite.
So what feats would people view as must-have, or does that depend on whether or not I'm going melee? I've seen toughness being touted as pretty much essential, as well as point blank shot and precise shot. But if I decide to focus on melee, 2 of those feats seem a bit pointless.
Not pointless, although you can delay them.
The thing about melee is that enemies might not be in melee range. A single ranged blast is slightly stronger than the single melee attack you might get from using a move action before attacking (cause overflow bonus).
Basically, the kineticist is a perfect switch hitter. They don't need to switch weapons, and don't need to use different stats for their different styles of attack (the str of melee weapons and str/dex of bows... or worse, the pure dex of guns/crossbows with a gunslinger). Weapon focus even works on both types of attacks, since they are all 'blasts'. So there is little reason not to get good at both styles, eventually.
Admittedly, as a switch hitter, you can REALLY put off the basic ranged feats though, since you usually aim at far away enemies that are probably not in melee yet. And you can skip that entirely at your level (since you should have the expanded or secondary element by level 7) by just using energy blasts for ranged attacks.
As most have said, weapon finesse if you want to go melee and PBS+precise shot for range and all 3 if you want to switch. You can skip PBS+PS if you only use touch attacks for the ranged attacks where its relevant (if no melee in the way then no penalty). Since you're starting at 7 that would mean weapon finesse (+toughness is a good choice) for your first two feats. Weapon Focus is always a good choice too which would leave you with 1 more feat and Iron Will would not go amiss. But water and lightning are probably your best bets for basic blasts. You get your physical and energy attack plus the composite charged water. Although air + cold could work too, it would just change a couple infusions, like entangle would be a good pick up. Here are a couple possible routes you could go.
If you go water/air:
1: Basic hydrokinesis, Kinetic Blade Infusion
2: Kinetic Cover
3: Extended Range Infusion
4: Veil of Mists/Ice Walker/Kinetic Healer
5: Pushing or Entangling Infusion
6: Water Manipulator
7: Expand to air, Feat(Extra wild Talent[Air Cushion]
If you go air/water:
1: Basic aerokinesis, Kinetic Blade Infusion
2: Air's Reach
3: Pushing or Thundering Infusion
4: Air Cushion
5: Extended Range Infusion
6: Wings of Air
7: Expand to water, Feat(...)
Have you considered the Blood Kineticist? If your already going water and dont care for Ice then it might be a good idea.