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In my goal to make a Sylph kineticist, without going the standard route of "base kineticist," people here have shot down trying to make a Overwhelming Soul [Negative levels for taking burn= bad] and Psychokineticist [Negatives to will save/wis stats bad when taking burn= bad].
So, what are some recommendations for building a Sylph Elemental Annihilator. Hopefully Void element; but otherwise, Earth elemental.
This is for a PFS build, so there are those restrictions, and realize that i'll be putting a lot of points into Sylph's already low con; and i don't mind dumping Charisma as I plan on this character being an 'angry at the world' type.
I would also appreciate a brief summarization on how an elemental annihilator works.
i've not played Kineticist before, so i'm barely understanding how the devastation ability is different from the basic kinetic blast.
tl;dr- Building a PFS Sylph Elemental Annihilator. Stats? Feats/Traits? Recommendations?
How elemental annhilator works- it has a lot of style options. Pretty much all of them are familiar: 2 handing, archery, TWF. It just adds in regular blasts as a bonus there. The key to this is switch hitting- you are less of the magical character, and more of a full martial that switch hits.
Your blast can be used for any of your styles, and switched on the fly, since they are all the same blast. And the arhcetype supports this by giving you bonus feat.
Instead of the single big blast with a lot of damage dice, the annihilator relies on many hits with smaller damage dice (stuck at 1d8)... but you keep on getting static bonuses time and again. Con bonus, archetype 'weapon training bonus', powerattack/deadly aim, etc. When using the archetype's special blasts, you are basically full BAB (kinda like flurry of blows), but with the 'weapon training', and you can use overflow for attack bonuses too.
Note- you still keep the basic blast for kineticists. Yes, it only hits at 3/4 BAB... but it is a poweful standard action attack- good for when you have to move. Plus, while the annihilator has to wait a long time to get infusions, this blast can still do stuff like that. So if you are an earth user, you can grab entangling infusion at level 7 (pick the same element twice), and you can use your blast to seal enemy movements. At around level 11, you start getting infusions like normal again.
So, the basic way to build an annihilator: grab weapon finesse first level, power attack 2nd level (from the archetype's bonus feats), and then focus on archery for everything after that. This is your nice, basic switch hitter- nice strong melee option, and then then ranged attacks when you can't melee. Since this is PFS, that is about all you have room for.
While I can only echo Lemeres, I went and looked up Psychokinetisist. That's just another straight down grade. Can't this poor class get a decent archetype for a change? XD
Something that really saddens me about the Annihilator is that they never gain access to the Kinetic Form wild talent because it would turn them into a fantastic character for AoOs.
Regardless, building an Annihilator is basically like building a fighter. You've got some extra frills, but otherwise it works very similarly to a martial character.
note- you are pretty much stuck picking the same element again at level 7.
Annihilator gets few advantages from branching out- energy blasts can't be used with most of your styles, and you can't pick up utility talents (even the one that gives the second element's defense).
In comparison, staying with the same element gets you the first real infusion for you. And that infusion comes at a nice spot. AT level 8, you can cover the burn for a lot of useful infusions so they are free. So you can just shoot an entangling blast whenever you have to use a move action.