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First off, I don't think it should stack.
After that, depends a lot on the builds. A warlock heavily invested into mystic bolts would be built basically like an archer. So, point blank shot, precise shot, and rapid shot by level 5 when everything is a touch attack.
Taking arcane striker as a talent is also pretty good, since by level 5 it raises damage by 2.
3 bab, 3 dex, 1pbs, -2rapid shot gives you a two touch attacks of
+5/+5 touch 2d6+3 @ level 5.
If you're human you can even get two-weapon fighting and stack up another attack for 3 attacks at +3 touch dealing 2d6+3 each.
6d6+9 if all three hit.
I do NOT know much about kineticists, having never played one, so my numbers for them are more likely to be off than the warlock ones.
I'll use the same dex and a +3 con mod, with 2 points of burn currently on the kineticist, with fire as the element and point blank shot and precise shot, because I'm not super familiar builds.
3d6+2 base damage, +4 from overflow, +2 from fire's fury for 3d6+8
3 bab, 3 dex, 1 pbs=7
+7 touch 3d6+8, plus 1d6 burning damage over time. And on subsequent rounds, the attack will be at a +9 unless the foe takes time to extinguish itself.
Granted, these are somewhat rough numbers I threw together while bored at work ^^.
Also, level 5 is a very strong level for the warlock with the touch attacks finally coming online, whereas 9 is a much stronger point for the kineticist, since that's when they can get iteratives.
Also, those gloves probably shouldn't work with mystic bolts.
This FAQ says they aren't manufactured weapons and are more like scorching ray, so I'd say the gloves don't work.
I do NOT know much about kineticists, having never played one, so my numbers for them are more likely to be off than the warlock ones.
I'll use the same dex and a +3 con mod, with 2 points of burn currently on the kineticist, with fire as the element and point blank shot and precise shot, because I'm not super familiar builds.3d6+2 base damage, +4 from overflow, +2 from fire's fury for 3d6+8
3 bab, 3 dex, 1 pbs=7
+7 touch 3d6+8, plus 1d6 burning damage over time. And on subsequent rounds, the attack will be at a +9 unless the foe takes time to extinguish itself.
I would say level 6 is a better place for comparison, since that is when the kineticist starts getting stat buffs if they have 3 burn.
But generally, I would assume that something more archery based would win out in the end in just terms of general peak damage. The single attack of kineticist only adds stat once. Vanilla kineticists tend to be more about throwing out tricky stuff instead, such as entangling blasts or constant AoEs (and that is before getting into utility stuff). Damage does get better if you use blade, I think.
Elemental annihilators are better kineticists for plain damage, since they can do TWF or archery style stuff with their blasts. You can also get a lot of the tricky blasts at later levels, giving you back some variety.
Assuming the gloves were to work in a home game (which they would not, by RAW) the big difference is that the Kineticist picks up d6s faster than the Vigilante picks up attacks. Basic kinetic blast damage goes up by d6 +n every 2 levels (and oftentimes is multiplied by 2 or 1.5 with composites or metakinesis). The Vigilante would depend on getting as many attacks as possible, and with rapid shot and TWF you can get 4 attacks at level 8, but this eats a bunch of feats and doesn't escalate again until level 15. The Kineticist on the other hand will get good damage from just class features alone.
The Kineticist by virtue of having multiple damage types and a single big hit is also going to have less trouble with DR and resistance than the Vigilante has. 7th level Warlock can do 2 different energy types (and the gloves would be locked in to fire) whereas a 7th level Kineticist can pretty easily do B, P, S, and one energy type.
Empower does not add dice. It increases the total damage by 50%. So becomes 28 damage.
Empower does not add dice. It increases the total damage by 50%. So 3d8+6 becomes 28 damage.
Sure, but what's the difference between 1.5*(nd6) and (1.5n)d6 when n is even? The quickest way to compare the two is to just look at the number of d6s each will throw up in a given round at a given level, since the kineticist is going to come out ahead in every other consideration (additional damage from level and attributes, types of damage, effects beyond "damage", etc.)
the distribution of scores is different.
While the EA deals similar damage to the standard kineticist, wouldn't it be more consistent due to multiple shots per round vs a single big shot, which EAs can still do if they want?
At level 7 then I can do a total of 6d6+12 damage with the vigilante. But what about the kineticist at level 7 in HL the get 4d6 with a special blast that eats their life at 8d6 is that right? Or is there something I'm missing on the kineticist?
Yep, you're missing a couple things.
1: The Kineticist gets 4d6 + 1/2 Con (assuming energy for fair comparison) times 50%. If the Vigilante gets to full attack, then the Kineticist gets to gather energy with their move action, using Empower to boost damage. They've probably got another +4 damage from elemental overflow, so the damage ends up almost exactly the same.2: … or not. The Kineticist has accuracy boosts from elemental overflow, and they make the entire attack at full BAB. So they're more likely to hit.
3: The Kineticist also reduces their burn from infusions by one point at this level, so they can one helpful rider. Notable ones include increasing range to 120ft. or (if in melee) hitting with iteratives twice if they have Haste.
4: They've also got an extra 8,000 gp to spend on items, free glove slot, and more feats available (I presume).
Oh that's neat. But does the kineticist have any armor limitations? Or spells?
Light armor proficiency, no spells but utility talents include things like "constant flight" or "at-will telekinesis" at that level.
While the EA deals similar damage to the standard kineticist, wouldn't it be more consistent due to multiple shots per round vs a single big shot, which EAs can still do if they want?Sort of? The EA's accuracy is brought down by relying on the TWF/Rapid Shot and Power Attack/Deadly Aim feat chains to do about 5-10 more average damage a round than a kineticist using a physical blast, and they both have to target normal AC. If the EA has to "switch hit" they lose all their feat benefits and do less damage than a normal kineticist. EA's also give up all their class features like setting people on fire or making area attacks, if a regular kineticist can hit two or three people with an AOE blast power they will do more damage than the EA.
I am not sure you have to worry about accuracy though. Their devastating blast has fake full BAB, they get a standard attack/damage booster of 1-4, and they still get most of teh benefits of eleemental overflow (it only excludes the straight damage boost; you still get the attack boost and the stat boosts).
So they can hit with a +34 from their class alone. While the lack of enhanced weapons lowers that a bit in comparison to other classes, that is still a +29. Maybe a +26 with a more reasonable 5 burn.
Also, for a pure earth user, it isn't too different- most of their great blasts are at high levels (where you get infusions again anyway), and there is only a slight delay for entangling (you usually can only do it without burn at level 5, and you can grab it with expanded element at level 7).
According to the official FAQ:
[...]abilities that say “with a weapon,” “with a melee weapon,” and “with a ranged weapon” almost never work with special abilities because such wording is almost always used as shorthand for “manufactured weapon,” “manufactured melee weapon,” and “manufactured ranged weapon.”
This makes me believe the sentence about mystic bolts being considered a "light weapon" is also a shorthand for "manufactured light weapon" and they are supposed to work with haste. YMMV of course.
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According to the official FAQ:
[...]abilities that say “with a weapon,” “with a melee weapon,” and “with a ranged weapon” almost never work with special abilities because such wording is almost always used as shorthand for “manufactured weapon,” “manufactured melee weapon,” and “manufactured ranged weapon.”This makes me believe the sentence about mystic bolts being considered a "light weapon" is also a shorthand for "manufactured light weapon" and they are supposed to work with haste. YMMV of course.
I find that the regular kineticist targeting AC generally does fine since they're only making one attack, your elemental overflow puts you at basically full BAB, and you probably want to pump dex to the heavens anyway so your form infusions hit. If nothing else, you can always drop a wall on something so it takes guaranteed damage.
Where it runs into trouble is when you're making an iterative attack with, say, a kinetic whip or blade. You're going to miss your iteratives a lot vs. AC. Of course, Kinetic whip builds often do a lot of their damage as AoOs, which are at full BAB.
Kineticist archetypes in general aren't particularly strong, and I'm particularly not fond of the Elemental Annihilator.
so here's an obvious question if the kineticits always have to target normal ac, doesn't that give a major advantage to the warlock? on top of being able to cast spells?While the EA deals similar damage to the standard kineticist, wouldn't it be more consistent due to multiple shots per round vs a single big shot, which EAs can still do if they want?Sort of? The EA's accuracy is brought down by relying on the TWF/Rapid Shot and Power Attack/Deadly Aim feat chains to do about 5-10 more average damage a round than a kineticist using a physical blast, and they both have to target normal AC. If the EA has to "switch hit" they lose all their feat benefits and do less damage than a normal kineticist. EA's also give up all their class features like setting people on fire or making area attacks, if a regular kineticist can hit two or three people with an AOE blast power they will do more damage than the EA.
An energy blast that is targeting touch AC actually has better average damage than the physical blast despite lower damage per shot because of hitting more. EAs cannot use energy blasts so they just suck right out of the competition back to suckville.
Kineticists don't have to just target normal AC. Energy blasts target touch AC. Elemental Annihilator (the archetype) works with physical blasts only, at least until you get your expended element at 7th.
Right- start with physical to use with your class feature, expand to energy for regular blasts when you need to target touch with just one shot.
Yes, but then you would be doing better damage not using the Elemental Annihilator features at all and you gave up all the Kineticist class features for no reason. Nobody should ever take the EA archetype.
Hey, there are reasons to take it. It's a nice magical alternative to the Fighter. It combines well with Overwhelming Soul for a Charisma bruiser with all feats open, and you essentially trade out some stuff twice without actual conflicts. The capstone is pretty awesome if you get a chance to reach it.
No problem, the warlock is a pretty fun class. I´d say the bolts are just a minor feature - you are a 6-level caster with all the vigilante social talents and half the vigilante ones. Personally, I would say for a vigilante rogue-like character check the teisatsu stalker (you get a lot of ninja goodies), but casting is definitely handy.
Mind you, an aether kineticist can be a decent rogue replacement as well ;).
Thank you for the chart, it gives a really nice first impression. I suspect calculating against average CR monster AC would give the warlock a little boost, but then again he can get totally negated by monsters with energy resistances like demons. It can be a wise decision to switch to a throwing weapon build before those get too common (and the level 12 vigilante talent should almost always be "Returning Weapon" because of that).
Be an Elemental Annihilator if you want to. Live you dreams! Be free! (Just don't expect overwhelming differences in damage.)
EA out-damages basically only when you figure in haste and that the normal version isn't getting multiple attacks off via blade or whip.
yes, I don't think anyone has said or implied that they got the damage boost.
Overwhelming power is to kinda help make up for not having overflow bonuses and they behave similarly.