Yeah, definitely, need more substance infusions. Though like I said, for a telekineticist, I would actually consider extended/extreme range for the utility it offers with basic telekinesis, especially with telekinetic finesse/haul, even though you can't use it with your blast. But even with that, you get...1st, pushing infusion, 5th, bowling infusion, 7th (expanded - earth) 9th, entangling infusion, 11th, extended range, 13th, extreme range, just barely in time to skip out to something else by 15th. Very tight, but possibly worth it just for the ridiculous defensive potential of having both aether and earth's kinetic defenses...
Yeah, between Pushing, Bowling, Extended Range, Entangling, and Extreme Range that gets me to 13 and is ultimately all I really want. I also just realized that I can't double up on earth unless it's my initial element (and I have no reliable way to afford substance infusions anyway) so I'd have to do something different at 15 if I get that far. I'd prefer to go Aether first so I can get Telekinetic Maneuvers as a reliable ranged option in case I have to fight something I can't get close to.
Since the Kineticist experts who wrote the class and archetype are reading this thread, I have another question though. The kinetic knight archetype has the following text:
Her kinetic whip has the disarm, performance, and trip weapon qualities.
Since all the trip quality appears to mean now after that FAQ is "you can drop it if you fail your Combat Maneuver check to trip by 10 or more to avoid being knocked prone" what happens when you drop a blade made of fire, lightning, water, or handkerchiefs that you're controlling with your mind? Does it cease to exist so you can't make AoOs with it? Does dropping it do nothing since your control over the elemental matter is not entirely through your hands? I'm sort of confused as to how to imagine exactly how failing a trip check with a long tendril of flexible elemental matter would knock you over the same way "failing a trip check with a long inflexible pole" would. It's kind of odd that you can trip people with lightning anyway.
The kineticist is never considered to be wielding or gripping the kinetic blast (regardless of effects from form infusions; see Infusion), and she can’t use Vital Strike feats with kinetic blasts.
I don't see how the trip special feature helps in the slightest since you can't drop something you aren't holding.
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Not sure how it works with actually tripping things with a kinetic whip, but when using a weapon with the trip property you can apply weapon-specific bonuses to the reposition or drag combat maneuvers (source).
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I am someone disappointed that they lost supercharge and metakinetic master because mathematically these hurt their melee potential at these levels.
Playing a high level melee kineticist, I recently picked up Whip Hurricane and realized that you can still gather power, supercharge, and activate it. This lets me do a Composite blast Hurricane. At 16th I can do an empowered Comp Blast Hurricane and at 19 all of my blade/whips will be empowered for free. At lower levels when you are not hasted and do not have an iterative the Kinetic Knight loses out on damage from being able to empower his blade for one attack (from 5th through 7th, unless hasted)
This means compared to normal kineticist the knight does the same damage as a full attack (the advantage being haste before level 5 only) losing potential AoE damage at 5th + (losing empower on a 11th + and loses the +50% damage at 19th+ on full attacks.
Overall I think the hit to damage was a curious choice, since while they do gain the ability to use heavy armor and shields I found that by focusing on Dex on my physical based blaster melee and using Water Armor plus wand of shield or magic buckler, gave me more AC, better Ref Saves/Init etc... and will end up doing more damage than a kinetic knight or at worst the same til 19th. At which point the damage will again exceed the knights.
I do wish they gained the ability to have Whip cost 1 less like Blade, so they could use it at 5th level. Right now they have to gather power to use it meaning they either set up for AoOs (much better on a Dex build that gets a ton of them, I think at level 16 my Kineticist gets 13) or full attack and ignore them, though i guess with Str based and a cestus they can still make them.
The trade of supercharge seems motivated by two things.
First, that the Kinetic Knight is the archetype that's intended to rarely gather power, as you either need a move action to get in melee range or you want to full attack. So supercharge wouldn't get used that often for common modes of play.
Second, just based on damage calculations for different combinations or strategies at various levels, the determination that "effectively doubling your damage at level 11" for various whip based strategies outpaces everything else.
Honestly, that I don't need to worry about composites before level 16 (i.e. basically at all) lets me combine elements without worrying about lacking a composite or a composite that's worth a darn (e.g. earth and lightning, or earth and aether).
Getting that whip cost down would be nice, but you can't have everything.