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What do you mean by "viable?"
Are you having problems succeeding on the Bluff checks? If so, there's something weird going on in your game or you haven't invested in skill boosting equipment/feats. If you are trying to be good at Bluff any class should be passing 75% or more of the checks.
If you're looking for ways to use feint, then there are plenty of classes that benefit from a successful feint. And plenty of classes and archetypes that can upgrade their feinting without burning a ton of feats. The vigilante's Cunning Feint is essentially two-weapon feint and Greater Feint all rolled up into one talent. And everyone loves Greater Feint.
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What do you mean by "viable?"
Are you having problems succeeding on the Bluff checks? If so, there's something weird going on in your game or you haven't invested in skill boosting equipment/feats. If you are trying to be good at Bluff any class should be passing 75% or more of the checks.
If you're looking for ways to use feint, then there are plenty of classes that benefit from a successful feint. And plenty of classes and archetypes that can upgrade their feinting without burning a ton of feats. The vigilante's Cunning Feint is essentially two-weapon feint and Greater Feint all rolled up into one talent. And everyone loves Greater Feint.
I'm talking about how half the enemies in the game seem to be either resistant or flat out immune. mesmerists have mesmerizing feint, which allows them to be effective against non humanoids and enemies with animal intelligence, then there's greater mesmerizing feint which allows you to feint against mindless creatures when that would otherwise be impossible, making feint viable late game.
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Greater Mesmerizing Feint only requires 3 levels in Mesmerist and the lesser version only requires a single level dip.
Most martials don't mind dipping out a few levels.
True, however i would have to come to terms with 2 things. 1 having a sizable dip in BaB and 2 having spells i'll likely never use.
Mesmerist is very suited for it. That said, although Greater Mesmerizing Feint is very nice I don't think it's a hard requirement for making feint viable.
In my experience you face less and less mindless creatures at higher levels compared to low levels, no? Swarms and vermin becomes less common, while more exceptions to the mindless quality shows up among the undead and plant enemies. So many exceptions that the exceptions actually becomes the rule. It's genuinely hard to find any high-CR undead without an intelligence score.
What you're really worried about is constructs and oozes. And as long as you're not in a campaign crawling with constructs those enemy types are fairly rare. You'll have to rely on your backup plan once in a blue moon but that's it.
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Mesmerist is very suited for it. That said, although Greater Mesmerizing Feint is very nice I don't think it's a hard requirement for making feint viable.
In my experience you face less and less mindless creatures at higher levels compared to low levels, no? Swarms and vermin becomes less common, while more exceptions to the mindless quality shows up among the undead and plant enemies. So many exceptions that the exceptions actually becomes the rule. It's genuinely hard to find any high-CR undead without an intelligence score.
What you're really worried about is constructs and oozes. And as long as you're not in a campaign crawling with constructs those enemy types are fairly rare. You'll have to rely on your backup plan once in a blue moon but that's it.
So....i don't need a way to deal with mindless enemies i just need to make sure its high enough to be effective against animal and non humanoid enemies?
Another trouble is feinting doesn't do a lot for mesmerists even if they know sense vitals (an in-combat standard action to get +1d6/3 CLs; on only one attack/round probably as a feinter). This may not be late-game viable even when it works.
There's a number of creatures immune to sneak attack damage too (elementals, fortification/crit immunity, anything which keeps moving away and forcing you to use your move action to move) which extends the list of enemies this doesn't much effect.
But yeah, mesmerists are the only ones who can get greater mesmerizing feint and there's no equivalent elsewhere.
So....i don't need a way to deal with mindless enemies i just need to make sure its high enough to be effective against animal and non humanoid enemies?
Pretty much. And that's not unique to the Mesmerist.
There's imo just three ways to make feinting viable, though. Sneak attack, Improved Feint Partner, or Blistering Feint. If you're not touching on these three then feinting will most likely not be worth the investment.
Vigilante is in a good spot because of Social Grace, Cunning Feint, and easy access to the Feint and Bash weapon trick (AoO on feint) through Shield of Fury. Both as a Stalker and Avenger.
Honestly, there are so many better ways to make sneak attack happen besides feinting (remember if you're using sense vitals that's what you're doing).
There's really no need to feint.
So in that sense of "viable" then no. There are easier better ways at high level to achieve sneak attack than using feint. And feint doesn't really open up much else.
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Really all the Mesmerist has that other classes don't is the ability to feint mindless creatures (Greater Mesmerizing Feint).
Other than that I would contend that at high levels having Deceitful is actually better than having Mesmerizing Feint. (Yes, you can take both, but feint builds are often feat-starved.)
Normal:
Feinting a non-humanoid: -4
Feinting an animal intelligence creature: -8
Feinting a humanoid: -0
Mesmerizing Feint:
Feinting a non-humanoid: -2
Feinting an animal intelligence creature: -4
Feinting a humanoid: -0
Net for Deceitful (10 ranks or more in Bluff)
Feinting a non-humanoid: -4+4 = 0
Feinting an animal intelligence creature: -8+4 = -4
Feinting a humanoid: -0+4 = +4
So why shouldn't you take both? Because you don't need to.
Let's set a target DC of 25 for a humanoid. That sounds about right. BAB +12 and wisdom of +3. If they've got a higher wisdom they've probably got a lower BAB. So that means animal intelligence would have a DC of 33.
+10 - 10 ranks in bluff
+3 - class skill
+6 - Skill Focus
+4 - Deceitful
+5 - (competence) Ioun stone - mulberry pentacle
+2 - (circumstance) Varisian Dancing Scarves
So that's a +30 that everyone could have with just two feats, one magic item, and one non-magical item. That assumes a Charisma modifier of 0 and doesn't include any trait bonuses, racial bonuses, favored class bonuses, or other magic items.
In summary: If you want to play a mesmerist, do so and have fun! If you want to be able to feint vs. mindless creatures, play a mesmerist! If you want to play any other build that relies on feinting vs. non-mindless creatures, you can do it!
Warrior Poet Samurai (possibly into the Devoted Muse PRC) can make feinting viable, since they can do it for free when combined with a move or spring attack (and the Devoted Muse lets you debuff by feinting.)
All you need to feint late game is a high bluff skill, tbqf. Sure there might be some BBEGs/creatures out there rocking some pretty high sense motive, but you can't be a one trick pony at levels 14+ let's be honest-- i.e. you should have a 2nd or 3rd way of causing Denied Dex condition, and by now, you should have multiple pathways to killing things without relying on SnA. Even if they are rocking a super high sense motive, as long as you're maxing out Bluff properly, you'll still have a ~25-50ish% chance of success. And let's also be honest about this: if you're facing nothing but creatures/BBEG's with crazy sense motive, then your GM is metagaming you.
If you don't want to pump Cha/Bluff and instead want to go high Dex/Acrobatics, then for some pretty minimal investment you can get Slayer's Feint, and this is available to every class despite the name "Slayer's Feint".
I would never play a Mesmerist just to Feint... as they have no real means to take advantage of it. I would play a Mesmerist because it looks fun, but I do not trust Feint enough to really dedicate any resources to it regardless of which class I may be playing.
If one was to want to use Mesmerist to weaponize Feint, maybe a one level dip in Warrior Poet for Kitsune's Mystique. Also get Weapon Finesse with a reach weapon... BAB, saves, hit dice, Resolve...