so glancing over them, they all seem to roughly have cantrip scaling rolling one more d4 or d6 but without the stat mod to damage. They have much better ranges, areas and riders than cantrips to be fair, but they also have a worse action economy, taking the same two actions as a cantrip, but also requiring you to gather again afterwards for an effective +1 action tax. And lastly, these are Keyed off class dc proggression rather than magic Dc proggression so your dc is stunted about half the time, meaning that things succeeding and maybe even crit succceeding on your saves will be a frustratingly common experiance. I just dont see a world where these are an effective use of your time unless you can really nail that ace aoe.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
You only need to gather an element a second time if you use an Impulse with the Overflow trait. Also gather element doesn't have a duration so it's analogous to drawing a weapon out of combat.
If you're expecting trouble you gather your element and hold it as long as necessary and when combat starts you can use as many non-overflow Impulses as you want immediately.
I think there needs to be a sidebar spelling this out because multiple people have missed this.
You only need to gather an element a second time if you use an Impulse with the Overflow trait. Also gather element doesn't have a duration so it's analogous to drawing a weapon out of combat.
If you're expecting trouble you gather your element and hold it as long as necessary and when combat starts you can use as many non-overflow Impulses as you want immediately.
I think there needs to be a sidebar spelling this out because multiple people have missed this.
sorry i forgot the base blasts where also impulses. I was refering to the damaging impulse feats in the back of the book, all of which do have overflow. the basic blasts that do not have overflow scale like any other ""weapon"" based on runes rather than on level
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
the problem here is that without any sort of class booster to combat the blasts look to lag behind, no rage, or hunters edge or sneak attack or whatever to single them out, just quality ranged attacks. Then you get to the AOEs and they can hit a fair amount of enemies, but for really piddly damage that is likely to be saved or even crit against due to your lousy dc. And like as someone who wanted a dedicated blaster the options of "pretty alright ranged attack" and "fireball but doing half damage, and over a smaller area with less range and an easier dc AND takes more actions" doesnt feel like its fulfilling the dream
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
It does seem like the at-will abilities are balanced like the class also has huge limited options which it doesn't have.
Reminds me quite a lot of the psychic playtest where you could spam amps but the amps felt pretty bad to use. An at-will ability should feel like it is having good impact still, a martial strike is in this area imo and most of the kineticist abilities are not.
So many names of the abilities evoke so much more than what is given as well, USURP THE LUNAR REINS, TAKE CONTROL OVER THE MOON.... to make 20ft burst of water difficult terrain.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I really like blast barrage. Such a low level for a mapless triple target attack. Many other classes get similar abilities much later. Stack propulsive blasts with point blank shot and as long as you have targets, you're good to go.
"Make up to three Elemental Blasts, each against a different target. Your multiple attack penalty applies normally on these Strikes." It isnt Maples its just one extra attack squeezed into two actions
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On the other hand, Chain Blast is up to five attacks mapless as long as you don't miss, so that's cool.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Almost felt like making a post about fire, but I haven't actually read all the current threads.
But yeah it feels like Fire is possibly the least damaging element, which is backwards from 1e.
In the past Earth was the least damaging because of how versatile it was, and some of the crazy things it could do. Now it is tied for the highest base damage. Fire did the most damage but was also the most likely to be resisted or outright negated by immunity.
A lot of the Fire Impulses feel like they do less damage than some of the other elements. Fire gets an Impulse that maxes out at 8d10. Some of the other elements can get up to 9d10, possibly with continuing damage in the case of Earth.
When I saw the stuff about Auras I totally thought Fire was going to get a devastatingly damaging Aura that would make it dangerous for enemies to close with them. The one damaging aura I remember seeing for Fire starts with 1 damage at level 4 and maxes out at 7 damage. The damage only happens at the start of a creature's turn if it starts its turn in the aura.
Water on the other hand has an Aura at 1st level that starts with 1 cold damage, and increases by 1 cold damager per level for a max of 20, more than twice as much. It deals damage when a creature enters the aura or ends its turn in the aura. The damage can only be done once a turn, but it seems they take the damage if you move such that they enter the aura, and if they don't manage to leave the area of the aura on their turn. And since you can create some difficult terrain maybe you can help that happen.
Water also has another aura that doesn't deal quite as much damage as the first water aura, but does more at base than fire ever does. This second water aura is available at 14th, starts with 8 damage and scales to 16. Any enemy in or adjacent to the aura that damages you or an ally in the aura just takes the damage. No reaction like some class abilities of other classes, no limit to once per turn or anything like that. It requires an ally or yourself to be taking damage but can proc more often than the other auras.
The other damaging Aura I remember seeing is even higher but for Air. Its at 18th level so way up there but does 2d12 electric damage to any creature that enters your aura or ends its turn in the aura. So kind of similar to the initial Water cold aura, damage maxes out higher but much lower average, on the other hand it doesn't have the once per turn language. If that was all the aura did it would be underwhelming for the level. But it does a bunch of stuff with flight and speed and more importantly for this discussion it adds +1d12 electric damage to your air blasts.
Speaking of Elemental Blasts... Air has that level 18 Aura to increase their Air Blast damage, not great but it is there and also does the other things the Aura does. Water doesn't actually seem to have anything to improve Water Blasts at least that I saw. Earth has Assume Earth's Mantle which can increase reach and Strength which has at least some effect on their Earth Blast, and Rebirth in Living Stone to change their Earth Blast damage dice to d10s and eventually even d12s. Living Stone does mean not taking the other 18th level feat that can do 10d10 damage, and changing the damage die is not the same as adding extra dice, but 4d12 is basically double 4d6 in damage so probably a bigger increase than what Fire gets anyway. Speaking of Fire again... Fire can grab Furnace Form at level 12, a little earlier than some of these options yes but still. A flavorful ability but also one that has some issues because it invokes a spell rather than a fully statted out unique ability. You get Fiery Form but the +1d4 unarmed damage is instead an additional die of unarmed damage, so +1d6. No mention if it eventually scales to +2d6 like the spell scaling to +2d4. Also no mention if the 3d6 on touch damage scales to 4d6 like the spell version. Also +1d6 is considerably less than +1d12, and probably not as impactful as going from 4d8 to 4d10/12 of Earth. This ability also has a duration of one round for some reason, instead of being an aura or a 1 minute duration with a sustain that can eventually be a free action to sustain. It does become 1 minute in duration at 16th level but that is fairly sad. The spell it emulates also gives a 1 action at will casting of Produce Flame which can get up to 11d4 fire damage, if you are willing to attack with Cha, which seems weird on the Fire Kineticist chassis. I do feel that feat needed to be built by hand as its own unique thing like some of the other aura/sustained feats that improve Elemental Blast, rather than using a spell that while flavorful seems conflicted with the class.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think that Stoke the Elements is a limiting factor to the damage. My guess is that they didn't want fireball level scaling damage with an additional +2 to +10 added in.
I hope that Stoke is taken out after the playtest, because the next turn clause is a bit clunky and because it may be a big balancing factor.
I'd also like to see a Psychic rework of the impulses. Ideally, I'd like to see some sort of big Amp effect on the major damaging impulses usable once per combat or round.
Something like "if you haven't used an impulse since the last time you used Gather Power, your elemental blast is stoked and deals additional damage equal to your constitution modifier."
Plus feats for other effects, and different effects baseline for impulses. Like how the psychic cantrips became fun nova options and modified at-will options, I hope to see impulses undergo the same treatment.
I feel like stoke the elements might be falling into the same "trap" that rule of three was where it is an optional feed that is being being incorperated into some baseline assumptions about damage output and being balanced around as if it where inbuilt
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Damage is definitely all over the place. Some are pretty decent, mostly the high level stuff like the shattered mountain weeps (10d10 at twenty and 3d10 if they end their turn in the area), but lower level stuff like rolling boulder is pretty rough (6d8 damage at twenty). I would love the scaling on lower level overflow feats to be better so people actually want to use them at high level. I also think earth is one of the stronger elements, so that's saying something.
Still have to look over the Details in the feats, but as far as the blasts Go it seems mostly fine, they are Martial attacks (of sorts) and Schale Like them
I only really hate d4s... passionately