A kineticist is...

[Unicore]

I think it is important, when looking at a playtest, to try to understand what basic roles the class is being expected to fulfill before judging it on expectations that it might not be trying to live up to.

When I look closely at this playtest, I see a class that is going to shine best as a damage dealer against multiple lower level enemies and struggle to do much damage against solo, higher level enemies, but possibly be very good at slowing them down or eating up their attacks.

They have excellent mobility options and battlefield control options and can do a fair bit of support. By middle/high levels they can even switch feats around each day, so they don't have to be an all this, or all that build. If you know you are going into a boss fight, maybe drop some of the AoE and get more support and battlefield control options?

If you know you are going to be clearing a dungeon full of evil cultists, well, you are going to decimate them with your multiple attacks and AoE.

How do I feel about this?

I think it is going to work out, but the folks hoping the Kineticist was going to be the all day single target blaster are going to be very disappointed. It seems that the short bow is going to remain the short bow of consistent ranged damage that can be directed against a single target all day.

[Perpdepog]

They're also the "I can keep doing this all day" class. Without having to worry about any resources, no spell slots or focus points or whatever, it means that a kineticist will be just about as effective at the beginning of an adventuring day as they are at the end. I think there is value in filling that role while also being able to deal various AoE attacks, but I can also see why filling such a role might come at the expense of burstable, single-target damage.

[aobst128]

I'm ok with it not being super good at single target damage. I wish there was maybe a couple options to be ok at it though, since you have to deal with bosses at some point. I think the balance should still be when you have enough targets, your AOEs are your best option but you have something good to fall back on when picking individuals off or fighting bosses. There's fusion blast which is kinda handy if you're adding d8s to an air blast from 100 feet away. More stuff like that.

[Unicore]

Yes. Air Kineticists are going to be Golarion’s best siege weapons.

[Gaulin]

That's part of why I wanted the class to focus more on their DC. I never expected them to be on par with a martial focus firing an enemy - a full caster can't even do that spending their highest spell slots most of the time. Dealing damage, consistently, over an area if an awesome niche to have for an all day blaster. We'll see if their class DC is enough to do that.

[Unicore]

The y have decent “make an attack against everyone” options too that will be fine when facing 4 or more enemies.

[graystone]

Unicore wrote:

I think it is going to work out, but the folks hoping the Kineticist was going to be the all day single target blaster are going to be very disappointed. It seems that the short bow is going to remain the short bow of consistent ranged damage that can be directed against a single target all day.

They are better than casters using a spell attack roll... Legendary +8 vs Master +6 and Handwraps of Mighty Blows (+3 Major Striking). Too bad DC's don't get a bump. :P

[YuriP]

I don't think the currently think that Kineticist is such good AoE martial. At last not more than a Double/Triple Shot/Impossible Voley martial. Because mostly AoE Impulse magics have no more than 20-foot burst and many are 3-action Overflow penalizing severely the action economy while the Kineticist still don't have Final Gate.

In practice considering that most encounter rarely endures more than 3-4 rounds this means that focus in AoE becomes almost impossible before the latter 2 levels.

[dmerceless]

Honestly, I think the current playtest version fails at being a damage dealer at all, both single target and AoE. The overflow impulses are (very) slightly better cantrips that take an action to recharge every time you use them. I wouldn't even use most of these over Scater Scree and similar if given the chance.

[graystone]

graystone wrote:

Unicore wrote:

I think it is going to work out, but the folks hoping the Kineticist was going to be the all day single target blaster are going to be very disappointed. It seems that the short bow is going to remain the short bow of consistent ranged damage that can be directed against a single target all day.

They are better than casters using a spell attack roll... Legendary +8 vs Master +6 and Handwraps of Mighty Blows (+3 Major Striking). Too bad DC's don't get a bump. :P

I forgot that they start with a max 16 in their attack stat so they are even to spell attack rolls.

[manbearscientist]

The capstone blasts that take 4 actions aren't particularly competitive at fodder killing, and that isn't even a niche in this game. No group struggles with fodder.

They deal on average around 8d10 in a 20-foot burst (16 squares), for 44 damage. Keep in mind, Electric Arc can be cast twice for the same number of actions, is 50 damage to two targets, and can be cast at a higher DC.

For a huge percentage of the game's encounters, it will be better to use a scaling cantrip than the obvious big blast skills. Many encounters will not have 4+ enemies within 16 squares.

Fire is particularly terrible. They have the following damaging abilities:

Flame Eruption - Single target, scales to 7d6 damage for 3 actions

Blazing Wave - 30-ft cone, scales to 11d6 damage for 3 actions

Crawling Fire - 3 actions for a significantly worse Reach spell

Solar Detonation - 20-ft burst, incapacitation, scales to 6d10 damage, 4 actions

Arrive in Conflagration - adjacent creatures, 4d6 damage, 3 actions,

All Shall End in Flames - 30-foot burst/emanation, 7d10 damage, 4 actions

Ignite the Sun - 3rd level Flaming Sphere

It is very clear that none of these except Blazing Wave is anything close to reasonably damaging. It seems the intended way to play is to stack up Ignite the Sun, Furnace Form, AND Kindle Inner Flame to boost your teammates damage while throwing out 1 decent damage Elemental Blast per turn, but the action economy doesn't really work well for that.

[Renkosuke]

As an aside, I find it mildly humorous how over-the-top all of these impulse names are compared to how little damage they do compared to something like "Fireball".

[Tweezer]

graystone wrote:

graystone wrote:

Unicore wrote:

I think it is going to work out, but the folks hoping the Kineticist was going to be the all day single target blaster are going to be very disappointed. It seems that the short bow is going to remain the short bow of consistent ranged damage that can be directed against a single target all day.

They are better than casters using a spell attack roll... Legendary +8 vs Master +6 and Handwraps of Mighty Blows (+3 Major Striking). Too bad DC's don't get a bump. :P

I forgot that they start with a max 16 in their attack stat so they are even to spell attack rolls.

I honestly think this might be very intentional and not necessarily something that will change unless something else is removed from the class.

[Thaago]

Renkosuke wrote:

As an aside, I find it mildly humorous how over-the-top all of these impulse names are compared to how little damage they do compared to something like "Fireball".

The first kineticist was compensating for their fire attacks being hilariously ineffective. The multiclass fighter in their party had better AoE's, but his names were awesome!