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Being able to blast without gathering would be nice, yeah. You're drawing the element out at speed so you can't really refine it for anything else, but it means that you don't lose your main weapon every time you use an Overflow Impulse. It's not really a solution for Elemental Weapon, but there are interesting places that it could go if the Elemental Blast is just a Strike you could do.
I would assume that Elemental Blast would still require Gather for Multiclass Kineticists if that were the case, but obviously that's wild speculation at this point.
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When the Kineticist was described I was picturing a class with two effective roles a striking type and a blaster but that’s not what we got.You're picturing these as two different builds when every kineticist is meant to fill both roles. You're not supposed to AoE overflow every round. If you want to hit multiple enemies every round, alternate with Blast Barrage or Chain Blasts.
You're using half the class otherwise.
I think this is where some of the dissonance is coming from.
Reload mechanics make spamming Overflows feel bad, suggesting a gameplay loop where you don't do that and instead alternate or use Overflows situationally.
On the other hand, Overflows have relatively mediocre damage because of their pseudo-spammability, and Blasts don't necessarily always feel like a primary combat mechanic either.
So what I'm hearing and seeing from people is that the action economy makes them feel bad as at-will, every round abilities, but their raw power makes them feel like a poor substitute as an opening nova tool either.
Sort of an uncanny valley and really similar to some of the problems the playtest psychic had (although their issues were just with power, not action economy).
At this point I'm hoping for a damage buff. I like the action economy, and I think ditching the Gather mechanic would make them feel samey to existing classes. I'm down for Gather+ do a thing actions though a la Gunslinger reloads.
Honestly I would like to see a quick gather(like quick draw) action that gathers and kinetic blasts in 1 action.
May I introduce you to Cyclic Blast.
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It seems the problems seem to stem from having both a good attack bonus progression and a good save DC progression and being able to mix and match blasts and saving throw abilities on the same turn. This evades MAP and forces either mediocre damage for both blasts and aoe impulses, OR action economy hamster wheels to prevent constant strike+spell optimized rounds.
A crude way to free up their action economy is to disallow strikes on the same turn as big aoe abilities. That way your power budget can give you satisfying strikes and satisfying saving throw abilities separately, rather than underwhelming versions of both.
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Honestly I would like to see a quick gather(like quick draw) action that gathers and kinetic blasts in 1 action.May I introduce you to Cyclic Blast.
Cyclic Blast can't be used after an Overflow action as it has the Impulse trait, so would not be useful to solve the problem that people are having with the action economy. It's a free attack for switching element, not a solution to Gathering anew.
That one's good but it only solves the action economy of switching elements to use a different element impulse from what you started with on your turn. Definitely still a must have for dual and universal but it doesn't let you gather + blast when you don't have an element in the first place.Honestly I would like to see a quick gather(like quick draw) action that gathers and kinetic blasts in 1 action.May I introduce you to Cyclic Blast.
So you want QuickDraw
3 action routines is a weird statement. I'd hold truck with it if the class started with overflow abilities. But they are all optional. Wich means helping that action economy specifically only makes sense to be optional as well.
I can easily make a strength blast focused Aura peddling kineticist and take all those nice support and utility "spells" that don't have the overflow tag.
It's clearly intended as optional.
Adding a basic overflow action as a core feature is also a good idea.3 action routines is a weird statement. I'd hold truck with it if the class started with overflow abilities. But they are all optional. Wich means helping that action economy specifically only makes sense to be optional as well.
I can easily make a strength blast focused Aura peddling kineticist and take all those nice support and utility "spells" that don't have the overflow tag.
It's clearly intended as optional.
Personally I'd rather not. But it's indeed an option.
It seems the problems seem to stem from having both a good attack bonus progression and a good save DC progression and being able to mix and match blasts and saving throw abilities on the same turn. This evades MAP and forces either mediocre damage for both blasts and aoe impulses, OR action economy hamster wheels to prevent constant strike+spell optimized rounds.
A crude way to free up their action economy is to disallow strikes on the same turn as big aoe abilities. That way your power budget can give you satisfying strikes and satisfying saving throw abilities separately, rather than underwhelming versions of both.
That sounds really unfun and just makes action economy issues worse.
That sounds really unfun and just makes action economy issues worse.It seems the problems seem to stem from having both a good attack bonus progression and a good save DC progression and being able to mix and match blasts and saving throw abilities on the same turn. This evades MAP and forces either mediocre damage for both blasts and aoe impulses, OR action economy hamster wheels to prevent constant strike+spell optimized rounds.
A crude way to free up their action economy is to disallow strikes on the same turn as big aoe abilities. That way your power budget can give you satisfying strikes and satisfying saving throw abilities separately, rather than underwhelming versions of both.
I'm not sure how you're seeing it making the action economy worse. You'd be able to cast your 2 or 3 action spell equivalent without it being weaker (by adding additional action cost or lowering it's power level) to account for making a MAP-0 strike on the same turn. Instead they can balance the "spells" with the assurance that your third action will be a move, demoralize, etc. You get rid of the gather action entirely because you don't need it anymore to bottleneck the kineticist's action economy.
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I'm not sure how you're seeing it making the action economy worse. You'd be able to cast your 2 or 3 action spell equivalent without it being weaker (by adding additional action cost or lowering it's power level) to account for making a MAP-0 strike on the same turn. Instead they can balance the "spells" with the assurance that your third action will be a move, demoralize, etc. You get rid of the gather action entirely because you don't need it anymore to bottleneck the kineticist's action economy.That sounds really unfun and just makes action economy issues worse.It seems the problems seem to stem from having both a good attack bonus progression and a good save DC progression and being able to mix and match blasts and saving throw abilities on the same turn. This evades MAP and forces either mediocre damage for both blasts and aoe impulses, OR action economy hamster wheels to prevent constant strike+spell optimized rounds.
A crude way to free up their action economy is to disallow strikes on the same turn as big aoe abilities. That way your power budget can give you satisfying strikes and satisfying saving throw abilities separately, rather than underwhelming versions of both.
You're going to have a lot more dead actions and awkward turns if you're forced to split your actions across turns. Part of what's good about the class right now is the fluidity in its action use (hampered a bit by how expensive some abilities are).
It creates a new problem and doesn't really solve anything that you couldn't solve just by adjusting the base class as is.
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*extremely rare*
I wasn't aware you only ever fight bosses.
With the exceptions of one instance of a wide-open area where encounter-blending was super easy (and almost led to a TPK) and the forementioned fight of mooks that got skipped because "it was too easy", most fights have been 1 or 2 big enemies, maybe once in a great while three. Maybe a couple fights went up as high as 5, but even then either they were generally spread so far that a Fireball would have a hard time hitting them all even if I won Initiative, let alone the more limited AoEs Kineticist gets; or else we were in a room so small I'd be friendly-firing every ally, which tends to get you dirty looks from said allies. And it's not like this is some custom campaign where the GM just felt like throwing this at us, this was Paizo products.
