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Well, it's been well established so far that the Kinetecist damage output is too low and while the jury is still out if this ranges from being "cripplingly bad" to just being "a bit low" the consensus has essentially already been reached that the damage numbers are going to HAVE to be tweaked upward.
Take this with the knowledge that pretty much all other playtests had a similar pattern where the first version tested had low damage and from what I've read before and recently it seems like this is probably intentional since "it's better to start low and buff from there" than it is to have the final version be nerfed from the playtest output.
So I propose that at this point we should probably take into account that repeatedly hammering the point that the damage is not where it needs to be is going to be a pointless effort and a waste breath since we know and the devs surely have gotten the message already coupled with the fact that this low output is actually NORMAL for a playtest, despite how frustrating it is. Instead I feel like we should be looking at other aspects of the Class and their features so we can be sure to give THOSE things a good test and to sus out what problems there are with the versatility, Training scaling, Defenses, and probably even ways they can harness their powers for the purpose of Skill Checks.
In short, I feel we should stop hyper focusing on their Damage since I am CONFIDENT that the message has already been communicated and obsessing over it any more is only going to result in a lack of feedback on the OTHER important things that need to be vetted for the Class.
Thank you for coming to my TED-talk.
I'd prefer a small confirm from paizo to kill the line of dialogue.
But I generally agree.
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We could always go bad to debating just how bad burn would be or the class. ;)
Fair point I guess. Though I gotta admit this whole 'start low and buff from there' seems pretty strange.
In almost every game I've played, new stuff comes out overtuned so people are excited to play it which in turn increases the amount of feedback.
Oh, and it also prevents this very issue.
It's hard to give feedback that dosen't come off as entitled and rude, when the best you can say is 'I love the theme, everything else is really bad tho'I personally would prefer playtests that came out fighter strong, and just.. stayed that way. Since when did we as a community agree that new classes have to be weaker then the CRB ones anyway ?
its because start awesome and then nerf, makes people complain and feel bad that their playtest characters become worse
remember when playtest magus had to roll separately for strike and spell attack? Pepperidge farm remembers
remember when playtest magus had to roll separately for strike and spell attack? Pepperidge farm remembers
playtest spellstrike was almost strictly downside, it was so awkward
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I mean, I'm pretty confident that "math" is the thing we can absolutely count on the Paizo devs to tighten up when they do the final few passes given their track record for doing this a lot with other classes (remember how bad Eidolons were?)
I think it's deliberate to undertune the playtest classes since "great class, no notes" or "I was so powerful that I destroyed everything in my path" is sort of the least valuable feedback you can receive.
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It's hard to give feedback that dosen't come off as entitled and rude, when the best you can say is 'I love the theme, everything else is really bad tho'
That’s the feedback they’re looking for though. Do the mechanics properly enable the theme? If not, why not? Are there feats that work better for that or are otherwise more appealing? And are there specific pain points (not numbers, but like action costs and difficulty in pulling off basic class abilities)?
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Given that atrocities like Telekinetic Rend's scaling went to the release version, I'm honestly not that confident they'll fix the numbers. They seem to be putting a whole lot of value on everything being at will, and I'm worried the final version will receive some tiny buffs and be called a day, when it needs much more than that. So honestly, some hammering down might be healthy.
But even then, I think there's more to it than just trusting or not trusting Paizo on buffing things. This class is not being designed as a damage dealer. I, and my entire group, really, want the class to be designed as a damage dealer. We've been waiting for a dedicated damage dealer mage for 3 years, and while this version of the class is kinda neat in some ways, it's just totally not what we want the Kineticist to be. This goes much deeper than just buffing damage, unless they tremendously buff the damage and keep all the utility, but that might just make the class OP.
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mkay for non damage feedback: please remove the manipulate trait from impulses, i know not everything has aoo, but when literally everything your kit has procs it it just feels bad.
medium armor please, there are a lot of things pushing towards str kineticist, but with only light armor thats a hard sell
non damage impulses are great i love them.
Adapt elementi is awesome and flavorful and so pathetically small scale, please let up move more than one bulk at a time and move it from one square to another in less than 5 rounds
Some level 1 impulses for additional blast options such as magma or lighting would be greatly appreciated.
Dedicated gate needs a little more bang for their buck, 3 level one feats is great at level one, but they grow further and further behind as levels progress
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I think where "the math" does enter into reasonable feedback is when responding to the numbers compels players to take certain strategies or avoid other ones.
Like "As a low level geokineticist, I saved 2 whole points of AC by being a versatile human and getting medium armor proficiency from my heritage, I didn't really want to do that (I would have rather been a Dwarf or an Oread or something) but I also didn't want my character to die."
Or "As a low level geokineticist, I avoided using tremor unless I could hit multiple enemies, since it takes two actions (plus another one to gather again) and does less damage than my basic blast."
But that's sort of the same kind of feedback as "I generally avoided overflow abilities, since I didn't want to have to keep spending actions to gather, particularly since the impulses I did have were 2-3 actions."
But I think the bright line standard should be if you're going to kvetch about numbers, you should playtest and use that to gather evidence for your complaints.
I do not think you should have every class fighter strong for combat. Double so if they have any kind of utility, or support capabilities.
And starting a class as overtuned is exactly the wrong approach. All that will happen is people will be angry when they get nerfed every single time for release.
Rather start low, but also make a disclaimer they they are starting low. That this is playtest and equivalent of a beta.
The person in charge of this class I was told was in charge of investigator and magus? If that's true I'm really not worried.
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I have FULL faith in the team, especially Logan, to really take the feedback seriously and that's a big reason why after keeping tabs on the discussion that I wanted to TRY to contribute something to the hivemind with regard to the feedback being offered as I want to try to reduce the signal to noise ratio given that... well, the commentary thus far has overwhelmingly been about the Damage output of Blasts, Impulses, and Overflow options.
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Dedicated gate needs a little more bang for their buck, 3 level one feats is great at level one, but they grow further and further behind as levels progress
Around this point, talking it over a bit earlier today with my brother we thought of a pretty decent buff to Dedicated Gates by buffing Stoke Element at 6 slightly-
Add the following rider to the effect: "Additionally, if you use an Overflow action on the following turn, you do not lose your gathered Element; however, you are unable to do any additional Impulse actions for the remainder of the turn."
This stops Stoke from being a flat action tax by effectively being a stockpiled Gather Element while still ensuring there are no unintended abuse scenarios that would emerge from Kineticist feat interactions; additionally, this makes 3act Overflow Impulses a lot more reasonable to use. Might still need a damage numbers buff, but this would make it an option at least worth considering that is unique to Dedicated.
Looking forward to running Kineticists through Lost Maid of Anactoria to get TPK'd this weekend; burning two feats as a Human to have Heavy Armor Proficiency as a level 5 one-off character is maybe the dumbest thing I've ever been incentivized to do and I will be sure to say as much.