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The number of weakness doesn't matter. What's matter is how they affect your character.
Having a very low save for example affects way less than have a low AC.
Those people who saying that's AoO don't affect magus or are not playing with one, or is playing a low level campaign and still don't feel it personally or is already playing with a Starlit Span/Twisting Tree Magus and attacking out of range or is playing with Sparkling Targe magus focusing in defensive tactics more than they are worrying in use the Spellstrike or is playing some convinient campaign with a low number of AoO monsters/NPCs or are masochists.
Any player who try to play as a melee non-reach magus notice while they are leveling up that's the number of creatures that's AoO it's spellstrike is increasing and is becoming stronger. Fatally he/she will give up retrain or ask to class change.
For Kineticist the thing probably will be closer to this. But due the fact that the Kineticist is way more flexible they rapidly will fix this just stoping to use Impulses at melee range. In the worse situation if is a str build they just need to buy Flexible Blasts or retrain a feat to take it.
In the end all Kineticists will be ranged or will be turn (if they aren't yet) into masochists.
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Playtest is playtest. It's good that there is so much discussion about it.
Every single playtest has been weird like this. Obvious unfinished betas.
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The Attack of Opportunity thing is something that is clunky on the spellstrike for the Magus. It was better in the playtest because you could cast the spell and hold it for a round before releasing it so you could stick and move. People were pretty militant about wanting spell strike to all be one big action involving only one check. It simplified things, but it made spellstrike risky in some situations. The only Magus character that I have had play in one of my games remade their character into a fighter with a wizard archetype the 4 sessions in, the first time they had an enemy hit them. I think having default actions provoke is a big problem.
I don't think it is a problem that ranged attacks provoke or that the gather action provokes as default though. It is a problem for an ability like earth shield, but if there was a low level feat to make certain impulses loose the manipulate trait, or replace it with something else, I think that will largely fix the melee problems the class has.
Right now that feat is elemental weapon for attacking purposes but it is a bit too punishing to not be able to activate any abilities, especially defensive ones that only last a round.
Those provoke because Paizo decided that they provoke. Not because it was mechanically needed.
Specially when you have things like Magus who was known for not provoking with Spell Combat. Or with Kineticist who was know for not provoking with kinetic blade.
Kineticist does not provoke with elemental blade. It seems like that part was intentional, it is just questionable on other abilities that seem specifically designed to be used when creatures are in range of attacking you.
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The low accuracy is just levels 5-7 where you're 2 behind the Investigator, Inventor, Thaumaturge, etc. The low AC is when you are strength based before you grabbed medium armor, otherwise you're just the same as the Rogue. The Low DC is just the same DC as the Alchemist and every other martial.
The AoO thing needs fixing if you want to fight in melee, but otherwise isn't really a bad thing for someone whose bread and butter works at range.
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Kineticist does not provoke with elemental blade. It seems like that part was intentional, it is just questionable on other abilities that seem specifically designed to be used when creatures are in range of attacking you.Those provoke because Paizo decided that they provoke. Not because it was mechanically needed.
Specially when you have things like Magus who was known for not provoking with Spell Combat. Or with Kineticist who was know for not provoking with kinetic blade.
I don't like the Elemental Blade solution because it falls into the same problem of non-Starlit Span Magus. You can do a Inexorable Iron magus and use a reach weapon but if one opponent with AoO comes to close you still need to step but you don't have enough actions to waste with step due reload. So you easily fall in a situation where you can't spellstrike basically loosing your main ability.
In the case of Kineticist with Elemental Blade that exactly situation happens. You can do melee Strike but if you want to use any other Impulse you need to Step, but Step requires actions and actions are the most important resource for Kineticists. So ends with you becoming restricted to melee Strikes only because you probably don't have sufficient actions to move and use an impulse and Gather Element again.
So in the end the Elemental Blade makes you to use a feat to have it but it's probably way better if you aren't at melee since the beginning.
When I am playing my magus and run into something with an attack of opportunity, I adapt my playstyle. Pull out an agile weapon, get my Arcane Cascade active with a shield spell and spend my focus points to quicken myself or add a damage type to my weapon.
Doing the same thing every round with no consequences isn't fun. I don't want my contribution to combat to be easily replaced by a Spellstrike robot.
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When I am playing my magus and run into something with an attack of opportunity, I adapt my playstyle. Pull out an agile weapon, get my Arcane Cascade active with a shield spell and spend my focus points to quicken myself or add a damage type to my weapon.
Doing the same thing every round with no consequences isn't fun. I don't want my contribution to combat to be easily replaced by a Spellstrike robot.
That is fair, but on defensive abilities and abilities you have to do before you can do anything else, it feels heavy handed.
When I am playing my magus and run into something with an attack of opportunity, I adapt my playstyle. Pull out an agile weapon, get my Arcane Cascade active with a shield spell and spend my focus points to quicken myself or add a damage type to my weapon.
Doing the same thing every round with no consequences isn't fun. I don't want my contribution to combat to be easily replaced by a Spellstrike robot.
Yes you can workaround it but why do you need to spend actions, loose your main all because you just want to play melee? Specially while others chars don't need to do that?
But being subpar aren't the worse part IMO. Because most players don't care of sometimes to face this problematic situation and it's OK it's a choice question but the general message behind this is what's wrong IMO. Its just saying "To do a ranged Magus/Kineticist/Inventor/Thaumaturge will perform better than melee yet if you want that you char play as melee with one of this related classes because for example you think it's coolest you just always will be penalised for this".
This pass a wrong message IMO. It's just like the rules saying "You can do if you want but you will be subpar just because you want to play in this way".
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The thaumaturge also had manipulate put on all their implement actions to make sure they were punished in melee. I think that's just the plan at this point. Ensure CRB martials always have a niche by making them the only ones that can do melee without some sort of defect to be built around.
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Inventor and Thaumaturge can usually use their manipulate actions before getting into melee, though, so magus and kineticist feel uniquely punishing.