Sometimes at the start of a turn you will find yourself without an element gathered (for example you used an overflow impulse at the end of your last turn.) Since literally everything you do requires a gathered element (and odds are you're not level 19 yet) that's going to eat one of your three actions.
So that leaves quite a few turns where you have to figure out what to do with two actions. Your three most likely choices now are: use a two-action impulse, blast twice, or move and blast in some order.
If you use a 2 action impulse with overflow that leaves you right back at the top of this post next turn. Almost all of the two-action impulses that aren't overflow don't do damage (notable exception Horrid Ignition) and it's generally not ideal to spend an entire turn in combat not damaging anybody (particularly when "ranged striker" is part of your job description.)
Move and Blast is sometimes ruled out by "you're standing exactly where you want to be". You want to do it when the current combat conditions suggest it, and not otherwise.
Blast twice is a perfectly viable strategy, but it would be nice if something could compete with it. Right now the impulses that can be combined with 1 action to gather, one action to use your elemental blast are: Voice of Elements (not really a combat ability), Stoke Element (something you'd probably rather combine with an impulse that hits more than one target), Cycling Blast (this is just a regular blast with a free element change), Whisper on the Wind (not really a combat ability), Stone Shield (a solid choice), and you can swap your aura to a different aura. For the last option I'm sure this is a good idea sometimes, but from what I've seen you tend to activate the aura you like best and leave it on. Of the other choices, Stone Shield is a solid option to combine with a gather and an elemental blast but the rest really aren't.
You'd get a lot more turn variety if there were a number of different one-action impulses you could use that are beneficial enough that you might want to activate them instead of activating your elemental blast a second time. I know the purpose of activities occupying taking two or more actions is to mandate "you can only do one of this kind of thing per turn" but we've already kind of limited how much you can do in one turn by the need to gather and the desire to minimize turns in which you don't do any damage.
My specific suggestion would be to change kinetic auras to only require one action to activate them if you used Gather Element to gather the element the aura has in the same turn (since that's 2 actions so it keeps you from using a 2-action impulse before level 19.) These are mutually exclusive, and you can already swap between them for one action once you have one up. Thematically this has the effect of "you open your internal gate to gather your element and you just keep it open a little bit longer to let the element flow in a less controlled fashion". Since there's already a lot of things to turn on, you *could* offer a one action credit on a wider range of non-overflow impulses, but the auras seem like the ones that are most appropriate to do this with.
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Gather, blast, then stoke is a pretty good set up round for a turn 3 multi target impulse round. The damage boost on an overflow is pretty significant if you can hit 2 or 3 people with it.
Yeah a few more would be nice, reaction ones too as we only have 1 water and 1 air one.
Like a few ones that would be cool.
- An 1 action elemental blast with overflow that makes it a "power attack" adding an extra die of damage.
- An 1 action air one to push the target around at distance. Don't need overflow on this one but counts to your MAP.
- A fire reaction where you make smoke before being attacked, so the attacker have to the flat check to hit you in that attack.
- An earth one action overflow to make a single enemy immobilized at distance, by making their feet being caught by the earth.
And etc.
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Fusion blast is already power attack.