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So I did quick playtest by building level 20 dorf fire kineticist and then had four of them fight one trivial encounter(with bythos, ecorche, clockwork dragon and warsworn. Yeah I picked them just because they had different AC and reflex save numbers, not because of encounter synergy) and one extreme encounter with green man(I reasoned that if four pyrokineticists can't defeat extreme soloboss that is weak to fire, something is wrong). I did both combats for couple rounds until it seemed likely which side would win, rather than playing them to end and see if dice luck changed things. Kineticists were build with statline of str 18, dex 20, con 24, int 16, wisdom 18, cha 10
So observations about class to me: I didn't realize how effective four same elemental kineticist party is after level 17, because they are immune to effects with element they have gathered, it meant I could spam four aoes centered on party and enemies every round without care. Also level 20 kineticists plays like casters with at will spells, at level 19 you don't need to spend action to gather element again (after losing it to "casting" overflow impulse action) and at level 20 you can make 3 action impulses to 2 action ones so you really are basically a caster then.
Also 2 action impulses, blast barrage(3 blasts at 3 different target with normal mad), chain blast(max modifier blast up to five targets as long you keep hitting previous targets) and maelstrom blasts(max modifier melee blast at everyone in range or a max modifier blast at everyone in range increment cone) are all just incrementally better variants of same concept so while in theory they could be useful to keep them to same character, realized for level 20 character it would probably be better to train lower level versions away :'D Especially vs trivial enemies, pyrokineticist only really needed maelstrom blast(and in theory you can make 16 mad modifier attacks with it vs 16 trivial enemies, so that is nice)
The trivial encounter was pretty much what you'd expect. Blasts hitted and crittead easily, the enemies failed with saves vs impulses, kineticist failed saves only on bad rolls and avoided most of strikes besides few lucky ones, once I realized I can spam solar detonation four times every round with each kineticist, I realized the enemies can't avoid being blinded. Main observation was though that two elemental blast crits vs single target wasn't really much more effective than same target failing vs good damage roll from overflow aoe.
With extreme encounter vs greenman, I figured out that as party of four fire damage reflex save blasters without healing, buffs or debuffs(yeah I built them mostly just for aoe fire damage, they wouldn't really have any chance if I used the titan instead ) it was fair to pick opponent basically tailor made for them ;P I was expecting green man to still kill most of them, but uh by incredibly bad dice luck(as in with bonus of +46 vs ac of 44, I critted a dwarf only once. By time first dwarf was almost dead, greenman was at half hitpoints. Though to be fair, vs greenman's fort save slow aura one of dwarfs crit failed immediately and second failed)
Main observation was that with each of the dwarves having ability to create their own 7d10 wall of fire, all to win against green man they needed to do wast to cast it in as wide area of possible in room and survive until greenman burned to death. So I instead played them inoptimally by having one of them focus on ranged strikes and the one grabbed by greenman rely on melee strikes :p (+34 vs AC 51 wasn't good odds. As it turns out DC 43 vs reflex save of +39 was much better option, just because as long it rolled below 14 some damage was done to trigger fire weakness. 39 is equivalent of extreme save of level 20 creature so seems like +7 master dc is at least competitive even if it isn't best thing vs these high saves)
(note: I'm aware that greenman still could have easily defeated the dwarves if luck improved and I played it step more optimally, level 10 heal would easily allow fight to be prolonged as well, but I already admired I didn't play dwarfs optimally, if I did they would have made sure to spread out as far as possible. Another thing is that if I read kineticist right, greenman should be able to counteract and use absorb magic on gathered element gaining 30 temp hitpoint. So yeah normally this party composition should still use good tactics if they want to have chance extreme boss weak to fire.)
But yeah, my main takeaway here was that kineticists in playtest are basically casters with at will spells, but balance it out with lower damage and DC, and that once you can cast overflow impulses every round instead of every second round, there is no real reason why you shouldn't (if you have access to it) do "2 action cast overflow, free action gather element, 1 action stoke element, repeat" and use elemental blasts instead. Elemental blasts get no benefit to accuracy or damage from con, so they feel like if wizard had bit better accuracy with their crossbow. They don't really get damage boosts like other martials do, so it feels underwhelming if you wanted to primarily focus on elemental blast strikes.
(sidenote, possible "bug" I found: All shall end in flames says "If you die to this impulse, you return to life at the start of your next turn in the same space. When you return, you have Hit Points equal to double your level." but if I read that correctly, nothing in phrasing reads that "if caster dies"? So if I read this right, doesn't this mean that in party with four fire elementals with this same feat they can on purpose take damage at low hp to die and come back even though it was casted by different PC?)
And yeah take these opinions with salt because I skipped straight to level 20, so I don't have feedback on whether kineticist class progression feels too slow or how painful class is to play before you get action economy improvements or how three other elements work in comparison. I think lower level pyrokineticist would likely have worked as fine with "gather element, strike, stoke element, next round
3action overflow, next round, gather element, strike, stoke element" and similar rhytmn, basically similar but used strikes more often.
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once I realized I can spam solar detonation four times every round with each kineticist, I realized the enemies can't avoid being blinded.
This actually shouldn't have worked. As per the ability:
Each of those creatures is then temporarily immune to being dazzled or blinded by Solar Detonation for 10 minutes, but can still take damage from the impulse.
As for the All Shall End In Flames 'bug', I have never seen an activated ability that says "if you [x]" where "you" wasn't the person using the ability.
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once I realized I can spam solar detonation four times every round with each kineticist, I realized the enemies can't avoid being blinded.This actually shouldn't have worked. As per the ability:
Each of those creatures is then temporarily immune to being dazzled or blinded by Solar Detonation for 10 minutes, but can still take damage from the impulse.As for the All Shall End In Flames 'bug', I have never seen an activated ability that says "if you [x]" where "you" wasn't the person using the ability.
The first one I'm actually curious about now that I think about it:
I often house rule stuff like "okay, you don't need to succeed vs each xulgath's stench aura individually because its same ability and they overlap anyway", but by rules when you are immune to ability is it just that particular creature's instance to it like in 1e or just "general temporal immunity to the ability?"
(but yeah, I assumed latter doesn't work like that, but I was curious if it could be interpreted like that or if i'm just suffering from heatwave xP)
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During the playtest each source was treated separately for abilities that granted immunity afterward. Paizo did away with that as it made for messy bookkeeping when facing multiple enemies.
"So has your PC gained immunity to the scent of Xulgath #5 yet?"
There remain a few examples of monsters where you specifically gain immunity only to that one creature's usage. I only recall seeing that once, but it stood out for being different.
A second reason Paizo altered it might be because of spamming. If an ability's too strong to let one creature spam it (hence adding immunity), then it's also too strong for a group to do so. Having had PF1 games where we many rounds of effectively the same save for large parties, I can empathize with this reasoning. :-)