Some potentially dumb thoughts

[Zylodrizzt]

Everyone seems to be saying about the same things.

1. More reason to pump con highest
2. Too much action cost for not enough gain
3. Low damage
4. Some people want old stuff back

I have some potential suggestions that may work. I'll try to be clear and go subject by subject.

Blasts
This class is stuck between a slotless caster and a martial. I do not think making this just a strike is gonna work too well tho I do like the idea that each has thier own traits. The idea is to make it it's own unique action almost a cantrip but not quite. Cantrips suffer from accuracy and martials less so. So basically as it levels it gets an accuracy bonus (more then just proficiency) and ends up doing as many die of damage as a normal martial weapon attack does (perhaps a little more idk). I'd make it based on con solely to make con matter more and perhaps to represent their ability to withstand their gate being open or whatever flavor they got. I'd also remove the need for gathering. If spellcasters don't need to "draw" their spell neither does a kineticist tho perhaps they are just trying to make it so it's an equivalent action to drawing. That makes sense but then there would be a feat that normally corresponds to that. Having an aoo is also lame as hell if you are supposed to be able to melee with it so get rid of that altogether as well. It might be fun to add more traits as you level like an inventor or even a monk with feats or just general choices. In case I wasn't clear this would be one action.

Gather
Currently just a useless action that everything is based on. Many suggest giving it something like a gun slinger reload. Not against that at all. In fact I'd probably potentially make that like the elemental defense thing that 1e had. Water give some ac bonus against an attack or something. Fire giving a fiery retort to someone first attack at a distance or up close or something. Earth just resist against 1st attack. Air allowing a move to the first creature to become adjacent or something. All based on the element you have gathered. Many have pointed out that 2 action overflows would actually be 3 and still not always that great. Also agree so perhaps gather becomes an action you do beforehand to reduce the action cost later. I'm not 100% sure how this would work but I'll give it a go. So you'd start battle with it gathered and use a big 3 action opener that would cost 2 now so you could actually position yourself beforehand next round you find everything is not positioned the way you want so you gather move and attack or something idk but the point is you'd pay the cost in advance with some of those dead actions. You could only have something gathered or not and you could only use gather to reduce the action cost of an ability once per round just to future proof it i imagine

Burn
That was a weird mechanic and some people want it back. I could take it or leave it however I could see it potentially paired with the above. You don't take an action to gather but you reduce your max hp for the day equal to the level of the ability used in conjunction with it. Perhaps you can get some resistance to this at later levels to show how much you've grown and making some of those lower level abilities almost free to use. You could even use the unhieghtened if you wanted. Of course you could only do this sort of thing if you don't have an element gathered.

Substance and shape infusions
I think that's what they were called in 1e. I see they replicated that with alot of those activated abilities. My suggestion is to have these as almost metamagic for your blasts. Add an action to do a thing. Base it entirely off of the normal blast. Perhaps add some damage or something when they are hieghtened idk.these would probably be where you'd make some of hybrid elements and such abilities.

Utility
This class has alot of utility options and I love it. The auras and all are great. Just keep in mind all the stuff above about gather and burn I'd think would be ok to apply here as well.

Critical
I read someone wanted this and completely forgot about it. In 1e basically got fortification or a chance to ignore crits. It was cool. I could take or leave this but at least it would be something no other class could do without runes in 2e (I think).

Saves
When I play a martial I roll dice to determine accuracy and damage. When I play a caster sometimes I just don't roll dice. If this is somewhere in between with no slots I believe it would be fun to sometimes roll an attack vs their save dc. Maybe it doesn't make a difference but it would change them up from the norm.

Focus
Not sure if they should or shouldn't interact with focus. Many martials don't but some do. They are kinda slotless casters so maybe. Idk what sorta thing it would do but I'd be down for it.

Feats
They get a few bonus feats and flexible feats I'm down for that but I'm kinda torn if they should get more or not. On the one hand their abilities are able to be used infinitely (with random recharges sometimes) and on the other hand caster get alot of options and enough slots to last.

Skills
I've mainly been talking about single element kineticist and as such I think based on element you should get a skill for that to further differ yourself from other elements. Not sure how that would work for multi elements but I def want something to make me stand out from the rest that says "hey I'm this element or elements" that being said I do like how they have the feats to where they kinda do the same thing for all elements but uniquely and how Thier are feats that are like "yep def this element and no others". Kinda went off topic there I think.

Auras
Good idea. I'd probably just add in that ignore some equal to con mod right into it

Reaction
Maybe they could use a reaction or reaction feat like some martials get. Perhaps that's what I was talking about with blasts. I know they get some but idk... I feel this class should put use to their reaction more frequently for some reason and the feats feel a bit situational.

Idk a few thoughts. Would love to discuss.

[Temperans]

Some really good ideas here.

[YuriP]

OK let's go again!

Blasts:
I'm all for the idea of ​​making Elemental Blasts 100% Con-based. Because both in terms of mechanics and flavor it makes much more sense for all the kineticist's powers to be based on it, than on this weird division between str and dex.
I know there are people who believe that this would make Con too good, but that's not true, comparatively Con is very similar to Wiz, while Con gives extra Fort+HP, Wiz gives Will+Perc+Skills, and nobody really complains about Wiz being used for everything in clerics and druids. So I don't see any problem with Con being used to hit and damage the kineticist as well.
But I'm not against the Gather Element, it's no different from pulling out a weapon for example. His whole problem is that the Overflows that consume him force the kineticist to have to use the gather again frequently. The comparison with caster is usually not so valid here, because the caster, despite not needing to draw a weapon, is almost always forced to use 2-actions, which can be much worse in most cases.

Gather:
As I said, nothing against. In fact, the idea of ​​having to use an action to change the element is even interesting, it's kind of like "a penalty for using more than 1 element". Giving some minimal benefit to those who choose to be dedicated (but need more). Gather's problem as I said is Overflow. As a non-gather kineticist can't do practically anything, Overflow ends up taking a lot of weight on the character.
However some workarounds can be made here, adding some talents to be able to gather+something else can help offset this. Or even make Elemental Blast independent of Gather (like a weaker version for example, with the Gather version adding Con on damage and the non-Gather version without this bonus).

Burn:
Personally, I'm not in favor of Burn as it traditionally is in PF1. Burn as a "exchange part of your max HP for feats or bonus" sounds like a talent point system using HP, not something that makes much sense in PF2.
But I'm not against something that gives a boost to the character, it can be either some focus feat that makes the character better, or some kind of unleash that gives a bonus and then charges a price for a short time (then it can be in HP or drained to make sense with the flavor), or some feat that consumes HP (the current one not the maximum) similar to Strain Mind .
Anyway, I think it's cool that a class like the kineticist has an ability that extracts the limit of their powers for a short period of time, but I wouldn't like to see a simple HP trade-off for improvements that lasts all day, it's just plain boring .

Utility:
I liked what we have in the playtest as in Utility Impulses. There are some that look too good, others a little too weak, but nothing unusual for a playtest. The kineticist was left with a number of interesting utility skills and this was a big hit for him.

Critical:
I don't think the crit skills we had in PF1 fit well with the PF2 rules. The current crit mechanic is quite different. There the crit was something independently provided, here it's based on the difference between hit and AC, I just don't think the idea that existed about crit resistance is so valid here.

Focus:
It's something that in my opinion the class deserves to have, either as a way to ignore Overflow, or as a power boost. I see plenty of room to use focus points here.

Feats:
The problem of the number of feats is closely linked to their usefulness. For Dedicated Gate, they are not lacking, as there are several forgettable talents, especially at the beginning of the game. For universalists, its lack is already noticeable, especially at the end of the game, due to putting all the elements together, the player ends up with more useful options than he can put in.
I think you need a little bit of the 2 here. Some talents need to become more useful. The familiar needs mechanics that help the kineticist in a similar way that they help the spellcasters and the alchemist, some talents, especially overflow and low level impulses need to be improved. But this is normal in every playtest and I already hope the designers do a good job here.

Skills:
I think this can be greatly improved just by making Blasts Con based, this will already free up stats to be better used for skills. Maybe medium armor helps with that too, allowing characters to invest a little more in mental stats.

Auras:
They are one of the most interesting things in the class. However many auras are useless before getting Aura Shaping and this feat is so good that anyone who wants to use auras will have to get it.
I think it would be more interesting to make it part of the chassis, lowering its level and re-balancing some auras to be more useful without it (for auras from levels before it).

Reaction
Let's face it, outside of Deflecting Wave and Stone Shield's Shield Block, the class has no reactions. I can't take Deconstruct Element seriously because it's too situational and easy for intelligent creatures to perceive. So I think the class has plenty of room for more interesting reactions.

[drakkonflye]

Personally, I also think kinetic aura should be part of the base chassis and should allow the kineticist to Gather Element as a free action if their aura is active.

Make it a two action feat, so Gather Element to activate Kinetic Aura would be three actions, but it would last for the full combat unless the kineticist gets knocked out. Change kinetic aura impulse feats so they require an active aura to use instead of being one action less to use if an aura is active (and reduce the base action costs on them to begin with), and have only one kinetic aura impulse feat able to be active at a time instead of snuffing out the aura by switching them.

Honestly though, there's really not a lot of kineticist aura feats right now to make it worthwhile to follow this path. Doing this would just speed up a kineticist recovering from Overflow, unless Overflow would also suppress the aura (Flat save to maintain, or maybe an action to Sustain?), but let's be realistic, there are WAY too many feats with the Overflow tag with no real reason to have it. I'm on the side that Overflow should be an upgrade to an affect, like bonus damage or increased area, etc., at the cost of losing your elemental "focus". If Overflow was reconfigured, THEN I could see the aura being suppressed by "overdoing" it

[Dubious Scholar]

Auras are really strong, and yeah - you want Aura Shaping for almost all of them to be useful. (Fair Winds just needs the extra range, and Desert Shimmer you could just stand a bit away from allies for, but you probably want to be giving your whole party concealment at 8, right?)