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Now that it's been out a while (but alas not on AoN yet) I wanted to share some thoughts and see what others think about this class.
Niches
1. The Eldritch niche just seems unaccountably bad. I don't care about any of these benefits, and the drawback is hugely punishing.
2. Mechanized is my second least favorite. The instinct to "reduce the damgage taken" (note: not damage resistance or energy resistance, so it stacks with everything) is trivial at first, but ok after 10th when you get full MP and can easily build 2 MP per turn (or 4 if you blow RP). Enhanced Resistance feat can cover the physical damage type you're weak to, and pick sonic for energy, c'mon.
Avenging burst seems to do too little damage to matter much, especially for a once per 10 minute ability. Rapid Reboot is bad action economy for decent but not earthshattering healing. Once per day limit is good, because you shouldn't use at all. Protect the foolish.
3. Sepulchral niche has the best augmentation type (everything can be a necrograft except magitech, and they're cheaper - just avoid undead control effects) and the most reliable damage (against living, no bonus against construct/undead).
The first drawback (attacking downed enemies) is manageable - you'll fail the save around half the time depending on your build and investment in will saves, and sometimes you'll be able to use Area Strikes to include the dead enemy in a blast or line attack without losing any accuracy or action. A ranged triple attacker can burn one his full attacks that way, if necessary, and just using the move action and 1 MP isn't the worst thing in the world.
The second drawback, the healing reduction, is pretty severe at higher levels with decent MP (which you increasingly want for your damage boost), but healing during combat isn't usually a go to strategy. You can always overboost something like Area Strikes to dump surplus MP if you really need to do some emergency healing, I guess. Grim Harvest is fine as some healing insurance before you get to that point.
Spectral Step is the best 10th level 1/day, easily. It's easy to keep this going two rounds (105' of incorporeal flight to escape or breeze deeper into a building) and three or four rounds is doable if you stack up some MP before activating it.
4. Vital niche scales into some really great healing at mid to high levels. At 17th level if you have your max 7 MP (6 with Controlled Transformation adaptation) and activate Biotic Invigoration you have four rounds of healing 38 stamina every round. If you're an android with Nanite Integration (Repairing Nanites) at that same level and MP you can reaction trigger fast healing that will provide 25 HP healing for...10 rounds. Come at me, bro.
Of course you're suffering a -3 or -4 penalty to your will saves at this point, so better invest in Improved Iron Will and a brain augmentation like a Psychic Shunt Graft or similar.
Adrenaline Rush is fine as a 1/day, whatever. It's at least not partially a negative like Mechanized.
Adaptations, 2nd level
1. Dazzling Outburst - I wouldn't spend MP on this if it was unlimited use and given to me for free. (And how often do I have 2 MP spent and also a reaction availabe at low level? I'm not popping climb speed every comnbat, and I can't it use with Invert Form, that's also a reaction.) Thank you for putting a 10 minute cooldown on it to protect the foolish.
2. Distant Strikes - This seems necessary on ranged adaptive strike, 45' instead of 30' increment is big. Spending MP to 60' and losing your full attack is probably not as good. Same for spending to get reach on melee - I'd find another way, or wait until Area Strikes at 6th when reach becomes ofensively obsolete. I guess you can spend MP and a swift to get reach for anticipated AoO if you're not able to full attack.
3. Invert Form - I think a reaction to negate these conditions is fine, and negating 5' of movement can prevent a bull rush/reposition attack of opportunity trigger, but spending 2 MP is a bit steep.
4. Ocular Advantage - Permanently gives your choice of darkvision, low light, or unflankable - spend a move action and 1 MP to get all for 1 minute in combat. Or you could just get darkvision via race, armor upgrade, or augmentation. If you need unflankable regularly you need to invest in tactics not adaptation selections. To some extent Evolutionist is the "use class abilities to save money on lots of basic stuff, allowing you to spend it all on fun things" so maybe this is worth it to you to have that augmentation/armor slot free and play a human or similar race.
5. Resistant Form - This seems fine but not fantastic. Worth it you're fighting a bunch of scrubs who use the same common energy type, but 3 rounds duration will sometimes be one or two rounds short of what you wanted. Better with Enhanced Resistance (definitely will last the whole combat without reactivation, reaction activation option, and some extra resistance) but not that much. I might take this as mechanized niche to help cover my elemental weakness, but how often are you really getting hit with sonic, and relative to the extra damage you take this still isn't doing much mitigation. Taking this twice to cover all five rather than just three energy types seems like overkill in almost all builds.
6. Versatile Strike - The obvious and eventually necessary choice for an energy adaptive strike. Skippable on physical damage strikes, I think.
Overall which two of these you take probably depends on whether you're melee/ranged and physical/energy on your adapative strike. If you're ranged and energy I think it's hard to pick anything but Distant Strikes and Versatile Strike.
I suppose a melee/physical strike with nothing else to do with his MP could go defensive and just take Invert Form and Resistant Form. And, ok, unflankable could help during a melee career and is relatively hard to get from other sources; I think there's a mid level armor upgrade or magic item.
Adaptations, 6th level
1. Area Strike - Everyone's taking this, right? It's clear from the first sentence that they intend this to provide blast/line even to melee adaptive strikes. That's huge! You'd still have your strength bonus to damage! "I punch the swarm." This is also very nice on ranged strike who went augmentation or packmaster for their evolutionary focus and don't have accurate/boosted full attacks - standard attacks that hit multiple foes are great for you.
2. Enhanced Mobility - Permanent flight here is tempting, but there's still always Force Soles Mk 2 if you don't have your foot augmentation slot budgeted for something more interesting. (There are those Tremor Soles vibration/sense through feet from Tech Rev at level 12.) I've seen the question raised on whether this is Ex or Su flight for vacuum purposes. C'mon, man, you're an evolutionist changing your physical body, I think we can safely assume Ex.
3. Extraordinary Sense - You took Area Strike for blast on your weapon, now you have blindsense to tell you where to aim it.
4. Fearsome Outburst - With Area Strikes it's easy to spend 2 MP to get your one activation of this per 10 minute rest. But Intimidate isn't an option for your skill boost bonus, and charisma is maybe not your preferred tertiary/quaternary attribute. On the other hand, if you're Sepulchral niche a vampire voice is cheap or even free and tempting. So maybe, I think this one is defensible but less tempting than the other three.
I have a hard time imaging a build without Area Strike no matter what kind of adaptive strike you have. Mobility or Sense really depends on your race and what you plan to do with your available money and armor/augmentation slots. Fearsome Outburst does give you a unique ability you can't buy elsewhere if you want to invest build resources in intimidate. Don't forget a Cruel fusion on your weapon.
Adaptations, 10th level
1. Augmented Potential - Once per day, with sufficient investment in the right augmentations, you can move action your first round of combat to nearly max out your MP. (At level 12 you can start with 2, then activate this to get 3 more, now you have 5 and qualify for +6 bonus damage on your first attack and have your +1 AC active.) I like it, none of the competitors clearly shame it at this level.
2. Enhanced Resistance - Your resistant form gets +2 to resistance, lasts the whole combat instead of 3 rounds (but which was already often most of the combat), and can be activated as a reaction isntead of a move action but then costs 2 MP instead of 1. It seems fine if you went this way.
3. Extreme Mobility - The ability to buy a short term burrow is nice. I don't understand the "you can" language that upgrades swim and fly. Obviously I would, so is this permanent or only when I spend the 2 MP to activate other short duration movement modes? I'm going to assume it's permanent and always on without activation. It's fine, just like the others.
4. Forceful Outburst - It's a real shame this doesn't provoke AoO from moved enemies, I'm not sure what the obvious, repetitive use case is here. If you have reach somehow and are melee, sure, knock them back I guess. (Maybe you're ranged but carry a reach basic melee weapon?) I guess if you're ranged and surrounded you can trigger this with some 2 MP expenditure that doesn't provoke (trigger movement mode, boost blindsense, everything else uses a reaction already or would trigger an AOO I think?) then shoot. The usual 10 minute cooldown is still hard to justify.
I don't think any of these are must have or avoids.
Adaptations, 14th level
1. Controlled Transformation - I think this is pretty good for getting your passive MP instinct abilities up sooner (if you spend 1 RP in round one you start with 4 MP and this makes you count as 5, qualifying for the damage bonus right away) with a marginal but respectable boost to your niche instinct abilities (some extra damage reduction from mechanized, damage from sepulchral, or healing from vital). The reduction in MP for drawback purposes is more circumstancial, because of halving and rounding on some of them you won't always benefit.
2. Explosive Strike - Easier targeting than the blast/line option from Area Strikes if you have tightly clustered enemies and allies in the way, but takes a damage penalty in return for the guaranteed 1/2 damage on save. Worth noting that physical beats energy here, since the DC is the same but it does more damage than the energy version. Don't forget your bad range increment when calculating DCs. May be worth spending MP for the 60' incremement before letting this fly.
3. Pinpoint Sense - I read this as doing nothing without activating your extraordinary sense. You still have passive 20' blindsense, and when you activate it it still goes to 60', you just now have a 20' "donut" of blindsight within that. Fine, I guess, if I'm trying to triple full attack an invisible guy at close range, but I could always just single action blast attack him, too. It has a use case, not sure it's a compelling one.
4. Violent Outburst - Ok, this one justifies the once per stamina rest limitation. If you spent 2 MP on something, get a reaction -2 accuracy free attack this round. Spend 5 MP on something (big blast/line/explosion?), get the attack at no penalty, or get two -4 bonus attacks against two diferent enemies. I don't think there's a way to spend MP as part of a full attack (except for versatile strike that doesn't use enough to qualify), so you can't effectively quad attack someone here, it just lets you layer on a second attack on 1-2 enemies if you attacked a bunch with Area Strikes or Explosive Strike.
Explosive Strike is tempting on a ranged physical strike build (maybe you are combat evolution focus and doing full attacks on single targets instead of Area Strikes so this is your first area option), Controlled Transformation is helpful to everyone all the time, and Violent Outburst is a good DPR boost to unload early on mooks to put them down. Pinpoint Senses is a thing that doesn't suck, but there's a feat in COM that does some of it (convert blindsense to shorter range blindsight), albeit at a high move action every turn cost.
Adaptations, 18th level
1. Fission Form - Ok, this is nuts. Build up enough MP to get your passive instincts where you want them, then trigger this and use the 1 MP every turn option to get full actions on both. Now you're tossing out two blasts or explodes per round (with a Violent Outburst the first time) or putting out 6 full attacks per round to focus on single target if you're a combat evolution focus.
2. Regenerative Form - This is good on Vital (up to 34 HP regained at level 20 with full MP), bad on Sepulchral (if you have 4+ MP it doesn't do anything for you, 3 MP and you only get a single 1 HP and can at least wake up from unconscious), an emergency pick me up on everyone else - it's not worth the MP for just the healing unless you're Vital. I think it's worth noting that it lets you play more recklessly with your RP at this point in the game - you can spend them on MP and not worry too much that you're going to die later in the day if you go down without sufficient RP saved.
Take Fission Form first.
Augmentation ideas if you take augmentation evolutionary focus. (And sometimes even if you don't.)
AOE attacks: there's the dragon gland, the sonic Azlanti throat magitech, and HoTV introduced acid sacks that can go in your arms not just your throat. A vital or sepulchral niche can get free/cheap multiples of these and just spam them until they run out, reload at your next stamina rest. A rare case for not taking area strike.
Biosynthetic nanities for vital niche: When you don't have access to biotic invigoration for stamina healing you can use this for emergency HP healing if you can afford the RP cost every round. The one/day full action fast healing takes you out of the combat for a round but keeps you up pretty well after that if you've got lots of MP at a decent multiplier.
Early Stage Adaptation species graft for melee strikers - every d4 rounds add your strength twice to your damage. This works with the blast/line options from Area Strike. It's so, so gross.
Psychic Shunt species graft - nope out of a failed mind affecting save if you're a vitalist especially, but none of you are going to have great will saves. Not going to help the necrograft maxed guy facing Control/Command Undead, unfortunately.
Extra arms whether from augmentation or race really help you to walk around carrying grenades and serums for all occasions since your weapon doesn't take up a hand. Consider investing in shield proficiency for that extra +1 to AC. It's actually tough to justify dedicating a couple of arms to a reach basic melee weapon on a ranged adaptive strike build or longarms on a melee strike because of the attribute issue, forgetting money/feat investment.
Packmaster evolutionary focus abilities you can grant allies (only the number/distance of allies you can help changes as you level, not what you can share).
I assume you can't share reaction abilities that counterattack (like the Mechanized niche Avenging Burst) or have a special effect on enemies as a reaction when you spend enough MP on something else. Packmaster says "you can apply that adaptation’s effects to a willing adjacent ally in addition to gaining the effect yourself." If it's a reaction that does something to enemies, but originates from you, is it an effect you gained and can share? Or because it was wholly directed outward it can't be shared? I think the latter.
1. Climb/swim speed for 1 round (upgradeable to 5 rounds with an adaptation).
2. Grim Harvest reaction heal (Sepulchral niche) heal HP damage to allies when reducing an enemy to 0 HP. They'd only get half.
3. Biotic Invigoration (Vital niche). Even without packmaster this effect on the subsequent turns (but not initial activation) spreads to an adjacent ally. So this seems to allow daisy chaining - your affected allies can also heal additional adjacent allies who don't directly benfit from the packmaster sharing. But they only get one additional round of healing (half duration, rounded down) and no sane GM would allow anyone to benefit twice (once directly, once from being adjacent to someone sharing that way).
4. Ocular Advantage adaptation activation to share 5 rounds of two senses with allies. Technically your permanent sense doesn't get shared, ask your GM.
5. Resistant Form adaptation, only lasts 1 round. (3+KAS)/2 rounds once you get Enhanced Resistance adaptation. Probably a good adaptation chain if you're a packmaster.
6. Versatile Strike adaptation. Lets allies change their natural attacks to any choice of B/P/S. Not actually very useful.
7. Area Strike adaptation. Lets allies use blast/line on their natural attacks, potentially VERY useful in certain set ups. Group punch the swarm or troop.
8. Extradordinary Sense adaptation to grant 5 rounds of 60' blindsense.
9. Regenerative Form adaptation to keep your party from dying/unconscious when they hit zero (or heal a minor 10 HP if they're not down there).
The blindsense grant could be clutch in certain situations, I doubt the mobility will see much use, Enhanced Resistance has a lot of potential at level 10, you could build a whole party around shared Area Strike and natural weapon blast builds if you wanted.
Mostly, though, I think the two round stamina heal of the Vital niche is probably what you have to have to make this a worthwhile evolutionary focus (unlike Grim Harvest, which is half healing because a random result, the Vital heal if fixed so they get the full amount, just half duration). Too tempting to be selfish with augmentations or combat focus otherwise.
Choice of adaptive strike is interesting and nonobvious, I think.
Melee obviously does more damage due to strength, and at 6th level you can take Area Strike for a blast/line option to have an effective short range option. But your defenses will suffer without heavy armor. With a free augmentation you can pick up Early Stage Augmentation at level 9 to periodically double your strength to damage.
Ranged is less damage, easier to full attack without movement, but short range makes that less true than you'd think. Ranged seems to have more "required" adaptation investments to get the most out of their weapon - definitely Distant Strikes, maybe Explosive Strike.
Physical damage is KAC targeting and less accurate, but lets you skip investing in versatile strike and maybe just pick up tbat feat to overcome 5 points of DR when it comes up. The damage boost here is nice with Explosive Strike if you're ranged and level 14. At lower levels against enemies with a 2 KAC/EAC divide you'll be doing less expected damage, at higher levels against a 1 KAC/EAC divide you'll be doing slightly more expected damage. About half of the enemies have a 1 vs 2 divide, so it's probably not a big deal. Do you want bleed or knockdown for your crit effect at 2 MP? That's probably what would make me choose between B/P/S.
Energy is of course the flipside on damage and requires Versatile Strike or you're going to have a very bad day eventually. Which baseline energy to take is interesting, I can make a case for all of them based on expected resistances/vulnerabilities and your crit preferences. Acid is the easy answer if it's not Attack of the Swarm! or you don't know you're fighting a lot of fire/robot creatures.
1. The Eldritch niche just seems unaccountably bad. I don't care about any of these benefits, and the drawback is hugely punishing.
Let me try to care about it enought that I might play it.
Augmentation augmentation type: Magitech is the most restrictive type (you can't convert any of the other types into it like you can with biotech and necrografts), but no one else can grap magitech with their type either. If you want lots of free, cheap, or stacked in the same slots magitech, this the niche you have to be.
Class Skill: Mysticism is good for identifying spells and some creatures, disarming some traps, and one starship role. It's fine, but so are the others.
Instinct: Ok, my instinct give me SR that approaches adequacy (50% success against equal CR) if I have a decent amount of MP. It gives me a consolation prize against failing a spell save. It's not useful in every fight, but it could save you against some bad stuff over the course of a career. If I'm not up against spellcasters, then just spend down my MP on active uses to avoid the drawback. Compared to the other niches, I'll call this higher potential reward (negating a bad spell vs extra chip damage or modest/limited damage mitigation) but much rarer application compared to Sepulchral and Mechanized. Vital's stamina regen combo still seems lots better.
Drawback: Very punishing after low levels unless you use all your MP every turn, forgoing all passive benefits of instincts and not building up a big stash for a big spend. Not great. But I guess we can (and almost must) take the ranged adaptive strike to avoid melee where physical damage is most likely to be inflicted on us, and grab permanent flight at level 6 to play keep away. A fly or hover plus blast, line, or full attack routine will keep you mostly safe, and you can always blow all your MP every round if you're facing something with projectile ranged weapons.
Spell Bending: I wish this didn't depend on an ally, but I guess all the other similar niche abilities are limited to once per 10 minute reset and two of them (mechanized and sepulchral) have similarly minor effects. Embrace the relative uselessness of most of these and the outsize greatness of Vital rather than dwell on your specific suckitude. I will say that if you're going to be helping enhance a spellcaster's spell this way, you're more likely than other evolutionists to forgo attacking with your standard action to use Evolution Drain at 5th level to try to inflict sickened in addition to boosting your MP. You could move action Improved Intimidate for shaken, standard action Evolution Drain to try for sickened (EAC attack plus fort save is asking a lot), then reaction Spell Bending to further boost either the spell DC or the CR check against spell resistance. I just hope you don't get meleed with B/S/P for your trouble.
Arcane Leap: This is fine, and I guess the optional Spell Bending ride along actually provides a big potential range on this. It's not as good a Sepulchral, probably more useful in practice than Mechanized (so much action economy to bring off that stamina heal), and probably about even with Vital.
Niche Metamorphosis: The energy immunity is possibly the most powerful of these 20th level capstones, and not one available to the other niches. You can also use it to negate one of the two vulnerabilities you had to choose for the Regenerative Form adaptation - now you can be unkillable by anything but (say) sonic damage alone. You can also do some dumb Explosive Strike shenanigans to target yourself in the AOE if you absolutely must, which admittedly shouldn't be often.
Ok, I still don't like it, but I think I could force myself to play it in a campaign with a spellcasting buddy who cooperated with spell selection and where I'd expect to encounter at least some spellcasting enemies. Definitely going to have to be ranged and flying, though, and be after the magical creature aesthetic and some specific magitech augmentation(s) to justify it.
Debuff builds
Not the most obvious build, but we can do it. I think it makes most sense on an Eldritch niche whose active niche ability at 1st level is focused around helping a spellcasting ally land spells anyway, but anyone can do it.
We have Intimidate as a class skill, and Sepulchral niche can get a free vampire voice or other niches can buy it with their money not spent on a weapon; Mechanized or Sepulchral with augmentation focus can double up with a Voice Amplifier. Pick up skill focus (alas, Intimidate doesn't qualify as a chooseable insight bonus skill) and Improved Intimidate, add in a racial if you want to ease up on your Charisma a bit. (Reality Glimmer feat will eventually give you access to other intimidate boosting spells/cantrips.) So that's shaken sorted.
At 5th level we get Evolution Drain, which after a touch EAC attack and failed fortitude save inflicts sickened 1-3 rounds.
Or since we're money savers, we can easily afford a Cruel fusion at 6th level to put on our fulcrum and just shoot people to stack sicken on top of our shaken victims.
6th level also opens up the Fearsome Outburst adaptation to allow reaction demoralize attempts that can potentially demoralize three targets or try to stack frighten on top of one shaken. Works best at 8th when you can have Area Strikes to trigger it after unleashing a blast/line attack. (If you combo Improved Demoralize plus Fearsome Outburst to demoralize four targts and extend the duration past one round, you can potentially blast them all with a cruel fusion next round for sicken all around.)
Once again, we have money, and as currently written fusions applied cheaply at low levels to our fulcrum seem to last even as the adaptive strike levels up and would make reapplying that fusion much, much more expensive. We have a class advantage in purchasing fusions, let's not stop with the Cruel option. Perhaps Entangling Fusion (level 2) for a 1/day no action entangle attack. At higher levels we may want Malediction fusion (level 9), even at the expense of cruel, to have a limited use reaction Bestow Curse effect. It's a shame we can't use dzejet with the fulcrum to make stacking fusion levels more manageable.
For debuffing crit effects on our adaptive strike, we're going either cold (bind/entangle), or bludgeoning (knockdown).
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Very comprehensive! I haven't had to chance to read through all the posts, but I agree with what I've seen so far!
I did just want to chime in with - re: Augmentations to get - don't forget the Hyper species graft - because when you really need to allsix it, nothing beats cramming a skitterheart into your ribcage! There's so many feats / class buffs / etc that take one move action, 4000 credits to do an "alpha strike" round is a steal!
Benefits (and costs) of Mutation Points (vs Vanguard EPs)
MPs are interestingly different than EPs for the Vanguard.
The Vanguard passives (+1 AC, weapon properties, weapon crit effect) all happen if you have at least one EP, having extra doesn't do anything for you passively. Very much not so for the Evolutionist! The Evolutionist has eight different tiers of passives, plus one additional one that scales from his niche based on MPs and level. The Vanguard has fewer passives, more of which are level locked, and which are easy to get. The Evolutionist has more passive benefits, can access them (except for the ones requiring 6-8 MP) all from level 1, but until higher levels it takes a while to build MP to get them all (or get meaningful bonuses on the niche passives).
Building EPs vs MPs are similar and different. Both start combat with 1, Evolutionists always get one every round (2 at 11th level), while Vanguards have to take or experience certain actions/requirements to earn more; Vanguards effectively are less reliably but can likely build more early. Vanguards can spend RP for 1 or 2 (at 10th) EP if they have none, Evolutionists can spend RP for 1 or 2 (at 11th) MP whether they have them or not.
Evolutionists are a lot more limited in discretionary or "lucky" (e.g. getting critted or critting) ways to build MP vs Vanguards and EP. No aspect embodiment or charge for an easy bonus point off a gimme action, no MPs coming from most basic hits at low levels. They've got nothing but time and RP expenditure (very not worth it at low levels) until 5th level, then a bad action economy no damage method in Evolution Drain, and 1 MP per stamina rest after you hit someone. So you may be able to have 5 MP at level 1, but you're not likely to get there in many fights.
Do you want to? Here's the passive instict abilities everyone gets regardless of niche:
1 MP: You gain a +5-foot enhancement bonus to one speed of your choice.
2 MP: Your adaptive strike gains a critical hit effect based on its damage type: arc (electricity), bind AR (cold), bleed (piercing or slashing), burn (fire), corrode (acid), or knockdown (bludgeoning). Critical hit effects that deal damage deal 1d6 damage; this damage increases to 1d10 at 7th level, 2d10 at 13th level, and 3d10 at 19th level.
3 MP: The enhancement bonus to speed increases to +10 feet.
4 MP: If you’re wearing light armor or no armor, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your AC. If you’re wearing heavy or powered armor, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your EAC, though this can’t increase your EAC above your KAC.
5 MP (cap until 7th level): Once per round, when you deal damage with your adaptive strike, you can increase the damage dealt to one target by an amount equal to half your evolutionist level (minimum +1 damage).
6 MP (cap until 13th level): You gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your saving throws.
7 MP (cap until 19th level): The enhancement bonus to speed increases to +20 feet.
8 MP: The enhancement bonus to your AC or EAC increases to +2.
So, the speed bosts at 1/3/7 MP. A minimimal speed suspension is level 4 and replaces your 1/3 MP passives. Level 8 standard replaces the rarely seen (and not available for a long time) 7 MP speed bonus, and a level 12 complete speed suspension is +30 before you can even get access to +20 via MP. So right away 2/3 of what you're likely to get at low levels seems trivial when you have it and obsolete if you're not penny penching - the legs slot doesn't have a lot of obvious competition for augmentation. If you'd rather use the level 6 adaptation for permanent flight rather than speed supsension plus Force Soles Mk2, I guess the speed bonus will sometimes be a marginal help.
2 MP is pure bonus, and something you can expect to reasonably benefit from round 2 on. This is fine, and a decent incentive (on top of your niche passive) to hold onto MP and suffer your drawback.
4 MP is also very good; it's also something the Vanguard gets a better/less restricted version of for having just 1 EP. Feels bad, man.
5 MP is good but only after you've put some levels on. And until level 11 it will take you forever to get there. Sad!
6 MP will help your fort/reflex save (surely you already have a Ring of Resistance for will saves), it's fine. It's also going to be rarely seen.
7 MP is the sad speed boost we already discussed.
8 MP is only available at level 20, and doesn't allow us to spend any EP on any utility or adaptive strike modifying abilities. Hooray for entirely theoretical top level AC bonuses multiple rounds into a fight.
Conclusion: other than the 2 MP crit effect, and late game ways to get 5 MP quickly to apply that damage bonus, these are pretty sad. How about the niche passives?
Eldritch gets spell resistance, useless against the majority of enemies, and takes big extra damage from physical non-magical sources, not exactly rare. Strong incentive not to carry MPs past the end of your turn on this one.
Mechanized gets some stackable, limited DR and energy resistance and pays with some even more limited enhanced damage take from one source of physical and energy. Neither is a big deal or matters much, I think.
Seplchral gets bonus damage against living creatures, which stacks with the 5 MP passive damage bonus every Evolutionist gets. It gets decent at 7th (when you get full MP rather than half), 11th (when you build 2 MP per round), 13th (when you get 1.5 MP), and good at 19th (when you get 2x MP). At levels 1st-6th it's pretty trivial, just an extra point or two of damage. You pay with reduced in-combat healing and a high chance to waste a move action after killing someone. I can see not carrying MP until 11th.
Vital is great, 10/10 no notes. Get bonus to any SP/HP healing once her round, scales a bit better/faster than the Sepulchral damage. Most importantly it works synergestically with your biotic invigoration, the strongest 1st level niche ability. You pay with reduced will saves, already your worst, but at least your party will find it very difficult to knock you unconscious when you turn on them.
Overall? Other than high level Sepulchral and most level Vital, I don't think you get much out of your passives. The 2 MP crit effect is nice, but it's not earthshaking not going to happen that much and probably not worth the risks of your drawback. There's a strong incentive to ignore passive MP benefits a lot of the time and spend then down to zero on active uses.
Fortunately, there are good ways to do that. Pre-11th level you can wipe out your MP every round just by using Distant Strikes for range/reach (but this prevents full attacks), Versatile Strikes to change your damage type, or Resistant Form to activate an energy resistance. At higher levels you can productively dump them with Area Strikes or Explosive Strikes plus a few utility options that might come up.
Overall, I feel like MPs are kind of a miss on the passives, decent on the active side. Ironically, I think it's somewhat the opposite on Vanguards. Mitigate spam and keeping 1 EP for AC and weapon passives is a real thing on that class.
Adaptive Strike vs. Entropic Strike
This is kind of all over the place. Entropic Strike starts stronger (d6 vs d3/d4) then is slightly behind or even most levels after 5th.
Melee adapative strike can probably apply one more point of attribute damage (it can go full strength, Vanguard needs dex even or higher than Con), but falls more behind at level 10 when Vanguard can also add strength.
Ranged adaptive does relatively better than Entropic Shot, because ES only gets half specialization and never gets to add strength (or con).
Mostly I'd say this is wash (benefit to vanguards at melee, evolutionists at ranged), except the Evolutionist can do combat evolutionary focus, which gives him the exact equivalents of solarion flashing strikes and solarion's onslaught at level 7/13, vs the vanguard getting flashing strikes only at level 11. (When the Soldier gets soldier's onslaught for an extra attack, but never gets an equivalent to the flashing strikes accuracy improvement. Confused yet?) So level 7-10 and 13+ a combat evolutionist has an advantage.
Go ranged, young evolutionist.
Terminator Build
Concept: Stack adaptations, feats, augmentations, armor upgrades, and the mechanized passive instinct (stackable damage reduction) to make a tough, hard to kill robot. At level 20 with maxed out 8 MP you can have as much as 28 points of resistance against a physical damage type (more often 15 or 20), 36 against fire/electricity/cold, 26 or 36 against acid/sonic. Enter combat, use RP expenditure and the attack drain abilities to get your MP maxed as soon as possible for the armor bonus and instinct damage reduction abilities. Avoid using active MP expenditure to maximize off turn defenses, crush the weak with relative impunity.
Race: Android, easily augmented alternate racial trait for the ability to double an augmentation slot. Or SRO for the free but level limited augmentation that double stacks in a slot. Or Amrantah for two extra stackable augmentation slots, but the vibe and stats aren't quite right.
Niche: Mechanized (weak to bludgeoning and sonic)
Evolutionary focus: combat
Adapative strike: melee (whatever) or ranged (electricity) depending on the movie/model you're doing.
Key augmentations: Early Stage Adaptation (arms and skin) species graft (can grant extra strength damage, reach, and with a feat swap your Enhanced Resistance feat to a new damage type, other feats let you take two benefts at once and avoid crit bonus damage as a reaction), Dermal Plating (skin) for DR, Upgrade Slot species graft (hand or whatever, buy back our armor upgrade), Biosynthetic Nanites to heal or especially trigger fast healing to make you unkillable for 1 minute. Maybe swap Dermal Plating for Doppleganger Morphic Skin if you're going for T-1000; Dermal Plating goes as high as DR 7/-, but you can get DR 5/- from an armor upgrade, good enough.
Key adaptations: Resistant Form (2x), Enhanced Resistance, Augmented Potential, Versatile Strike (T-1000 or T-X), Area Strike (ditto), Regenerative Form. At 10th level we can reaction add stacking energy resistance worth 3 + half level on top of what we already get from Mechanized instinct and the armor upgrades that provide 5/10/15.
Key feats: Enhanced Resistance (bludgeoning) to offset our weakness (effectively you have DR 20/- at level 20, but take an extra 18 (with max MP) if they do exceed that, dropping you to effective DR 2/- past that threshold on the first bludgeoning hit), Adapative Resistance (can use Early Stage Adaptation species graft to swap your Enhanced Resistance to slashing or piercing for 1 round; it will be higher than the Dermal Plating or armor augmentation you're using as baseline), Complex Adaptation feat (use Early Stage Adaptation for two uses at once, like extra strength damage and reach, or adapted resistance and extra damage), Relocate Vitals feat (with ESA allows reaction to ignore extra crit damage).
Key armor ugprades: Electrostatic Field and Thermal Capacitator Mk 3 for 15 resistance to fire/cold/electricity (and E damage to those punching or stabbing you). Filtered Rebreather for acid resistance 5, Sonic Damper for sonic resistance 5, Deflective Reinforcement for DR 5/- (if you don't go Dermal Plating Mk 7), Adaptive Defense Mk 3 (to boost sonice/acid resistance to 15 after the first hit), Force Field (whatever you can afford). Obviously there's some overkill/overlap here, you could cut either the Adapative Defense or some/all of the other energy defense ones.
But if you have the money you have the slots for the huge redundancies if you do Vesk Monolith III heavy armor plus one mounted on your body slot.
Finally, I'll note that all this is really giving you over a level 20 vital niche build is the extra 8 resistance vs P/S and all energy but sonic and the aesthetics/vibe. Unless you're taking a lot of small hits every round and between ten minute rests, an android vital niche with the niche abilities and especially nanite integration fast healing is still going to be more surviveable. A level 20 vital niche android with 8 MP poppping nanite integration fast healing is going to be recovering 29 HP every round for ten rounds at the cost of 1 RP. He can get the energy resistance adaptations and all the gear protections just as easily.
And maybe you just put Enhanced Resistance on piercing for bullets and leave the weakness at bludgeoning with Dermal Plating Mk 7. With 8 MP you'd have always on 28 resistance vs piercing, always on 15 resistance vs slashing, and vs bludgeoning you'd take 11 extra damage on the first bludgeoning hit every round but still have DR 7/- against the rest. Depends on your threat mix, use Adapative Defense in emergencies here since it's a time limited resource.
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I think on the vanguard not caring about my Entropy points is a fairly big failure of the class.
But on the evolutionist I don't WANT the points. The downsides are worse than the benefits.
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A discount on a -2 item level augmentation is pocket change.
A random level 4 augmentation is 2,250 credits. thats 225 credits off. At 6th level you get 4,000+ credits per adventure. Its a nothingburger disguised as a class feature. I mean technically it helps your versatility, but its even WORSE than the envoys consolation prize for skill focus.
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The basic benefits don't matter on a geared character. As pointed out, you're melee you're going to get the leg suspensions
I think on the vanguard not caring about my Entropy points is a fairly big failure of the class.
But on the evolutionist I don't WANT the points. The downsides are worse than the benefits.
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A discount on a -2 item level augmentation is pocket change.
A random level 4 augmentation is 2,250 credits. thats 225 credits off. At 6th level you get 4,000+ credits per adventure. Its a nothingburger disguised as a class feature. I mean technically it helps your versatility, but its even WORSE than the envoys consolation prize for skill focus.
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The basic benefits don't matter on a geared character. As pointed out, you're melee you're going to get the leg suspensions
Your comment on vanguard EPs somewhere else (a thread on here? Reddit?) is what inspired me to make the comparison. I mostly agree.
Downsides are bad on eldritch niche unless you're flying and only facing energy ranged attacks. I think that's pretty common or manageable. The benefit is good against spellcasters, useless in the majority of cases.
For mechanized, I also think downside is manageable with Enhanced Resistance feat and Deflective Reinforcement as soon as possible. (You're not going to get hit by sonic often.) The benefit is unfortunately really minor unless you're getting hit by lots of low damage attacks every round.
Sepulchral is quite bad, what kills me here is how limited the benefit is until very high levels. At level 20 I can max 8 MP to get +16 damage to one hit against a living enemy per turn (on top of the +10 every evolutionist gets against one target at that level from 5 MP). Ok, fine. But I mostly can't get healed at all (Mystic Cure 6 come through) and often waste actions (worth more than +16 damage) if I kill someone, and at anything but the highest levels the bonus damage is trivial to small.
Vital is where I think the benefits (quasi immunity to damage) exceed the negatives, you can invest build resources to fight against the will save penalty. Improved Iron Will and Spellbane feats, brain augmentations that help with mind affecting, ring of resistance, etc.
Augmentation evolutionary focus does save you a lot of money at level 13 and (lol) 19 if you're cramming in stuff in literally every (sometimes doubled) slot. But unless you're building a new level 19th Sepulchral character with by the book WBL to take advantage of -45% to everything you buy (extra discount on converted bio/cyber stuff into necrografts) you're here for the scaling/upgradeable free item at 7th and the double slots for items where you don't care much about costs at 13th and 19th. And you can get double slots via race and theme and you already have extra money from your free weapon.
Some of the basic instincts matter, if not often. The +1 to AC and to saves (not benefiting from a ring of resistance) can help. At high levels the 5 MP bonus damage is...something.
The mutation points are the core mechanic of the class. I SHOULD be gleefully wracking these things up and making a skein of yarn football play for how i'm going to build/fight to get MOOOORE of them before unleashing them
Not "meh.. i think I can make one of these kinda not terrible with some feats..."
Noteworthy cybernetic augmenation (so available as bio or necro) in Drift Hackers 1:
System: Brain and Skin
Mk 1/2/3
Level 6/8/12
Price 4,500/10,000/38,000Millions of nanites infused in your skin and nervous system can shape themselves into various forms throughout your body to duplicate the effects of a species graft (Starfifinder Alien Archive 4 140). When installed, choose three species grafts of item level 4 or lower; once made, this choice can’t be changed without installing a new set of nanites. Once per day, you can activate the nanites with a thought to gain the benefifits of one of your chosen species grafts for 1 minute. A mk 2 nanite tempograft allows you to choose species grafts of item level 6 or lower when installed, and the effects of the species graft lasts for 10 minutes. A mk 3 nanite tempograft allows you to choose species grafts of item level 10 or lower when installed, can be used three times per day, and the effects of the species graft lasts for 10 minutes.
The Mk3 is very nice, but the brain/skin slots are very in demand individually, let alone both. Probably only a pick if you go augmentation evolutionary focus or have race/theme options to allow double slots.
There's also a 10th level skin one that lets you go 1/day "incorporeal" (you can't go through walls/enemies, but get the defensive benefits) for 10 minutes if you want to speed run a dungeon while taking half damage and ignoring half the spells/effects aimed at you.
Also both of note for Nanocytes, of course, I think especially the latter one for a major gear form.
The Serum of Fetid Vibrancy is useful for a vital niche evolutionist who isn't an android and already used up their biosynthetic nanies. It grants 1 minute of fast healing (and a sickening cloud around you).
There's yet another feat that can go with Early Stage Adaptation that lets you store a serum under your skin and activate it as a move action. Maybe this one.
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The lack of an adaptation from can switch your adaptive strike from melee to ranged, or vice-versa, is annoying...
You’d be very inaccurate that way. Better to carry a thrown weapon or operative weapon.
Area Strikes adaptation eventually gives melee a short ranged option.
You’d be very inaccurate that way. Better to carry a thrown weapon or operative weapon.
Area Strikes adaptation eventually gives melee a short ranged option.
I just saw that Distant Strikes grant your melee adaptive strike the reach weapon special property.
Yes, it works if you want to play mobile/single attack and get attacks of opportunity. Shame you can't full attack with the reach.
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The mutation points are the core mechanic of the class. I SHOULD be gleefully wracking these things up and making a skein of yarn football play for how i'm going to build/fight to get MOOOORE of them before unleashing them
Not "meh.. i think I can make one of these kinda not terrible with some feats..."
that was my take. the rules are way too stingy on the # of MPs that a player can get, and how they get them.
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Yes, it works if you want to play mobile/single attack and get attacks of opportunity. Shame you can't full attack with the reach.I just looked up reach and full attach in the core rule book, I didn't see anything stopping a full attack with reach. Am I missing something?
You can full attack with reach; you can't full attack with this reach (from Distant Strikes). It takes a swift action to activate Distant Strikes, and you can't take a full attack in a round where you take a swift action (this is different than PF1). Distant Strikes then expires before your next round, forcing you to reactivate it.
If you have someone (Envoy) or some ability (Skittermander hyper) granting you an unrestricted move action that you can downgrade to a swift action and activate Distant Strikes then you can pull it off. Otherwise, no.
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Do most reach weapons have the unwieldy property?
No. And I've wondered before why ANY of them do. That makes something an incredibly niche option.
No, nothing new from me. I keep hoping to see more people talk about it, too.
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I made a ranged kobold mechanized evolutionist, and so far at first level it's basically a lot of fiddling with very little payoff. Normally I go for melee characters to put up big damage numbers, but this time I'm trying something less optimized.
I would love to chime in but I've only had three sessions with my evolutionist. I'm having a great time but we really haven't done all that many combats and haven't really gotten anything out of evolutionist features yet, really. Being a melee brute in starfinder doesn't take much and is effective no matter the class though. I'm playing a vital niche evo and biotic invigoration is really handy for sure. Easy to write off in the early levels because the healing seems like nothing but it adds up and really helps with longevity.
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The lack of an adaptation from can switch your adaptive strike from melee to ranged, or vice-versa, is annoying...
This is my dilemma with trying to build one of these
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I was very excited by the potential of this class, but then confused when it came out. I guess I expected it to be a starfinderized mutagen kind of thing, which it kind of is? But not really?
The nanocyte already fills the amorphous/adaptable character niche, and all of the augmentations, that (basically) anyone can buy and use, fills the augmented/weird biological experiment/etc archetype. A reflavored mechanic, with an appropriate ai and the right augmentations, can basically fill that flavor in many ways.
What science-fantasy niche was the evolutionist supposed to fill? What party role? I’m just very confused by it all. And the mechanics don’t really seem to float the class along in any way, from what I’ve seen.
I’m almost never this negative about something, and I haven’t played the class, I guess I’m seeking clarity. I want to be excited by this class again.
I guess I’m seeking clarity. I want to be excited by this class again.
That.. may be an or option.
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When the class was first announced, I made a character concept for it. When It was released, I quickly thought there was no way my idea was going to work. Then I tried actually making the character and, with some adjustments to my original concept, had something that looked different but fun. Then the errata came out, causing me to lose 1/2 of the skills needed to make the concept work.
I Gave up for a while but came back to it. This time I pre-planed the character all the way up to 20th level, and much to my surprise, it was fairly close to my original concept. At lower levels, it's not remotely close to my concept and only fully realized at 20th levels.
The skill increases over time were key to making things work, and what makes this character feel different at different stages of its evolution.
At the first level, my character is only skilled at making a living hitting or intimidating things, as a professional wrestler. AT 20th level he's an undead media personality with lots of chrisma baised skills, trying to get more views than Zo!
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Then I tried actually making the character and, with some adjustments to my original concept, had something that looked different but fun.
I'm looking at the class, trying to pick abilities and make a character (A dragonblood themed dragon kin dragon evolutionist) .
The mutation points don't give me anything I won't have from gear.
The abilities are both situational and weak.
I already have big sharp pointy teeth to bite with. Gaining a club tail on top of that is.. moderately useful but largely redundant. An EAC based fire blast would be thematic but redundant.
The abilities are blech.
It's giving me flashbacks to starship combat where yes I technically have an ability with words but so little actual effect that I may as well not bother. It's the gaming equivalent of a fidget spinner.
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A club tail becomes more useful if you add the Distant Strikes and then the Area Strike adaptions. With the extra move speed from having mutation points, you can quickly threaten a huge area on the map and hit multiple targets.
I don't see gear doing that same thing as mutation points as an issue. I see it as freeing up credits to buy gear that does something you can't do with mutation points.
I do admit it is a hard class to find a character concept that works well with it. You start off as a martial class with limited skills and evolve into someone with a full set of skills and a strange natural weapon. That works well for a professional wrestler evolving into becoming undead and picking up the skills needed to become a media personality trying to outdo Zo!
I'm thinking of making a Kobold Evolutionist whose goal isn't to become a Dragon to be more powerful in combat but because some Dragons CEOs of big corporations and my Kobold character wants to start a record label. Only problem is that's going to be hard to fit in having a mutated arm as a weapon into the character concept.
Just had another strange concept a shirren Evolutionist uncontrollably evolving into some type of swarm creature. At 20th level is rejoined with the swarm hive mind and becomes an NPC that needs to be destroyed.
The evolutionist is the newest class. It could greatly benefit from having some alternative class features, I wonder if it would help if some of the alternative class features had alternative key ability scores. More adaptations would help too. Especially ones that let you slowly evolve from your starting species into the one you evolve into at 20th level. Or maybe that should be alternative nich features.
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Hate to say it, but re-reading the thread, and Evolutionist should have been included in the forthcoming Enhanced volume.
Gotta pump them MPs. Unless someone has reworked the class somehow, I can't see myself playing it. You just can't do the things you want to do.
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I agree with including it enhanced. It would’ve given more time so develop things.
And yes the class does free up funds for other augmentations, but freeing up funds shouldn’t really be a cornerstone of the class.; class features shouldn’t be so easily be replaced by purchasing gear in the first place, or nearly replaced.
I’m also confused by all of the downsides your niches give you. Some of them are quite harsh. What’s with paizo’s on giving characters penalties from the get go? Solarian (at first) couldn’t focus too much on one revelation branch or they’d be penalized, and now evolutionist with these drawbacks. The solarian drawback wasn’t even too harsh by comparison. For a class that seems to want to be in the thick of things, this class has the potential to take a lot of damage *by design* without much mitigation, à la vanguard or nanocyte.
I think this bothers me only because the class seems to require a very high level of system understanding and planning, without much reward. You have to have a good understanding of the class, manage your MP, avoid damage types, etc, all to have class features that are mostly just purchasable augmentations. Those adaptations that aren’t replicable by augmentations, are pretty niche, and I can’t see them being used as you’re already going to be spending MP on other things every round, or dumping it somehow to avoid extra damage, not to mention not even choosing those adaptations to begin with, since you don’t get access to all of them (which I feel like this class should have; the evolutionist should be able to adapt to anything, on the fly, imo…I mean it’s kinda in the name).
Again, I feel like the “adaptable” niche was covered pretty well with the nanocyte, to me that class is already the “adapt to any situation/venom symbiote/transforming class”, and biohacker/mechanic is the “augmentation/weird science” guy.
I don't see gear doing that same thing as mutation points as an issue. I see it as freeing up credits to buy gear that does something you can't do with mutation points.
Because your income scales so quickly saving on cheap gear becomes a non issue rather quickly. Even IF i didn't want the 10 extra feat of movement at the start of combat right away (and to be clear, thats when you want it most), or when doing an overland hustle, or running through the space station while the nuclear bomb counts down ... thats 2,000 credits. Half of my paycheck From ONE level 5 adventure.
1 MP: You gain a +5-foot enhancement bonus to one speed of your choice. Ur example
2 MP: Your adaptive strike gains a critical hit effect: 1) I could just be using a weapon 2) These are meh, most things that get critted aren't getting a turn any time soon.
3 MP: The enhancement bonus to speed increases to +10 feet.
4 MP: If you’re wearing light armor or no armor, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your AC. If you’re wearing heavy or powered armor, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your EAC, though this can’t increase your EAC above your KAC. Ooo I'm an armored solarion! ... If you're saying "there's an armor solarion?" Exactly.
5 MP: Once per round, when you deal damage with your adaptive strike, you can increase the damage dealt to one target by an amount equal to half your evolutionist level (minimum +1 damage) Blech
6 MP: You gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your saving throws. Won't stack with my ring. that won't even cancel out the penalty to my will save I have tor mp
7 MP: The enhancement bonus to speed increases to +20 feet. Nice but this is like.. round 5 of combat? I'm already chomping on someones face.
8 MP: The enhancement bonus to your AC or EAC increases to +2. AC. Meh. Gonna get hit anyway.
Instead I made a medic mystic Dragonkin. They're a xenordruid but I'm swapping out the first and third abilities for wrecking fists and healing channel. he has the AC of a broad side of a barn which.. is oddly advantageous at drawing fire. He can spend a resolve and regenerate 4d8 HP which will bleed over into his stamina. Twice (or 3 with hyper graft) times a round as need be.
Extra sense lets him evolve/advance his draconic senses
Force blast is a REALLY loud dragon shout (Fus ROAR dah)
I don't like that i can't recharge his dragon breath, when you can recharge the dragon gland. But I needed wildwise to make up for the swapped out xenodruid ability.
Soon He'll start polymorphing , which is one spell with a LOT of versatile ways of adapting to situations. Like teeny tiny spaceship hallways designed by midgets!
A club tail becomes more useful if you add the Distant Strikes and then the Area Strike adaptions. With the extra move speed from having mutation points, you can quickly threaten a huge area on the map and hit multiple targets.
So how is distant strikes different than just buying a cryopike? Except that the evolutionist has to burn a swift action so can't full attack (one of the very nice benefits of reach)
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A club tail becomes more useful if you add the Distant Strikes and then the Area Strike adaptions. With the extra move speed from having mutation points, you can quickly threaten a huge area on the map and hit multiple targets.So how is distant strikes different than just buying a cryopike? Except that the evolutionist has to burn a swift action so can't full attack (one of the very nice benefits of reach)
Flavor is the big difference. One character shops the get reach one evolves. At first, shopping looks like the better option, but later the evolutionist can evolve more to add Area Strike, which in the right situation, can hit even more targets than a full attack and without the -4 to hit. Pikes are advanced melee weapons, so an evolutionist needs to spend a feat to be proficient in them.
My first evolutionist is a Shobhad original. I had built him to have a pike and use the distance and area strike adaptions but later rebuilt him not to use the pike, replacing advanced weapon proficiency feat with cleave, mostly for flavor because I thought gaining cleave felt more like evolving than shopping for a pike.
So I feel the evolutionist is a strong flavor class which might not be to everyone's taste.
Flavor is the big difference. One character shops the get reach one evolves. At first, shopping looks like the better option, but later the evolutionist can evolve more to add Area Strike, which in the right situation, can hit even more targets than a full attack and without the -4 to hit. Pikes are advanced melee weapons, so an evolutionist needs to spend a feat to be proficient in them.
Right but I'm deciding to be an evolutionist and not some other class that gives me other class features. For that I get to be guy with not quite as good with pike. And then at level 6 it does something cool. With 2/3rds of my class abilities sunk into it.
That is a long way to go for it to really do anything.
So I feel the evolutionist is a strong flavor class which might not be to everyone's taste.
Which has been gamer speak for "effectively broken" for at least 30 years. A class is a mechanical concept. The player provides the flavor in conjunction with the class. If the class isn't providing the mechanics something has gone wrong.
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There's no right way to build a character. Some people build a character in a kitchen some build in a mechanics' garage.
I think this class is trying to ride the spaghetti and eat the motor oil.
I've been fiddling around with a couple evolutionist character concepts to see what I can do, without "cheating" and just dipping blitz soldier to make things easier.
One that is probably at least decent is a dwarf Biotechnician evolutionist with the Vital niche*. Start with 16 Str, 12 Dex, 12 Con, 12 Int, 13 Wis, 8 Cha; Adaptive Strike (melee, [energy]**); Heavy Armor Proficiency; Hidden Soldier Armor, Tactical Starknife (since dwarf gets proficiency/specialization in advanced melee weapons automatically) with called fusion. At 2nd level, use Augmented Form for a Photoenergetic Node*** (to use on the starknife) and take the Distant Strikes adaptation for reach with your adaptive strike. At 3rd level, Iron Will is probably a good feat choice. At 4th level, take Versatile Strike adaptation. At 5th level, +2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, +2 Wis; Enhanced Resistance is probably a good feat choice; should also have a Personal Upgrade Mk I for Str (20 Str total). At 6th level, the Advanced Mobility (fly) adaptation might make sense. At 7th level, pick between Augmentation or Combat as the evolutionary focus; the Connection Inkling feat would probably be useful. At 8th level, the Area Strike adaptation would probably make sense. At 9th level, the Deflect Projectiles feat is a good choice (especially if you've upgraded to a Sintered Starknife with the called, spellthrower, and one of flaming, frost, or shock fusions).
*- the Vital niche probably has the most versatility because adaptive biochains can "poach" cybernetic augmentations as biotech
**- pick whatever suits your taste, but electricity or sonic are usually more useful
***- switch to Adaptive Biochains (Minimal Speed Suspension) at 4th and install a Photoenergetic Node normally; Adaptive Biochains (Standard Speed Suspension) at 8th; if you select Augmentation as the evolutionary focus, you can switch the speed suspension to the second free augmentation two levels after you first take it and switch to something else with the free augmentation from Augmented Form