If we want to maximize elemental blasts we are looking at grabbing fire for the bigger die, inflicting weakness and passive damage to enemies close to us, and furnace form adding another die. So 6d8+5+7+10(weakness) plus the passive damage of the nimbus for another 10+10(weakness) not accounting for mixing this up with other impulses and doing a 1 action blast as a follow up. That's 49 average for the two action impulse plus another 20 for just standing next to the enemy bringing you to 69(nice)we can go even further with a duel gate and "Two-element infusion." Turn those D8s into D10s. If we go with metal and pick up both critical effects. We can do persistent bleed and fire damage. Water critical effect looks also promising but I don't know how that would work with 2 elements.
Although with wood, you can pick up "living bonfire" and add additional d6s of fire damage, with a little setup.
Yeah I suppose the combined blasts would be fire impulses and thus get a bigger die, good catch. This means we can go Ferrous form instead of furnace form of we prefer and still get an extra die of damage. Going to d10 brings us up to base 55(6d10+5+7+10 weakness) on elemental blasts, and the bonfire can add 4d6 or d8 depending on if fire impulse junction works here, and I think it does. However you need to use a wood impulse to get this and it must also be a fire impulse to get the weakness and everything
However you need to use a wood impulse to get this and it must also be a fire impulse to get the weakness and everythingthat's where the feat "Two-element" comes in. It gives your elemental blasts the wood and fire trait. here.
I'm well aware, I was just forgetting that wood is also base d8, so you don't necessarily need metal at all to get the d10 trick with that feat
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we can go even further with a duel gate and "Two-element infusion." Turn those D8s into D10s. If we go with metal and pick up both critical effects. We can do persistent bleed and fire damage. Water critical effect looks also promising but I don't know how that would work with 2 elements.
Although with wood, you can pick up "living bonfire" and add additional d6s of fire damage, with a little setup.
Has there been an official ruling somewhere? I am guessing no, I would love to have this as an option for a Fire/X element combo but it seems very unclear.
There are a lot of reddit thread about whether it ends up as d8s or d10s. There doesn't seem to be a real consensus.
Just not sure I would go into a game expecting it to work this way. There are a lot of things going on with this combination of two element infusion that are strange.
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A plain reading of the rules says it works. Nothing suggests it's some kind of oversight. It's a simple interaction.
I won't go into argument here because I feel Reddit is so much easier to read these types of topics.
On a more interesting part of the discussion. If the GM does allow D10s with Two-Element Infusion, would this even be worth it? Seems like the math would be tough but I feel like...
1 Action Blast + 1 Action Blast when needing to move would be stronger with the fire aura junction or even using a different two action impulse.
When you have 3 actions it seems like 1 action blast + 2 action save spell would be better.
Trying to think about when it would be best used. Fire is loaded with amazing AOEs that I think chain infusion isn't even worth considering except maybe against 2 enemies. Even then flying flames would probably be better (because it procs aura on a save). Maybe against bosses this might be useful because the second hit would have a low chance to hit?
I do plan on playing Wood/Fire Kineticist some day and curious if this would be something worth considering. I feel like most of the time if I have 2 actions I would still want to do something else.
I was never aiming to present an unbiased data set, I was looking to set a bar and see if there were Kineticist builds that could clear it. If I was looking to present an unbiased data set I would have learned the Kineticist's builds and compared them to builds of other classes. If I had intentionally chosen terrible builds for the Kineticist there and good builds for the Psychic then I would have engaged in what you have accused me of doing.
My apologies for coming across as harsh. Again, I am not trying to attack character.
I built and played a Kineticist in a quick one-shot that only had Elemental Blast for dealing damage with. I had other Impulses that I was using, like Deflecting Wave, Timber Sentinel, Hardwood Armor, and Dash of Herbs. The damage wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't bad either. The defensive tanking abilities were fantastic though.
As for being an all-day caster, I am thinking that it means always having useful effects to cast no matter how long the battle goes on for. And Kineticist definitely does that. Even focus spell spellcasters run out of focus points after a few rounds. Sure, most battles only last 3 rounds in any meaningful sense, but there are exceptions. I played a character in a multi-stage combat that lasted 9 rounds because new enemies kept arriving. The Barbarians nearly ran out of Rage rounds.
In a battle like that, spell slot casters would run out of spell slots. Focus spell casters would run out of focus points. But a Fire Kineticist on round 9 of combat would still be throwing out any of Lava Leap, Flying Flame, Scorching Column, and maybe even a 1-action Elemental Blast to fill out the actions for a round.
So that is what I see as being the bar for calling Kineticist an all-day caster. Focus spell casters like Psychic come pretty close too.
Now if you are wanting to compare damage values among various spellcasters, that is a much more complicated thing to do. Especially when we are considering which round of combat we are making the comparison at.
My apologies for coming across as harsh. Again, I am not trying to attack character.
No worries, I can heat up quickly but I cool down after a bit away. Re-reading I was seeing more venom than was present.
I built and played a Kineticist in a quick one-shot that only had Elemental Blast for dealing damage with. I had other Impulses that I was using, like Deflecting Wave, Timber Sentinel, Hardwood Armor, and Dash of Herbs. The damage wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't bad either. The defensive tanking abilities were fantastic though.
As for being an all-day caster, I am thinking that it means always having useful effects to cast no matter how long the battle goes on for. And Kineticist definitely does that. Even focus spell spellcasters run out of focus points after a few rounds. Sure, most battles only last 3 rounds in any meaningful sense, but there are exceptions. I played a character in a multi-stage combat that lasted 9 rounds because new enemies kept arriving. The Barbarians nearly ran out of Rage rounds.
In a battle like that, spell slot casters would run out of spell slots. Focus spell casters would run out of focus points. But a Fire Kineticist on round 9 of combat would still be throwing out any of Lava Leap, Flying Flame, Scorching Column, and maybe even a 1-action Elemental Blast to fill out the actions for a round.
So that is what I see as being the bar for calling Kineticist an all-day caster. Focus spell casters like Psychic come pretty close too.
Now if you are wanting to compare damage values among various spellcasters, that is a much more complicated thing to do. Especially when we are considering which round of combat we are...
By that metric, I can see the merits of a Kineticist. Even aside from that, my idea for Psychic poaching a one-action blast focus spell doesn't work so I think Kineticist wins the three-round burst race too.
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I'm also seeing two very different questions/comparisons being made in this same thread.
1) Is Kineticist a better all-day caster than other spellcasters?
2) Is Kineticist a better damage dealer than other spellcasters?
Both of those measurements are good things to measure for the effectiveness of a particular character, but they are fundamentally different questions.
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tRPGs rarely have the kind of 'exact numeric balance' that we've gotten used to in many MMOs because tRPGs also allow for all kinds of moving parts and the ability to step off the train and go left or right of the railroad tracks.
(Hero system tried to be an exception to this and became near a unplayable mess with an insanely long rulebook with specific math for every last little tiny detail.)
Elemental Blast might not scale perfectly, but as people are showing it kind of fits into your action-rotation a little differently than electric arc spam would.
My own kineticist has "almost" the blasting power of a wizard without even being fire, but on endless spam-ables, while also having "almost" the healing power of a cloistered cleric. To me, I'm getting the stronger end of that trade-off.
My choices and options are very different though. At first it might look like I am just a caster in the back throw throwing out one impulse per turn from range - but that's not at all what I actually do. If I did try to play my kineticist as it was a spell slot caster I'd come up short. If I tried to play it like it was a cleric I'd come up short. If I tried to play like a melee martial I'd come up short.
Instead I try to play it like a kineticist and that works - although what that means is till evolving for me as I figure out the new class.
better to do two of them at 7d6+26 than one of them at 6d8+1d6+33(the Furnace form buff isn't an addition to the base blast, it's straight up "+1d6 fire damage on Strikes/blasts/etc")
If you have extra actions remaining, better sustain additional Suns for 7d8+18 each
Uh...
Opening your kinetic gate, you allow flames to consume your form and leave you a living flame. You gain the benefits of the fiery body spell (except the ability to cast ignition) until the end of your next turn. You can Sustain the impulse up to 1 minute, and when you do, you can Fly up to half your fly Speed. Your fire Elemental Blasts deal an additional die of damage.