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What about a Monk entering a Stance ?
Or an Investigator using Devise a Stratagem ?
Just for the fun of being nitpicky: The Monk can't enter a Stance outside combat. And Devise a Stratagem does nothing outside combat (as it requires "rounds" to work).
Encounter mode. Not necessarily combat.
I could even start the encounter mode by using a Stance or DaS.
Does not mean my PC is going to attack anybody.
What classes need a few levels to begin functioning like you'd want them to? I see Alchemist (most builds), Magus and a lot of casters (they need to get to level 5 to finally get good stuff). So, I agree that Kineticists is not the sole class with this issue but in my opinion casters are "paying" low level weakness for high level power and Alchemist is not a class you want to be compared to.
Most martials are playable right off the bat. Their low level feats are in general rather unimpactful. At level 8 or 10, they start getting the good stuff, but it's not stuff that allows them to work as intended but to build up crazy abilities. I've never built a martial thinking about level 5-8 as the level where they'll start "working". Most of them were working fine immediately, with level 5-8 the levels where I have enough feats for them to look different than their neighbour.
That is indeed the problem. Martials simply function well enough from 1-20 while non-martials are nearly dead weight until you escape the early levels. The kineticist has the miserable early game of a caster while using feats to grow like a martial. Only they get AoE options and magic-ish utility instead of the usual martial feat options.
Still, like casters they do eventually stop being a waste of a party slot. They don't scale as hard as casters do since it's hard to beat the top tier spells, but they end up pretty average overall which is enough.
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I'm sort of befuddled by this idea that they're just dead weight at low levels. Even at the absolute worst baseline, an EB throwing kineticist is basically a ranged martial who also happens to probably have some free AoE damage or healing or battlefield control (or maybe all three) in their kit.
They're certainly not perfect and definitely want to scale into everything they need, but the hyperbole here is kind of goofy.
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I'm sort of befuddled by this idea that they're just dead weight at low levels.
I think that's a rare opinion though.
You can easily feel like you're carrying your entire party for the first few levels. My damage output was unmatched until we hit level 3, and I'm built for healing.
I still pull heavy weight now because while yes; I am built for healing - I can "face tank" and I have potent AoEs I can drop all over the map with unlimited uses, and a toolkit of attacks. My only weakpoint is that am either going against attack rolls or reflex. A slot-caster likely has access to will or fort as well - even in their cantrips.
And my stuff scales better than those cantrips.
We have a psychic in our group and for a few turns per day they hit really hard, then they're largely sitting out the fight. I on the other hand am an "Energizer Bunny". I deliver a consistent mid-range result throughout, which if I can force good positioning becomes heavy hitting.
And that pattern started at level 1.
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So... In PFS setting... You are going to not follow the printed rules... in order to reduce table variation.By straight rules text that is correct, but that was the ruling we made to reduce table variation. Literally no one has complained about it....We allow keeping your aura up in exploration mode, but then that is your exploration activity (similar to "repeatedly casting a spell") ...Keeping your aura active is not an action or an activity though. It requires zero effort and has no set duration.
It is no more strenuous than wearing your armor after you put it on.
...
If those are the clear written rules. (I have no opinion.) Most of our GMs were disallowing having your gate up for indefinite periods of time. This was the compromise position that made everyone happy.
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IMO, having your gate open is like being a Gnoll with claws, or a shisk with spins.
It's just kind of a part of you.
Martials simply function well enough from 1-20 while non-martials are nearly dead weight until you escape the early levels.
You are getting further than me. I don't consider neither low level casters nor Kineticist "dead weight". I used the word "lackluster". I position low level Kineticist around Swashbuckler, Investigator and the like: playable but not strong.
I actually think the comparison is fair as in my opinion building and playing a Kineticist is much more complex than what it may seem at first glance. The class has a lot of internal complexities asking for a tactically-minded player to succeed at using its full potential.I'm sort of befuddled by this idea that they're just dead weight at low levels. Even at the absolute worst baseline, an EB throwing kineticist is basically a ranged martial who also happens to probably have some free AoE damage or healing or battlefield control (or maybe all three) in their kit.
To be honest, low level ranged martials is hardly a high bar. And technically a Bow Ranger (to take a very classical build) significantly outdamages a low level Kineticist. That's really what I found when playing with Kineticists: The damage is low and the extra stuff on the side doesn't really compensate for it (and on top of it out of combat contribution is also low).
I'm sort of befuddled by this idea that they're just dead weight at low levels. Even at the absolute worst baseline, an EB throwing kineticist is basically a ranged martial who also happens to probably have some free AoE damage or healing or battlefield control (or maybe all three) in their kit.
They're certainly not perfect and definitely want to scale into everything they need, but the hyperbole here is kind of goofy.
Putting aside how bad most ranged builds are early on, kineticist gets to enjoy being 1 level behind martials on their +1 item to their blasts, 1 level behind their die scaling on those blasts and also get to enjoy the 5-6 caster hump where their save DC hasn't scaled. They can't even get an early bump from the local magic weapon bot like ranged martials can.
They're basically a caster with a bow but none of the potential represented by spell slots or some of the better focus spells/cantrips. And it's not like that's considered a particularly strong/compelling early game either.
I position low level Kineticist around Swashbuckler, Investigator and the like: playable but not strong.
Ah, see I consider those two to be unplayable trash. At least kineticist grows out of it.
Our top damage dealer in my group is our swashbuckler. He plays right for high offensive strategy and manages to keep panache up to a comical degree.
Situation depending it then varies but I still do pretty well.
At level 1 it was my kineticist though. I don't get this opinion that they start weak - I was comically strong in our first 10 or so encounters.
Usually spamming either a fire or water impulse, and then a blast - in the same turn. I take extra care to get myself positioned well and try and keep position so I can usually do both of those with my 3 actions. Sometimes I love the blast to movement or a little more lost if I have to go around healing folks.
RAW keeping your gate up is not an action nor an exploration action. It just is.
So my kineticist has it up nearly 24/7 unless it would just be "weird" like in a social encounter.
It is a super obvious thing though, so I've even used that in story writeups:
.
"But you said you were attacked?""Oh... Oh yeah. Middle 'o the night, woke to some fellers in the hallway gett'n stabby with a guard." Yanla made a stabbing motion. "They were right surprised when we opened our door 'afore they could."
"Oh my..."
"So I lit em up good," Yanla gave a wicked grin and made finger shooting gestures with her fingers as little bits of firey figurines zipped about like arrows.
"Ma'am..." someone sternly said behind her.
"So then we were like..." Yanla continued making fighting gestures.
"Excuse me Ma'am..."
"Oh!" Yanla turned around into the face of a local guardsman. Probably the sole guardsman in a town this size, not that she knew.
"Ma'am, you need to put that out..." he pointed to the little figures of fire and water dancing all around Yanla for several feet - somehow not catching anything on fire or getting anything wet despite appearances.
"Oh... beg pardon," Yanla shut down her elemental gate. "I forget 'bout Carlos sometimes..."
The guard and farmer share a "who's Carlos" shrug between them.
"I heard you say the keep was attacked?" the Guard asked.
We get a hero point extra to start a session with if we do a writeup of the last session. In mine I often go on tangents and instead write up her 'thoughts and activities' between sessions. The above being her shopping for rations in the first town out from where you start Kingmaker.
Anyway... nothing says the gate can't be up all the time. So my Kineticist "forgets" she's running around inside of a giant fireball. ;)
Her exploration activity is being stealthy because yeah... it makes no sense but it RAW accurate so I do it a bit to be silly...
PS: "Carlos" is her name for her gate. She's of the opinion that she's not actually magical, but is being followed around by a helpful elemental she's named Carlos - part of my plan to eventually give her the summoner archetype.
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If those are the clear written rules. (I have no opinion.) Most of our GMs were disallowing having your gate up for indefinite periods of time. This was the compromise position that made everyone happy.
Kinetic Aura lists very specifically what closes the gate.
Your kinetic aura automatically deactivates if you're knocked out, you use an impulse with the overflow trait, or you Dismiss the aura.
Neither time, nor inattention are on the list.
Kinetic Aura does not need to be sustained, and it isn't a Stance that is only available during encounters.
I have no idea what logic these GMs are using to disallow having Kinetic Gate up for indefinite periods of time.
Our top damage dealer in my group is our swashbuckler. He plays right for high offensive strategy and manages to keep panache up to a comical degree.
Situation depending it then varies but I still do pretty well.
At level 1 it was my kineticist though. I don't get this opinion that they start weak - I was comically strong in our first 10 or so encounters.
Usually spamming either a fire or water impulse, and then a blast - in the same turn. I take extra care to get myself positioned well and try and keep position so I can usually do both of those with my 3 actions. Sometimes I love the blast to movement or a little more lost if I have to go around healing folks.
A swashbuckler would never consistently be the top damage dealer in groups like myself and folks like gesalt play in where players are maximizing the power of a class. Swashbuckler effectiveness has been calculated and compared, they are generally quite a bit behind other martials until around level 14? Whenever they get Perfect Finisher and can really max out their panache skills. Even then they have some real problems during rounds where they miss their panache rolls or are out of position to use panache which ramps down their damage substantially.
I have not played a low level kineticist. I can see where they would be fairly weak single target damage, while not too bad in AOE.
The fire kineticist I play at level 11 does a lot of aggregate damage. The reason is they can use a save impulse often against multiple targets in combination with a regular blast in combination with Thermal Nimbus damage. This all adds up to quite a bit of damage a round, especially so against mooks.
This doesn't do as much single target as the rogue or imaginary weapon magus, but against groups I think it matches or exceeds both of those classes as much of their damage against mooks is overkill.
Our Swashbuckler seems to get criticals at a minimum of every other turn.
For the past few sessions he's been dishing out damage numbers in the 40s at level 3 on a regular basis.
At level 1 I was able to consistently deliver a 1d6 flame arrow and a 1d8 water blast every turn. The flame arrow hitting everyone I could reach but that's still strong single target. I'm now up to 2 dice on the flame and on my water cones, and 3d4 on dropping an ice storm at range.
- But at level 1 everyone else was dishing out 1 dice per turn as they were rarely overcoming MAP. They started being able to beat MAP more at level 3, as well as opening up critical spam with their other actions driven by weapon traits, skills, and feats.
Whereas I am now falling off as while my raw dice go up, my critical odds have not (reflex is a common choice for an enemy's good save, and even with a gate attenuator (I have 2 - one for each element) my blast accuracy doesn't match the martials. Though it is better than a caster - we had a sorcerer for one session who built himself around attack rolls instead of saves. He swapped characters the next session for a monk - but has only had that monk for one session now so too early to tell how it will perform).
My best move is to line up my cone attack as it's 2d8 - but lining that one up is tricky as I compete for space on the map and try not to blast my allies. So I rely on the ice storm a lot to hit things from behind, or the flame jet to draw complicated paths around my allies.
But there is NOTHING on my sheet that can give me a reliable 40+ damage roll every other turn.
I have mentioned before that the observed performance of Swashbuckler depends on if you are fighting enemies of higher or lower level than the party.
The damage potential of Swashbuckler is really high. But it is also very unreliable.
Against higher level enemies, the unreliability wins and Swashbuckler struggles to do much damage.
Against lower level enemies, Swashbuckler is one of the best mook blasters in the game.
A lvl 3 swashbuckler do with a rapier.
1d6 plus plus 2d6 precise strike with deadly d8. If Strength focused with a 14 to 16 strength, a finisher strike critical would do about an average of 28 to 29 with a maximum of 48 or so. so very possible with crits to hammer that hard, a bit higher with a striking weapon one time a round as long as they can keep up panache.
This reality changes as you level with the swashbuckler compared to fighters, barbs, and rogues until the gap closes around level 14 or 15 when they get Perfect Strike with Legendary plus items in their panache skills. Then they close the gap some.
Kineticist would be able to do a 2 action blast for 1d6 to 1d8 with Con bonus and strength if using weapon infusion and having any kind of built up strength. So 5 to 9 for a blast plus strength bonus if any. Or a 2 action AoE impulse.
I could see a swashbuckler looking fairly tough at early level compared to a kineticist. I know the kineticist was feeling a little weak until I picked up Solar Detonation and my Thermal Nimbus grew to 20 feet and did more damage.
That's the thing with swashbucklers. They are still doing finishers as you level like a lot of martials, but Kineticists start to tap into a whole variety of powers.
A lvl 3 swashbuckler do with a rapier.
. . . [stuff] . . .
This reality changes as you level with the swashbuckler compared to fighters, barbs, and rogues until the gap closes around level 14 or 15 when they get Perfect Strike with Legendary plus items in their panache skills. Then they close the gap some.
Kineticist would be able to do a 2 action blast for 1d6 to 1d8 with Con bonus and strength if using weapon infusion and having any kind of built up strength. So 5 to 9 for a blast plus strength bonus if any. Or a 2 action AoE impulse.
I could see a swashbuckler looking fairly tough at early level compared to a kineticist.
Yeah. We're just level 4. Hit that at the end of last session so we have yet to play as level 4. I don't expect our swashbuckler to keep his top DPS spot. He's just claimed it for now. It could be as simple as good tactics compared to the other martials in the 'early game'.
The real surprise for me is that we've had a barbarian since session 0 and while at first he was top DPS; our swashbuckler got killed, and replaced his character with "my other brother Daryll" - who had almost the same character sheet but with some minor tweaks. And since that point the "brother who looks suspiciously familiar" has been our top DPS.
But again; I've also read how poorly swashbuckler is seen in the "meta" so I am expecting to see his numbers drop off once the rest of us get the right feats added into our builds.
...
...
As for me. I almost never do two action blasts. While the +4 bonus to damage is nice - attack roll abilities are less predictable so I only blast as my backup or third action. With a reflex save attack - even when they make a save I'm still tapping people on the shoulder. ;)
That was a lesson I learned in my first PF2E PC. A pre-remaster occult witch. Phase bolt started being unable to hit the side of Mt Rushmore even if it was hogtied and blindfolded by level 4... so I used a feat retrain to pick up a spell outside my type - and started relying on electric arc spam.
So in building my kineticist I'm relying mostly on things that have a saving throw. A LOT of enemies in PF2E have good reflex saves which is actually a notable dent in Kineticist throughput. But I only see 1-3 enemies per game session make a critical save, and with good tactics I'm keeping up decent numbers.
What I like about Kineticist is there are ways to be "effective and fun" all through the levels. There's no "gap levels" like I felt with my old witch when suddenly my attack rolls got really bad.
Sure, there's a lack of skill variety / utility. Easily overcome in a free archetype game. But in a game without Free archetype you might hit a point where you notice you're too tightly themed.
Kind of itching to play the class in a game with no variant rules and see how that feels.
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Mentioning my witch reminded me of another thing about Kineticist...
The Witch was being used in Abomination Vaults - a level by level going down dungeon crawl with a new combat encounter behind every door. You can easily have a dozen combats per daily rest.
You run out of spell slots really fast. So I started to over rely on my cantrips and save my spell slots for where I guessed a mini-boss might be.
A Kineticist would be better than a slot based caster in a dungeon crawl. Unlimited uses of abilities that are just slightly below power of a spell slot spell.
My Kineticist though, is in Kingmaker. For most of this adventure we have 1 encounter a day at most. A few spots are mini-dungeons or chain encounters (the adventure has one early on, and so far it was the most action filled moment of the campaign).
- A slot based caster is superior here because you can more safely burn all your big hitters on ever encounter.
It's kind of why you see the mages of MMOs built more like Kineticist. Vancian casting just doesn't work well in environments where you're spamming combats between even 10 minute rest (at best).
But when you come to a single battle every so often, and have prep time for it, that wide list of limited use spells pulls ahead.
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A lvl 3 swashbuckler do with a rapier.
. . . [stuff] . . .
This reality changes as you level with the swashbuckler compared to fighters, barbs, and rogues until the gap closes around level 14 or 15 when they get Perfect Strike with Legendary plus items in their panache skills. Then they close the gap some.
Kineticist would be able to do a 2 action blast for 1d6 to 1d8 with Con bonus and strength if using weapon infusion and having any kind of built up strength. So 5 to 9 for a blast plus strength bonus if any. Or a 2 action AoE impulse.
I could see a swashbuckler looking fairly tough at early level compared to a kineticist.
Yeah. We're just level 4. Hit that at the end of last session so we have yet to play as level 4. I don't expect our swashbuckler to keep his top DPS spot. He's just claimed it for now. It could be as simple as good tactics compared to the other martials in the 'early game'.
The real surprise for me is that we've had a barbarian since session 0 and while at first he was top DPS; our swashbuckler got killed, and replaced his character with "my other brother Daryll" - who had almost the same character sheet but with some minor tweaks. And since that point the "brother who looks suspiciously familiar" has been our top DPS.
But again; I've also read how poorly swashbuckler is seen in the "meta" so I am expecting to see his numbers drop off once the rest of us get the right feats added into our builds.
...
...As for me. I almost never do two action blasts. While the +4 bonus to damage is nice - attack roll abilities are less predictable so I only blast as my backup or third action. With a reflex save attack - even when they make a save I'm still tapping people on the shoulder. ;)
That was a lesson I learned in my first PF2E PC. A pre-remaster occult witch. Phase bolt started being unable to hit the side of Mt Rushmore even if it was hogtied and blindfolded by level 4... so I used a feat retrain to pick up a spell outside my type -...
The barbarian tends to have problems staying on their feet early on. Can hit pretty hard, but they also don't come into power until later on when they have enough hit points to take hits and their rage damage starts to rise.
You have learned the lesson of Electric Arc. Sad that it is the best cantrip, but they really need to give casters an item bonus to attack rolls for attack spells. Fortunately as a caster, you'll barely use cantrips or attack roll spells as you level. Too much other good stuff to do. Hopefully you're using Remaster Witch, which is quite a bit better than the base witch.
Swash has its moments, but it starts to lag during a middle level period and then rebounds with Perfect Strike. It is better against mooks that might set off Opportune Riposte as their AC goes up.
It's real hard to compete against rogues, fighters, barbs, and magus at high level. The rogue does damage while debuffing, which just gets nutty at high level along with the best reaction in the game for a martial attack. When fighters get Legendary weapon proficiency, they start critting a ton. Barb rage gets pretty nutty as does Magus spellstrike.
And casters get ridiculous at high level. Not as ridiculous as PF1, but still pretty ridiculous.
Swash, investigator, ranger, and a few others have trouble keeping up.
Not sure on the Kineticist. They look pretty good at high level and seem to be scaling well near as I can tell up to level 11. I'll update once I get in the 16 plus range as that's a new level of scaling.
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PF2 inherited the same general problem from 3.X/PF1 of low level casters being excessively weak and limited in the first levels (1-4) due the low number of slots and the questionable effectiveness of Rank 1 and Rank 2 spells that lacks from good AoE and the low level debuffs are basically a 2-action activity that costs 1 spell slot to do what Trip does in a single-action resourceless athletics maneuver usually with a better hit-rate and also usually have a hole in its 3rd-action that usually needs a weapon or a shield (can be the Shield spell too) to give some utility.
OK there are some exception to this like Psychics that in lvl 2 can use 2 focus spells + Psi Burst with Unleash Psyche bonus but in general low-level kineticists already begins in a way better situation than casters in level 1. For example a level 1 geokineticist using a heavy-armor with almost the double HP of a caster begins doing a 1d8 10-foot burst that can make the opponents prone if you get luck and completes with 1d8 blast that can get Str bonus if you casts in melee. OK this isn't way better then a summoner doing an EA + 2 Strikes with the Eidolon but itás pretty competitive with many ranged martials.
So IMO in general I think that kineticists already begins pretty well and becomes better and better in higher levels. I don't agree with the statements that say that kineticists starts too weak at low-levels and compare them with melee martials usually is unfair in face of its versatility over them.
Kineticist would be able to do a 2 action blast for 1d6 to 1d8 with Con bonus and strength if using weapon infusion and having any kind of built up strength. So 5 to 9 for a blast plus strength bonus if any. Or a 2 action AoE impulse.
2-action blast is a bad idea. At level 1-2 it can be justified for single target damage but once at level 3 there's no reason to use it anymore unless you can't cast any other Impulse. Overall, it's a waste of design space and a trap for beginners.
The fire kineticist I play at level 11 does a lot of aggregate damage. The reason is they can use a save impulse often against multiple targets in combination with a regular blast in combination with Thermal Nimbus damage. This all adds up to quite a bit of damage a round, especially so against mooks.
Have you met any Fire Immune enemy or magic immune enemy? And what's your strategy in that case?
Remember that if you can't do anything but watching during a fight you are bumping the encounter severity by one step. Severe encounters becoming Extreme encounters means that it can get the party killed. So it's not a rare situation that you can handwave, it's a rare situation that can get everyone killed so you absolutely need to be effective in that case.Lots of things.
I feel you are painting casters as worse than they actually are. Cantrips are ok at low level, Electric Arc is for example as good as Winter's Clutch but easier to land. With a ranged attack (typically a crossbow) you are not that far away from a Kineticist in terms of damage output. And when it comes to utility you are much more impactful (even if you can't do it all day), especially if you have access to Heal. You also have higher out of combat ability but you definitely have worse tankyness (even if 8hp + light armor casters are actually nearly as tanky as a Kineticist). So overall, I don't feel a low level Kineticist is much better than a low level caster. I position the low level Kineticist much closer to low level casters than to low level Str-based martials.
So in building my kineticist I'm relying mostly on things that have a saving throw. A LOT of enemies in PF2E have good reflex saves which is actually a notable dent in Kineticist throughput. But I only see 1-3 enemies per game session make a critical save, and with good tactics I'm keeping up decent numbers.
This is mainly low level enemies. Awhile back I did some data crunching for saves to target with AoN data for a sorcerer I was playing. Based on the data, my general rule of what to target if you know nothing (e.g. crit fail your RK):
enemy levels:
-1:4 Will, Fortitude, Reflex (lots of high reflex saves here)
5:14 Will, Reflex, Fortitude
15:20 Reflex, Will, Fortitude
As a side, This is why the earth impulse Tremor is sneakily good. It's the only level 1 impulse to target fortitude.
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One thing I find slightly unsettling when building a Kineticist is that you generally start with a bunch of elements that strongly define your character, like Earth/Fire Kineticist or Wood Kineticist. But then after some time you are nearly forced to Fork the Path as otherwise you'd need to take all the Junctions from Expand the Portal (and I hardly see an element where all of them are good). So you add an element to your Kineticist, strongly affecting how it is defined. Normally, for other classes, these kind of strong changes to a character feel only happen with Dedications that you often choose at level 2 (even if with FA it happens often at higher level but not all Dedications affect how a character feels). If there are strong events in the adventure that justify adding an element it's fine, but otherwise it feels like a character change mid-campaign and I personally don't like that much.
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Kineticist would be able to do a 2 action blast for 1d6 to 1d8 with Con bonus and strength if using weapon infusion and having any kind of built up strength. So 5 to 9 for a blast plus strength bonus if any. Or a 2 action AoE impulse.2-action blast is a bad idea. At level 1-2 it can be justified for single target damage but once at level 3 there's no reason to use it anymore unless you can't cast any other Impulse. Overall, it's a waste of design space and a trap for beginners.
The fire kineticist I play at level 11 does a lot of aggregate damage. The reason is they can use a save impulse often against multiple targets in combination with a regular blast in combination with Thermal Nimbus damage. This all adds up to quite a bit of damage a round, especially so against mooks.Have you met any Fire Immune enemy or magic immune enemy? And what's your strategy in that case?
Remember that if you can't do anything but watching during a fight you are bumping the encounter severity by one step. Severe encounters becoming Extreme encounters means that it can get the party killed. So it's not a rare situation that you can handwave, it's a rare situation that can get everyone killed so you absolutely need to be effective in that case.
Depends. I can use Extract Element on creatures with the fire trait or made of fire.
Mainly I'm Dual Gate, so I switch to earth blasts.
The 2 action blast discussion was for those first few levels. Makes things a bit more tolerable at those levels.
Depends. I can use Extract Element on creatures with the fire trait or made of fire.
Mainly I'm Dual Gate, so I switch to earth blasts.
Devils are your bane. Same for Golems and most Will-o-Wisps. That's a significant number of creatures.
Kineticist would be able to do a 2 action blast for 1d6 to 1d8 with Con bonus and strength if using weapon infusion and having any kind of built up strength. So 5 to 9 for a blast plus strength bonus if any. Or a 2 action AoE impulse.2-action blast is a bad idea. At level 1-2 it can be justified for single target damage but once at level 3 there's no reason to use it anymore unless you can't cast any other Impulse. Overall, it's a waste of design space and a trap for beginners.
you also get your Junction with 2 actions. Assuming single gate.
So it's not just +damage. It's +Damage and +THP equal to your level.
But I do agree that it’s generally best to use another impulse + a 1 action blast.
So it's not just +damage. It's +Damage and +THP equal to your level.
THP?
Anyway, you also get the Impulse Junction with other 2-action Impulses. So the only reason to use 2-action Elemental Blast is level 1-2 single target damage (and in that case the gain is extremely low) and the rare situations where you can't use an Impulse but still have 3 actions to attack (as it's better to double on 1-action EB than use a 2-action EB).
Considering how niche it is, they should have gained design space by not printing it.
I also agree it's generally not the best option. But I don't see it as wasted design space or a trap. It's just conditionally useful. If for some reason you want to maximize damage on a single strike rather than using that extra action for another strike or some other activity, this helps. Sure Strike, for instance.2-action blast is a bad idea. At level 1-2 it can be justified for single target damage but once at level 3 there's no reason to use it anymore unless you can't cast any other Impulse. Overall, it's a waste of design space and a trap for beginners.you also get your Junction with 2 actions. Assuming single gate.
So it's not just +damage. It's +Damage and +THP equal to your level.
But I do agree that it’s generally best to use another impulse + a 1 action blast.
It's the power attack problem where spending two actions instead of attacking twice is generally a damage loss except against high resistance. Only in this case, it has a worse effect than power attack and also locks you out of your save-based impulses.
If it has any niche past level 2, it would be with earth+wood crit spec to auto-prone+pin on blast crit. I don't believe that's a real niche though.
So it's not just +damage. It's +Damage and +THP equal to your level.THP?
the wood Junction.
Or a step, or +1 AC, or whatever.it's better to double on 1-action EB than use a 2-action EB.
depends if you want the Junction effect or not.
If your air, and want to activate Desert Winds, step, and blast, then there is no reason not to use the 2 action blast.
Considering how niche it is, they should have gained design space by not printing it.
I agree it's a bit niche. But not quite as bad as your saying.
Well, it's not just about the space but about beginners who don't know that it's overall much worse than any other damage options.
Also, other 2-action Impulses get the Impulse Junction on top of dealing much higher damage (even if the enemy has high save as they do half damage on a success).
I find it useless complexity. They should have found something more useful than that or just saved us some trouble trying to find a (super niche) usage to it.
But it's not the only piece of design space that I find too specific to be printed. Arcane Cascade and Boost Eidolon are in the same ballpark: Not completely useless but so niche/hard to properly use that they should not have been a part of the base class.
At first level, +4 is doubling the damage of a d6 or d8. Thus a two action EB is double the damage of a one action EB, which is exactly where it should be.
Considering that 2-action Impulses deal half damage on a successful save and that many of them are d8 or 2d4 of damage and can hit multiple enemies, it actually doesn't really deal more damage. And even if you focus on EB, casting 2 of them is very close to what 2-action EB is doing at level 1-2, especially if you have a little bit of Strength.
Again, this is more options. Options are generally good.
"Generally" is the key word that makes me agree with you in general but not in this particular case.
As for the worry about beginner characters picking it when it's not the best tactical option, isn't that resolved in session 1 with 10 seconds of conversation?
I don't do that, otherwise I'd be pestering my teammates during the whole session. Also, not every beginner has an experience player next to them.
Putting in the game an ability that is mostly a trap leads to players getting trapped. I've seen far enough Power Attacks being used instead of 2 Strikes that I know it's an easy way to punish players who are trusting the game math.
That part is wrong.
Take as an example wood's non overflow impulse. At level 5-6 it will be dealing 2-3d6 damage.
A 2 action blast will be dealing 2d8+8Similarly for the majority of non overflow damaging options, dealing around 3d6 damage at that level range as opposed to 2dx+6-8
Air as a second example will be dealing 4d4, fire 3d6, wood 3d6, earth doesn't even have one, and etc
At level 5, you use 2 1-action EB as it blows 2-action EB. And if you have 3 actions, save-based Impulse + 1-action EB blows 2-action EB + 1-action EB.
2-action EB is plain bad and should never been used after level 2 outside extremely niche situations.
And in any single round you have to use another action and activate your Junction
Why would you need to activate your Junction so much that you give up on damage?
So it's niche.Or to be more precise: Situations where using 2-action EB will have a non-negligible impact over other options are super rare. Situations where using 2-action EB will screw you are many. So the net gain is ridiculous compared to how it punishes beginners.
Same as Power Attack which is one of the most classic beginner trap in the game.
At level 5, you use 2 1-action EB as it blows 2-action EB.Let's take a comparable opponent where AC = attack DC. 2d6+4 * .50 chance = 5.5 damage. 2d6*.50 chance + 2d6*.25 chance = 5.5. Same! For your own example, the one you chose to try and show the superiority of 1a EBs, it's pretty much the same average DPR.
You consider hitting on an 11, actually a 12 as you ignored crits. You chose the lowest damage of Fire and Air and no Str to damage. And even in that very buyist case, 2-action EB only gives you your Impulse junction, if you even have it. And of course it gets worse every level you take.
I fully agree there's a design space for 2-action EB that is important: single target damage. But the extremely bad progression pushes you to avoid using it as much as possible as every other option becomes quickly much better. If 2-action EB had a valid damage progression (or any other interesting advantage), based on martials first attack progression and not second attack progression (or third actually), it'd stay valid across all levels. But as it is, yes, it's a trap to me. You must avoid using it past certain levels (as clearly at high level it's a ridiculous Impulse) and many players who are not experts will continue considering it valid when it's no more. A perfect trap for beginners.
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We allow keeping your aura up in exploration mode, but then that is your exploration activity (similar to "repeatedly casting a spell")
That doesn't seem comparable to me because unless you overflow, fall unconscious, or voluntarily dismiss the aura, it remains active indefinitely without any effort. You literally don't need to "repeatedly activate."