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.
well, if you have a feature that requires a 2 action impulse, then you need to make sure that everyone starts with a 2 action impulse.
I do agree the design space could be better used. Like if the 2 action was a burst (with MAP).
But I don't expect even a new player to get "trapped" by it. Worst case they have a suboptimal turn or 3.
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?
Versatile Element feat solves that.
But personally this is why I always dual gate AND get versatile elements.
On your other note on 2-action blast. I partly agree. If we had a Martial's attack bonus I'd rely on it. But with a caster's attack bonus - while the gate attenuator halfway offsets that, I still find it too risky to rely on. So I use a 2-action save impulse followed by a 1-action blast. The blast missed about 55% of the time. The enemy's make their reflex saves about 55% of the time. But those still do something even with a save.
If your criteria for "trap" is "you must avoid using it past certain levels", then I guess I agree that according to you, this is one. I must say however that I think that's a pretty overbroad definition of 'trap.'
Sorry, but it's no broad definition of trap.
Actually, I say "past a certain level", but for dual element Strength based Kineticist it's never a good option. Dual element Dexterity based Kineticist and most single element Kineticists will stop using it at level 3 outside some niche situations. Only Air/Wood single element Kineticists manage to use it longer but will forget about it at mid level.There are no such options in the game. The example of spells, who have a rank, is a bad one: Everyone expects low rank spells to be worse than high rank spells and as such this evolution is natural. But noone expects core class features that improve with level to become very weak at some point, hence why I call it a "trap option".
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.Okay, here's what I get for .50 chance to miss on first strike, .05 chance to crit, d8 damage per your request, factoring double damage crits. Average dpr is...
2a: 7.15 vs. 2x1a 7.875. Less than a point.
You want to add in strength? Sure. For Str 4, it's...
2a 9.35 vs. 2x1a 11.05.Are you telling me you consider an extra 1.5 dpr at level 5 "blows it away"?
Personally, for me, this situation fits the label "it's not the average (that matters) but the distribution" to a T. When I want a 2a distribution, I'm going to pick that. When I want a 2x1a distribution, I'm going to pick that. Because the difference in average is pretty trivial.
Probably most direct comparisons would be a fire attack.
Since you can include the Junction boost.
Devils are your bane. Same for Golems and most Will-o-Wisps. That's a significant number of creatures.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.
If you have fire and earth like He noted then your blasts are doing:
earth, poison, fire & cold.
If you took Versatile Blast which I assume any sane build would.
Alternatively you could have taken Weapon Infusion instead or as well - giving you a whole different slew of traits to set for blasts.
Further, several impulses do damage of a different trait. Like Tidal Hands which does bludgeoning damage.
Plenty of ways to get the goal. Most Kineticists will have one of the two feats I mentioned letting them swap damage type on the fly with an attack that is decent enough to stay in the offense.
They likely have other tools in their kit as well. Mine can go healer, at level 5 if I take the rate gate option I will have the ability to move people around (I'm debating other choices though).
There's lots of options.
Yeah, that particular ruling is way off compared to RAW.
It's the same as saying that anyone holding a weapon can't do exploration activities.
It's even worse. Holding a weapon occupies one or more hands so in theory might block some activities... ("I want to hold my sword and shield but do sign language at the same time")
It's more like saying "you can't walk and take exploration activities".
It's almost like saying "you're wearing clothes - no exploration activities for you."
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Putting in the game an ability that is mostly a trap leads to players getting trapped.But it isn't mostly a trap. It's doing comparable damage to the other low-level options.
While I would normally never use a 2-action blast we've just had an example a few posts up where I would: facing an enemy immune to my main element, I'd switch to blasts with "versatile blast" to get to a different trait. At that point the 2-action blast becomes very appealing.
So it literally gives you a way to remain at "decent" throughput when you main trick has been circumvented. That's not a trap at all - that's a backdoor back into the fray with relevancy.
Honestly I think that the spells for a new edition need a pretty good compression (many spell could be turned into some kind of heightening or spellshate). We have a pretty high number of spells that could be optimized in many ways. IMO the kineticist's impulses only proves it.Agreed, compress spells and use it as justification for multi action differences and heightened options where possible.
But 3e is a long way away still what with the remaster being fresh.
I notice that spell compression is effectively an increase on spells known. When it's across anything other than spell rank, it also provides extra flexibility to spells memorized. I wonder... might it be reasonable to have a single spell potentially take multiple spells known? Like, you start with the basic version, but you can invest another "known spells" slot in it and unlock the 1-3 actions versions, and you could invest a second slot to get "and now it comes in your choice of elements" and so on. You might have one caster for whom it's a simple spell that does a specific thing and a second caster who invested heavily in realy understanding the thing for whom it's the core of their spell list.
Seems like it would work particularly well for Wizards because the prepared caster thing would mean that they'd be encouraged to really study a spell in-depth, to get every last bit of flexibility out of it. The Sorcerers might be able to draw more power out of the things, but the wizard is the one who can twist the spell in ways you'd never expect (unless you'd read the ruleook).
There's lots of options.
Not for Fire. Fire deals Fire damage and that's all.
Also, Versatile Blast improves Elemental Blasts, which are bad damage options. 1-action EB is fine because it's a third action that you can use with Channel Elements. But otherwise Elemental Blast is just slightly better than caster's attack, you don't want to use it as your damage option.
Devils are your bane. Same for Golems and most Will-o-Wisps. That's a significant number of creatures.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.
Not sure I agree other than will o wisps because it was a bad idea to use a blanket rule that all kineticist abilities are spells. It's another one of those rules where Paizo designers tacked it on to not make kineticists better than casters but didn't quite think it all the way out with all interactions.
As far as Devils, my impulses are limited. I took versatile blasts which allows me to do bludgeoning, piercing, poison, fire, and cold damage. I may fork the path to add even more types of damage.
One thing I believe was a poor design choice was making Elemental Apotheosis completely useless for most kineticists. It's a level 18 feat that is really cool, but rarely will you be able to use it unless you pick up one path the entire way which is far, far too limiting for Elemental Apotheosis to be worth the cost of narrowing your options. Very cool feat, but so limited almost no one will ever use it. Pretty sad when design decisions like that are made for very cool feats.
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There's lots of options.
Not for Fire. Fire deals Fire damage and that's all.
Also, Versatile Blast improves Elemental Blasts, which are bad damage options. 1-action EB is fine because it's a third action that you can use with Channel Elements. But otherwise Elemental Blast is just slightly better than caster's attack, you don't want to use it as your damage option.
Not the first time a monster immunity or ability has made life hard for a particular class.
Immunity to precision damage is pretty hard on rogues, investigators, and rangers, but they survive.
Similar thing could be said about melee magus vs creatures that triggers reactions vs manipulate actions.
Also many martials have to deal with physical resistant monsters that are pretty common in mid to high levels.
With the plethora of attack impulses in literally every element, being offered from levels 1 through 18, I don't think I ever read EB as intended to be the core class feature or the go-to attack for levels 1-20.
I don't recall of any single target Impulses besides EB. If there was some, I'd agree with you. But it seems EB is supposed to stay your main (if not sole) single target Impulse.
There's lots of options.
Not for Fire. Fire deals Fire damage and that's all.
Also, Versatile Blast improves Elemental Blasts, which are bad damage options. 1-action EB is fine because it's a third action that you can use with Channel Elements. But otherwise Elemental Blast is just slightly better than caster's attack, you don't want to use it as your damage option.
So, single-element fire has the following ways to deal non-Fire, non-Vitality damage.
- Elemental Blast, either using Versatile Blasts to get Cold or (for those who are not so heavily invested in overflow) using Weapon Infusion to get your choice of B/P/S and also probably get some strmod in there. Both are available at level 1.- Thermal Nimbus, at level 4 - the stance can go your choice of fire or cold.
- Elemental Overlap at level 8 gives access to Molten Wire (which does some slashing damage with its debuff), and Lava Leap (which does a little bit of bludgeoning damage with its movement and defensive increase).
So, sure. The Elemental Weapon version of Elemental Blast, plus the Cold version of Thermal Nimbus, plus Molten Wires but without the ongoing damage... it's not great. You lose out on your aura junction, molten wires takes a haircut and your options are much constrained. Even so, it's not useless. Even just using EW EB and pretending to be a low-grade martial (likely taking "agile" for your second attack of the round) is enough to contribute. For a dedicated damage type specialist that's faced with an encounter where every one of the enemies is immune to their chosen damage type... that's still not bad. Better yet, none of those picks are bad picks for the general case. If I were building a pure fire elementalist, I'd want to grab every single one of them, pretty much at the level it was offered, even if I knew for a fact that my campaign would never see fire immune or resistant monsters.
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In general, I'd say that single-action elemental blast is a class feature, while two-action blast is a temporary patch for the early levels for those that need it.
Ok ok, I take it back. The Kineticist has valid options against resistances and immunities, you convinced me!
I'm positioning myself a bit as the devil advocate, I must admit. I'll stop it.
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Just because I am seeing it brought up in terms of Kineticist effectiveness and damage. Golem anti-magic is going away in the remaster, replaced by resistance to spell damage except one damage type (if we look at the brass bastion its spell resistance is equal to physical resistance). This means that all of kineticist non-damage impulses will work against them and your damage impulses will be working against a resistance which you may be able to remove with extract element for stone/metal kineticists.
You can find the information about golems in January's Paizo Live
While this doesn't retcon the previous appearance of golems in APs (I run Age of Ashes and if I see another one I may just keel over)I don't think its much of an ask to replace the golem with the bastion equivalent when it comes out. I've already posted about my enjoyment as a Kineticist in this thread so I'll just add that I'm still having a great time when I get the chance to play mine in PFS lol.
Ok ok, I take it back. The Kineticist has valid options against resistances and immunities, you convinced me!
I'm positioning myself a bit as the devil advocate, I must admit. I'll stop it.
Yeah... now blanket magic immunity is pretty brutal. That's true. My understanding on that one, though, is that they're basically phasing it out. Like, when we get New Golems, whatever form they come in, they won't have it.
Yeah... now blanket magic immunity is pretty brutal. That's true. My understanding on that one, though, is that they're basically phasing it out. Like, when we get New Golems, whatever form they come in, they won't have it.Ok ok, I take it back. The Kineticist has valid options against resistances and immunities, you convinced me!
I'm positioning myself a bit as the devil advocate, I must admit. I'll stop it.
I will not miss magic immunity rules. They were fine in PF1 where summons were effective and they had the magic resistance rules so that spells that bypassed magic resistance could bypass magic immunity, but it's unnecessarily limiting and convoluted in PF2.
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I will not miss magic immunity rules. They were fine in PF1 where summons were effective and they had the magic resistance rules so that spells that bypassed magic resistance could bypass magic immunity, but it's unnecessarily limiting and convoluted in PF2.Yeah... now blanket magic immunity is pretty brutal. That's true. My understanding on that one, though, is that they're basically phasing it out. Like, when we get New Golems, whatever form they come in, they won't have it.Ok ok, I take it back. The Kineticist has valid options against resistances and immunities, you convinced me!
I'm positioning myself a bit as the devil advocate, I must admit. I'll stop it.
I totally agree. I'm not going to miss magic immunity at all.
I totally agree. I'm not going to miss magic immunity at all.I will not miss magic immunity rules. They were fine in PF1 where summons were effective and they had the magic resistance rules so that spells that bypassed magic resistance could bypass magic immunity, but it's unnecessarily limiting and convoluted in PF2.Yeah... now blanket magic immunity is pretty brutal. That's true. My understanding on that one, though, is that they're basically phasing it out. Like, when we get New Golems, whatever form they come in, they won't have it.Ok ok, I take it back. The Kineticist has valid options against resistances and immunities, you convinced me!
I'm positioning myself a bit as the devil advocate, I must admit. I'll stop it.
I much prefer when the immunity is instead a resistance.
Versatile Blast helps you get around immunity but then puts you in your weaker attacks. That's just fine because rather than 'void' a key ability of your opponent, you're still relevant and so are they. It flips something that was binary "you can total steamroll this NPC" vs "you get to go AFK for this fight" into just "this guy is harder than the usual mini-boss."
But... yeah. The less the game uses flat out immunities the better. I seriously hope that the Will-O-Wisp of Monster Core just has a magic resistance rather than "you go sit in the AFK corner for this one because you didn't bring or ran out of magic missiles."
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Extract Elements, Ash Strider, Elemental Artillery, Flinging Updraft, Glacial Prison, Molten Wire, Sand Snatcher and Witchwood Seed are all single target offensive impulses.
Only Molten Wire and Witchwood Seed can be considered replacements for 2-action EB. Elemental Artillery is very different mechanically even if it covers the same role. So 3 Impulses including 2 Composite ones, I think it's very much not obvious that Impulses are supposed to replace 2-action EB.
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Extract Elements, Ash Strider, Elemental Artillery, Flinging Updraft, Glacial Prison, Molten Wire, Sand Snatcher and Witchwood Seed are all single target offensive impulses.Only Molten Wire and Witchwood Seed can be considered replacements for 2-action EB. Elemental Artillery is very different mechanically even if it covers the same role. So 3 Impulses including 2 Composite ones, I think it's very much not obvious that Impulses are supposed to replace 2-action EB.
I am not impressed with Molten Wire. Range is 15 feet. It does weak damage applying a clumsy 1. Not sure what they were going for with it, but it should have immobilized or done more. Clumsy 1 with no heightening and mediocre damage at super short range for 2 actions is not an attractive ability.
It looks cool in the mind's eye, but it's effect is so weak as to not be worth using.
I think it's screamingly obvious, right from the start.
Not my experience. I see it used over and over again after the first few levels. And I'd not be surprised to see players using it even during 2-digit levels considering that most players don't realize that AoE Impulses are meant to replace their single target Impulse.
Most players haven't run the numbers to determine what's the best course of action, they use single target Impulses when they face a single target and AoE Impulses when they face multiple enemies. And 2-action EB does more damage than most non-Overflow Impulses for most of your career, so it's not obvious that Flying Flame (for example) is a better choice than 2-action EB before level 15.
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If your players are using it to do more damage, how is using it a 'trap'?
No, it does more damage, they don't do more damage: it's an attack roll against a save for most Impulses, and it increases your MAP if you follow with a 1-action EB.
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Otherwise, because of this conversation I've looked at the class more closely and I think the very different reactions I've witnessed comes from the fact that the Kineticist options are not balanced at all. There are a few massively overpowered options (like Winter Sleet or Fire Aura Junction), some questionably broken ones (like Timber Sentinel or Solar Detonation) while most of its options are on the weaker side.
It generates a lot of disparities between builds: changing a couple of options can change your efficiency by 50%, something that I haven't seen in any other class. As a result, I've seen GMs wielding the ban hammer (towards Winter Sleet and Timber Sentinel) while my experience is that Kineticists are on the weaker side (but the Kineticists I've played with were not having these strong options). And I even wonder if these broken options are not necessary for the class to work as intended as otherwise the class is not really strong...
Well, it puzzles me and I feel the class will raise issues when people will get used to it. Wait and see.
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Lastly, you guys must talk a lot less about mechanics than any game I've ever been in. Your players have gotten to "double digit" levels and neither you nor their fellow players have never discussed that a save attack/AC attack combo avoids MAP? None of the players note that that their 6d8 Tremor might be AoE, but it still does more against a single target than their 3d8+4 2a EB?
No. For a lot of reasons: I have a very strong knowledge of the game and if I start such a conversation chances are high I'll annoy the crap out of my fellow teammates at some point (because not everyone wants to enter the fine technicalities of PF2). Also, I have a large gaming group so I don't always play with the same players and I'm not completely confident having such a conversation with all of them. Lastly, it's their character, they do whatever they want with it. If they express a need for help I'll be there, if they don't I don't see why I'd intervene.
I actually intervened once (with a player who wanted the reduced DC for Recall Knowledge while using Diverse Lore) and the conversation got heated. So, no. I'm fine having a heated conversation with a random person on the Internet, but not with people I play with regularly.
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There are a couple of powers needing errata, missing durations, area, and etc. But apart from winter sleet needing to be more clear how it interacts with the rules, I wouldn't call the rest of the options you listed as broken.
A Fire Kineticist without the Aura Junction shoot themselves in the foot, dealing nearly half damage past level 10. Try to build a mid to high level Fire Kineticist without it, I'm pretty sure you'll end up with a subpar build.
For Timber Sentinel, I feel that it's very GM dependent: If the GM plays their monster as not understanding the spell and acting as usual, it can lead to very one-sided fights at some point. If the GM plays monsters as intelligent and avoiding the tree after a round or 2, it is far less strong.
All classes have weak and strong feats, Kineticist is no different.
But other classes have most of their power in their chassis, not in their feats. I don't know of any class that gain easily 50% more damage output through a single feat. So the impact is not that big.
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That example is more like trying to build a fighter that prones people with his hammer and not picking up Knockdown.
A Hammer Fighter with Knockdown is not 50% more efficient than a Hammer Fighter without it. So no, it's not comparable.
As an addition, the "Aura Junction" is literally something from your chassis, NOT a feat.
It's still an option you can choose or not. Leading to massive build disparities.
I think we have passed the point where the conversation makes no more sense. Let's agree to disagree.
Yeah, as I said, we have passed the point where the conversation makes sense. We are speaking past each other.
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Well, it is kind of special in a way because it requires the target to use MAP to get rid of while you don't have to spend any to apply it. If they don't, the ongoing damage uses your aura weakness every turn and will do considerable damage. The scaling is very slow though
No, it doesn't require that. They can attack and move just fine with Molten Wire on. The fire damage is so weak as they can ignore it.
The DM just let the creature keep fighting with Molten Wire on because of the weak damage. It does 4d4 (4d6 with impulse junction) fire damage at level 11 with a Basic Reflex save. It doesn't slow the creature down at all. No minus to hit unless a dex creature.
You are better off hitting it with a blast or something that does more damage. It causes MAP.
It's not a good ability.
And 2-action EB does more damage than most non-Overflow Impulses for most of your career,If your players are using it to do more damage, how is using it a 'trap'?
EB damage is really weak. I use a save ability with blast only if I have a spare action to use, usually with a thrown weapon infusion for a little extra strength damage.
2-Action EB is more a early game solution when you choose to net get a save impulse during your creation for some reason (for example if you make a healing focused lvl 1 Water-Wood Kineticist and choose to get Hardwood Armor, Fresh Produce and Ocean's Balm). After some levels its poor heightening and MAP usually makes its use impracticable in comparison to many other 2-actions impulses.
No, it doesn't require that. They can attack and move just fine with Molten Wire on. The fire damage is so weak as they can ignore it.
The DM just let the creature keep fighting with Molten Wire on because of the weak damage. It does 4d4 (4d6 with impulse junction) fire damage at level 11 with a Basic Reflex save. It doesn't slow the creature down at all. No minus to hit unless a dex creature.
You are better off hitting it with a blast or something that does more damage. It causes MAP.
It's not a good ability.
molten wire does not cause MAP. You can use it and get +1 to hit on a blast.
Might not be intentional, but it's missing the Attack tag.
Comparing to another 2 action non-overflow
Flying flame at level 11 does 6d6 = 21
Molten wire at level 11 does 3d6+3d4 = 18 +7.5 per round.
So if they ignored it for even a single round and it will deal 20% more damage.
Ignore it for 2 rounds and it's the most damaging move you can do.
Add in the weakness aura or an ally attacking AC and that gap grows.
Or you can miss.
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No, it doesn't require that. They can attack and move just fine with Molten Wire on. The fire damage is so weak as they can ignore it.
The DM just let the creature keep fighting with Molten Wire on because of the weak damage. It does 4d4 (4d6 with impulse junction) fire damage at level 11 with a Basic Reflex save. It doesn't slow the creature down at all. No minus to hit unless a dex creature.
You are better off hitting it with a blast or something that does more damage. It causes MAP.
It's not a good ability.
molten wire does not cause MAP. You can use it and get +1 to hit on a blast.
Might not be intentional, but it's missing the Attack tag.
Comparing to another 2 action non-overflow
Flying flame at level 11 does 6d6 = 21
Molten wire at level 11 does 3d6+3d4 = 18 +7.5 per round.So if they ignored it for even a single round and it will deal 20% more damage.
Ignore it for 2 rounds and it's the most damaging move you can do.
Add in the weakness aura or an ally attacking AC and that gap grows.Or you can miss.
What is the exact ruling that makes only the attack tag increase MAP?
As far as I understand it, if you make an attack roll it increases MAP. Attack tag is primarily for skill actions to designate them as increasing map, but any offensive abilities with an attack roll increase MAP by the nature of being an attack roll.
Regardless, I have used Molten Wire multiple time to test its abilities and it is not good.
1. Clumsy 1 is often redundant once you have Synesthesia or another more powerful status modifier debuff which are extremely common at high level.
2. 4d4 to 4d6 damage isn't much at all with a basic reflex save. You're better off hitting with something that hits harder immediately. Things die too fast in most groups for Molten Wire to do more damage than a harder hitting ability that does weak opening damage hoping to do more damage as rounds go on.
3. Your class DC compared to Athletics, Acrobatics, or Attack roll to escape makes it very easy to eliminate if the creature chooses to do.
What would make Molten Wire more useful?
1. A scaling debuff with Clumsy if the intent was for this to be a debuff ability.
2. AoE ability at longer range so it could possibly be used to set up an AOE attack later with a mild debuff.
3. An immobilization and grapple component on a failure. The base effect feels like what should have happened on a successful save, while a failure or crit failure should have led to a grapple or restrained condition.
4. An increased range would help some as well forcing the creature to take more damage while using move actions, but even that might not matter if it just uses escape and then moves at longer range. Debuff scaling is probably the best way to make Molten Wire useful so it scales up to what similar debuffs would do at an equivalent level.
Molten Wire needs better scaling to be attractive.
I have tested it in battle and it is extremely disappointing. Needs more design work. I'd take less damage for better debuff scaling if that is what is necessary. As it is currently it is not worth using as a debuff ability and not worth using as a damage ability, which ultimately makes it not worth using.
As far as I know, only the fire damage continues after the initial hit.
They get a basic reflex save.
It's fairly easy to break out of.
It has to survive a few rounds and you have to be in a situation where using a single target Impulse is better than multitarget.
It has to be within 15 feet to use.
You starting to see all the what ifs? I have tested it. It is not worth it to use over other higher level impulses.
Molten Wire doesn't have the attack action, but the text says to make an impulse attack roll. So all abilities of a kineticist operate like spells and the MAP description says spell attack rolls increase MAP. So wouldn't impulse attack rolls be like spell attack rolls and increase MAP?