Well noted I will fix here.
If the level 1 impulses that uses a feat/impulse slot looks like cantrips because they are very basic and initial, the Elemental Blast is even more initial and basic.
The EB cannot be stronger than impulses, even the lowest overflow ones or risks to overshadow them making most player to ignore them. But as I pointed it still a pretty interesting sub-weapon to use as your 3rd action.
So does that mean Kineticist under performs or is it just bad?
No, check my last post in page 4.
What happen is for a kineticist to compete in damage with sorcerer requires to fight inside the aura and using non-overflow fire impulses to keep the Thermal Nimbus stance working with a impulse fire weakness aura junction.
What happen is for a DPR focused fire kineticist being competitive with casters it need to fight at short range (10 fts between levels 5-9, 20fts between levels 10-14, 25fts between levels 15-19 and 30fts at level 20. This forces fire kineticists to move a bit more than a sorcerer especially at low levels at stay in a more risky position but it's compensated but its strong chassis.
Before level 5 the element make way less diference for damage (you can use any overflow 1-2d8 impulse + a 1d8 elemental blast or 2 Aerial Boomerangs per turn) but this situation is ever worse to blaster casters that have a low number of spell slots and the rank 1 and 2 blast spells are weak, or have a bad range/AoE (like breath fire) or have bad heightened (like force barrage) and are forced to stay using cantrips like Eletric Arc. So only druids and psychic shines in such lower levels due they can easily get 3 focus points pretty fast (untamed druids starts with 2 focus points due untamed form + untamed shift and can get another at level 2 taking Order Explorer and geting Order Magic at level 4 to get tempest surge being able to cast it 3x per combat compensating the lack of good low level blast spells while psychics starts with 2 focus points and can get another one at level 5 and can combo their AMPs with Unleash Psyche to make some strong blasts) and have strong single target damage focus spells for such levels with kineticists becoming in a middle groud.
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blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.I mean, Elemental Blasts are basically like using a crossbow without the whole "need to spend actions reloading" thing. The damage isn't *terrible* if it's a changeup sort of thing. Like if you use a 2-action impulse that's not overflow, it's "why not" damage.I hate them. They feel terrible. I almost always activate a stance when I activate my aura. Stances go down when the aura goes down with overflow, so I have to activate them again when I activate the aura. Far better use of my actions.
I would have rather had the blasts do martial weapon damage and be customizable with runes. Using them feels like some throwaway ability you're using because you have nothing else.
But do you never use 2-action non-overflow impulses? There are plenty of good ones- Flying Flame, Timber Sentinel, Sand Snatcher, Tumbling Lumber, Molten Wire, Conductive Sphere, Ignite the Sun, Cyclonic Ascent, Furnace Form, Spike Skin, etc.
Some Kineticists will overflow somewhat infrequently, so the need to turn their auras back on is minimal.
Problem Is, most offensive two actions non overload impulses are terrible. Flying flame Is literally cantrip damage, lumber thingy Is a literal meme that server no purpouse, Timber sentinel Is broken but It's not the average thing.
Spikeskin, fornace form etc are all setup, therefore you cast them Just once (preferrably outside of combat).
The kineticist, especially Fire, needs to keep his cycle going, and that cycle almost Always requires an overflow
The reason to overflow for fire is if you can hit more targets than what a flying flame could hit or if you want to stay at range. Otherwise, it's better to keep your aura active alongside thermal nimbus for best damage.
You also have to consider the utility these non overflow impulses offer. Flying flame for example is the friendliest AOE in terms of avoiding allies with it. That reliability in positioning adds to its damage since there's more opportunities to use it in a brawl. "Literally cantrip damage" is not accurate either. Cantrips that can hit more than one target are all d4 or d8(that scale with +2 spell ranks.) Flying flame scales with a d6 or d8 every rank with the impulse junction. D8s are double what a multi target cantrip scales like.
The other point when comparing non-overflow impulses with cantrips is their way larger AoE and/or range. Cantrips are usually limited to single target with 2 targets when you use EA or Scatter Scree. While impulses like Aerial Boomerang, Flying Flame, Shard Strike, Winter's Clutch can hit as many enemies are in the area.
Well, I kinda did the maths a bit earlier that showed that be it one action, two actions or three actions, the fire kineticist outdps a giant barbarian on single target (and of course way more on multitarget).
That’s not too shabby.
The problem is that it locks you into one specific element and one specific playstyle as it needs a stance and an aura junction to be effective.
Fire kineticist doesn't outdpr the giang barbarian with a d12 weapon. But it accompany it until it just below until gets Ignite the Sun. Once the Ignite the Sun enters in the game fire kineticist get an absurd damage boost both from the extra free-action damage sustain it but also due the additional fire dice damage to all its impulses.
PF2e Caculator comparison here
How each the math of each thing was set.
I’m a bit surprised as to how our results differ. What did I miss in my projection ? Or were the expectations of 30 AC and 20 réflexes too far off ?
Edit : oh, I see, I missed the fire rune on the weapon.
Edit2: Thermal nimbus should be a 100% hit, not a spell roll or did I misunderstand your data ? That is a huge différence.
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Well noted I forget to put in always hit. I will fix and update the graph.
Fixed graph.
Now Barbarian and Fire Kineticist damage are more in pair each other. Except when Ignite the Sun enters and basically doubles the avg damage.
Thermal Nimbus is definitely amazing for damage. No argument there. No hit roll required, but no chance to crit either.
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So does that mean Kineticist under performs or is it just bad?
As stated at length throughout the thread, you have to work at it to give a Kineticist top-tier DPS. But it can be done.
But many people consider the class to be more of a generalist/support class (like Bard/Cleric). In the end, whether the class is good or bad depends on what you want out of it.
Note that if you pick up Safe Elements at Level 4, your AoE attacks become much easier to use. And some of them are 30' cones, which covers a pretty large area.
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Well noted I forget to put in always hit. I will fix and update the graph.
Fixed graph.
Now Barbarian and Fire Kineticist damage are more in pair each other. Except when Ignite the Sun enters and basically doubles the avg damage.I have to made Ignite the Sun manually once that calculator doesn't includes it so I forget to put it as basic save. The old graph it was working like a spell attack. Now it's a basic save.
Thermal Nimbus now adds damage always.
I had added both Flying Flame and Ignite the Sun fire weakness inside the main math that was a basic save. Now I put it in a separated damage instance that triggers in success or worse save.
Perfect, thanks !
It's true that this kind of damage pertains to one specific kind of kineticist, but there always was some unspoken agreement in dps: martials were kings of single target, while casters were kings of AOE. Being able to do as much single target than one of the best martials, while also being able to dish out a lot of AOE damage, while being freakishly tanky through CON primary and good defensive impulses, while still having some utility, is pretty impressive in itself.
Sorry but where's the official page about this? Discord is not a reliable reference.
Fake news.
Is there any problem with treating a 1-action elemental blast as a Strike (but not a generic Strike) as a house rule?
Like the big problems are that the Kineticist doesn't work with Mythic at all, and we know that there's going to be errata for Mythic rules at the same time we get the errata for the Exemplar and the Animist.
Making it a strike significantly increases its potential power.
Having a feat that lets you use it as a reaction in place of a strike as an add-on to specific reaction ability. However, this could still have some tricky synergies. It's safer to just give them a reaction impulse that uses the blast damage types.
I never could figure out how to get damage calculators to work so I'll just ask; most of the calcs done here are for fire kin, would anyone mind trying out some other elements? Or point me to somewhere it's already been done?
I don't think any element will come close to fire but I am curious.
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Air+Earth can get a good damage combo with Desert Wind.
Metal is a strong element to do some damage too.
It's late for me now. Tomorrow I will try to make an extensive damage comparison with PF2e Calculator.
I think that, in theory, the highest damage a kineticist could achieve if they wanted to focus on elemental blasts would be an air + earth + fire kineticist w/ Desert Wind + Two-Element Infusion (air/fire blast) + fire impulse junction + fire aura junction. The only problem I see is that, at the earliest, this can only become online after 13th level (or I guess 9th level if you don't care about fire impulse junction). Its also likely overall worse than just a regular fire kineticist in terms of damage I assume too, but I guess its fine for a high level campaign if you want to play a D&D 5e's warlock flavored kineticist lol.
I never could figure out how to get damage calculators to work so I'll just ask; most of the calcs done here are for fire kin, would anyone mind trying out some other elements? Or point me to somewhere it's already been done?
I don't think any element will come close to fire but I am curious.
"Calc" implies you have some combo in mind. What combo do you want to check out?
If you are just looking for single impulse use, that you can simply look up. Below is a selection (two from each). Keep in mind that all of these impulses have some multi targeting capability (line, cone, burst etc.) so you should be trying to hit multiple enemies with this damage
Air:
Ariel Boomerang: 2d4(L1)-11d4(L19). If you can 'pull one back' and 'fire a new one' on the same target, that damage would be double but with a save for each.
Lightning dash: 2d12(L4)-7d12(L19)Earth:
Tremor: 1d8(L1)-10d8(L19)
Weight of stone: 4d8(L6)-11d8(L20)Metal:
Magnetic pinions: 2d4(L1)-20d4(L19)
Retch Rust: 4d10(L8)-10d10(L20) + 2d4(L8)-8d4(L20) persistent for metal critters on a failWater:
Tidal hands: 1d8(L1)-10d8(L19)
Call the hurricane: 6d8(L8)-12d8(L20)Wood:
Hail of Splinters: 1d4+1d4 persistent(L1) - 10d4+10d4 persistent(L19)
Sanguinary Roots: 3d6(L6)-10d6(L20) + healing for friendlies.If you do a quick calculation, you'll see that every element tops out at about 45-55 average damage...per target, on a failed save, and not for literally every impulse but every element has at least one impulse that gets there.
Which means that if, as a player, you are not looking for odd combos but just want to play a kin simply, then you can pick any element you want and not worry if you've picked the wrong one or anything like that, because every element does about the same (which is also true for fire below L18 if you're not combo-ing...though if you went fire, you're probably combo-ing...)
I mean I understand the averages of damage (half a damage dice +.5 for the average of damage) but the specifics of how often an attack hits/Crits/saves/Crit saves etc are too much for my pea brain.
The most common combos for each element at 20 would probably be blast, effortless concentration effect, impulse, maybe second blast depending on impulse.
I mean I understand the averages of damage (half a damage dice +.5 for the average of damage) but the specifics of how often an attack hits/Crits/saves/Crit saves etc are too much for my pea brain.
That's why we have tools like PF2e Calculator. To deal with so many variables.
Anyway even with PF2e Calculator being an incredible tool (tnx Ben Halbach I will give a coffe later) yet still a whiteroom in a real encounter many other things impacts and changes its effectiveness.
For example I have a fire+metal+wood kineticist players that made the base buildup for fire damage combo (Ignite the Sun + Thermal Nimbus + Furnace Form + Two-Element Infusion). But many times he just doesn't have enough time to do because he also provides heals and utility while hist allies are fighting. So he frequently uses a overflow impulse to just kill the already damaged enemies soon even its being 'ineficient'.
Some players can also be frustrated because their pre-made calculations can frequently fails in practice due circumstances or to have to help the allies including that why even with PF2e be able to provide heal without sacrifice your damage capabilities some players simple choose to go away from healing and utility to not feel that they have to stop and help their allies.
So use these calculations has a basis but notice that they don't work for every situation and it isn't rare that a non-ideal situation happens and it's good to have some backup tools and being mentaly prepared that you plans could not go as you like and you have to adapt to different situations.
I made the graph comparison between fire, air and metal. But in the end fire still wins by far.
Comparison graph
Basically when fire weakness aura junction enters the game changes. theoretically Desert Wind should compensate to not have fire weakness but alone it doesn't compensate that lack of constant damage from Thermal Nimbus.
Another important note is that Desert Wind only works when vs targets inside the aura so the air kineticist basically have to keep a short distance from its enemies. It's not a big problem if we consider that it have earth too and probably is using Armored in Earth yet you still need to worry about you own speed and to get air impulse junction once that the enemies could move to try to avoid you from pull the Air Boomerang that you used in your last turn back through them so get the air impulse junction will be essential to move to follow moving enemies to a new position when need without sacrificing your actions to cast another Air Boomerang this turn what makes this build could be difficult to deal specially in earlier levels.
Metal was a surprise to me. I didn't expect that make a full non-overflow build would be better for it like it is for fire kineticists. Initially I was thing to switch Shard Strike to Retch Rust but I notice that Sustain a Whirling Grindstone is way more effective than use Elemental Blasts when Channel Elements even with Retch Rust and I wouldn't have enough actions to keep Whirling Grindstone and Channel Elements again so I add Conductive Sphere in its place and used it with Effortless Sustain and this made it stronger than air+earth with 2 Air Boomerangs + Desert Wind.
The main advantage of this build is that it doesn't depends from you aura, só you keep fighting at 30ft distance along all levels without problem.
But once that I noticed that this metal build isn't using any overflow and doesn't have any Stance I had considered to make a Fire + Metal to just add Thermal Nimbus to it but as long I was building I notice that once that I have fire weakness aura junction there are little reason to continue to invest into metal damage impulses and this would end in the fire build so I abandoned the idea and keep focusing that the main advantage of this metal build is exactly to not depend from its aura size.
Thank you, that's very cool. I'll mess around with the calculator myself and see if I can figure it out.
I'm definitely not one of those people who focus on dpr and calcs usually, it's just that whenever damage does come up, fire is all anyone talks about and I was curious to see how far behind other elements were.
I don't really understand how sustain sphere, sustain grindstone, blast and shard strike does more damage than sustain sphere, sustain grindstone, retch rust, blast. But I'll trust the calc on that I guess. Or is it that it only becomes stronger when you get kinetic pinnacle for the quickened blast?
I don't really understand how sustain sphere, sustain grindstone, blast and shard strike does more damage than sustain sphere, sustain grindstone, retch rust, blast. But I'll trust the calc on that I guess. Or is it that it only becomes stronger when you get kinetic pinnacle for the quickened blast?
The problem is the number of actions and MAP.
If you are Sustaining a grindstone before take Effortless Sustain you need an action to keep it every turn. But once that you use retch rust you need to Channel Elements again and Channel Elements only allows to enter into a stance or you an Elemental Blast so you use all your 3-actions 2 to "cast" Retch Rust and the 3rd to Channel Elements to reactivate your aura so you don't have more actions and cannot keep sustain your grindstone.
If you are Sustaining a grindstone after take Effortless Sustain you have a free-action in the start of your turn to keep it so you now can use Retch Rust and Channel Elements Blasting but once that Whirling Grindstone does an impulse attack roll your blast now suffers MAP-5 so even with your overall damage being better due Retch Rust it doesn't compensate the blast with MAP-5 so its better to keep using Shard Strike even it being weaker and compensate using that action that you would use to Channel Element again to Sustain the sphere instead once that Conductive Sphere is a bit weak but it's a save impulse so doesn't suffers from MAP.
Gotcha. But at 20 when kinetic pinnacle comes into play retch rust should be fine to use, since in either scenario you're going to sustain 2x, blast, and 2 action impulse. Before 20, shard strike wins out in pure dpr. Makes sense.
True, I forgot that I could have exchanged Shard Strike for Retch Rust at level 20. Or rather, I had forgotten that the accelerated action can also be used for Channel Elements. In my head, for some reason, it was only for blasting or getting into a stance.
Comparison graph now with Retch Rust at level 20.
It still bellow fire (because Ignite the Sun is OP) but give a bit more damage.
True, I forgot that I could have exchanged Shard Strike for Retch Rust at level 20. Or rather, I had forgotten that the accelerated action can also be used for Channel Elements. In my head, for some reason, it was only for blasting or getting into a stance.
Comparison graph now with Retch Rust at level 20.
It still bellow fire (because Ignite the Sun is OP) but give a bit more damage.
What about the cool nightmare cage metal can create at high level that makes you feel like you are a Hellraiser cenobyte impaling your enemies on metal spikes while electricity runs through the spikes.
It's good too but worth more if you want to do a big AoE damage.
Pure Metal Kineticist using Shard Strike + Whirling Grindstone + Effortless Conductive Sphere + LvL 20 Quickened Thrown Elemental Blast is a bit stronger vs single target. But also requires more build up (one turn casting Whirling Grindstone and another casting Conductive Sphere before the full DPR is reach).
Hell of 1,000,000 Needles follows the 2x Aerial Boomerang with Desert Wind avg damage and it is a bit complicated to use (and to calculate I have to divide the damage by 2 in level 18 and add Shard Strike + Elemental Blast also divided by 2 while the 3d12 Sustained keeps for all turns) because it is used differently in each level:
18: Hell of 1,000,000 Needles it's a 3-actions overflow impulse so you can't use it every turn, you need to alternate it. But the Sustain damage can be kept every turn due Effortless Concentration. So in one turn you Sustain Hell of 1,000,000 Needles doing 3d12 electricity damage with a basic Reflex save and cast it again to do the 13d6 piercing damage in another save and following turn you need to Channel Elements (Blasting too) and cast a non-overflow impulse like Shard Strike then repeat the process.
19: Now you get Final Gate and now is able to use the first action of your turn to Channel Elements as a free action. But this Channel Elements cannot be used to blast and competes with Effortless Impulse that trigger when your turn begins preventing Final Gate free action to work (it will no more be your first action). So you are unable to Sustain Hell of 1,000,000 Needles to get its electricity damage but you now can recast it every turn.
20: Now everything works. You can both Sustain the Hell of 1,000,000 Needles 3d12 electricity damage and cast it again to do the 17d6 piercing damage, with a basic Reflex save and then Channel Elements with Blast again with your quickened action.
But the main points to use Hell of 1,000,000 Needles is not to do a large damage vs a single enemy but be able attack at 500 feet range trying to immobilize the enemies before they get closer or to simply damage a lot a large number of enemies.