How do you make Kineticist work?

[Sotanaht]

Some people seem to really like them, but all I see is a character with multiple primary stats and that needs to rest after every combat, so how do you make it work? If I could make a ranged Kineticist that was actually able to do damage as effectively as a ranged slayer or ranger it would round out my party really well

Also if it helps I'm using the turn based mod, so micromanaging abilities isn't a problem.

[InEffect]

They don't need to rest. At all. And as for builds... K19/Thug1 Fire-Earth-Water trip kineticist rules the day.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by InEffect:

They don't need to rest. At all. And as for builds... K19/Thug1 Fire-Earth-Water trip kineticist rules the day.

What you describe sounds reasonably good, but I have no idea how it works

[InEffect]

Unfair Kineticist [www.gog.com]

[esotericist]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Some people seem to really like them, but all I see is a character with multiple primary stats and that needs to rest after every combat, so how do you make it work? If I could make a ranged Kineticist that was actually able to do damage as effectively as a ranged slayer or ranger it would round out my party really well

Also if it helps I'm using the turn based mod, so micromanaging abilities isn't a problem.

You should only need to rest after fights if you're taking on a lot of burn, which you generally shouldn't be doing.

Either use the "gather power" abilities to reduce the cost to 0, or use a blast configuration that doesn't cost burn, and you can run essentially forever as long as you don't take significant damage.

Once you have Elemental Overflow, taking a little burn (often for your defensive talent) becomes desirable, but there's no need to use a lot of burn past that.

As for multiple primary stats, the most important one is obviously constitution, followed by dexterity. This isn't substantially different from many other classes, which have a primary stat and a secondary stat.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by esotericist:

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Some people seem to really like them, but all I see is a character with multiple primary stats and that needs to rest after every combat, so how do you make it work? If I could make a ranged Kineticist that was actually able to do damage as effectively as a ranged slayer or ranger it would round out my party really well

Also if it helps I'm using the turn based mod, so micromanaging abilities isn't a problem.

You should only need to rest after fights if you're taking on a lot of burn, which you generally shouldn't be doing.

Either use the "gather power" abilities to reduce the cost to 0, or use a blast configuration that doesn't cost burn, and you can run essentially forever as long as you don't take significant damage.

Once you have Elemental Overflow, taking a little burn (often for your defensive talent) becomes desirable, but there's no need to use a lot of burn past that.

As for multiple primary stats, the most important one is obviously constitution, followed by dexterity. This isn't substantially different from many other classes, which have a primary stat and a secondary stat.

Unlike a Wizard or Sorcerer for example who needs ONLY int or only cha for their spell saving throws, a Kineticist's saves are based alternatively on both dex and con, and their class abilities are both dex and con. For a Wizard, Int is primary and dex is secondary, so you stack int as high as it will go (start at 19-20, put every level up into Int no matter what), and you just make dex 16-18ish and never put levels into it. For a Kineticist, both Con and Dex are primary, half their abilities only work if one or the other is completely maxed out.

[Shadenuat]

Just try one and see for yourself. Take blast that goes for touch AC and then AoE. Fire is the easiest. Max DEX for DC. Spam damage all day reliably even on Unfair. It's a bit hard to explain unless you played one.

[esotericist]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Originally posted by esotericist:

You should only need to rest after fights if you're taking on a lot of burn, which you generally shouldn't be doing.

Either use the "gather power" abilities to reduce the cost to 0, or use a blast configuration that doesn't cost burn, and you can run essentially forever as long as you don't take significant damage.

Once you have Elemental Overflow, taking a little burn (often for your defensive talent) becomes desirable, but there's no need to use a lot of burn past that.

As for multiple primary stats, the most important one is obviously constitution, followed by dexterity. This isn't substantially different from many other classes, which have a primary stat and a secondary stat.

Unlike a Wizard or Sorcerer for example who needs ONLY int or only cha for their spell saving throws, a Kineticist's saves are based alternatively on both dex and con, and their class abilities are both dex and con. For a Wizard, Int is primary and dex is secondary, so you stack int as high as it will go (start at 19-20, put every level up into Int no matter what), and you just make dex 16-18ish and never put levels into it. For a Kineticist, both Con and Dex are primary, half their abilities only work if one or the other is completely maxed out.

For someone who is complaining they don't see how to use the class successfully, you seem awfully confident of your knowledge contradicting the advice of people who have used the class successfully.

But hey, if your goal was to just complain rather than actually get advice, I suppose that works.

[Climhazzard]

Kineticist can massively buff their stats with Elemental overflow, it doesn't matter that they need both dex and con. Their best abilities like deadly earth and cloud don't even make an accuracy check, they just hit, all you need is con for your CC infusions and form durations. Their energy blasts hit touch AC and do a lot of damage, so early game you can just treat them like any ranged dps. Start with 19 dex and 18 con and just pump dex, later when you value a high CMB over accuracy you can pick the elemental overflow buff that favors con.

I think my favorite to go early game, with the plan to get deadly earth at 13, is fire. Just because the accuracy from targeting touch AC tends to be nice. Fan of flames can be nice too, but you need to make sure you pick up extended range since it's a requirement for deadly earth. Plus trip/greater trip as bonus feats after you get earth blast, not to mention fury's fall.

Something like...

1: Point blank shot, Precise shot, Fire Blast, Kinetic blade
2: Fire's Fury
3: Weapon Finesse, Fan of Flames
4 Hare Familiar (or whatever floats your boat)
5. Weapon Focus kinetic blast, Extended range
6. Kinetic restoration (or whatever floats your boat)
7. Blind fight (or whatever), Earth Blast
8. Bonus earth feat Trip
9. Fury's Fall, Bowling infusion
10. Bonus earth feat greater trip
11. Dazzling display, Wall (It's utterly outclassed by deadly earth, but you might want it in the mean time)
12. Enduring earth
13. Shatter defenses (I have like 4 characters that cause shaken, but not this character), deadly earth.

That's it, pull fights using gather power high and magma blast deadly earth with bowling infusion, win. You don't need to rest after every combat, as you level the amount of burn abitlies cost is reduced until they're basically free. In the mean time, you're still great ranged dps. Late game pick up cloud and stack it with deadly earth.

Ineffect's build is better, if you don't mind the effects of deadly carnage, but the stats only work for a MC, the above works for a merc.

Here's one I took the other day because I thought it was bugged, it's not though I just can't do math. Hit's for that much every round, there's no accuracy check, it just hits. Trips pretty much everything but the highest tier opponents. Best used for pulling, easily kills your own guys.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1768512602

If I had a complaint about kineticist, it's that their power curve is crazy. Starts out normal then suddenly skyrockets.

Have to plan it out though, easiest class to screw up. If you don't want to follow a guide, try the wiki, it lists all the infusions in a way that's easy to understand, and the various composite blasts you can use. Keep in mind that form infusions can only be used with specific blasts or composite blasts. If you went air and then earth for example, you could still use deadly earth, but you wouldn't get a composite blast to use it with, so it'd do half as much damage than going fire/earth (magma, or water/earth (mud).

[Sotanaht]

Actually I've been testing and in 2.0.1 at least Energy blasts do not make an attack roll at all. They can be blocked by spell resist, but otherwise they just hit like a magic missile. That includes Fire, Electric, Cold and Blue Flame only. However as a result of not making an attack roll they cannot sneak attack (unless you had Arcane Trickster 10 in there, but I don't think anyone is going to do that)

Your screenshot IS bugged. Deadly earth should only be doing half that damage. It's supposed to do 1/2 of the (composite) blast damage per round, but instead it's doing 1/2 of the composite damage twice. Each element should only be listed once.

I think the main thing that I missed with regards to Kineticist is their Infusion Specialization trait starting at level 5. It's thanks to that trait (combined with gather power, which wouldn't be enough on its own) that they can fight without burning-out after two non-pathetic attacks. Before level 5 an energy-type blast with automatic hits probably gives them enough damage per round to not be useless, in spite of rather low damage rolls.

[Climhazzard]

Is it? I sent a bug report then later decided I was wrong, but idk, lol.

Kinetic blast scales up at the same rate as sneak attack I think. It starts out low, but starts hitting really hard, and doesn't need sneak attack conditions. Hits for even more once you're using a composite blast.

In regards to your energy blasts, I don't know what's up with that, mine miss all the time in low levels because I often take weapon finesse/point blank shot at level one then precise shot at level 3, and you can find the attack rolls vs touch AC in the combat logs.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Climhazzard:

Is it? I sent a bug report then later decided I was wrong, but idk, lol.

Kinetic blast scales up at the same rate as sneak attack I think. It starts out low, but starts hitting really hard, and doesn't need sneak attack conditions. Hits for even more once you're using a composite blast.

In regards to your energy blasts, I don't know what's up with that, mine miss all the time in low levels because I often take weapon finesse/point blank shot at level one then precise shot at level 3, and you can find the attack rolls vs touch AC in the combat logs.

Could be an issue specific to that patch (current patch is 2.0.4 I think). I'm slow to update because mods. Could also be a mod-interaction I guess, Eldritch Arcana (the EE fork of it, not the original) changes enough magic-related things that it could be to blame.

As for Kinetic blast scaling, it scales up at the same rate as a SINGLE sneak attack. The problem is it's only a single attack per round, which isn't too bad when most characters only make a single attack at level 1-5 (those with 2 weapon or rapid shot usually miss a lot), but later on it falls greatly behind.

Just to clarify again on the damage: Magma Blast (or any composite), should do 11d6+15 bludgeoning and 11d6+15 fire. Using the Deadly Earth Form Infusion should do 1/2 that damage per round. That's 26-81 bludgeoning and 26-81 earth for the composite blast, for a total of 52-162, which then gets multiplied by 1/2 on Deadly Earth for a total of only 26-81.

[Climhazzard]

Yeah, I reread the description, and you're correct. I guess I was right to send the bug report after all, but I think I worded it incorrectly so hopefully they figure out it's bugged anyways. Pretty sure cloud has the same problem.

[Shadenuat]

Energy blasts do make attack roll and you can miss.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Shadenuat:

Energy blasts do make attack roll and you can miss.

Yeah it's working on my new save. Just a bug.

In order to test things I loaded up a very old save near the end of the game and respecced someone to kineticist, then had the kineticist attack party members to see how the rolls played out. So it could be that it just skips the attack roll and sneak attack on party members (physical blasts do NOT do this, they both miss and sneak attack fine), or it could be some bug related to it being an old save.

[haplok]

Originally posted by Shadenuat:

Energy blasts do make attack roll and you can miss.

Yeah. But for example Fire or Blue Flame can use something like Fan of Flames, later Eruption and have no attack roll, aoe effect - but a Reflex save for 1/2 damage then.

Climhazzard:
Fire Kineticist is the only class that can access Deadly Carnage at like level 5 or something similar. So they make great auto-fear characters (also because Kineticists often land killing blows due to massive damage... and can deal heavy Alpha-Strikes, often 1HKO, with Gather Power-High).

Sotanaht:
You can go for energy Kinetic Blade (like Electric or Fire) and have multiple blast melee attacks per round - each dealing similar amount as a sneak attack class - with generally better accuracy.
OR develop ranged Composite Kinetic Blasts, which fire only once (can be Quickened for x2, but would cost Burn), but deal 2x regular blast damage (so can be x4 overall with Quicken - at considerable Burn cost).

Well, or fire AOE forms and affect multiple enemies at a time, including lasting aoes. You can stack Deadly Earth, Wall and Cloud over 1 area... and nothing is likely to get out of it.