What is the point of Kinetic Blade?

[markelphoenix]

If you create a Kinetic Blade, you're now in melee, using your strength to hit, and you get one attack, correct?

Why would you ever use this?

[fedirko7]

Well, you can take weapon finesse, and that makes it so you're using dexterity to hit, and you can make additional attacks as your Base Attack Bonus allows, so you can start getting multiple attacks at level 8.

As for why you would use it, maybe you're like me and don't really care to micromanage all your people and someone got behind your frontline and is attacking your kineticist, so you switch to the kinetic blade and let that problem solve itself without provoking attacks of opportunity

[markelphoenix]

Hmmm, this now makes me think of a Kinetic Knight build. Wouldn't you want to choose Str instead of dex, given that you can wear plate + shield? Str + Con instead of Dex + Con. Full Plate + Heavy Shield, Attune Shield for burn, still able to gather, Str keeps you from being over encumbered AND gives to your attack bonus without having to take a finesse feat.

[Takkik]

for the same reason you could switch to a melee weapon with your ranged guys. And like fedirko7 said, kineticist is a 3/4bab, so you can get up to 3 attacks/rounds (+1 with haste). You can build around it.

I don't think you add your str bonus to dmg with a physical blade, just better to use DEX/weapon finesse.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by markelphoenix:

Hmmm, this now makes me think of a Kinetic Knight build. Wouldn't you want to choose Str instead of dex, given that you can wear plate + shield? Str + Con instead of Dex + Con. Full Plate + Heavy Shield, Attune Shield for burn, still able to gather, Str keeps you from being over encumbered AND gives to your attack bonus without having to take a finesse feat.

Standard Kineticist gets better AC than KK in a Dex build. KK's purpose is basically just playing Str kineticist in melee without dumping AC for the first couple levels. But you give up basically all the "good" infusions to do it.

Str KK has the (for fun) option of running a TWF build with their shield, but that's about it. You do Str to hit with your mian hand, Con damage. But you can make Str/Str off hand attacks that are pretty good in Challenging and Hard.

I love me the fun build, but Dex Aquakineicist makes a better tank than any KK. Bonus points for two levels in a full BAB class to get an extra attack.

[Shadenuat]

There is not much point although you can make tanky dude who hits touch AC and thus can run both defensive fighting and expertise.

[Darkfireslide]

It's basically tailor-made for the Kinetic Knight archetype since they actually have a reason to have high strength. It can deal a lot of damage with multiple attacks per round as well as things like power attack, cleave, etc.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Darkfire Mystic:

It's basically tailor-made for the Kinetic Knight archetype since they actually have a reason to have high strength. It can deal a lot of damage with multiple attacks per round as well as things like power attack, cleave, etc.

Finesse Kineticist does melee DPR better than KK

[haplok]

Originally posted by markelphoenix:

Hmmm, this now makes me think of a Kinetic Knight build. Wouldn't you want to choose Str instead of dex, given that you can wear plate + shield? Str + Con instead of Dex + Con. Full Plate + Heavy Shield, Attune Shield for burn, still able to gather, Str keeps you from being over encumbered AND gives to your attack bonus without having to take a finesse feat.

Sadly Gathering isn't really compatible with Kinetic Knights/Blades.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by haplok:

Sadly Gathering isn't really compatible with Kinetic Knights/Blades.

Don't need to gather when the only thing that ever has a cost is composite blades.

[wizard1200]

Yeah, it would be nice if gathering power with a kinetic blade would require only a swift action / move action / full-round action.

[Climhazzard]

The feat cost to be able to effectively melee as a regular kineticist is literally just weapon finesse. There's burn cost for the first few levels, making it unwieldy, but once that's reduced it's a nice option for killing enemies that run into your backline.

Though if all you take is weapon finesse you'll basically be as squishy as a rogue when you melee. Depending on your build you can grab water and earth defenses and easily be an offtank when you feel like it.

Since earth should probably be your first or second element so you can get deadly earth at 13. That limits your options a little. I prefer the glass cannon start which is fire>earth>water. Water>earth or Earth>water would be the tankier starts, where grabbing weapon finesse early makes more sense, but delays your energy blast for a good long while.

Earth>fire might be a nice compromise where you start out with earth defense and get your energy blast before mid game, then by end game you can pick up cloud and your water defense.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Climhazzard:

The feat cost to be able to effectively melee as a regular kineticist is literally just weapon finesse. There's burn cost for the first few levels, making it unwieldy, but once that's reduced it's a nice option for killing enemies that run into your backline.

Though if all you take is weapon finesse you'll basically be as squishy as a rogue when you melee. Depending on your build you can grab water and earth defenses and easily be an offtank when you feel like it.

Since earth should probably be your first or second element so you can get deadly earth at 13. That limits your options a little. I prefer the glass cannon start which is fire>earth>water. Water>earth or Earth>water would be the tankier starts, where grabbing weapon finesse early makes more sense, but delays your energy blast for a good long while.

Earth>fire might be a nice compromise where you start out with earth defense and get your energy blast before mid game, then by end game you can pick up cloud and your water defense.

If your goal is just going to be deadly earth or cloud spam there's no point worrying about fitting KB functionality in. If your goal is to actually use KB then the strongest support for the melee style doesn't play nice with the actual best kineticist infusions.

[Railgun5]

Kinetic Blade gives you iterative attacks and deals more damage than Kinetic Fist.

[Nightbringer]

It would have been nice if they had included Kinetic Whip, which was the major reason for taking Kinetic Blade.

It would have been even nicer if they had included the core rulebook feat Whirlwind.

[dwarfpcfan]

Kinetic Knight take a bit to really get it's steam, but all around it makes a better fighter then the fighter class, they get bonus feats and use their constitution as the prerequisite, 3/4 BAB is more then enough, they can deal physical and elemental damage and by the end their kinetic weapon deals very very high damage. Combined with the right feats and the best gear and they make some of the more solid non-caster thanks in the game and they are less ability score intensive since they basically substitute constitution for most attributes to get feats.

Plus the ability score boost from accumulated burn is actually pretty nice.

And since kinetic blasts (and thus kinetic blade) count as weapons for the purpose of specialisation feats, nothing's really stopping you from dipping into fighter at some point in the build to add even more damage. Say Kinetic Knight 16/Fighter 4 or something similar. You lose nothing and get everything.