Feats for a Kineticist?

[legion11]

Level 8 Kineticist, about to hit 9. I play an Earth/Fire blend, favorite tactic is to let my 3 melee blender characters converge on the enemy and then use Bowling Infusion on an Earth blast to get free AoO shots on the target. I switch to a Fire blast on high AC enemies. I initiate fights with Gather Power: High followed by a Maximized combo Magma blast when I get the drop on enemies (which is most of the time) - this does very high damage and usually downs one foe before the fight is even started.

Anyway, I'm having trouble figuring out which feat(s) to select going forward. Here's what I have already:
Point Blank Shot - duh
Precise Shot - of course
Weapon Focus: Kinetic Blast
Toughness - to offset the Burn points
Trip/Greater Trip (free, from Wild Talents)
Fury's Fall - to help with Trip DCs

I have no desire to go down the Dreadful Carnage line, so I won't be taking Dazzle and all that.

Some possibilities for next feat(s) are:
Deadly Aim - meh... will only work with the Earth blast and I don't think I want to incur any AB penalties.
Improved Crit: Kinetic Blast - don't qualify yet, need 8 BAB, not sure...
Improved Precise Shot - don't qualify yet, need 11 BAB, seems like the only way to help ranged attackers with cover, right? Blind Fight specifically says for melee fighting only.
Spell Penetration/Greater Spell Pen - an enemy I recently fought in the Tenebrous Depths shrugged off my Fire blast with spell resistance. That really surprised me, so this would seem like a good choice. The in-game tool lists this as a "thumbs down" feat selection, should I take it anyway? Will it help me punch through SR?
Dodge/Armor Focus - I don't know... my AC is not great and it's never going to be great. 2 more points are hardly going to make me very tanky on this back-row blaster.
Improved Initiative - already have the Hare familiar, but +8 Init couldn't hurt, right?
Shore up a weak saving throw with the +2 booster feats? Willpower is my worst, I forget the name of the feat, is it Iron Will?
Skill Focus - meh, the rest of the party has all the skills handled very easily, this guy only focuses on being a back-up Perception option in case the main one rolls a 1.

Anything I'm forgetting to consider?

[Stink Bug]

Blind fight, you might not get too much use from it now unless you occasionally dive into melee with the kinetic sword, but it'll be near mandatory later.

[Frostfeather]

(Greater) Spell Penetration and/or Allied Spellcaster (assuming you have at least one other with it) will help your non-physical blasts get by SR, yes.

Allied Spellcaster is the potentially superior option by far because it stacks and can give you very high Penetration for the cost of only 1 Feat from your Kineticist, but of course depends entirely on how many others have it. I find it to be so useful that I'll make room for it even on characters that don't cast at all, or have a Tactical Leader give it to everyone, including pets, for fights against high SR enemies. But I tend to run groups a bit heavy on casters.

I usually do Allied Spellcaster, Improved Crit (when you can, of course), Improved Initiative, Skill Focus and eventually Iron Will. I don't think you're missing anything big.

[legion11]

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

Blind fight, you might not get too much use from it now unless you occasionally dive into melee with the kinetic sword, but it'll be near mandatory later.

I don't melee ever on this character. Is blind fighting only to help him out defensively against invisible enemies?

[legion11]

Originally posted by night4:

(Greater) Spell Penetration and/or Allied Spellcaster (assuming you have at least one other with it) will help your non-physical blasts get by SR, yes.

Interesting! I hadn't even considered that feat. I have a very balanced party between physical and magical damage dealing, so I can definitely see the wizard and cleric grabbing this feat along with the kineticist in the back row. I just worry about how chaotic positioning can get in a battle, and if I keep these 3 hip to hip, am I not inviting enemies to launch AoE effects at them?

[Stink Bug]

Originally posted by legion11:

Originally posted by Stink Bug:

Blind fight, you might not get too much use from it now unless you occasionally dive into melee with the kinetic sword, but it'll be near mandatory later.

I don't melee ever on this character. Is blind fighting only to help him out defensively against invisible enemies?

Blind fight grants immunity to gaze attacks, which are debilitating and *minor spoilers* very prevalent in the later game. If you have few compelling feats for a level it’s a solid choice to get it out of the way.

For teamwork feats it’s much easier to control positioning in turn-based mode, but as I recall unmodded Kingmaker’s definition of “adjacent” is somewhat generous. I wish you could get some indicator whether they were active or not, even if it could just be a buff icon or something.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by legion11:

Interesting! I hadn't even considered that feat. I have a very balanced party between physical and magical damage dealing, so I can definitely see the wizard and cleric grabbing this feat along with the kineticist in the back row. I just worry about how chaotic positioning can get in a battle, and if I keep these 3 hip to hip, am I not inviting enemies to launch AoE effects at them?

The required distance is pretty generous, and if 2 others are close enough for it, a third person will benefit regardless of where they are (and as I recall, the third person literally doesn't even need to have the Feat at all to get that benefit, though you'd probably want to to help stack it higher on others). There's a whole reddit post that breaks down exactly how the Feat works, and while it's kind of a weird mess, at least it's in the player's favor.

Also, there's almost no Aoe you can't just nullify with Protection spells, or prevent outright through quickly killing the source.

Edit: I looked for that Reddit post and can't find it, but did find multiple others referencing it. They all say the same thing: in the vanilla game, if 2 people with Allied Spellcaster are relatively close (~15/20 yards-ish?), everyone else will benefit from it, even if they're across the map. In Call of the Wild, the radius and effect change, but I'm assuming from your post that you're not using CotW.

[MaceX]

Improved Initiative may not be helpful if you prefer that your other 3 characters get in place first.

Since a Kineticist don't normally carry weapons, I think that I heard that the unarmed strike help. I have never tested it though.

[legion11]

Originally posted by MaceX:

Improved Initiative may not be helpful if you prefer that your other 3 characters get in place first.

Since a Kineticist don't normally carry weapons, I think that I heard that the unarmed strike help. I have never tested it though.

As far as going down the Crane Strike line of feats?

As for the high initiative, it never hurts. I can always blast an enemy squishy to death in the first round while my melees are getting set up. Or just delay my turn if I want. It's always good to have options.

[legion11]

Originally posted by night4:

The required distance is pretty generous, and if 2 others are close enough for it, a third person will benefit regardless of where they are (and as I recall, the third person literally doesn't even need to have the Feat at all to get that benefit, though you'd probably want to to help stack it higher on others). There's a whole reddit post that breaks down exactly how the Feat works, and while it's kind of a weird mess, at least it's in the player's favor.

Also, there's almost no Aoe you can't just nullify with Protection spells, or prevent outright through quickly killing the source.

Edit: I looked for that Reddit post and can't find it, but did find multiple others referencing it. They all say the same thing: in the vanilla game, if 2 people with Allied Spellcaster are relatively close (~15/20 yards-ish?), everyone else will benefit from it, even if they're across the map. In Call of the Wild, the radius and effect change, but I'm assuming from your post that you're not using CotW.

Correct, no mods. But 15-20 yards? That's insane. I figured they had to be practically touching. Might have to look into some more teamwork feats...