Kineticist advice

[Jurai]

I'm building an Ajichabana Dhampir Blood Kineticist, and D20pfsrd doesn't have the feats yet. What good feats are there in Occult Adventures for Kineticists?

[Serafina]

None.

There's exactly four feats for the Kineticist. One does piddling damage in a 5-foot radius when you die, in exchange for destroying your body. Terrible in every way. One allows you to counter spells with elemental descriptors you can match, you can do that already anyway (and it's a waste of an action anyway). One adds +10 (later +20) to Jump-checks for 1 point of burn for the day, I suppose that might be worth something if you are really really strapped for mobility (which you shouldn't be, as a Kineticist).
Well, there is Extra Wild Talent, which you can take at level 6 and that allows you to select and extra wild talent. Which has to be two levels lower than the maximum you can take, for some reason. Also, no blasts or defense wild talents.


You CAN take feats that modify weapons and apply them to your blasts.
You can use neither Power Attack nor Deadly Aim with touch-blasts.
So, worthwhile feats?
Toughness to compensate the nonlethal damage from burn.
Weapon Focus (Kinetic Blast) for more accuracy.
Point-Blank Shot for extra ranged accuracy, Precise Shot for extra ranged accuracy.
Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration if you're using an energy blast.
Quicken Spell-Like Ability if your GM is really really nice to you.

And, well there's just not much else you can spend your feats on other than that. Some feats that improve your stats, that's about it. You can't do metamagic, you can't really do combat maneuvers, you don't have any feat-lines that really fit your class.

[Jurai]

Extra Wild Talent, which you can take at level 6...

Wait, what? The only other Extra <Class Feature or Racial Feature use or instance> feat that even comes close is Extra Bane for Inquisitors. How does that even make sense?

So, basically, build like a fighter... That's not very... Interesting.

[Kurald Galain]

So, basically, build like a fighter... That's not very... Interesting.

We've been discussing it in this other thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?432093-Sucking-Counts-as-Airbending-Right-A-Guide-to-the-Kineticist/page2), and so far it seems that the most effective way to play a kinny is to create an elemental weapon with one of your powers, and make full melee attacks with it.

...so yeah, like a fighter. :smallmad:

[Serafina]

Oh I forgot the Kineticist Teamwork feat! Which is...a thing.
First, you need two Kineticists, both with the teamwork feat. Okay fair enough, that's what teamwork feats do.
Then both fire a simple blast and turn it into a composite blast. Okay fine, that basically (almost) doubles the damage, though of course you are using two standard actions for it.
And then you actually get to apply form and substance infusions separately, which means you can apply Infusion specialization twice. And one participant gets to gather power and can actually apply Metakinesis - this is the point where it actually kinda-sorta becomes worthwhile.

So yes, get yourself Leadership and a Kineticist Cohort if you want to min-max this stuff.
You can even maximize your own Constitution in favor of Dexterity and provide the Substance Infusion - as long as your Cohort as maximized Dexterity, their Dexterity will be used to determine the to-hit. Because they decided they needed to spit it like that, who provides the substance provides the constitution, who prodides the form provides the dexterity. Of course, the caster-level is also averaged out, so you'll likely lose one damage die.
But in theory, it's pretty decent.
You get to fire of Composite Blasts as soon as you have that teamwork feat and a Cohort, so from level 7 onwards. It'll even be an Empowered Composite Blast, if you gather power first. At 8th level, you could apply two points of Substance Infusion and one point of Form-Infusion (from your Cohort), or vice versa if you switch ability scores around (plan ahead there). That'd be enough for a Empowered Composite Kinetic Blade, which would potentially be (with Haste and Weapon Focus and 24 for both ability scores including the size-bonus from Elemental Overflow) +19/19/14 with 12D6+30 damage and a two-point substance infusion. At level 8.

So yeah, that's actually pretty decent if you're willing to use Leadership and optimize for it. But of course it's Leadership, you can do all sorts of broken stuff with that.



Kinetic Counter is potentially interesting at least.
Normally, a Kinetic Blast can be used to counterspell any spell of it's level or lower that shares its descriptor. So you could negate all fire-spells with a fire-blast, provided you boost it's "spell level" with appropriate infusions. No roll needed, just check the spell levels.
Kinetic Counter is, well. It only works with Fire Blasts against water and ice spells, and with cold and water blasts against fire spells. Countering works like dispel magic, with the same roll needed. As a nice bonus though, it does explicitly work against spell-like and supernatural abilities - and even against extraordinary abilities.
Both of these things are readied standard-actions though, so they suffer from the usual counterspelling problem.

[(Un)Inspired]

Kineticists are excellent candidates for VMC because of there dearth of useful feats. Barbarian is a pretty awesome choice. If you want to go to a Kinetic Blade town then rogue can help with your damage. Oracle has a bevy of great VMC options (as usual). Wizard offers some great stuff.

[Psyren]

Barbarian may not be a great choice actually - the kinetic blast and many of the wild talents are spell-like, which means you need to concentrate, so you can't use them while raging (and Mad Magic won't work either.)

[(Un)Inspired]

Barbarian may not be a great choice actually - the kinetic blast and many of the wild talents are spell-like, which means you need to concentrate, so you can't use them while raging (and Mad Magic won't work either.)

It's best just to ignore that conflict