View Full Version : Pathfinder A Useful Guide for Useful Kineticists
A Useful Guide for Kineticist Use
of Burn, Damage, and Infusions
So this isn't going to be a full guide to the class, but I feel that after having read the existing guides, burn still seems incredibly confusing. I feel that is a neat mechanic that allows a player to be more powerful when it counts, but at a cost. In this one limited sense it is not dissimilar to the wilder's overchannel ability. Burn is complicated, but if you're playing pathfinder, you've already wrapped your brain around more intricated mechanics anyways. This guide will cover all of the kineticist class features, including Burn, Infusions and Wild Talents. There is one omission: the Wood element. I have excluded it because I don't like it, but mostly because it would be more work to cover. So, what follows then is a look at how burn works with the kineticist class. To start, lets have a look at the damage the kineticist class is capable of.
There isn't a lot of ways for kineticists to increase their damage. As far as items go, the kinetcist's diadem is one, but that is 1d6 for nearly 20,000gp, and it only gets more expensive for the upgraded versions which give a maximum of 3d6. To be fair, it is a little cheaper than buying a Con belt for damage, but the Con belt is still your more important item. An even more important item is the Hollow Rod, which is metakinesis maximize 3x per day for about 120k gold. For simplicity's sake, the following table will assume a +5 Con for 1-10, and a +8 Con for 10-20. I will assume 3 elemental overflow as soon as that becomes available, but I will then leave elemental overflow at +3 until 20. Also, due to an oversight, this table was created putting only one +2 size bonus from elemental overflow into Con (and I'm not willing to fix it for the extra 2 damage at high level that entails). This will therefore be a conservative damage table. It is possible to get some additional damage for increased Con, the 3d6 for the diadem, 6 damage from elemental overflow, and +1 or +2 other items and feats over and above the table damage.
I will not assume any feats for the purposes of the table, but it is worth noting that deadly aim and point blank shot both are theoretically useful (do remember that Deadly Aim does not work for touch attacks!), for a total of +13 damage by level 20 (+9 at level 12) that only works on forms of kinetic blast that count as ranged attacks, which aren't always going to be your chosen form of blast anyways.
Generally speaking, metakinesis quicken isn't worth it at all, so this table excludes it completely. This is because your burn limit per round is less than the 6 burn you'd need to do a full power blast with it (gather power would only apply to one of your blasts).
The Table:
Kineticist Damage
Level
Damage (Physical: no burn)
Damage (Physical: 1 burn)
Damage (Physical: all out)
All Out Burn
Damage (Energy: no burn)
Damage (Energy: 1 burn)
Damage (Energy: all out)
All Out Burn
Infusion specialization
Elemental Overflow
Level 1
1d6+6 [9.5] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
1d6+2 [5.5] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
0
0
Level 2
1d6+6 [9.5] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
1d6+2 [5.5] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
0
0
Level 3
2d6+9 [18] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
2d6+4 [11] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
0
+1
Level 4
2d6+9 [18] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
2d6+4 [11] +G
N/A
N/A
N/A
0
+1
Level 5
(3d6+3)*1.5 + 7 [27.25]
N/A
N/A
N/A
(3d6)*1.5 + 4 [19.75]
N/A
N/A
N/A
+1
+1
Level 6
(3d6+3)*1.5 + 10 [30.25]
N/A
N/A
N/A
(3d6)*1.5 + 7 [22.75]
N/A
N/A
N/A
+1
+2
Level 7
(4d6+4)*1.5 + 10 [37]
(8d6+8)+10 [46]
(8d6+8)*1.5 + 10 [64]
2
(4d6)*1.5 + 7 [28]
(8d6+8)+7 [35]
(8d6)*1.5 + 7 [49]
2
+1
+2
Level 8
(4d6+4)*1.5 + 10 [37]
(8d6+8) + 10 [46]
(8d6+8)*1.5 + 10 [64]
2
(4d6)*1.5 + 7 [28]
(8d6+8) + 7 [35]
(8d6)*1.5 + 7 [49]
2
+2
+2
Level 9
(5d6+5)*1.5 + 12 [45.75]
(10d6+10) + 12 [57]
(10d6+10)*1.5 + 12 [79.5]
2
(5d6)*1.5 + 9 [35.25]
(10d6) + 9 [44]
(10d6)*1.5 + 9 [61.5]
2
+2
+3
Level 10
(5d6+5)*1.5 + 15 [48.75]
(10d6+10) + 15 [60]
(10d6+10)*1.5 + 15 [82.5]
2
(5d6)*1.5 + 10 [36.25]
10d6 + 10 [45]
(10d6)*1.5 + 10 [62.5]
2
+2
+3
Level 11
(12d6+12) + 15 [69]
(12d6+12)*1.5 + 15 [96]
84 + (12d6+12)*0.5 + 15 [126]
3
12d6 + 10 [52]
(12d6)*1.5 + 10 [73]
72 + (12d6)*0.5 + 10 [103]
3
+3
+3
Level 12
(12d6+12) + 15 [69]
(12d6+12)*1.5 + 15 [96]
84 + (12d6+12)*0.5 + 15 [126]
3
12d6 + 10 [52]
(12d6)*1.5 + 10 [73]
72 + (12d6)*0.5 + 10 [103]
3
+3
+3 (+4)
Level 13
(14d6+12) + 15 [78]
(14d6+12)*1.5 + 15 [109.5]
98 + (14d6+14)*0.5 + 15 [144.5]
3
14d6 + 10 [59]
(14d6)*1.5 + 10 [83.5]
84 + (14d6)*0.5 + 10 [118.5]
3
+3
+3 (+4)
Level 14
(14d6+14) + 15 [78]
(14d6+14)*1.5 + 15 [109.5]
98 + (14d6+14)*0.5 + 15 [144.5]
3
14d6 + 10 [59]
(14d6)*1.5 + 10 [83.5]
84 + (14d6)*0.5 + 10 [118.5]
3
+4
+3 (+4)
Level 15
(16d6+16) + 15 [87]
(16d6+16)*1.5 + 15 [123.5]
112 + (16d6+16)*0.5 + 15 [163] or 144 + (16d8+16)*0.5 + 10 [203]g
3, 4g
16d6 + 10 [66]
(16d6)*1.5 + 10 [94]
96 + (16d6)*0.5 + 10 [134] or 112 + (16d6+16)*0.5 + 10 [158]a
3, 4a
+4
+3 (+5)
Level 16
(16d6+16)*1.5 + 15 [123.5]
127 or (16d6+32)*1.5 + 15 [147]a
112 + (16d6+14)*0.5 + 15 [163] or 144 + (16d8)*0.5 + 15 [203]g
2, 3g
(16d6)*1.5 + 10 [94]
106 or (16d6+16)*1.5 + 10 [118.5]a
96 + (16d6)*0.5 + 10 [134] or 112 + (16d6+16)*0.5 + 10 [158]a
2, 3a
4
+3 (+5)
Level 17 (maximize)
(18d6+18)*1.5 + 15 [136.5]
141 or (18d6+36)*1.5 + 15 [163.5]a
126 + (18d6+18)*0.5 + 15 [181.5] or 162 + (18d8+18)*0.5 + 15 [226.5]g
2, 3g
(18d6)*1.5 + 10 [104.5]
118 or (18d6+18)*1.5 + 10 [131.5]a
108 + (18d6)*0.5 + 10 [149.5] or 126 + (18d6+18)*0.5 + 10 [176.5]a
2, 3a
+4
+3 (+5)
Level 17 (twin)
(18d6+18)*1.5 + 15 [136.5]
141 or (18d6+36)*1.5 + 15 [163.5]a
((18d6+18)*1.5 + 15)*2 [273] or ((18d8+18)*1.5 + 15)*2 [327]g
4, 5g
(18d6)*1.5 + 10 [104.5]
118 or (18d6+18)*1.5 + 10 [131.5]a
((18d6)*1.5 + 10)*2 [209] or ((18d6+18)*1.5 + 10)*2 [263]a
4, 5a
+4
+3 (+5)
Level 18
(18d6+18)*1.5 + 15 [136.5]
141 or (18d6+36)*1.5 + 15 [163.5]a
(126 + (18d6+18)*0.5 + 15)*2 [363]
6
(18d6)*1.5 + 10 [104.5]
118 or (18d6+18)*1.5 + 10 [131.5]a
(108 + (18d6)*0.5 + 10)*2 [299]
6
+4
+3 (+6)
Level 19
[155] or (20d6+40)*1.5 + 15 [180]a
(140 + (20d6+20)*0.5 + 15) [200]
(140 + (20d6+20)*0.5 + 15)*2 [400] or (180 + (20d8+20)*0.5 + 15)*2 [500]g
5, 6g
[130] or (20d6+20)*1.5 + 10 [150]a
(120 + (20d6)*0.5 + 10) [165]
(120 + (20d6)*0.5 + 10)*2 [330] or (140 + (20d6+20)*0.5 + 10)*2 [390]a
5, 6a
+4
+3 (+6)
Level 20
[155] or (20d6+40)*1.5 + 15 [180]a
(140 + (20d6+20)*0.5 + 15) [200]
(140 + (20d6+20)*0.5 + 15)*2 [400] or (180 + (20d8+20)*0.5 + 15)*2 [500]g
5, 6g
[130] or (20d6+20)*1.5 + 10 [150]a
(120 + (20d6)*0.5 + 10) [165]
(120 + (20d6)*0.5 + 10)*2 [330] or (140 + (20d6+20)*0.5 + 10)*2 [390]a
5, 6a
+4
+3 (+6)
[] Average damage is listed in brackets
g This is the maximum amount of damage you can deal if you chose void to augment a composite blast with gravitic boost for an additional burn. Aether and Aetheric boost is similar, but less 1 damage per die when maxmized and 1.5 damage per die when maximized and empowered. However, gravitic boost may not be applied to energy blasts, but Aetheric boost can. Additionally, Aetheric boost and Gravitic boost may both be able to be applied on a single composite physical blast (void blast), but I have not taken that into account for this table.
a This is with Aetheric boost
+G 1 point of gather power is free to be used for infusions
Note that the hard limit for burn per round is 1/round until 6th at which point it is your max elemental overflow per round. This most affects what you can do at 9th, 10th, and 17th level. 17th is an especially interesting case because you'd want to take 6 burn to twin a maximized empowered composite blast, but cannot without using internal buffer. Forgoing maximization (-43, -63*) to take 4, 5* points of burn to twin is better by about 100damage for two extra burn. Because it is entirely possible to miss part of this attack or fail to penetrate spell resistance, the merely maximized version has been left in the chart.
Going from simple to composite gives an extra die (4.5 on average for an energy blast, 3.5 on average for a physical blast, and since it is just extra die, it stacks multiplicatively (x2!) with all of the +damage per die-like effects) at the cost of two burn
Maximizing gives +2.5 damage per die on average (an additional +1 together with gravitic) at the cost of two burn.
Empowering a physical blast gives 2.25 damage per die on average (an additional +0.5 with gravitic or atheric).
Empowering an energy blast gives 1.75 damage per die on average (an additional +0.5 with gravitic or atheric).
Applying gravitic to a blast gives 1 damage per die on average (an additional +1 together with maximize, +0.5 on with empower). This costs two burn for a simple blast, but only one burn for a composite blast.
Applying Aetheric to a blast gives 1 damage per die (an additional +0.5 with empower). This costs two burn for a simple blast, but only one burn for a composite blast.
Note that empower does not give extra die and the empower effect is not maximized as per the text of Maximize Spell. Therefore, these are generally added using the following priority: Composite, Empower, Aetheric/Gravitic, Maximize.
The 4.5 damage per die for Gravitic+Maximize on a composite blast costs 3 burn, which compares against the 3.75 for two burn that Empower+Gravitic supplies. Since the former removes luck from the equation, and the extra burn grants an acceptable 1.25 damage per die, it is reasonable to use Gravitic+Maximize over Empower+Gravitic, but it is situational. A preference for Gravitic+Maximize supplies one of the only reasons not to choose Empower for the Metakinetic Master bonus (the other being a debuffing specialist using metakinesis quicken).
The average damage for energy kineticists vs physical kineticists is such that for levels 5-14, energy kineticists do pretty close to three quarters of the damage of physical kineticists with composite blasts. This means that kineticists that have a choice between blast types will probably consider a physical blast with 70% (hit on 7-20) physical hit chance to be about equal to an energy blast with a 95% hit chance (hit on 2-20). If you want to use an energy blast, but have only physical composite blasts available, the difference between a maximized energy blast and an energy composite blast will only be 1 damage per die and the difference between that and a physical composite blast will be only 25% most of the time, so if your accuracy with a composite blast is only 50% or lower, then you will likely benefit from switching if you can get through the SR (prior to level 16 when composite blasting gets cheaper).
Be aware that you have 1 free point to spend on infusions from levels 1-7, 2 at level 8, and after that you get another one every three levels. By level 14 you can throw around 4 burn infusions for free without putting gather power into it. Moreover, 4 burn infusions aren't available until level 12 (which you'd normally pick up at 13) anyways. Therefore, you want the infusions you use together to be free or cost only 1 burn the vast majority of the time and plan your infusion acquisition around this with very few exceptions. The biggest exception is if you are throwing around status effects like poisoned, staggered, dispelled, or entangled and don't care about damage for some reason.
Accepting Burn
Now generally to do damage you will accept burn, but how often can you legitimately afford to do that? Well, while there are a some features that result in avoiding burn (gather power, supercharge, infusion specialization, composite specialization and metakinetic master) which are baked into the table above, there are also a couple class features that mitigate accepted burn. These features are elemental overflow and internal buffer.
Elemental overflow mitigates burn by increasing your con mod at 6th, 11th, and 16th level, one modifier at a time. This is a size bonus. Internal buffer mitigates burn if you fill it before you rest (if you can, that is). If you don't fill your internal buffer when you rest, then you'll fill it in the morning to jump-start your elemental overflow early. Internal buffer gives you a point of buffer at 6th, 11th, and 16th level, which can also be used to exceed your burn limit per round, which is especially important at level 17 if you want to do that. You might want to reconsider doing that.
So lets say you took the Toughness feat, which mitigates one point of accepted burn. Each point of Con also mitigates one point of accepted burn. You can accept a maximum of Con mod + 3 burn, but since the remainder of your health is just what you get for your d8 hit die, you may not want to delve very deep into that. Lets say you are willing to take a single point of unmitigated burn. Since Con is important to kineticists, you start with a +5 in Con, and then put all of your level up bonuses into Con. You aren't putting your entire WBL into Con though, so you buy a +4 Con item at level 10, and then a +6 at level 16. Under these parameters, this is how much burn you can take (remember that every time you get internal buffer, you also get Con from elemental overflow):
Burn per Day
Level
Burn Per Day
2 Burn Per Day
3 Burn Per Day
5 Burn Per Day
6 Burn Per Day
Max Burn Per Round (without buffer)
Internal Buffer
Level 1
7
-
-
-
-
1
0
Level 2
7
-
-
-
-
1
0
Level 3
7
-
-
-
-
1
0
Level 4
7
-
-
-
-
1
0
Level 5
7
-
-
-
-
1
0
Level 6
9
4
3
-
-
2
1
Level 7
9
4
3
-
-
2
1
Level 8
10
5
3
-
-
2
1
Level 9
10
5
3
-
-
3
1
Level 10
12
6
4
-
-
3
1
Level 11
14
7
4
-
-
3
2
Level 12
14
7
4
2
-
4
2
Level 13
14
7
4
2
-
4
2
Level 14
14
7
4
2
-
4
2
Level 15
14
7
4
2
2
5
2
Level 16
18
9
6
3
3
5
3
Level 17
18
9
6
3
3
5
3
Level 18
18
9
6
3
3
6
3
Level 19
18
9
6
3
3
6
3
Level 20
18
9
6
3
3
6
3
These are combat rounds in which you can function at a particular strength. So you only have three rounds putting out the all-out level 20 damage listed in the damage table per day. But when you think about how long the deadly part of the day's combats last, spending two burn doesn't seem to be abjectly disastrous. You still can't spend two burn consistently though, and before your second point of internal buffer at level 11, spending two burn will cause you run out fast. As a result of the cost and necessity of burn, your combat patterns will probably match the party caster more than the party fighters: spending 6 rounds putting out significant damage, and then using lesser abilities for the other 8.
Infusions
So rating infusions on their own is almost useless, because which infusions you have access to is greatly dependent on your composite blast. Furthermore, you will only have access to a few infusions for any given level. So in order to look at which infusions are desirable, I'm also going to be looking at the kinetic blasts that have access to them. First up will be composite energy blasts, then composite physical blasts, then simple energy blasts, and finally simple physical blasts. I will not include wood based blasts, since for blasting purposes they tend to be just a worse version of Mud (the value of wood kineticists is they get golems and instant free catapults and stuff) and are an additional five blasts to cover. Rating kinetic blasts will also partially take into account the strength of the associated defense talents and I will try to order the elements involved in the most mechanically advantageous order to take them (though outside of taking an energy simple blast first, it doesn't usually matter much).
Considerations for Choosing Infusions
When looking at the damage type of a composite blast, DR does not apply to elemental damage, but elemental resistance does. The most mechanically advantageous damage type for a composite blast will ultimately be one that either has DR or elemental resistance apply, but not both. Given a choice, elemental resistance is preferred, because you will generally have no way to bypass damage resistance and it is more common than elemental resistance of your particular damage type. Generally speaking though, damage type is one of the least of your considerations for an element combination unless you know in advance your campaign will have a bunch of elementally-themed creatures in it.
Infusions have a spell level, but this doesn't mean as much most spell levels do because (unlike utility wild talents) all infusion DCs are based off of your kinetic blast's spell level which is always 1/2 your level to a maximum of 9th. I believe that RAW this means Extend Spell Like Abillity applies to effects that have duration, but Quicken would not, because you can't quicken the blast that it is a part of. Therefore, spell levels are only important for determining the level you can choose infusions and which infusions you can replace them with once you've chosen them. You get your infusions on odd levels though, so level 2 infusions are available at 5th level, level 3 at 7th, etc. You can get additional infsuions from the Extra Wild Talent feat, but you have to take infusions that are at least 2 levels less than the maximum level of infusion you are allowed. This means that you can get 1st level infusions this way at 6th level and 5th level infusions at 14th level.
It important to reiterate that you have a number of free burn to apply to infusing a blast (1 at 5th and every 3rd level thereafter), and that you normally shouldn't exceed that, since doing so essentially takes away from what you can add to your damage via compositing and metakinesis except at levels 1-4 when you don't have either of those options available yet. There are situational exceptions, but most of the exceptions to this rule will be listed in the analysis. Remember, every point of burn could have been converted into a non-negligible amount of damage, and burn is a limited resource.
Another thing to watch out for when picking infusions is that you can only apply one form infusion and one substance infusion to a blast at once. The former use Dex for the DC, the latter use Con. Form infusions tend to alter things like range, and area affected, while substance infusions tend to apply some sort of additional consequence to target when hit. Ideally by the endgame you will want both a useful form infusion and a useful substance infusion since you won't be able to spend infusion specialization +5 on a single infusion.
The Rating System
Red: Don’t bother.
Orange: Situational and/or bad.
Green: Good, an acceptable option.
Blue: Great, an excellent pick.
Universal infusions (which are often available to every blast under the sun) will be marked with a *. Without further ado:
Infusions by Blast
fire/fire: Blue Flame: Energy blast. Fire damage.
So this is considered to be the best blast mechanically. It gets AOE early, which is better against enemies with mid to low relative CR than most if not all physical blasts. It strikes against touch AC which is better than physical blasts against plenty of higher CR enemies (and spell resistance is easier to build a character against than AC). It also gets extra damage from the burning infusion described below (an extra d6 of burning damage) and the Fire's Fury Utility Wild Talent, which gives you your Elemental Overflow to damage again (usually making that 3x Elemental Overflow to Damage in total).
The common energy resistance is reasonable, partially because unlike many other kineticists, DR isn't going to be an issue, and partially because enemies with the fire subtype won't be able to use their fire resistance and/or immunity (thanks to draining infusion). There is only one other composite energy blast, and it doesn't get anything close to the good infusions that Blue Flame does. Finally, if there is any trouble with spell resistance later on, Blue Flame Blast gets a unique infusion to ignore it.
This doesn't mean this is universally the best decision, in fact, the excellent pyrokineticist guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_M_KunBDB7qDEn6FvjdPMVWTFuA_JpnRsXCklicgaTI) recommends getting Magma Blast first. This is because Magma blast has a higher damage potential on account of being a physical composite blast with access to the burning infusion, a feature only Plasma Blast (which leaves you without a good defense talent) otherwise possesses. Do note that if you get both feats will still likely push you into specializing for Blue Flame Blast (Greater Elemental Focus, Ability Focus, (Greater) Spell Penetration) or Magma Blast (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Focus) and infusions as well to a lesser extent.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion^* (substance) Burn 1: So this can't actually be applied to the Blue Flame blast, but since you are going to have only fire blast left if you choose this composite blast first anyways it is still worth mentioning here. So anything with the fire subtype is no longer resistant or immune to fire (but is allowed to save for 1/4). That's not all fire resistance, but it cuts out some of the more common ones. Furthermore, it will reduce your burn if it works. Small amounts of fire resistance already aren't a problem for you thanks to the burning infusion, but this can get around larger amounts of resistance and even immunity. Because fire resistance and immunity are a more common than other elemental resistances, and because you don't have a fallback element initially, this is worth a closer look.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions, including eruption. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity, and iterative attacks are much more likely to hit with energy blasts than physical anyways. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Burning Infusion* (form) Burn 1: This grants increased to-hit (not like you need it), better DCs (amazing) and easier spell resistance to fire blasts. It is likely that this means the Fire simple blast, so this isn't as amazing as you might thing. Your target also takes 1d6 burning damage until the fire is extinguished which is still enough to make this infusion worth it. A utility talent adds decreased fire resistance (decreased by the same d6 you would normally use to calculate burning damage) to the list of status effects. Given that this is one burn, there isn't much for substance infusions that compete with this for general use.
Fan of Flames (form) Burn 1: Fire gets all of the good 1 burn infusions it seems. This one is suboptimal to take most of the time because eruption is significantly better. It gets a green because other elements wish they had infusions like this. Fire gets a 15ft cone for 1 burn. water(water) gets the a 30ft cone for 3 burn. The former can have all sorts of interesting free substance infusions on it, the latter is both more expensive and half damage.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion. Moreover, there is no shortage of good infusions for Blue Flame, so this probably isn't worth it.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for the ability to apply a substance infusion to multiple targets or with an increased save DC. This still isn't likely to be worth it for Blue Flame, but if you do want this, you'll want to take this as a replacement at 11th or 17th level to pair with unraveling or (if necessary) flash.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). However, the mobile blast disappears if you get more than 30ft from it, making you much less mobile by having this thing around. Potentially awesome, but usually impractical.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is. With fire though, so much else is. Eruption has the same prerequisite and also avoids cover, for instance.
Eruption (form) Burn 2: 10ft radius cylinder within centered extended range. And it is only two burn! None of the other elements get something like this. This is the bread and butter of fire Kineticists. At level 11, you can throw burning on this for free.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: Useful, but largely eclipsed by Eruption and this can be relatively hard to use effectively. If you don't want to take eruption and/or extended range for some reason, this is good. The tough part is both wanting to move and gather power in the same round on a regular basis in order to hit multiple targets.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Flash Infusion (substance) Burn 4: 4 burn is too much for this level so you'll be using the level 11th replacement for this most likely. Blind is a nice status effect, but only lasts for one round with this infusion. You can also increase the DC by 2 at the cost of damage, which is a very nice feature for this overcosted infusion since you'll probably be using gather power in order to pay for this along with Eruption. The nail in the coffin for this one is that you have to give up Burning Infusion to use this. Later you can add a high-level light spell to this at no extra cost except an infusion choice. This is better as a prerequisite to that infusion than as part of an actual combat routine.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions, and Blue Flame only can use the wall infusion. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Blue Flame with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts. With Blue Flame, it is hard to work this in with the other infusions you'll want.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Unraveling Infusion (substance) Burn 3: This one is even more amazing out of combat than it is in-combat. Even if you don't come across buffed opponents that much in your campaign, this is still worth taking for its out-of-combat effects. All day burnless dispel magic? Yes please! For more dispelling power, you can bump up your caster level check by 2 at the cost of half damage. If you really want to push your DC up, combine this with Flurry of Blasts for another 2 now and later that will increase to 4, or even 5 with haste. You can dispel better than your party's main caster, especially if you put some other (non-kineticist specific) character options into dispelling. All-day.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Brilliant Infusion (substance) Burn 4: This buffs Flash Infusion to add a level 6 version of continual flame, which applies to every square of an area blast if you use one. Nice for dispelling problematic darkness if your party didn't all buy their own version of truesight already. Bad for everything else.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Explosion (form) Burn 4: It is like Eruption, but you can shrink or extend the radius to up to 20ft. Good for later, but for the level you get it, you'll still want to stick with Eruption together with Burning.
Pure-Flame Infusion (substance) Burn 4: Ignore spell resistance entirely. Nice when you need it. You don't usually want to gather-power for this unless you have to, since the point of this infusion is to make it easier to deal damage. Also, if you're having problems with your target's spell resistance, you will probably also have some problem with its saves, so you'll most likely be switching to single target mode when using this. This is how you fry golems for fun and profit.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
^ You can't actually use this blast with Blue Flame, it just happens to be important to choosing blue flame as a blast
aether/aether: Force Blast: Energy Blast. force damage.
So this doesn't deal damage as a composite blast, and it also only gets two additional infusions over Negative Admixture? Uh, that was disappointing. An infusion eventually sort of fixes this, but its a 4 burn infusion, which means you can't use other infusions with it AND the infusion allows a save for 1/4. I guess the positive thing is that, weirdly, this is an energy composite blast made up of two physical simple blasts. If you really want the increased hit chance this brings, consider using Foe Throw and send the target into an unattended object/floor/roof/wall, which is fort negates (SR: no) instead, even though that won't always be feasible.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this. Additionally, it improves your basic telekinesis ability.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity, and iterative attacks are much more likely to hit with energy blasts than physical anyways. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign. Additionally, it greatly improves your basic telekinesis ability.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...gusting infusion? Thundering infusion? Magnetic infusion? I'm not sure that can really be justified.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). However, the mobile blast disappears if you get more than 30ft from it, making you much less mobile by having this thing around. Potentially awesome, but usually impractical.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Force Hook (form) Burn 2: This pulls you to your target. As a kineticist, you probably don't want that to happen?
Level 4:
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Force with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Disintegrating Infusion (substance) So this basically gives you back your composite blast, and you disintegrate creatures that hit 0hp. Make yourself clear that this does not include anything that creature was holding/wearing. Oh, and it also allows your target to save for 1/4. But after all of this you can at least use distintegrate at will, right? Nope, 1 burn per 10ft cube of nonliving matter. It is kinda disgusting that this is blue for you.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
any energy/negative(void): Negative Admixture: Energy blast. Half negative energy damage, half the other energy type damage.
Ok, so this one is a bit interesting because it ONLY works with universal infusions. This would make it rather substandard, if it wasn't the only energy composite blast besides blue flame. This gives elements that really want a composite blast a composite blast for when damage becomes more important. Taking Negative Admixture means that you are focusing on the infusions for a simple energy blast most of the time, but there are still a few there are worth taking for admixture. The universal infusions are:
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity, and iterative attacks are much more likely to hit with energy blasts than physical anyways. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...well you don't have anything to sacrifice damage for, so this is useless to Negative Admixture.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). However, the mobile blast disappears if you get more than 30ft from it, making you much less mobile by having this thing around. Potentially awesome, but usually impractical.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions, and Negative Admixture only can use the wall infusion. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Negative Admixture with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
electric(air)/air(air): Thunderstorm Blast: Physical Blast. Half bludgeoning, half electricity damage.
Thunderstorm blast is a bit underwhelming. You only get a few more blasts on top of what you might get from Negative Admixture most of which aren't great (the best of which are thundering and magnetic), and your blast type is physical. You are probably better off picking air as a theme (going sandstorm, blizzard, or plasma) or electricity as a theme (charged water, negative admixture). The best reason to take air is its utility talents (which are amoung the best kineticists have to offer), but you already got that the first time you chose air.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave that for electric blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Gusting Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Gust of Wind, as the spell. Useful for dispersing various cloud spells and anything a gust of wind is normally used for. Also reasonable for out of combat use. Can be reduced in burn if damage is removed.
Thundering Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Deafened isn't the nastiest status effect, but this one is PERMANENT. In addition to the penalty on perception checks and initiative, deafened characters cannot receive spoken orders and would have a much harder time coordinating with their allies. Even if a creature succeeded on their save, it could mask another loud noise and serve as a distraction.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...gusting infusion? Thundering infusion? Magnetic infusion? I'm not sure that can really be justified.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Magnetic Infusion (substance) Burn 2: One of the better substance infusions. You may not get the +4 to hit, but your party will appreciate it.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: You are better off using the electric(air) blast (see errata) for this infusion. So consider taking this, but don't use it with Thunderstorm unless you are having trouble with SR.
Level 4:
Cyclone (form) Burn 3: The blast radius for this infusion is centered on you and is half damage. While this is nice if you are surrounded, as an air kineticist, you probably didn't want that to happen anyways.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Thunderstorm with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Cloud (form) Burn 4: Nice radius, half damage, can't apply substance infusions without suffering burn. This isn't completely useless, but it is useful only when facing mobs of low level enemies. Due to the localized lightning effect, it isn't even that useful out-of-combat like obscuring mist might be. If there were better options at this level, this wouldn't be worth bothering with.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
cold(water)/water(water): Ice Blast: Physical Blast. Half piercing, half cold damage.
You have the AC of a fighter and some nice infusions that most other elements don't get (impale, entangling and chilling). Honestly you'll be reverting back to water(cold) a fair bit before your to-hit gets good enough, but this has the best combat infusions that physical blasts have to offer (short of having the magnetic infusion apply to your blasts) and arguably the best defense talent to boot. Additionally the Shimmering Mirage Utility Wild Talent (which you can pick up at level 10) gives you a 20% miss chance to further bolster your resilience.
Also consider Mud blast for even more tankiness at the cost of your energy blast, impale and the chilling infusion, as well as Blizzard blast for more utility from the air element at the cost of impale.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave this for cold blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: This is a status effect that is actually worth something. While entangled isn't an amazing status effect, it still is a -2 to attack, prevents somatic casting, and either makes an enemy possible to kite or uses up one of their actions. In addition, if you hit a target twice with this effect, it upgrades to "rooted in place as though fused to an immovable object". There is no text that directly specifies how an opponent is to get out of this, but a careful read suggests that, at minimum, dealing damage to the kinetic matter equal to quadruple your kineticist level would be sufficient. That still causes the target to lose actions, and for Burn 2, that is pretty good. When you get this, it isn't free, so you probably won't start using this for a while after you get it. Chilling infusion is better, but the difference between 2 and 3 burn can mean the difference between adding a form infusion, and not adding a form infusion.
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for inflicting the Entangling or Chilling infusions on multiple opponents. Especially since Chilling is a great 5 burn combo that can be put to work at level 11. Flurry already loses some of your damage, so using gather power on an infusion is probably worth it. You can also use it to increase your save on a single target, but if you have multiple targets, it is probably better to spread out. You'll probably want to replace another infusion to this at level 11, since it isn't going to be very useful before that point.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Impale (form) Burn 2: This is the only area attack that doesn't decrease physical damage for the targets and it is only available to earth, metal and ice infusions. Enjoy it, embrace it, use it. Your chances of skewering 3 enemies with this is somewhat slim though, since you have to hit the AC of each one of them in turn in order to do that. You can also use this with chilling and entangling infusions later on.
Level 4:
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So the grappling infusion text is duplicated pretty much in every other composite blast, and while it still is as decent as it ever was, chilling infusion is here to push it aside. Things with good fort saves are not likely things that you'll want to grapple instead, and you can only use it with the Wall infusion, so it is going to be more expensive than some of your vehicles for Chilling anyways.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Chilling Infusion (substance) Burn 3: Fort save or staggered. This is the best status effect kineticists can reliably deal. Wait, scratch the reliably part, fort saves for a lot of monsters are sky high. Well, it is still very good nonetheless, and kineticists can get some pretty impressive DCs with elemental focus and abillity focus and spell level always being treated as 1/2 of your kineticist level.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Fragmentation Burn 4: make a normal attack, and get half damage to nearby targets (save for 1/4) for free. Not bad, though chilling impale is likely your preference when it makes sense to do so.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Well oops. I've exceed the character limit. This is going to require another three or four posts then. At least.
Ninjaxenomorph
2016-02-21, 01:56 PM
I'm keeping my eye on this guide; it always confused the heck out of me. You might want to specifically call out burn in the guide title, though.
Infusions (Continued)
earth/earth: Metal Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.
One of the nicest physical blasts on account of the magnetic infusion increasing your to-hit substantially (20%!). As such, it is the highest single-target DPR standard action blast (likely with gravitic or aetheric boost level 15+), most likely followed by blue flame. It has the best vehicle for the grappling infusion (which may or may not actually be a good choice), and comes with an excellent defense talent (which it shares with every other blast that takes earth as a second element). In fact, may other starting elements grab this one for a second because of the defense talent alone, making earth a very solid choice. However, if you like this and magnetic infusion doesn't look that great to you, take a look at Magma, which has many of the same benefits along with eruption from the fire element, and Mud, which doubles down on excellent defense talents.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a prerequisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, though the Magnetic infusion compensates for this somewhat. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Bowling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: I'm starting to feel that earth should have some utility talent that boosts its CMB (particularly since improved trip and improved grapple probably won't help you here). While this is more effective than pushing, most of the targets for which this is useful are very resistant to this infusion. Also, when you get this, it isn't free. I'm not paying burn for this effect, ok?
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: Here were are! This is a status effect that doesn't require you to make an opposed CMB check. While entangled isn't an amazing status effect, it still is a -2 to attack, prevents somatic casting, and either makes an enemy possible to kite or uses up one of their actions. In addition, if you hit a target twice with this effect, it upgrades to "rooted in place as though fused to an immovable object". There is no text that directly specifies how an opponent is to get out of this, but a careful read suggests that, at minimum, dealing damage to the kinetic matter equal to quadruple your kineticist level would be sufficient. That still causes the target to lose actions, and for Burn 2, that is pretty good. The main barrier to using this infusion is Magnetic infusion, which given that you can only use a single substance infusion, is likely going to push this one out of use. Also, when you get this, it isn't free, so you wouldn't practically start using this until Magnetic infusion comes online anyways.
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for applying entanglement or pushing to multiple targets. It isn't that great, but it could be useful, especially as part of an attempt to trap creatures inside an entangling wall.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for physical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Magnetic Infusion (substance) Burn 2: One of the best substance infusions. Not only do you get +4 to hit, but your party will appreciate it too.
Impale (form) Burn 2: A form infusion that you will be using all the time as of level 14 at least. This is the only area attack that doesn't decrease physical damage for the targets and it is only available to earth, metal and ice (water composite) infusions. Enjoy it, embrace it, and probably choose Magnetic infusion because actually hitting things is even more important (and this infusion doesn't help you at all if you miss the first target). As of level 11, this is a consideration for spending a burn on in order to be able to use both.
Rare-Metal Infusion (substance) Burn 2: Should DR ever become an issue for you (you deal all of your damage in a single instance, so it is already largely mitigated), you can get through any DR except for aligned DR and weird ones like DR/wood should that ever exist. Unfortunately that one monster will be DR 30/good, and you won't be able to use this anyways.
Level 4:
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Metal with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Deadly Earth (form) Burn 4: So the trick with this one is that it does full damage to creatures that both enter and end their turn in the area (75% if they enter the area by having it be created under them). This can be done with the entangling infusion and a little luck and/or planning. A large, 20 move speed monster cannot escape an entangling Deadly Earth and runs a real risk of being double entangled. For smaller and faster monsters, the real winner here is the Grappling Infusion. Using this with the grappling infusion is 7 burn though. Don't worry, it isn't as bad as you think. 4 burn is free, 2 burn is avoided via gather power, leaving 1 burn to accept. No save, no SR, no attack roll, but a potentially tough combat maneuver roll. The combat maneuver rolls also disable them for the round. Not bad. Not bad at all. At any rate it is the most solid area denial any kineticist has. Available level 13. You can double grapple someone for additional fun by adding a wall into the mix.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Fragmentation Burn 4: make a normal attack, and get half damage to nearby targets (save for 1/4) for free. Except that now you can't use Magnetic infusion without burn.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
gravity(void)/negative(void): Void Blast: Physical Blast. Half bludgeoning, half negative energy.
So Void blast has all of the infusions of negative and gravity. Well, the only infusion gravity gets that negative doesn't is pulling, so for the most part this has the same infusions as negative blast. If you are running an adventure out of a book, darkness and darkness (greater) may allow you steamroll some otherwise difficult encounters. Otherwise, it doesn't give your DM a lot of options. For the most part either something is completely crippled by darkness, or it isn't affected at all. This isn't a truly bad set of infusions and abilities, but it isn't very good either. Also, taking negative(void) as part of your blast means you will be very disadvantaged against undead. Normally damage type isn't all that important. but undead is a huge class of monsters and, unlike fire, you don't have any way around their immunity.
It is probably more optimized to go negative admixture first, using darkness for the simple blast when you want it. Gravity can be then picked up as a third element for the boost. This is probably the best way to go if you really want to grab gravity(void) first though.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a prerequisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave this for negative energy blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Pulling Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic, and for the same reasons as pushing. The text is a little odd, since even AoE blasts will pull towards you, and not towards the center of the area.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...enervation I guess. Not worth it.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for physical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Darkness Infusion (substance) Burn 2: Potentially useful if your entire party has darkvision. Applying darkness to everything within 20 ft of any point between you and your target is a pretty large effect too. Unfortunately, there are a lot of enemies which will have darkvision and be immune to this, and magic items easily get around this. There is a greater version of this later on which is potentially quite debilitating to targets that it affects, but truesight is something encounter bosses may be investing in anyways. Well, it is an alternative to snake, so that's a plus.
Level 4:
Singularity (form) Burn 3: The is half damage...for your simple blast. For Void blast, it is 1/4. This could have been cool. This could have been a moderately weaker version of eruption. You could ask your DM to reduce the penalty by doubling the damage of this infusion (which would still only do 1/2 damage with Void blast) without asking too much I think. It's useless. You can't even use this with the Grappling or Chilling infusions to use this as a vehicle for status effects in lieu of damage.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Thunderstorm with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Darkness Infusion (substance) Burn 4: You have to watch out you don't blind your party with this, since it is deeper darkness. Applying darkness to everything within 20 ft of any point between you and your target is a pretty large effect. Furthermore, creatures that are affected by this are essentially crippled. Unfortunately, truesight and the same monster ability that makes you immune to this effect both have the potential to make this worthless, especially at your level.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Enervating Infusion (substance) Burn 4: Ok, so bestowing one negative level isn't a lot at the late, late level you get this. On the other hand, it *is* extra damage, which is rare to get in an infusion. Besides, you don't have a lot of form infusions you'd rather be using, and your other best substance infusion is darkness, which your opponent may be immune to. Other elements wouldn't rank this blue, but it is blue for you, and you'll be using it often.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
air(air)/cold(water): Blizzard Blast: Physical Blast. Half piercing, half cold damage.
You have the AC of a fighter and one of only two blasts to get the Chilling Infusion. Honestly you'll be reverting back to water(cold) a fair bit before your to-hit gets good enough, but this is a good choice. Moreover, you get the excellent Air utility talents, including haste and plain vanilla flight. The water defense talent allows you to make better use of the air element infusions like Cyclone, because you are less vulnerable to being beaten to a pulp as a reward.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a prerequisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave this for cold blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Gusting Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Gust of Wind, as the spell. Useful for dispersing various cloud spells and anything a gust of wind is normally used for. Also reasonable for out of combat use. Can be reduced in burn if damage is removed.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: This is a status effect that is actually worth something. While entangled isn't an amazing status effect, it still is a -2 to attack, prevents somatic casting, and either makes an enemy possible to kite or uses up one of their actions. In addition, if you hit a target twice with this effect, it upgrades to "rooted in place as though fused to an immovable object". There is no text that directly specifies how an opponent is to get out of this, but a careful read suggests that, at minimum, dealing damage to the kinetic matter equal to quadruple your kineticist level would be sufficient. That still causes the target to lose actions, and for Burn 2, that is pretty good. When you get this, it isn't free, so you probably won't start using this for a while after you get it. Chilling infusion is better, but the difference between 2 and 3 burn can mean the difference between adding a form infusion, and not adding a form infusion.
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for inflicting the Entangling or Chilling infusions on multiple opponents. Especially since Chilling is a great 5 burn combo that can be put to work at level 11. Flurry already loses some of your damage, so using gather power on an infusion is probably worth it. You can also use it to increase your save on a single target, but if you have multiple targets, it is probably better to spread out. You'll probably want to replace another infusion to this at level 11, since it isn't going to be very useful before that point.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for physical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: At half damage, you're going to want to pair it with the entangling or chilling infusions most likely. Using this means that you can keep your wall in place where it is, and can do more damage that Flurry of Blasts. It also always hits, unlike Flurry of Blasts. Flurry of Blasts is probably still a better option, since you can always switch to cold(water) if you are having trouble hitting with it.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Cyclone (form) Burn 3: The blast radius for this infusion is centered on you and is half damage with a reflex save for half again. While this is nice if you are surrounded by enemies, you don't want to get your friends in this. While expensive, combining this with the chilling infusion can be very worth it once you are level 11 or higher. Not only can the damage work out if you have four enemy targets or more, but as a result of the chilling infusion, you'll be less likely to die as a result!
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So the grappling infusion text is duplicated pretty much in every other composite blast, and while it still is as decent as it ever was, chilling infusion is here to push it aside. Things with good fort saves are not likely things that you'll want to grapple instead, and you can only use it with the Wall and Cloud infusions, so it is going to be more expensive than some of your vehicles for Chilling anyways.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Chilling Infusion (substance) Burn 3: Fort save or staggered. This is the best status effect kineticists can reliably deal. Wait, scratch the reliably part, fort saves for a lot of monsters are sky high. Well, it is still very good nonetheless, and kineticists can get some pretty impressive DCs with elemental focus and abillity focus and spell level for DCs always being treated as 1/2 of your kineticist level.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Cloud (form) Burn 4: Nice radius, half damage, can't apply substance infusions without suffering burn. This isn't completely useless, but it is useful only when facing mobs of low level enemies. Due to the localized lightning effect, it isn't even that useful out-of-combat like obscuring mist might be. If there were better options at this level, this wouldn't be worth bothering with.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
electric(air)/water(water): Charged Water Blast: Physical Blast. Half bludgeoning, half electricity damage.
You can get the AC of a fighter and the excellent Air utility talents, including haste and plain vanilla flight. Honestly you'll be reverting back to electric(air) a fair bit before your to-hit gets good enough, but this is a fine choice. You don't get any particularly great infusion choices (the blast-specific highlights are spray and magnetic, meh), unlike Blizzard blast. Generally speaking, Blizzard or Mud are mechanically better. Nonetheless, you have an energy blast and the air/water utillity talents, so don't complain too much.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a prerequisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave this for electric blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Quenching Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. While this lets you put out large fires, you can still put out small fires (just like using a bucketful) without this ability. But when there are fires that qualify as large fires (but not huge ones), and you don't want to use water manipulation to do the job for whatever reason, then, then this infusion will really shine and you will see its true pow...oh nevermind. You can also put out magical fires with this if you run into any low-CL, unquenchable magical fires that you need to put out.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...well...nothing. Not worth it.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for physical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: You are better off using the electric(air) blast (see errata) for this infusion. So consider taking this, but don't use it with Charged Water unless you are having trouble with SR. Also, the Chain infusion for electric(air) is potentially a better choice.
Magnetic Infusion (substance) Burn 2: One of the best substance infusions you have access to. Also one of the only substance infusions you have access to. You don't get the to-hit bonus from this, but your allies will certainly appreciate it.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Spray (form) Burn 3: So charged water is the only composite blast worthy of this infusion. It is pretty underwhelming though. A 30ft cone is pretty good, you can't use it right away since it is Burn 3, and most importantly it is half damage. Moreover, you don't have any good status effects in your infusion list to make half damage hurt any less. Still probably worth taking for the occasional situation where the numbers make this work out.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Charged Water with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
water(water)/earth(earth): Mud Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning damage.
So this is very similar to Magma Blast but without eruption, and with no energy blast. What makes this good then? You get both the earth and water defense talents! You are almost tanky having both of those, and as a caster, that's great. Not having an energy blast does hurt, but you get your opportunity cost worth here. For your third element, you will probably be looking at aether, for the ultimate defense talent trifecta. As an added bonus, you don't have to deal with any form of energy resistance.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: This is a status effect that is actually worth something. While entangled isn't an amazing status effect, it still is a -2 to attack, prevents somatic casting, and either makes an enemy possible to kite or uses up one of their actions. In addition, if you hit a target twice with this effect, it upgrades to "rooted in place as though fused to an immovable object". There is no text that directly specifies how an opponent is to get out of this, but a careful read suggests that, at minimum, dealing damage to the kinetic matter equal to quadruple your kineticist level would be sufficient. That still causes the target to lose actions, and for Burn 2, that is pretty good. When you get this, it isn't free, so you probably won't start using this for a while after you get it.
Bowling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: While this is more effective than pushing, most of the targets for which this is useful are very resistant to this infusion. Also, when you get this, it isn't free. I'm not paying burn for this effect, ok?
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for entangling. Not worth it.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: So this is one of your only ways to avoid making an attack roll against your target's full AC (along with wall and deadly earth). While not generally your preferred combat option, it is an important one nonetheless.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Magma with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way). This isn't as excellent for Mud as it is for many other composite blasts, because there is no option to downgrade to a simple energy blast for cheaper damage. It is still very good though.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Deadly Earth (form) Burn 4: One of the best earth infusions and one that Mud is lucky to have. So the trick with this one is that it does full damage to creatures that both enter and end their turn in the area (75% if they enter the area by having it be created under them). This can be done with the entangling infusion and a little luck and/or planning. A large, 20 move speed monster cannot escape an entangling Deadly Earth and runs a real risk of being double entangled. For smaller and faster monsters, the real winner here is the Grappling Infusion. Using this with the grappling infusion is 7 burn though. Don't worry, it isn't as bad as you think. 4 burn is free, 2 burn is avoided via gather power, leaving 1 burn to accept. No save, no SR, no attack roll, but a potentially tough combat maneuver roll. The combat maneuver rolls also disable them for the round. Not bad. Not bad at all. At any rate it is the most solid area denial any kineticist has. Available level 13. You can double grapple someone for additional fun by adding a wall into the mix.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Infusions (Continued)
fire/earth: Magma Blast: Physical Blast. Half bludgeoning, half fire damage.
So you get the earth defense talent, and eruption and burning infusions for the fire element. Burning gives +2 to hit on your fire kinetic blasts. If this applies to Blue Flame, it probably applies to you, giving you half of the magnetic infusion bonus. It probably doesn't though. Honestly, while eruption is nice, it is half damage, so it is probably better to just use fire blasts with it. I actually disagree with the pyrokineticist guide on this one. While the DR is great, for fire kineticists it is probably better to grab earth at level 15 and have access to your best damage between levels 7-14. Similarly, for earth kineticsts, there really isn't anything here that is more attractive than being able to benefit from the magnetic infusion. So this blast is merely decent when doubling down on your primary element gives you something excellent.
There is something to be said from having access to the simple energy blast that is best at AoE and a relatively normal physical bast when that isn't optimal. Magma blast gives you that, and that is worth something. Like all fire-based blasts, the Fire's Fury Utility Wild Talent will slightly boost your damage, so if you were to hit everything, this would have more damage than both Blue Flame Blast and Metal Blast.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave this for fire blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Burning Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: Increased to-hit (not like you need it), better DCs (amazing), easier spell resistance (very good), oh, and they also take 1d6 burning damage until the fire is extinguished. Unfortunately, it is probable that none of that actually applies to Magma, just fire. A utility talent adds decreased fire resistance (decreased by the same d6 you would normally use to calculate burning damage) to the list of status effects, which does apply to Magma and is probably important enough to use when you can afford to do so freely.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: See Mud Blast. I've got too many chars otherwise.
Bowling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: While this is more effective than pushing, most of the targets for which this is useful are very resistant to this infusion. Also, when you get this, it isn't free. I'm not paying burn for this effect, ok?
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for entangling. Not worth it.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: Get eruption instead.
Eruption (form) Burn 2: 10ft radius cylinder within centered extended range. And it is only two burn! It is half-damage though, so you're probably better off just using fire.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Magma with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Deadly Earth (form) Burn 4: One of the best earth infusions and one that Magma is lucky to have. So the trick with this one is that it does full damage to creatures that both enter and end their turn in the area (75% if they enter the area by having it be created under them). This can be done with the entangling infusion and a little luck and/or planning. A large, 20 move speed monster cannot escape an entangling Deadly Earth and runs a real risk of being double entangled. For smaller and faster monsters, the real winner here is the Grappling Infusion. Using this with the grappling infusion is 7 burn though. Don't worry, it isn't as bad as you think. 4 burn is free, 2 burn is avoided via gather power, leaving 1 burn to accept. No save, no SR, no attack roll, but a potentially tough combat maneuver roll. The combat maneuver rolls also disable them for the round. Not bad. Not bad at all. At any rate it is the most solid area denial any kineticist has. Available level 13. You can double grapple someone for additional fun by adding a wall into the mix.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
fire/air(air): Plasma Blast: Physical Blast. Half bludgeoning, half fire damage.
So no good defense wild talents, no good infusions. You don't even get eruption. This blast is surprisingly bad. Unless you really want to blow hot air, both Steam and Magma are better fire blasts while blizzard and sandstorm are better air blasts. You do still get Fire's Fury at least, and the Burning infusion will add to your damage if not anything else, I guess.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave this for fire blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Burning Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: Increased to-hit (not like you need it), better DCs (amazing), easier spell resistance (very good), oh, and they also take 1d6 burning damage until the fire is extinguished. Unfortunately, it is probable that none of that actually applies to Plasma, just fire. A utility talent adds decreased fire resistance (decreased by the same d6 you would normally use to calculate burning damage) to the list of status effects, which does apply to Plasma and is probably important enough to use when you can afford to do so freely.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for entangling. Not worth it.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for physical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: This is better as a fire blast than as a plasma blast, and eruption is probably a better infusion for that purpose.
Magnetic Infusion (substance) Burn 2: You don't get the to-hit bonus from this, but your allies will certainly appreciate it.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Flash Infusion (substance) Burn 3: 3 burn is too much for this level so you'll be using the level 11th replacement for this most likely. Blind is a nice status effect, but only lasts for one round with this infusion. You can also increase the DC by 2 at the cost of damage, which is a very nice feature for this overcosted infusion, but I'm still not sure it is worth using. Later you can add a high-level light spell to this for only one extra burn. This is better as a prerequisite to that infusion than as part of an actual combat routine.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Plasma with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Brilliant Infusion (substance) Burn 4: This buffs Flash Infusion to add a level 6 version of continual flame, which applies to every square of an area blast if you use one. Nice for dispelling problematic darkness if your party didn't all buy their own version of truesight already. Bad for everything else.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
earth/air(air): Sandstorm Blast: Physical Blast. Piercing and Slashing damage.
This blast comes with the amazing earth defense talent and air's excellent utility talents have relatively little overlap with earth's. That said, you lack an energy blast, which could prove problematic. Your infusions are also the standard air infusions with the addition of entangling, which is nothing special. Your damage type doesn't offer any opportunity for energy resistance, which is a nice consequence of not having an energy blast. This barely gets a green because it isn't bad, but this isn't a powergaming choice.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Gusting Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Gust of Wind, as the spell. Useful for dispersing various cloud spells and anything a gust of wind is normally used for. Also reasonable for out of combat use. Can be reduced in burn if damage is removed.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: This is a status effect that is actually worth something. While entangled isn't an amazing status effect, it still is a -2 to attack, prevents somatic casting, and either makes an enemy possible to kite or uses up one of their actions. In addition, if you hit a target twice with this effect, it upgrades to "rooted in place as though fused to an immovable object". There is no text that directly specifies how an opponent is to get out of this, but a careful read suggests that, at minimum, dealing damage to the kinetic matter equal to quadruple your kineticist level would be sufficient. That still causes the target to lose actions, and for Burn 2, that is pretty good. When you get this, it isn't free, so you probably won't start using this for a while after you get it. This is your only useful substance infusion other than grappling, so it is almost always worth taking eventually, even if you don't take it as soon as it is available.
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for entangling. Not worth it.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for physical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: So this is one of your only ways to avoid making an attack roll against your target's full AC (along with wall and deadly earth). While not generally your preferred combat option, it is an important one nonetheless.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Cyclone (form) Burn 3: The blast radius for this infusion is centered on you and is half damage. While this is nice if you are surrounded, as an air kineticist, you probably didn't want that to happen anyways.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Sandstorm with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Cloud (form) Burn 4: Nice radius, half damage, can't apply substance infusions without suffering burn. You might be able to convince someone that this effect is natural in the right terrain. This is basically an upgraded version of torrent for you.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
fire/water(water): Steam Blast: Physical Blast. Half bludgeoning, half fire damage.
This blast comes with the excellent water defense talent and the eruption infusion. Actually, it only gets the eruption, cloud, pushing, and torrent infusions over the basic universal ones, leaving you with very limited options in terms of substance infusions. The virtue of this blast is that you get Fire's Fury together with the Water defense talent, and have both physical and energy blasts and a nice utility wild talent list.
Level 1:
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit, so you may wish to leave this for fire blast. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: So this is your only substance infusion for the majority of your form infusions (wall and cloud can use the grappling infusion). This means you might get more use out of it than other composite blasts. However, that isn't exactly a shining endorsement for this mostly useless infusion.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for the pushing infusion. Not worth it.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for physical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help, and the damage just isn't worth it. Perhaps if it had a larger radius it would be worth something.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: Use eruption instead
Eruption (form) Burn 2: 10ft radius cylinder within centered extended range. And it is only two burn! It is half-damage though, so you're probably better off just using fire for this infusion.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Cyclone (form) Burn 3: The blast radius for this infusion is centered on you and is half damage. While this is nice if you are surrounded, you probably didn't want that to happen anyways.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage, which means both your metakinesis, and your composite blast. If you want to use the composite blast Steam with it, you'll end up taking three burn. This becomes easier to swallow later with more free burn, but you become less likely to grapple fighters by that time. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Cloud (form) Burn 4: Nice radius, half damage, can't apply substance infusions without suffering burn. You might be able to convince someone that this effect is natural in a swamp or near a volcano or something. This is usually inferior to eruption.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
water(water)/blood(water): Blood Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning damage.
Technically speaking, this is not a composite blast choice, it is an archetype. However, since the archetype really just changes omnikinesis and messes around with when you get infusions (oh, and also trades two utility wild talents), for my purposes, I'm going to treat it as a normal composite blast. Note that just because your first opportunity to grab an infusion of a particular level is replaced, that doesn't mean you can't pick an infusion of that level later (a close reading suggests you can even replace your special infusions at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels, though you probably don't want to do this much if at all).
This is a really good composite blast, even if it doesn't contain an energy fallback. Blood Blast sports a Aethric Boost-like infusion, reasonably nice status effects, and Foe Throw with a composite blast. There are a lot of good infusions here, and the water Defense Utility talent rounds this out nicely. Against things without blood or that are immune to bleed damage, you aren't disadvantaged greatly because only your special infusions actually require blood-filled targets (Blood Blast itself doesn't). Oh, as an added bonus, Blood blast and Water blast share all of the same infusions (it is possible to argue that this even includes Draining, but that would be almost certainly unintended), so you don't need to use this composite blast to get the benefits of these infusions unless you actually want the damage.
Level 1 (your normal first infusion choice for this level is picked for you: Wrack):
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Quenching Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. While this lets you put out large fires, you can still put out small fires (just like using a bucketful) without this abillity. But when there are fires that qualify as large fires (but not huge ones), and you don't want to use water manipulation to do the job for whatever reason, then, then this infusion will really shine and you will see its true pow...oh nevermind. You can also put out magical fires with this if you run into any low-CL, unquenchable magical fires that you need to put out.
Wrack (form) Burn 0: So you have to pick this on account of the archetype. This isn't bad, and the infusion is free to apply. This infusion does half damage with a save for 1/4, but does untyped damage that bypasses all damage reduction. Normally that isn't what you want, but there is a trick to this that makes it useful. Since this form infusion saves for partial damage, the substance infusion also requires a save. However, your special other infusions from the Blood Kineticist archetype say: "A target that fails its saving throw against the wrack form infusion does not receive a saving throw to avoid...[status effect]...from the same blast". This means that when you use Wrack, the status effects for your other special infusions require two saves to succeed against (one based on your Dex modifier, the other on your Con modifier). Even if most of your other status effects are nicer with full-damage blasts, that's still an excellent effect (particularly for a 0 burn, 1st level infusion).
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free, your normal infusion choice for this level is picked for you: Bleeding):
Bleeding (substance) Burn 2: You probably won't use this infusion right away because of the burn cost but later this is free damage, one per die. In fact, this is like a free Aetheric Boost on a target's failed fort save, except the target keeps on taking the damage afterwards! And it is only a two burn infusion! Wrack causes a double-save for this infusion (though that isn't the recommended way of using this).
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level, you get Foe Throw as a bonus in place of your level 8 utillity wild talent, though you cannot choose it AFAIK):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for one of your several nasty status effects. This can be a very effective mode of debuffing, particularly with Gut-Wrenching.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square. But the damage isn't worth it.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: A 30ft line is nice, half damage is not so nice. This is likely to be obsoleted by Foe Throw.
Foe Throw (form) Burn 2: So this affects two targets and doesn't decrease physical damage, nice! The attack is fort negates. This also causes the prone status effect on one of the two targets. If you want to affect only one target, you can use this to attack a wall or a pit or something. The text of Telekinetic blast says that the thrown creature must be "nearby" and the normal range of your blast is 30ft. This looks to me like you can chuck a creature that is 30ft away from you 30ft. This is neat, and this is the only way to get it with a composite blast is the way you just received it. Also stacks nicely with Bleeding and even Gut-Wrenching at higher levels due to its low burn cost.
Level 4 (Your normal infusion choice for this level is picked for you: Gut-Wrenching):
Spray (form) Burn 3: This is situational. A 30ft cone is pretty good, you can't use it right away since it is Burn 3, and most importantly it is half damage. While you have status effects that you can spread around with this, you probably won't have the burn to use both them and this until much later. Still probably worth taking for the occasional situation where the numbers make this work out. The numbers will work out slightly more often that they might otherwise as a result of the Bleeding infusion being free with this when you have +5 infusion specialization at level 17th.
Gut-Wrenching Infusion (substance) Burn 3: Sickened is a -2 on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. 10% less change to for your target hit and make saves is rather nice, and doesn't cost you all that much after level 11. Wrack causes a double-save for this infusion.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free, your normal infusion choice for this level is picked for you: Vampiric):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though. This is the only universal substance infusion for composite blasts.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Vampiric (substance) Burn 3: Free action Kinetic Healer makes you tankier, but you still have to pay the burn cost for doing that, which isn't always what you'd want. This is still pretty handy when you need it though.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Infusions: Simple Energy Blasts
electric(air): Electric Blast: Energy Blast. Electricity damage.
Electric blast has the best AOE infusion outside of fire. Unfortunately, that infusion can only naturally be chosen as late as level 11 when composite blasts would normally become standard. In addition, its composite blasts: charged water and thunderstorm (and negative admixture, since it can pair with any energy blast), all have fairly pitiful useful infusion choices over the universal ones. On the plus side, it boasts the excellent utility wild talents of the air element.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: This allows you to bypass electricity resistance and immunity of air subtype creatures. This doesn't work against a lot of enemies and, most unfortunately, it doesn't work against Blue Dragons either. You also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save but the target can also save for 1/4 damage.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity, and iterative attacks are much more likely to hit with energy blasts than physical anyways. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Thundering Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Deafened isn't the nastiest status effect, but this one is PERMANENT. In addition to the penalty on perception checks and initiative, deafened characters cannot receive spoken orders and would have a much harder time coordinating with their allies. Even if a creature succeeded on their save, it could mask another loud noise and serve as a distraction.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level, if you choose an element you don't have (which you likely will), you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Thundering infusion? Magnetic infusion? I'm not sure that can really be justified.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Magnetic Infusion (substance) Burn 2: One of the better substance infusions. You may not get the +4 to hit, but your party will appreciate it.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: This is nice, and you get it reasonably early. The unfortunate thing is that you will never be able to use this with your composite blast.
Level 4:
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Chain (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed and a 30ft radius (some restrictions apply) to boot! This only works with electric blast and never with your other blasts, so it is somewhat limited compared to Wall. On the other hand, since it works on touch attacks instead of saves, it is much easier to land this on the encounter boss if it doesn't have excellent SR. This infusion is potentially good enough to use a primary attack, relegating your composite blast to the status of secondary weapon.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
cold(water): Cold Blast: Energy Blast. Cold damage
Cold is an excellent element because of the Chilling Infusion and the water defense talent. It is also an energy blast, which is nice unless you are fighting ice creatures on a regular basis.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: Cold is a relatively common resistance, and a lot of the creatures resistant to cold also have the cold subtype. Not only can you bypass the cold resistance of creatures with the subtype, but you also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save. Oh yeah, the target can also save for 1/4 damage, so this bonus has a catch.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity, and iterative attacks are much more likely to hit with energy blasts than physical anyways. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: This is a status effect that is actually worth something. While entangled isn't an amazing status effect, it still is a -2 to attack, prevents somatic casting, and either makes an enemy possible to kite or uses up one of their actions. In addition, if you hit a target twice with this effect, it upgrades to "rooted in place as though fused to an immovable object". There is no text that directly specifies how an opponent is to get out of this, but a careful read suggests that, at minimum, dealing damage to the kinetic matter equal to quadruple your kineticist level would be sufficient. That still causes the target to lose actions, and for Burn 2, that is pretty good. When you get this, it isn't free, so you probably won't start using this for a while after you get it.
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level, if you choose an element you don't have (which you likely will), you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Thundering infusion? Magnetic infusion? I'm not sure that can really be justified.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Level 4:
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Chilling Infusion (substance) Burn 3: Fort save or staggered. This is the best status effect kineticists can reliably deal. Wait, scratch the reliably part, fort saves for a lot of monsters are sky high. Well, it is still very good nonetheless, and kineticists can get some pretty impressive DCs with elemental focus and abillity focus and spell level always being treated as 1/2 of your kineticist level. Moreover, your two composite blast options can also use this.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
fire: Fire Blast: Energy blast. Fire damage.
The AoE simple blast. This will tend to deal an extra d6 or two compared to other energy blasts due to the burning infusion. Moreover, Blue Flame Blast is the only energy composite blast (at least, that actually does composite damage) with infusions that aren't universal. Blue Flame Blast requires fire blast. Finally, Fire Blast has a lot of good infusions, exceeding even Earth Blast.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: If you go Blue Flame, you'll really want to consider this. So anything with the fire subtype is no longer resistant or immune to fire (but is allowed to save for 1/4). That's not all fire resistance, but it cuts out some of the more common ones. Furthermore, it will reduce your burn if it works. Small amounts of fire resistance already aren't a problem for you thanks to the burning infusion, but this can get around larger amounts of resistance and even immunity. Because fire resistance and immunity are a more common than other elemental resistances, and because you don't have a fallback element of you go Blue Flame, this is potentially truly important.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions, including eruption. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity, and iterative attacks are much more likely to hit with energy blasts than physical anyways. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Burning Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: Increased to-hit (not like you need it), better DCs (amazing), easier spell resistance (very good), oh, and they also take 1d6 burning damage until the fire is extinguished. A utility talent adds decreased fire resistance (decreased by the same d6 you would normally use to calculate burning damage) to the list of status effects. There are few substance infusions that can compete with this one for you.
Fan of Flames (form) Burn 1: Fire gets all of the good 1 burn infusions it seems. This one is suboptimal to take most of the time because eruption is significantly better most of the time. It gets a green because other elements wish they had infusions like this. Fire gets a 15ft cone for 1 burn. water(water) gets the a 30ft cone for 3 burn. The former can have all sorts of interesting free substance infusions on it, the latter is both more expensive and half damage.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion. Moreover, there is no shortage of good infusions for Blue Flame, so this probably isn't worth it.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for the ability to apply a substance infusion to multiple targets or with an increased save DC. This still isn't likely to be worth it for Blue Flame, but if you do want this, you'll want to take this as a replacement at 11th level or even 17th.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square (and doesn't deal damage on the way to that square for some weird reason), so it doesn't always help. This still could be worth not gathering power, especially at the level you get it at. Later on you may wish to put this into existence using gather power to do 70ish (3 Burn at level 11/12) damage as a move action in subsequent rounds if your enemy fails their save. If this dealt damage in a line to its destination as the description suggests, this would be very good indeed. At some point I'll put a table here to look at how much damage the always-on version of this could do.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is. With fire though, so much else is. Eruption has the same prerequsite and also avoids cover, for instance.
Eruption (form) Burn 2: 10ft radius cylinder within centered extended range. And it is only two burn! None of the other elements get something like this. This is the bread and butter of fire Kineticists. At level 11, you can throw burning on this for free.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: Useful. Largely eclipsed by Eruption. If you don't want to take eruption and/or extended range for some reason, this is good. The tough part is both wanting to move and gather power in the same round on a regular basis.
Level 4 (you get this naturally at the same time as level 3 infusions, and Burn 2 has been free to you since last level):
Flash Infusion (substance) Burn 3: 3 burn is too much for this level so you'll be using the level 11th replacement for this most likely. Blind is a nice status effect, but only lasts for one round with this infusion. You can also increase the DC by 2 at the cost of damage, which is a very nice feature for this overcosted infusion since you'll probably be using gather power in order to pay for this along with Eruption. The nail in the coffin for this one is that you have to give up Burning Infusion to use this. Later you can add a high-level light spell to this at the cost of one extra burn. This is better as a prerequisite to that infusion than as part of an actual combat routine.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Unraveling Infusion (substance) Burn 3: This one is even more amazing out of combat as as it is in-combat. Even if you don't come across buffed opponents that much in your campaign, this is still worth taking for its out-of-combat effects. All day burnless dispel magic? Yes please! For more dispelling power, you can bump up your caster level check by 2 at the cost of half damage. If you really want to push your DC up, combine this with Flurry of Blasts for another 2 now and later that will increase to 4, or even 5 with haste. You can dispel better than your party's main caster, especially if you some other (non-kineticist specific) character options into dispelling, and that all-day.
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Brilliant Infusion (substance) Burn 4: This buffs Flash Infusion to add a level 6 version of continual flame, which applies to every square of an area blast if you use one. Nice for dispelling problematic darkness if your party didn't all buy their own version of truesight already. Bad for everything else.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Explosion (form) Burn 4: It is like Eruption, but you can shrink or extend the radius to up to 20ft. Good for later, but for the level you get it, you'll still want to stick with Eruption together with Burning.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
negative(void): Negative Blast: Energy Blast. Negative energy damage.
So this is an ok blast. Darkness is cool, but your other infusions aren't great. Additionally, undead are immune to you. That is really rather uncomfortable given how many creatures qualify.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: This allows you to bypass electricity resistance and immunity of air subtype creatures. This doesn't work against a lot of enemies and, most unfortunately, it doesn't work against Blue Dragons either. You also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save but the target can also save for 1/4 damage.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity, and iterative attacks are much more likely to hit with energy blasts than physical anyways. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level, if you choose an element you don't have (which you likely will), you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Thundering infusion? Magnetic infusion? I'm not sure that can really be justified.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square, so it doesn't always help.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Darkness Infusion (substance) Burn 2: Potentially useful if your entire party has darkvision. Applying darkness to everything within 20 ft of any point between you and your target is a pretty large effect too. Unfortunately, there are a lot of enemies which will have darkvision and be immune to this, and magic items easily get around this. There is a greater version of this later on which is potentially quite dehibillitating to targets that it affects, but truesight is something encounter bosses may be investing in anyways. Well, it is an alternative to snake, so that's a plus.
Level 4:
Singularity (form) Burn 3: The is half damage...even for an energy blast. This could have been cool. This could have been a moderately weaker version of eruption. You could ask your DM to reduce the penalty by doubling the damage of this infusion (so full damage, but only of a simple blast) without asking too much I think. It's useless. You can't even use this with the Grappling or Chilling infusions to use this as a vehicle for status effects in lieu of damage.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Darkness Infusion (substance) Burn 4: You have to watch out you don't blind your party with this, since it is deeper darkness. Applying darkness to everything within 20 ft of any point between you and your target is a pretty large effect. Furethermore, creatures that are affected by this are essentially crippled. Unfortunately, truesight and the same monster abillity that makes you immune to this effect both have the potential to make this worthless, especially at your level.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Enervating Infusion (substance) Burn 4: Ok, so bestowing one negative level isn't a lot at the late, late level you get this. On the other hand, it *is* extra damage, which is rare to get in an infusion. Besides, you don't have a lot of form infusions you'd rather be using, and your other best substance infusion is darkness, which your opponent may be immune to. Other elements wouldn't rank this blue, but it is blue for you, and you'll be using it often.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Infusions: Simple Physical Blasts
Air(air): Air Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning damage.
Since electric blast has Charged Water and Negative Energy as its only Composite blasts, most Air kineticsts will take this simple blast. While Air blast itself is nothing special, the nice Utility Talents of the element give excellent early benefits.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: This allows you to bypass the DR of air subtype creatures. This doesn't work against a lot of enemies and, most unfortunately, it doesn't work against Blue Dragons either. You also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save but the target can also save for 1/4 damage.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Gusting Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Gust of Wind, as the spell. Useful for dispersing various cloud spells and anything a gust of wind is normally used for. Also reasonable for out of combat use. Can be reduced in burn if damage is removed.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level and if you choose an element you don't have you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Gusting Infusion? Not reasonable.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square. But the damage isn't worth it.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: This is nice, but half damage. At least it doesn't hit any standing next to you like Cyclone does.
Level 4:
Cyclone (form) Burn 3: The blast radius for this infusion is centered on you and is half damage. While this is nice if you are surrounded, as an air kineticist, you probably didn't want that to happen anyways.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Earth: Earth Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning, Piercing, or Slashing damage.
Earth blast already has some useful infusions like Impale and Entangling (very good for a physical simple blast), and comes with a very strong Defense Wild Talent if you choose this blast first. As a side bonus, you may also choose your physical damage type.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: This allows you to bypass the DR of air subtype creatures. This doesn't work against a lot of enemies and, most unfortunately, it doesn't work against Blue Dragons either. You also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save but the target can also save for 1/4 damage.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Entangling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: This is a status effect that is actually worth something. While entangled isn't an amazing status effect, it still is a -2 to attack, prevents somatic casting, and either makes an enemy possible to kite or uses up one of their actions. In addition, if you hit a target twice with this effect, it upgrades to "rooted in place as though fused to an immovable object". There is no text that directly specifies how an opponent is to get out of this, but a careful read suggests that, at minimum, dealing damage to the kinetic matter equal to quadruple your kineticist level would be sufficient. That still causes the target to lose actions, and for Burn 2, that is pretty good. When you get this, it isn't free, so you probably won't start using this for a while after you get it.
Bowling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: While this is more effective than pushing, most of the targets for which this is useful are very resistant to this infusion. Also, when you get this, it isn't free. I'm not paying burn for this effect, ok?
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level and if you choose an element you don't have you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Gusting Infusion? Not reasonable.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square. But the damage isn't worth it.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Impale (form) Burn 2: This is the only area attack that doesn't decrease physical damage for the targets and it is only available to the earth, metal and ice (water composite) blasts. Enjoy it, embrace it, and potentially replace it later down the line if your composite blast can't take advantage of it. This is an awesome infusion, but there are a significant class of situations where another infusion (magnetic, for instance) is more essential.
Level 4:
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Deadly Earth (form) Burn 4: So the trick with this one is that it does full damage to creatures that both enter and end their turn in the area (75% if they enter the area by having it be created under them). This can be done with the entangling infusion and a little luck and/or planning. A large, 20 move speed monster cannot escape an entangling Deadly Earth and runs a real risk of being double entangled. For smaller and faster monsters, the real winner here is the Grappling Infusion. Using this with the grappling infusion is 7 burn though. Don't worry, it isn't as bad as you think. 4 burn is free, 2 burn is avoided via gather power, leaving 1 burn to accept. No save, no SR, no attack roll, but a potentially tough combat maneuver roll. The combat maneuver rolls also disable them for the round. Not bad. Not bad at all. At any rate it is the most solid area denial any kineticist has. Available level 13. You can double grapple someone for additional fun by adding a wall into the mix.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
Fragmentation Burn 4: make a normal attack, and get half damage to nearby targets (save for 1/4) for free. This will limit your ability to apply substance infusions though.
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Gravity(void): Gravity Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning damage.
Ok, so normally you'll be taking this primarily for Gravitic Boost, and you may take Darkness and Darkness, Greater as a side bonus. If you take this first, your only composite blast here is Void Blast. This means that later on you will be disadvantaged against undead because your other blast will be negative energy. Furthermore, while the Darkness infusion is nice, it doesn't give your DM a lot of options. For the most part either something is completely crippled by darkness, or it isn't affected at all. So while this isn't a bad choice, be warned, it is difficult to play with this blast first.
On the other hand, gravitic boost can be awesome.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: This allows you to bypass the DR of air subtype creatures. This doesn't work against a lot of enemies and, most unfortunately, it doesn't work against Blue Dragons either. You also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save but the target can also save for 1/4 damage.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pulling Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic, and for the same reasons as pushing. The text is a little odd, since even AoE blasts will pull towards you, and not towards the center of the area.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level and if you choose an element you don't have you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Gusting Infusion? Not reasonable.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square. But the damage isn't worth it.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Darkness Infusion (substance) Burn 2: Potentially useful if your entire party has darkvision. Applying darkness to everything within 20 ft of any point between you and your target is a pretty large effect too. Unfortunately, there are a lot of enemies which will have darkvision and be immune to this, and magic items easily get around this. There is a greater version of this later on which is potentially quite dehibillitating to targets that it affects, but truesight is something encounter bosses may be investing in anyways. Well, it is an alternative to snake, so that's a plus.
Level 4:
Singularity (form) Burn 3: This is...1/4 damage. Not cool. This could have been cool. This could have been a moderately weaker version of eruption. You could ask your DM to reduce the penalty by doubling the damage of this infusion (which would still only do 1/2 damage) without asking too much I think. It's useless. You can't even use this with the Grappling or Chilling infusions to use this as a vehicle for status effects in lieu of damage.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
Darkness Infusion, Greater (substance) Burn 4: You have to watch out you don't blind your party with this, since it is deeper darkness. Applying darkness to everything within 20 ft of any point between you and your target is a pretty large effect. Furethermore, creatures that are affected by this are essentially crippled. Unfortunately, truesight and the same monster abillity that makes you immune to this effect both have the potential to make this worthless, especially at your level.
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Telekinetic(aether): Telekinetic Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning, Piercing, or Slashing damage.
So this is similar to Gravity Blast in that its best use is for Aetheric Boost (as opposed to gravitic boost). Unlike its gravitic cousin, Aetheric Boost can also be applied to energy blasts and has an excellent defense talent. However, unlike Gravity Blast, Aetheric boost has no true Composite Blast, since its composite version does the same damage as a simple blast. It is a good thing Telekinetic Blast is cool, because it isn't much else.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: This allows you to bypass the DR of air subtype creatures. This doesn't work against a lot of enemies and, most unfortunately, it doesn't work against Blue Dragons either. You also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save but the target can also save for 1/4 damage.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this. Additionally, it improves your basic telekinesis ability.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
Bowling Infusion (substance) Burn 2: While this is more effective than pushing, most of the targets for which this is useful are very resistant to this infusion. Also, when you get this, it isn't free. I'm not paying burn for this effect, ok?
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level and if you choose an element you don't have you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign. Additionally, it greatly improves your basic telekinesis ability.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Gusting Infusion? Not reasonable.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square. But the damage isn't worth it.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Foe Throw(form) Burn 2: So this affects two targets and doesn't decrease physical damage, nice! The attack is fort negates. This also causes the prone status effect on one of the two targets. If you want to affect only one target, you can use this to attack a wall or something (hint: the nearby bottomless pit is a great choice). The text of Telekinetic blast says that the object (normally unattended) must be "nearby" and the normal range of your blast is 30ft. This looks to me like you can chuck a creature that is 30ft away from you 30ft. This is neat, though not as effective as some of the options other elements get. The only other way to get this infusion is the Blood Kineticist archetype (who can only use this on creatures with blood). Doing it that way deals more damage because you can use composite blasts with it.
Level 4:
None
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
Many Throw(form) Burn 2: So when I said Impale was the only AoE infusion that dealt full physical damage I was wrong, this infusion does that to all targets in a 30ft radius, and better yet it does this based on attack rolls (easier to manage at level 17+) rather than a save. Well, it doesn't do full physical damage I guess, because there is no composite blast that gets this infusion. In fact, no other blast gets this infusion at all.
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Water(water): Water Blast: Physical Blast. Bludgeoning damage.
Water is a fairly standard physical blast that doesn't get you much for infusions by itself. Your best non-universal infusion is probably spray. The water Defense Wild Talent if you choose this blast first is also very strong.
Level 1:
Draining Infusion* (substance) Burn 1: This allows you to bypass the DR of air subtype creatures. This doesn't work against a lot of enemies and, most unfortunately, it doesn't work against Blue Dragons either. You also get a free burn to play with if the target fails its save but the target can also save for 1/4 damage.
Extended Range* (form) Burn 1: Useful on its own and a pre-requisite for many other infusions. You'll need a good reason not to take this.
Kinetic Blade* (form) Burn 1: Avoids attacks of opportunity. However, without the bonuses from elemental overflow, your attacks are less likely to hit and iterative attacks become significantly less likely to hit. Since this gets more useful later on, you may wish to pick something else and then replace to it at 5th or 11th level. However, it is really nice to avoid attacks of opportunity up close early on, when your acrobatics skill doesn't have a hope of beating the CMD of a large rat. This is especially important because some readings of kinetic blast cause it to provoke twice if you don't use this. Moreover, starting at level 6 you actually do more damage with kinetic blade than with normal blasts.
Kinetic Fist* (form) Burn 1: Unless you have a truly awesome natural attack, this is terrible.
Pushing Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. Since bull rushing doesn't cause attacks of opportunity, that is mostly all this is. I guess you could use it to push people back into a wall infusion as part of a readied action, but still.
Quenching Infusion (substance) Burn 1: Thematic. While this lets you put out large fires, you can still put out small fires (just like using a bucketful) without this abillity. But when there are fires that qualify as large fires (but not huge ones), and you don't want to use water manipulation to do the job for whatever reason, then, then this infusion will really shine and you will see its true pow...oh nevermind. You can also put out magical fires with this if you run into any low-CL, unquenchable magical fires that you need to put out.
Level 2 (Burn 1 is now free):
None
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level and if you choose an element you don't have you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Extreme Range* (form) Burn 2: Situationally useful. Presumably if you are engaging at this range for any significant amount of time, your fighter types are switch-hitters or Kineticists (which can be a good idea with the right defense talents) or both. Actually, I kind of like the idea of a party that does this, but that probably isn't your campaign, and so this isn't a great infusion.
Flurry of Blasts* (form) Burn 2: An interesting blast that sacrifices damage for...Gusting Infusion? Not reasonable.
Mobile Blast* (form) Burn 2: This is pretty cool. "If the mobile blast's total burn cost before applying any reduction for gather power is 0, it has no maximum duration". This basically makes it a pet blast that exists within 30ft of you and can deal damage (1/2 for energy 1/4 for phsyical) as a move action assuming that enemies move out of its square (which you can count on). Unfortunately it is reflex negates and only occupies a single square. But the damage isn't worth it.
Snake* (form) Burn 2: Avoid total cover, sounds good to me. Worth it if nothing else is.
Torrent (form) Burn 2: A 30ft line is nice, half damage is not so nice. This may be situationally useful, but your choice on this probably depends on whether your other blasts will work with this.
Level 4:
Spray (form) Burn 3: This is situationally useful, but at half damage, it isn't something that will likely be a staple, especially since you will have a composite blast by then and only Charged Water (and Blood Blast) keeps this infusion. A 30ft cone is pretty good, but you can't use it right away since it is Burn 3. Moreover, you don't have any good status effects in your infusion list to make half damage hurt any less. Whether your composite blast gets this will probably be the deciding factor in whether or not to take this.
Level 5 (Burn 3 is now free):
Grappling Infusion* (substance) Burn 3: So by the time you get this, you have lost 3 BaB and it is only going to get worse (your next BaB loss is level 13th). Your blast is treated as a Huge creature, so that compensates slightly for now, and being able to use Con instead of Str makes this slightly viable. Grappling fighter characters is going to be a crapshoot. Grappling caster characters at range is kinda neat. Grappling monster characters is not generally going to happen. You can't pin creatures with this infusion, but they can't really do anything except attempt to escape either. This infusion MUST be used with the cloud (a level 7 infusion), deadly earth (a level 6 infusion), or wall infusions. This means that you will have to take 1 Burn AND give up gather power for damage. On the other hand, even if your success rate is only 40%, if you can get four creatures in the area (and all of the relevant form infusions affect multiple squares), your success chance of grappling at least one is ~87%. Given that this is a SoL that can persist up to your Con mod rounds (on account of the form infusions you can use this with), this gives your area denial form infusions real teeth completely apart from damage. On the whole, this can actually be pretty solid when the probability works out, but you can't just use it on everything. I wish Flurry of Blasts worked with it though.
Wall Infusion* (form) Burn 3: AoE with no saving throw allowed. Physical blasts are also SR: No, but half damage. Anything that takes damage during the wall's creation takes half damage (1/4 for physical blasts). Walls also provide cover against ranged attacks. There are lots of good things you can do with wall spells, and the damage pretty much always works in your favor with an energy blast. Wall spells are also a decent vehicle for status effects at the cost of damage (especially for physical blasts), by using gather power for infusions instead of damage. Even a Grappling Wall only costs 1 burn, although damage is minimal this way).
Level 6 (Burn 4 becomes free next level):
None
Level 7 (if you choose an element you don't have, you get this naturally at the same time as level 8 infusions):
None
Level 8 (Burn 5 is now free, this makes a lot of substance/form infusion combinations free):
None
Level 9 (Burn 6 becomes free next level):
None
Now the keen eyed reader will notice that I've left out a very important universal infusion, which deserves its own special mention because Kineticists that use it operate a rather different manner than Kineticists that don't:
Level 3 (Burn 2 becomes free next level and if you choose an element you don't have you get this naturally at the same time as level 4 infusions):
Kinetic Whip* (form) Burn 2: So you do your normal kineticst damage...but in a full attack. And at this level, that starts to mean something, and it is only going to get more meaningful. This infusion is also probably part of the reason kineticists get compared to warlocks so much, because this is glaivelock, and it is every bit as terrifying, perhaps more. Go ahead and look at the damage table again, and multiply all of that damage by about three. As the cherry on top, you can make AoOs with this.
Its probably safe to say that you have to be careful about the ramifications of actually building a character with this, but it is a good argument against the notion that kineticsts can't DPR in high-level play.
It is worth mentioning that there is a feat chain that causes a similar result with less ridiculous damage: Overwatch Style -> Overwatch Tactication -> Overwatch Vortex (kineticists qualify for it because Kinetic Blast counts as a weapon for the purposes of feats). Unlike Kinetic Whip, however, each blast is fully separate, and therefore you would have to burn for each attack individually, which isn't feasible on account of the burn per round limit. On the bonus side, Overwatch Style has a greater range. By a weird contortion of the rules, it may even be possible to apply Overwatch Style to AoE blasts.
Other Wild Talents
As a kineticist, you get a utility wild talent every even level, as well as your basic kinesis at first level, and your first defense wild talent at second level (further defense talents can be picked up as a level 4 utility talent at character level 8+). I have chosen to break down the Utility talents you get at even levels by both by level and element. Other non-infusion wild talents are listed first. As usual, wood has been omitted. It is useful to look at Utility Wild talents by level because (unlike infusions) you will often have access to multiple sets simultaneously, and can choose between them freely. That said, when you choose a second or third element, remember to treat your kineticist level as 4 levels lower for the purpose of determining which wild talents you can learn from your second or third element. So if you can choose 6th level utility talents from your primary element, you can choose 4th level talents from your secondary elements. This also means that you will not be able to choose a 9th level talent from your secondary element without using omnikinesis.
Kineticist wild talents are a very significant part of being a kineticist. All kineticists except earth (which gets a better-than-burrow ability in Earth Glide) have some form of flight (water gets air walk) and all elements except earth get a method pseud-flight that can be used to progress infinitely skyward and/or laterally (water has to be creative with Water Manipulator) as early as level 6. Two elements get a form of the cantrip mage hand. Three get a SoL (Suffocate) as a spell like ability for 1 burn. Only one element (water) gets an actual 9th level spell at level 18, but some of the others get abilities arguably as strong or stronger (and the two that don't get 9th level Utility Talents still get a reflex SoL and the ability to create tornadoes for free respectively). The Utility Wild Talent list is brimming with special senses for all elements, and neat abilities like Feather Fall, No-Breath (you don't need breath), Smoke Storm (Fog Cloud that sickens), Invisibillity at-will, and Control Water (except better), are available to specific elements early on. Later, you will be able to hustle by transforming yourself into your element and booking it at either 120 or 480 ft/round depending on the infusions that you pick up because of Ride the Blast, and even spend half of your existence on the Etheral Plane (Reverse Shift).
Utility wild talents probably won't be the most important class feature you get, but should be instrumental in how you operate. Don't be expecting an awesome new ability every time you get to choose one. There isn't quite the same variety of them as with infusions, so you will sometimes be picking a utility talent from the level before not because you really wanted two things in a level, but simply because you don't have anything great (or anything at all!) to pick up for your 4th, or 6th, or 7th, or 9th level ability. Because of this, you may want to pick elements that get their nicer abilities on alternate levels. Generally speaking, you will want to base the greater amount of your element decision around defense wild talents and your composite blast, however certain elements like air and aether may be picked up for their utility talents alone.
Non-Selectable Wild Talents
Defense Talents:
Some of these are awesome. Some aren't.
Enveloping Winds (air): 20% miss chance against ranged attacks. The miss chance increases by 5% for every 5 levels beyond second, and can be increased by 5% for each burn you spend (to a maximum of 75%). Whenever you accept burn while using an air wild talent, the miss chance also applies to rays. Generally, this is useful, but not worth putting burn into. Furthermore, there are so many things this doesn't protect against, the most you can really expect is that archers occasionally target your other party members. If you are in an archer-heavy campaign (especially volley archers), this turns around and is positively amazing.
Shroud of Water (water): A significant boost to your AC. You'll probably want to have at least some armor anyways, so this has its greatest utility in shield form. So the math on this is that you get 2 shield AC + 1/4*(your kineticist level - 2). Additionally you can increase the AC bonus by 1 for each point of burn you put into it to a max of 150% of the base amount. This means at level 10, you get 4 shield AC and can burn 2 for a total of +6. Burning for the maximum shield amount, your armor will also be at least +8 when you accept burn from a water talent. That's a 29 AC after you apply a +5 Dex bonus, and it comes basically free with the element. Additionally, at level 10 you can get an upgrade to this that also gives you a 20% miss chance!
Flesh of Stone (earth): DR/adamantine equal to 1/2 your kineticist level. When you burn from an earth talent, its DR/-. You can burn to increase your DR by 1 to a max of your kineticist level. This is generally not worth burn because DR 1 doesn't quite add up to your HD per encounter beyond level 6 or so, and you should count on healing between fights (and you generally don't want to count on getting hit 7+ times in a fight). Still, this greatly increases your survivabillity.
Searing Flesh (fire): Whenever natural attacks and unarmed strikes hit you, the attacker takes 1/4 your kineticist level in damage as well. A creature in a grapple takes 1/2 your kineticist level instead. When you accept burn while using a fire talent, the damage is doubled. You can spend up to seven burn to increase the damage this deals by 1/4 your kineticist level (so three or four burn and then you may actually be dealing a decent amount of damage at level 8-10 or 12-14. There is a level 5 utility talent (Flame Shield) that also deals 1/2 your kineticst level to any creature that attacks you in melee for one burn. Since Searing Flesh itself may very well not affect most opponents trying to attack you in melee, this mainly just makes grappling interesting (even though Kineticist aren't great grapplers). However, if you are in a beast-heavy campaign, this may be pretty nice.
Force Ward (aether): Temporary hitpoints equal to your kineticist level that regenerate 1/minute. You can spend burn to gain another kineticist level temporary hitpoints. Every second burn you spend increase your temporary hitpoint regeneration by 1/minute. Here's the cool part: whenever you accept burn from an aether talent, you regain kineticist level temporary hitpoints. This is a pretty sweet way to offset the expense of burn. I recommend burning 1 or 2 every day for this, but since part of this ability doesn't scale, I don't see much point in burning further. One possible reason to do so is because this any damage that doesn't make it all the way through its temporary hitpoint pool is treated as if it had missed for the purpose of abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss (poison and improved grab, for instance). This is even better than Flesh of Stone!
Emptiness (void): So this doesn't do much at all unless you have accepted burn from a void talent that round. When you have, though, you get a +1 bonus on will saves against mind-affecting effects. This is the only defense talent that doesn't seem to scale by level at all. You also get a 5% to ignore critical hits and sneak attacks, as well negative energy resistance 2. All of the effects of this defense wild talent increase with burn, but you probably don't want to use burn for this.
Basic Kinesis:
These aren't anything to write home about, but are occasionally useful.
Basic Aerokinesis (air): +2 Saves against breath weapons and air-vapors and gasses (cloudkill). This is a very nice bonus, if a bit specific.
Basic Hydrokinesis (water): Create Water, purify food and drink (except just water), and magical dog shake (you can dry things). You cannot lift water yet.
Basic Geokinesis (earth): Mage hand but only for earth. Sift earth cantrip. In the right situations, this can be pretty neat.
Basic Pyrokinesis (fire): Flare, light and spark cantrips.
Basic Telekinesis (aether): Mage hand, except better. Improves with knowledge of the Extended/Extreme Range infusions.
Basic Chaokinesis (void): +4 to jump or increased carrying capacity.
Utility Wild Talents
Utility Wild Talents By Level
Level 1:
Universal:
Skilled Kineticist (universal) Burn 0: 1/2 your kineticist level to your elemental skill, and it is easier to use knowledge on elementals.
Multi-element:
Kinetic Cover (aether, earth, water) Burn 0: Due to the low hitpoints of the resulting cover, this isn't that good. Earth gets an upgrade to this that is more useful. Water Manipulation requires this.
Kinetic Healer (aether, water) Burn 1: Due to the burn, this is largely in-combat healing, and it doesn't even heal exceptional amounts of damage. It can mean the difference between life and death especially at lower levels. Generally speaking, in combat healing isn't what you want to be doing, but can at least be useful at levels 2-5. Due to how both the ability scales and how combat healing in general scales, it should be replaced at later levels.
Air:
Aerial Adaptation (air) Burn 0: Immunity to altitude sickness (I didn't even know that was a thing) and minor electricity resistance. This isn't going to be energy resistance 10+ most of the time. It will be energy resistance 5 a lot of time though.
Air Cushion (air) Burn 0: Feather fall all day. Excellent
Air Shroud (air) Burn 0 (optional 1): Breathe underwater, in a vacuum, in a bag of holding, etc. This actually provides some nice environmental immunities that are otherwise very difficult to get.
Air's Leap (air) Burn 0 (optional 1): Fly is coming soon, so there isn't really much of a gameplay reason to choose this.
Air's Reach (air) Burn 0: Double the range of your kinetic blasts and talents. Excellent
Voice of the Wind (air) Burn 0: Message and Whispering Wind at will. Depending on how strict your DM is with table talk, this can be anywhere from cosmetic to essential.
Water:
Cold Adaptation (water) Burn 0: This isn't going to be energy resistance 10+ most of the time. It will be energy resistance 5 a lot of time though.
Slick (water) Burn 0 (optional 1): Grease, as spell, but with ice.
Icewalker (water) Burn 0: Ignore slipperyness of wet and icy surfaces. Immunity to seasickness. This is mostly important because your flight talent requires this.
Earth:
Earth Walk (earth) Burn 0: You get a bonus to CMD against being tripped and on balance checks. You can also ignore difficult terrain, but only if that difficult terrain is caused by earth. You are probably going to want kinetic cover, but if you don't, then I'd consider Skilled Kineticist instead.
Fire:
Fire Sculptor (fire) Burn 0: Move fire around, but not quench or create it.
Fire's Fury (fire) Burn 0: Non-negligible extra damage.
Heat Adaptation (fire) Burn 0: The same minor fire resistance you get from the other adaptation talents, but also endure elements against temperatures only.
Aether:
Telekinetic Finesse (aether) Burn 0: Further enhance your mage hand ("perform any sort of fine manipulation you choose within close range") and disable device at a range of close. This opens up some room for creativity and is useful should disable device ever become necessary.
Void:
Void Healer (fire) Burn 0: If you wanted to be an undead-friendly chap, you would be dealing negative energy damage and so be doing this for free anyways.
Level 2:
Universal:
Skilled Kineticist, Greater (universal) Burn 0; requires Skilled Kineticist: Choose a kineticist class skill to gain a bonus to, and also add Knowledge (planes) to your class list.
Air:
Voice of the Wind (air), Greater Burn 0; requires Voice of the Wind: Ghost sound, ventriloquism, vocal alteration, as spells. You can also use whispering wind at a greater range and speed. Generally you will be considering getting another 1st level utility.
Water:
Veil of Mists (water) Burn 0 (optional 1): Disguise self, as the spell. One burn gives this ability infinite duration until your burn is removed. This burn applies to all of your uses of Veil of Mists, not just the one you burn for.
Earth:
Earth Climb (earth) Burn 0: Climb speed equal to land speed. At least this is better than Earth Walk. This is a prerequisite for Earth's replacement for flight: Earth Glide.
Fire:
Flame Trap (fire) Burn 0 (optional 1): Traps are nice, but take work to make effective. This can be a pretty damaging trap too, since it uses Blue Flame blast if you have it, though not other fire composite blasts. No save, SR applies.
Searing Flame (fire) Burn 0: Your burning infusion decreases your target's fire resistance. Since fire resistance is common, this is gold.
Aether:
Telekinetic Haul (aether) Burn 0: You can chuck large and heavy things, including with your kenetic blast. This doesn't affect combat at all though.
Void:
Eyes of the Void (void) Burn 0: Darkvision. The upgraded version even gets you See in Darkness. This is great used with the darkness-causing infusions that you may have picked up.
No Breath (void) Burn 0: You don't breathe, and don't have to. You also gain special license to "survive in the vacuum of space", whatever that means.
Level 3:
Universal:
Elemental Grip (universal) Burn 0 (optional 1): Hold monster (will SoL), but only on creatures of your own subtype. Generally this is too restrictive a condition to be much use, even if you do have excellent saves.
Air:
Aerial Evasion (air) Burn 1; requires enveloping winds: Evasion is nice. The burn cost is annoying. I don't want to take a passive that has a burn cost on principle, because burn is precious. On the other hand, if I don't take this ability, I will be getting a ring of evasion for 25,000gp at some point. Since a +6 item is only 36,000gp, this is very efficient until very late game and I am purchasing a Book of Bodily Health at a cost of 55,000gp for +1 modifier. At that point, I'd buy a ring of evasion before the manual of bodily health and then just stop using this ability. So there is a trade off: 1 burn for evasion is worth it initially, but this will eventually become a dead abillity which I don't want, especially because I could be choosing always-useful things in the air element.
Celerity (air) Burn 0 (optional 1): Haste as spell for one round or rounds/level with a burn. Haste could be a good enough spell to make this worth it.
Engulfing Winds (air) Burn 0 (optional 1); requires enveloping winds: turn your defense talent into Wind Wall, as the spell for one round (or kineticist level rounds for a burn). Useful in a pinch, but unless your DM loves archers, it may never be good enough to actually use.
Windsight (air) Burn 0: See around corners according to the wind. Remember that you can create wind with the Gusting Infusion.
Wings of Air (air) Burn 0: Always-on fly, as the spell. I don't need to explain that this is awesome to get at level 6.
Water:
Cold Snap (water) Burn 1; requires cold adaptation and shroud of water: Aura of cold that causes -4 penalty to Dex...to creatures within 5 feet of you.
Water Manipulator (water) Burn 0; requires kinetic cover: Control water, as spell, or complete control of water (1/1000th the amount of the spell, which is still a lot of water) as a standard action. You can immerse yourself in water for a form of pseodo flight.
Waterdancer (water) Burn 0: Always-on slipstream. Great if you are in an aquatic campaign.
Earth:
Jagged Flesh (earth) Burn 1: The flavor text on this one makes me not want to use it. The effect is only 1d6 damage against enemies attacking with natural weapons or unarmed strikes. No thanks.
Tremorsense (earth) Burn 0 (optional 1): Move action to gain tremorsense. Spend a burn to keep it on for kineticist level rounds. I didn't think this was useful because of the action tax, until I realized that not only will Earth Glide leave you blind without this, but it may be one of your only ways of dealing with invisibility for some time to come. Eventually your opponents may be both invisible and flying, but that won't be for a while.
Fire:
Firesight (fire) Burn 0: Creatures on fire or with the fire subtype can't have concealment against you. You can also see through flames. This can combo with the burning infusion and visibility-affecting spells or abilities like Smoke Storm for a situation where you can fight unhindered, but your targets cannot.
Flame Jet (fire) Burn 0: This is the first part of your flight ability. You gain pseudo-flight, but it uses up your standard actions. Out of combat only flight is still flight.
Heat Wave (fire) Burn 1; requires heat adaptation, searing flesh: Aura of heat that causes concealment against creatures within 5 feet. Much better than Cold Snap, but still not nearly as good as your other options.
Smoke Storm (fire) Burn 0: Turn matches or torches into a Fog Cloud that sickens enemies (fort negates). Cool.
Aether:
Self Telekinesis (aether) Burn 0: This is the first part of your flight ability. You gain pseudo-flight, but it uses up your standard actions. Out of combat only flight is still flight.
Telekinetic Invisibility (aether) Burn 0: Self-invisibility at-will. Blindsense and Blindsight can even be avoided with this if you are careful.
Touchsight (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Blindsight against creatures stuck with telekinetic blast (unless they teleport or blink or something of that nature). That is a nice touch.
Void:
Gravity Control (void) Burn 0: This is the first part of your flight ability. You gain pseudo-flight, but it uses up your standard actions. Out of combat only flight is still flight.
Level 4:
Universal:
Expanded Defense (universal) Burn 0: Gain the defense talent of one of your expanded elements. This is as good as the corresponding defense talent.
Air:
None
Water:
Ice Sculptor (water) Burn 0: You can sculpt ice and snow as per the spell Stone Shape. Not super useful.
Watersense (water) Burn 0: Tremorsense, but with water. Remember that you can create small bodies of water given time with the Create Water cantrip that you have through Basic Hydrokinesis. It is still a pretty flaky special sense though.
Earth:
Enduring Earth (earth) Burn 0: Double the duration of earth abilities. Your wall and deadly earth infusions last longer. Your entangling infusions last longer. This is useful, but probably not your first choice
Shift Earth (earth) Burn 0; requires kinetic cover: You can slowly build towers of earth, as well cover that will actually cover you. If you have enough time on your hands, you can reshape the landscape to your will.
Fire:
None
Aether:
Telekinetic Maneuvers (aether) Burn 0: Combat maneuvers at range. Not great.
Touchsight, Spying (aether) Burn 0; requires touchsight: Invisible strand that lets you use your target's senses.
Void:
None
Level 5:
Universal:
Kinetic Form (universal) Burn 1: Increase your size, or return to normal size at will for one burn. Later you can even increase your size by two steps. This is mainly useful for melee kineticists, which aren't normal. It is however, very useful for melee kineticists.
Spark of Life (universal) Burn 0 (optional 1): So the elementals you get to summon are CR 3 initially, CR 5 two levels later (you are ECL 12), CR 7 two levels after that, CR 9 two levels after that, and finally CR 11 two levels after that (ECL 18). So this seems to get a bit better with time, but still leaves you with largely impotent minions. That said, for 5 burn you can get 5 elementals...for kineticist level rounds. Ugh. Basically you can create a distraction entity for one burn or concentration.
Air:
Air Shroud, Greater (air) Burn 0 (optional 1); requires Air Shroud: Life Bubble as the spell all day. If you want to apply this to your allies, this is much welcome upgrade, because it lasts all day. Otherwise, Air Shroud is probably enough. Unlike air shroud, however, this also functions as endure elements, gives outright immunity to gasses, and also immunity to pressure damage (say, if you are underwater). If those tend to be required in your campaign, this is actually quite good. Having an NPC with this is also a neat way for DMs to waive those sorts of challenges.
Windsight, Greater (air) Burn 0; requires Windsight: See from a location within 480 feet of your actual location if you concentrate for a little bit. If you have a patient group, this can be awesome. Otherwise it is next to useless.
Water:
Shimmering Mirage (water) Burn 1; requires Shroud of Water: 20% miss chance all day. Always worth the burn.
Waterdancer, Greater (water) Burn 0; requires Waterdancer: Water walk at will and the ability to breathe underwater. If you needed to breathe underwater earlier (or survive in deep-water environments), be an air kineticist :(.
Watersense, Greater (water) Burn 0; requires Watersense: Scrying, but only through water. This is great when your target is immersed in a large body of water, or even close to a river or lake that you are tangentially connected to. This means watersense is still likely to flake out on you when you need it most, but it is still a sort of scrying, and it is still an at will abillity.
Earth:
Earth Glide (earth) Burn 0; requires Earth Climb: Earth kineticists are the only ones not to get some form of flight. However, Earth Glide makes up for this. In short, it is super-burrow up to your land speed.
Stone Sculptor (earth) Burn 0: You can sculpt stone, but fine detail isn't quite possible. This is only a minor improvement over Shift Earth. On the other hand, this is an potential replacement for Shift Earth, since you get 10 cubic feet plus 10 cubic feet per level as a standard action, four times as much earth as Shift Earth, and this wild talent doesn't have a prerequisite.
Tremorsense, Greater (earth) Burn 0; requires Tremorsense: This isn't what you'd expect. It is actually Commune with Nature, as the spell.
Fire:
Flame Jet, Greater (fire) Burn 0; requires Flame Jet: This is the full version of your flight ability. Flight is useful, to say the least.
Flame Shield (fire) Burn 1; requires Searing Flesh: This gives you additional retaliatory damage when being attacked in melee and halves the damage of cold spells against you. However, halving the damage of a cold spell will likely end the effect of Flame Shield. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. If you know you're going to be hit by a cold spell that day, it is probably a rather good defensive talent, certainly better than any of the defense wild talents, and that is saying a lot.
Trail of Flames (fire) Burn 0: This is a fun one, you can leave a one-round wall of fire whenever you take the run or withdraw actions. This does a little damage to anyone within 20ft of one side of your trail (more if within 10ft).
Aether:
Aether Puppet (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): I'm not sure I understand the animated object rules properly, but Animated objects don't really seem to be worth much mechanically, certainly not an additional burn. So this is an out of combat ability that is more or less duplicated by the level 2 ability Telekinetic Haul.
Force Barrier (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1); requires Force Ward: A personal Wall of Force, but in spherical form. Each round you want to keep it active without spending an action on it costs a burn. On the other hand, while that happens you can be pretty hard to damage. You can also just create a hemisphere around your square as well. Make a hemisphere face some point well above your opponent and use the Snake infusion to deal damage from a small opening on the far side of the sphere -- for an example of how to use the burn version of this ability. The spherical version may provide enough protection to get a wounded party member out of harms way...or you can get creative (read: abuse the heck out of it) with extradimensional space, teleportation, and/or the delay action and stuff for some pretty serious shielding. Beware that if the barrier pops, you take a burn. Its a nice ability, but not as good as:
Self Telekinesis, Greater (aether) Burn 0; requires Self Telekinesis: This is the full version of your flight ability. Flight is useful, to say the least.
Touchsight, Reactive (aether) Burn 0; requires Touchsight: You can always react on the surprise round if the surprise attack comes within 30ft of you. Additionally, you gain a lesser sort of uncanny dodge.
Void:
Eyes of the Void, Greater (void) Burn 0; requires Eyes of the Void: See in Darkness is excellent. It is like truesight, except only for darkness. This synergies with the Darkness, Greater infusion.
Gravity Control, Greater (void) Burn 0; requires Gravity Control: This is the full version of your flight ability. Flight is useful, to say the least.
Level 6:
Universal:
Ride the Blast (universal) Burn 0: Move next to your target as part of a blast. You cannot use melee attacks or cone attacks to do this, but you can use other AoE infusions like Torrent for instance. Ending up within reach of a target is rather iffy, since kineticists tend to be squishy when the use burn and tend to generate AoOs. However, it is possible to build a character around doing this if can deal with the likely retaliation. More importantly, this is also a pretty sweet method of locomotion with the Extreme Range or even Extended Range (or derivative) infusions. specifically this is 480 ft/round, which still leaves you with a move action. For one burn, you can do this twice in a round when you have access to the quicken metakinesis. While expensive, 960 ft of movement in one round is kinda neat, especially since this can be straight upwards if you have a way to deal with being that high in the air (which you almost certainly do). Also note that you end up in the center of your AoE if you used an AoE form infusion. That means that when you use eruption with this you tend to be 20ft in the air and have 10ft of lateral distance from your targets. Torrent, Imaple, Chain, Singularity, Eruption, and Explosion are all safe to use with this. I believe Wall, Cloud, and Deadly Earth will require you to have a way to immediately move out of the affected area or you will be affected by it the following round.
Multi-element:
Suffocate (water, air, aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Expend one burn for a fort save or be reduced to 0hp. Considering how difficult kineticist saves can be, this is very good.
Air:
Wind Manipulator (air) Burn 0 (option 1); requires Engulfing Winds: Control Winds as spell. One round only without burn. Can create tornadoes: destroying villages, towns, and terrain.
Water:
Ice Path (water) Burn 0; requires Icewalker: Air walk, as spell. The Ice Queen's preferred method of flight. This is the best flight available to water, though a form of standard-action using pseudoflight is available with Water Manipulator.
Earth:
None
Fire:
None
Aether:
None
Void:
None
Level 7:
Universal:
None
Air:
None
Water:
None
Earth:
Shift Earth, Greater (earth) Burn 0; requires Shift Earth: Move Earth as spell. This is almost explicitly non-combat, and can't be used for tunneling or stonework or a lot of other useful earth-moving. It isn't all that great, honestly.
Fire:
None
Aether:
Spell Deflection (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): By this point, the effect is unlikely to actually work. It isn't completely useless, but probably is a waste of time.
Void:
None
Level 8:
Universal:
Reverse Shift (universal) Burn 0: Etheral Jaunt as spell. Nifty.
Air:
Weather Master (air) Burn 0: Depending on your access to other elements, you can control the weather of an entire area, and create tornadoes that persist without further intervention. Fire and forget, if you don't care about civilian casualties. This is one of if not the only ability a kineticist has that can destroy entire fiefdoms, and as an air kineticist, you can do this more cheaply than anyone else. For reference, you can do this 144 times per day or so, and it requires a level 7 spell to stop it each time if I am not mistaken. If nothing else, you'll cost whoever is running the target lands a small mint.
Water:
None
Earth:
None
Fire:
None
Aether:
Telekinetic Deflection (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Any attacks that fail to hit your AC attack its source. Excellent.
Telekinetic Globe (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): No burn reflex SoL. Yes please! Spend a burn to omit the need to concentrate after capturing your target.
Void:
None
Level 9:
Universal:
None
Air:
None
Water:
Tidal Wave (water) Burn 1: Tsunami as spell. A 9th level spell is definitely cheap for the cost of 1 burn. That said, it isn't the best 9th level spell.
Earth:
Seismic Master (earth) Burn 0: Earthquake as spell. Chucking around an 8th level spell like this at-will is definitely a 9th level ability.
Fire:
From the Ashes (fire) Burn 2: Immediate action panic button: I'm not dead yet! Every level 20 kineticist puts this at their beck and call via omnikinesis because it is just that good.
Aether:
None
Void:
Gravity Master (void) Burn 0: Anything that can't fly has to deal with increasingly awkward situations as you mess with 180ft cubes of gravity in medium range. Lasts 1 round/level, but subsequent uses of this ability cancel all previous uses.
Utility Wild Talents By Element
Universal:
Level 1:
Skilled Kineticist (universal) Burn 0: 1/2 your kineticist level to your elemental skill, and it is easier to use knowledge on elementals.
Level 2:
Skilled Kineticist, Greater (universal) Burn 0; requires Skilled Kineticist: Choose a kineticist class skill to gain a bonus to, and also add Knowledge (planes) to your class list.
Level 3:
Elemental Grip (universal) Burn 0 (optional 1): Hold monster (will SoL), but only on creatures of your own subtype. Generally this is too restrictive a condition to be much use, even if you do have excellent saves.
Level 4:
Expanded Defense (universal) Burn 0: Gain the defense talent of one of your expanded elements. This is as good as the corresponding defense talent.
Level 5:
Kinetic Form (universal) Burn 1: Increase your size, or return to normal size at will for one burn. Later you can even increase your size by two steps. This is mainly useful for melee kineticists, which aren't normal. It is however, very useful for melee kineticists.
Spark of Life (universal) Burn 0 (optional 1): So the elementals you get to summon are CR 3 initially, CR 5 two levels later (you are ECL 12), CR 7 two levels after that, CR 9 two levels after that, and finally CR 11 two levels after that (ECL 18). So this seems to get a bit better with time, but still leaves you with largely impotent minions. That said, for 5 burn you can get 5 elementals...for kineticist level rounds. Ugh. Basically you can create a distraction entity for one burn or concentration.
Level 6:
Ride the Blast (universal) Burn 0: Move next to your target as part of a blast. You cannot use melee attacks or cone attacks to do this, but you can use other AoE infusions like Torrent for instance. Ending up within reach of a target is rather iffy, since kineticists tend to be squishy when the use burn and tend to generate AoOs. However, it is possible to build a character around doing this if can deal with the likely retaliation. More importantly, this is also a pretty sweet method of locomotion with the Extreme Range or even Extended Range (or derivative) infusions. specifically this is 480 ft/round, which still leaves you with a move action. For one burn, you can do this twice in a round when you have access to the quicken metakinesis. While expensive, 960 ft of movement in one round is kinda neat, especially since this can be straight upwards if you have a way to deal with being that high in the air (which you almost certainly do). Also note that you end up in the center of your AoE if you used an AoE form infusion. That means that when you use eruption with this you tend to be 20ft in the air and have 10ft of lateral distance from your targets. Torrent, Imaple, Chain, Singularity, Eruption, and Explosion are all safe to use with this. I believe Wall, Cloud, and Deadly Earth will require you to have a way to immediately move out of the affected area or you will be affected by it the following round.
Level 7:
None
Level 8:
Reverse Shift (universal) Burn 0: Etheral Jaunt as spell. Nifty.
Level 9:
None
Air:
Level 1:
Aerial Adaptation (air) Burn 0: Immunity to altitude sickness (I didn't even know that was a thing) and minor electricity resistance. This isn't going to be energy resistance 10+ most of the time. It will be energy resistance 5 a lot of time though.
Air Cushion (air) Burn 0: Feather fall all day. Excellent
Air Shroud (air) Burn 0 (optional 1): Breathe underwater, in a vacuum, in a bag of holding, etc. This actually provides some nice environmental immunities that are otherwise very difficult to get.
Air's Leap (air) Burn 0 (optional 1): Fly is coming soon, so there isn't really much of a gameplay reason to choose this.
Air's Reach (air) Burn 0: Double the range of your kinetic blasts and talents. Excellent
Voice of the Wind (air) Burn 0: Message and Whispering Wind at will. Depending on how strict your DM is with table talk, this can be anywhere from cosmetic to essential.
Level 2:
Voice of the Wind (air), Greater Burn 0; requires Voice of the Wind: Ghost sound, ventriloquism, vocal alteration, as spells. You can also use whispering wind at a greater range and speed. Generally you will be considering getting another 1st level utility.
Level 3:
Aerial Evasion (air) Burn 1; requires enveloping winds: Evasion is nice. The burn cost is annoying. I don't want to take a passive that has a burn cost on principle, because burn is precious. On the other hand, if I don't take this ability, I will be getting a ring of evasion for 25,000gp at some point. Since a +6 item is only 36,000gp, this is very efficient until very late game and I am purchasing a Book of Bodily Health at a cost of 55,000gp for +1 modifier. At that point, I'd buy a ring of evasion before the manual of bodily health and then just stop using this ability. So there is a trade off: 1 burn for evasion is worth it initially, but this will eventually become a dead abillity which I don't want, especially because I could be choosing always-useful things in the air element.
Celerity (air) Burn 0 (optional 1): Haste as spell for one round or rounds/level with a burn. Haste could be a good enough spell to make this worth it.
Engulfing Winds (air) Burn 0; requires enveloping winds: turn your defense talent into Wind Wall, as the spell. Useful in a pinch, but not as good as evasion or celerity unless your DM loves archers.
Windsight (air) Burn 0: See around corners according to the wind. You can create wind with the Gusting Infusion.
Wings of Air (air) Burn 0: Always-on fly, as the spell. I don't need to explain that this is awesome to get at level 6.
Level 4:
None
Level 5:
Air Shroud, Greater (air) Burn 0 (optional 1); requires Air Shroud: Life Bubble as the spell all day. If you want to apply this to your allies, this is much welcome upgrade, because it lasts all day. Otherwise, Air Shroud is probably enough. Unlike air shroud, however, this also functions as endure elements, gives outright immunity to gasses, and also immunity to pressure damage (say, if you are underwater). If those tend to be required in your campaign, this is actually quite good. Having an NPC with this is also a neat way for DMs to waive those sorts of challenges, and also to impose a time limit.
Windsight, Greater (air) Burn 0; requires Windsight: See from a location within 480 feet of your actual location if you concentrate for a little bit. If you have a patient group, this can be awesome. Otherwise it is next to useless.
Level 6:
Suffocate (water, air, aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Expend one burn for a fort save or be reduced to 0hp. Considering how difficult kineticist saves can be, this is very good.
Wind Manipulator (air) Burn 0 (option 1); requires Engulfing Winds: Control Winds as spell. One round only without burn. Can create tornadoes: destroying villages, towns, and terrain.
Level 7:
None
Level 8:
Weather Master (air) Burn 0: Depending on your access to other elements, you can control the weather of an entire area, and create tornadoes that persist without further intervention. Fire and forget, if you don't care about civilian casualties. This is one of if not the only ability a kineticist has that can destroy entire fiefdoms, and as an air kineticist, you can do this more cheaply than anyone else. For reference, you can do this 144 times per day or so, and it requires a level 7 spell to stop it each time if I am not mistaken. If nothing else, you'll cost whoever is running the target lands a small mint.
Level 9:
None
Water:
Level 1:
Kinetic Cover (aether, earth, water) Burn 0: Due to the low hitpoints of the resulting cover, this isn't that good. Earth gets an upgrade to this that is more useful. Water Manipulation requires this.
Cold Adaptation (water) Burn 0: This isn't going to be energy resistance 10+ most of the time. It will be energy resistance 5 a lot of time though.
Kinetic Healer (aether, water) Burn 1: Due to the burn, this is largely in-combat healing, and it doesn't even heal exceptional amounts of damage. It can mean the difference between life and death especially at lower levels. Generally speaking, in combat healing isn't what you want to be doing, but can at least be useful at levels 2-5. Due to how both the ability scales and how combat healing in general scales, it should be replaced at later levels.
Slick (water) Burn 0 (optional 1): Grease, as spell, but with ice.
Icewalker (water) Burn 0: Ignore slipperyness of wet and icy surfaces. Immunity to seasickness. This is mostly important because your flight talent requires this.
Level 2:
Veil of Mists (water) Burn 0 (optional 1): Disguise self, as the spell. One burn gives this ability infinite duration until your burn is removed. This burn applies to all of your uses of Veil of Mists, not just the one you burn for.
Level 3:
Cold Snap (water) Burn 1; requires cold adaptation and shroud of water: Aura of cold that causes -4 penalty to Dex...to creatures within 5 feet of you.
Water Manipulator (water) Burn 0; requires kinetic cover: Control water, as spell, or complete control of water (1/1000th the amount of the spell, which is still a lot of water) as a standard action. You can immerse yourself in water for a form of pseodo flight.
Waterdancer (water) Burn 0: Always-on slipstream. Great if you are in an aquatic campaign.
Level 4:
Ice Sculptor (water) Burn 0: You can sculpt ice and snow as per the spell Stone Shape. Not super useful.
Watersense (water) Burn 0: Tremorsense, but with water. Remember that you can create small bodies of water given time with the Create Water cantrip that you have through Basic Hydrokinesis. It is still a pretty flaky special sense though.
Level 5:
Shimmering Mirage (water) Burn 1; requires Shroud of Water: 20% miss chance all day. Always worth the burn.
Waterdancer, Greater (water) Burn 0; requires Waterdancer: Water walk at will and the ability to breathe underwater. If you needed to breathe underwater earlier (or survive in deep-water environments), be an air kineticist :(.
Watersense, Greater (water) Burn 0; requires Watersense: Scrying, but only through water. This is great when your target is immersed in a large body of water, or even close to a river or lake that you are tangentially connected to. This means watersense is still likely to flake out on you when you need it most, but it is still a sort of scrying, and it is still an at will abillity.
Level 6:
Suffocate (water, air, aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Expend one burn for a fort save or be reduced to 0hp. Considering how difficult kineticist saves can be, this is very good.
Ice Path (water) Burn 0; requires Icewalker: Air walk, as spell. The Ice Queen's preferred method of flight. This is the best flight available to water, though a form of standard-action using pseudoflight is available with Water Manipulator.
Level 7:
None
Level 8:
None
Level 9:
Tidal Wave (water) Burn 1: Tsunami as spell. A 9th level spell is definitely cheap for the cost of 1 burn. That said, it isn't the best 9th level spell.
Earth:
Level 1:
Earth Walk (earth) Burn 0: You get a bonus to CMD against being tripped and on balance checks. You can also ignore difficult terrain, but only if that difficult terrain is caused by earth. You are probably going to want kinetic cover, but if you don't, then I'd consider Skilled Kineticist instead.
Kinetic Cover (aether, earth, water) Burn 0: Due to the low hitpoints of the resulting cover, this isn't that good. Earth gets an upgrade to this that is more useful. Water Manipulation requires this.
Level 2:
Earth Climb (earth) Burn 0: Climb speed equal to land speed. At least this is better than Earth Walk. This is a prerequisite for Earth's replacement for flight: Earth Glide.
Level 3:
Jagged Flesh (earth) Burn 1: The flavor text on this one makes me not want to use it. The effect is only 1d6 damage against enemies attacking with natural weapons or unarmed strikes. No thanks.
Tremorsense (earth) Burn 0 (optional 1): Move action to gain tremorsense. Spend a burn to keep it on for kineticist level rounds. I didn't think this was useful because of the action tax, until I realized that not only will Earth Glide leave you blind without this, but it may be one of your only ways of dealing with invisibility for some time to come. Eventually your opponents may be both invisible and flying, but that won't be for a while.
Level 4:
Enduring Earth (earth) Burn 0: Double the duration of earth abilities. Your wall and deadly earth infusions last longer. Your entangling infusions last longer. This is useful, but probably not your first choice
Shift Earth (earth) Burn 0; requires kinetic cover: You can slowly build towers of earth, as well cover that will actually cover you. If you have enough time on your hands, you can reshape the landscape to your will.
Level 5:
Earth Glide (earth) Burn 0; requires Earth Climb: Earth kineticists are the only ones not to get some form of flight. However, Earth Glide makes up for this. In short, it is super-burrow up to your land speed.
Stone Sculptor (earth) Burn 0: You can sculpt stone, but fine detail isn't quite possible. This is only a minor improvement over Shift Earth. On the other hand, this is an potential replacement for Shift Earth, since you get 10 cubic feet plus 10 cubic feet per level as a standard action, four times as much earth as Shift Earth, and this wild talent doesn't have a prerequisite.
Tremorsense, Greater (earth) Burn 0; requires Tremorsense: This isn't what you'd expect. It is actually Commune with Nature, as the spell.
Level 6:
None
Level 7:
Shift Earth, Greater (earth) Burn 0; requires Shift Earth: Move Earth as spell. This is almost explicitly non-combat, and can't be used for tunneling or stonework or a lot of other useful earth-moving. It isn't all that great, honestly.
Level 8:
None
Level 9:
Seismic Master (earth) Burn 0: Earthquake as spell. Chucking around an 8th level spell like this at-will is definitely a 9th level ability.
Fire:
Level 1:
Fire Sculptor (fire) Burn 0: Move fire around, but not quench or create it.
Fire's Fury (fire) Burn 0: Non-negligible extra damage.
Heat Adaptation (fire) Burn 0: The same minor fire resistance you get from the other adaptation talents, but also endure elements against temperatures only.
Level 2:
Flame Trap (fire) Burn 0 (optional 1): Traps are nice, but take work to make effective. This can be a pretty damaging trap too, since it uses Blue Flame blast if you have it, though not other fire composite blasts. No save, SR applies.
Searing Flame (fire) Burn 0: Your burning infusion decreases your target's fire resistance. Since fire resistance is common, this is gold.
Level 3:
Firesight (fire) Burn 0: Creatures on fire or with the fire subtype can't have concealment against you. You can also see through flames. This can combo with the burning infusion and visibility-affecting spells or abilities like Smoke Storm for a situation where you can fight unhindered, but your targets cannot.
Flame Jet (fire) Burn 0: This is the first part of your flight ability. You gain pseudo-flight, but it uses up your standard actions. Out of combat only flight is still flight.
Heat Wave (fire) Burn 1; requires heat adaptation, searing flesh: Aura of heat that causes concealment against creatures within 5 feet. Much better than Cold Snap, but still not nearly as good as your other options.
Smoke Storm (fire) Burn 0: Turn matches or torches into a Fog Cloud that sickens enemies (fort negates). Cool.
Level 4:
None
Level 5:
Flame Jet, Greater (fire) Burn 0; requires Flame Jet: This is the full version of your flight ability. Flight is useful, to say the least.
Flame Shield (fire) Burn 1; requires Searing Flesh: This gives you additional retaliatory damage when being attacked in melee and halves the damage of cold spells against you. However, halving the damage of a cold spell will likely end the effect of Flame Shield. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. If you know you're going to be hit by a cold spell that day, it is probably a rather good defensive talent, certainly better than any of the defense wild talents, and that is saying a lot.
Trail of Flames (fire) Burn 0: This is a fun one, you can leave a one-round wall of fire whenever you take the run or withdraw actions. This does a little damage to anyone within 20ft of one side of your trail (more if within 10ft).
Level 6:
None
Level 7:
None
Level 8:
None
Level 9:
From the Ashes (fire) Burn 2: Immediate action panic button: I'm not dead yet! Every level 20 kineticist puts this at their beck and call via omnikinesis because it is just that good.
Aether:
Level 1:
Kinetic Cover (aether, earth, water) Burn 0: Due to the low hitpoints of the resulting cover, this isn't that good. Earth gets an upgrade to this that is more useful. Water Manipulation requires this.
Kinetic Healer (aether, water) Burn 1: Due to the burn, this is largely in-combat healing, and it doesn't even heal exceptional amounts of damage. It can mean the difference between life and death especially at lower levels. Generally speaking, in combat healing isn't what you want to be doing, but can at least be useful at levels 2-5. Due to how both the ability scales and how combat healing in general scales, it should be replaced at later levels.
Telekinetic Finesse (aether) Burn 0: Further enhance your mage hand ("perform any sort of fine manipulation you choose within close range") and disable device at a range of close. This opens up some room for creativity and is useful should disable device ever become necessary.
Level 2:
Telekinetic Haul (aether) Burn 0: You can chuck large and heavy things, including with your kenetic blast. This doesn't affect combat at all though.
Level 3:
Self Telekinesis (aether) Burn 0: This is the first part of your flight ability. You gain pseudo-flight, but it uses up your standard actions. Out of combat only flight is still flight.
Telekinetic Invisibility (aether) Burn 0: Self-invisibility at-will. Blindsense and Blindsight can even be avoided with this if you are careful.
Touchsight (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Blindsight against creatures stuck with telekinetic blast (unless they teleport or blink or something of that nature). That is a nice touch.
Level 4:
Telekinetic Maneuvers (aether) Burn 0: Combat maneuvers at range. Not great.
Touchsight, Spying (aether) Burn 0; requires touchsight: Invisible strand that lets you use your target's senses.
Level 5:
Aether Puppet (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): I'm not sure I understand the animated object rules properly, but Animated objects don't really seem to be worth much mechanically, certainly not an additional burn. So this is an out of combat ability that is more or less duplicated by the level 2 abillity Telekinetic Haul.
Force Barrier (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1); requires Force Ward: A personal Wall of Force, but in spherical form. Each round you want to keep it active without spending an action on it costs a burn. On the other hand, while that happens you can be pretty hard to damage. You can also just create a hemisphere around your square as well. Make a hemisphere face some point well above your opponent and use the Snake infusion to deal damage from a small opening on the far side of the sphere -- for an example of how to use the burn version of this ability. The spherical version may provide enough protection to get a wounded party member out of harms way...or you can get creative (read: abuse the heck out of it) with extradimensional space, teleportation, and/or the delay action and stuff for some pretty serious shielding. Beware that if the barrier pops, you take a burn. Its a nice ability, but not as good as:
Self Telekinesis, Greater (aether) Burn 0; requires Self Telekinesis: This is the full version of your flight ability. Flight is useful, to say the least.
Touchsight, Reactive (aether) Burn 0; requires Touchsight: You can always react on the surprise round if the surprise attack comes within 30ft of you. Additionally, you gain a lesser sort of uncanny dodge.
Level 6:
Suffocate (water, air, aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Expend one burn for a fort save or be reduced to 0hp. Considering how difficult kineticist saves can be, this is very good.
Level 7:
Spell Deflection (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): By this point, the effect is unlikely to actually work. It isn't completely useless, but probably is a waste of time.
Level 8:
Telekinetic Deflection (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): Any attacks that fail to hit your AC attack its source. Excellent.
Telekinetic Globe (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1): No burn reflex SoL. Yes please! Spend a burn to omit the need to concentrate after capturing your target.
Level 9:
None
Void:
Level 1:
Void Healer (fire) Burn 0: If you wanted to be an undead-friendly chap, you would be dealing negative energy damage and so be doing this for free anyways.
Level 2:
Eyes of the Void (void) Burn 0: Darkvision. The upgraded version even gets you See in Darkness. This is great used with the darkness-causing infusions that you may have picked up.
No Breath (void) Burn 0: You don't breathe, and don't have to. You also gain special license to "survive in the vacuum of space", whatever that means.
Level 3:
Gravity Control (void) Burn 0: This is the first part of your flight ability. You gain pseudo-flight, but it uses up your standard actions. Out of combat only flight is still flight.
Level 4:
None
Level 5:
Eyes of the Void, Greater (void) Burn 0; requires Eyes of the Void: See in Darkness is excellent. It is like truesight, except only for darkness. This synergies with the Darkness, Greater infusion.
Gravity Control, Greater (void) Burn 0; requires Gravity Control: This is the full version of your flight ability. Flight is useful, to say the least.
Level 6:
None
Level 7:
None
Level 8:
None
Level 9:
Gravity Master (void) Burn 0: Anything that can't fly has to deal with increasingly awkward situations as you mess with 180ft cubes of gravity in medium range. Lasts 1 round/level, but subsequent uses of this ability cancel all previous uses.
Review Time: Building a Kineticist
So far, this guide has focused on burn, infusions, and utility wild talents without taking much time to introduce specific class features of the kineticist. Lets take a look at them now. The class features for the kineticist are (in order of acquisition): Burn, Elemental Focus, Gather Power, Infusion(s), Kinetic Blast, Elemental Defense, Utility Wild Talent(s), Elemental Overflow, Infusion Specialization, Metakinesis (empower, maximize, quicken, twin), Internal Buffer, Expanded Element, Supercharge, Composite Specialization, Metakinetic Master, and Omnikinesis. All of these abilities affect Burn, Infusions, and/or Utility Wild Talents in some manner.
Well that's a lot, so lets make sense of this mess. Every kineticist can write down the following special abilities, or not, because they are integral to how the class works: Burn, Elemental Focus, Gather Power, Kinetic Blast, Elemental Defense (1st level kineticist don't have this last one), Expanded Element (which comes later, but is basically Elemental Focus). Ignore the names, just focus on how the kinetics works. I recommend *not* writing them down for the most part to save space for things that are important to remember. Do write down your chosen elements for elemental focus and expanded elements (I'd put them under the Domains/Specialty School heading) but that's it for these ones. Elemental Defense can be treated as a bonus Defense Wild Talent: I'd avoid writing down Elemental Defense, and just write down the name of the defense talent.
Most of this guide focuses on Infusions and Utility Wild talents, I recommend writing them down where you'd normally put spells known.
Elemental Overflow, Infusion Specialization, and Internal Buffer are all passive bonuses that change every few levels. Make sure you don't forget these, especially because elemental overflow will be responsible for a lot of to-hit and damage. Internal Buffer and Infusions Specialization have relatively simple meanings: The former is an alternative to accepting burn, and the latter is a reduction of burn caused by infusions. Elemental Overflow on the other hand is a bit tricky.
Elemental Overflow
The +X on elemental overflow *usually* but not always (check the description of the form infusions you are using) means that you get a maximum of +X to hit and +2*X to damage, where X is the amount of burn you've taken so far. More confusingly (and this is very important!), when you have taken 3 Burn and are at least level 6, you get a +2 size bonus to two physical ability scores (Dex and Con!), when you've taken 5 burn and are at least level 11, you get a +4 size bonus to one physical ability score and a +2 size bonus to another, and finally, when you've taken 7 points of burn and are at least level 16, you get +6, +4, and +2 size bonuses to distribute among your physical ability scores. Additionally starting at 6th level you get a chance to ignore sneak attacks and critical damage equal to 5% multiplied by your current amount of burn. This is a small bonus and easy to forget, so you should put it somewhere where you will see it. It may be best to list these three abilities separately on your character sheet, especially if this is your first time playing a kineticist. As a side note, you'll notice that you get your size bonuses at the same time as Internal Buffer (and not Elemental Overflow upgrades), so that may help you remember when that changes.
Metakinesis
This one is thankfully fairly easy. You gain the following metakinesis in order: empower (5th level), maximize (9th level), quicken (13th level), and twin (17th level). They all refer to the same rules as the metamagic for spellcasters with the exception of Twice, which is still pretty analogous to Twin Spell. Write it down, embrace it, use it.
The Later Abilities
Supercharge: Easy enough, it modifies Gather Power
Composite Specialization: Reduce composite blast cost by one
Metakinetic Master: Chose a metamagic, the cost of that metamagic is reduced by one (you should either choose empower or maximize, and in most cases you should choose empower).
Omnikinesis: Either use an wild talent you don't know for the cost of one burn, or swap a wild talent into another one of the same category (blasts, defense, utility) for 24 hours (so make sure to use it the day before) ignoring elemental restrictions. Consider picking up the aether, water, or earth defense wild talents this way, or perhaps From the Ashes (the fire level 9 wild talent). This isn't a super-amazing capstone by itself, so don't worry about not bothering with this (but if you would die from an attack and could still burn 3, then use From the Ashes regardless!). Blood kineticists don't get this, and instead gain a bunch of immunities (including immunity to old age) in the form of Blood Mastery.
Step by Step: Putting it all together
Step 1: Chose your elements. Before you do this, you should have an idea of your utility wild talents and your composite blast, so scroll up and have a look.
Step 2: Write down your chosen element, or elements if you are level 7 or more.
Step 3: Choose your Infusions. Remember that you get two 1st level infusions.
Step 4: Choose your Utility Wild Talents.
Step 5: Write down your Defense Wild Talents based on your starting element (if you are 2nd level or higher, that is) and if you chose Expanded Defense as a Utility Wild Talent.
The decisions are mostly over, now we're just filling in the blanks.
Step 6: Write down, or don't write down: Burn, Elemental Focus, Gather Power, Kinetic Blast, Elemental Defense (again, only if you 2nd level or higher). Add your elemental class skills to your class list.
Step 7: Write down your Elemental Overflow, Internal Buffer, and Infusion Specialization bonuses. Consider writing them on the front of your character sheet as well.
Step 8: Write down all of the Metakinesis you have access to.
Step 9: Write down the "Later Abilities" that you have access to (see above).
Step 10: Write down some "weapons" for convenient use during play. This is probably the hardest step, since you will need to account for the variability of both your constitution score (on account of the size bonuses that you will gain as you fight longer) and Elemental Overflow, as well as various levels of metakinesis and burn. I would start with a simple blast, empowered, if you have metakinesis (empower), then a composite blast with 0 burn if possible, followed by 1 burn, followed by max burn as my damage in the table. If you find that you tend to use a bare simple blast (without empowerment) because you are focusing on status effects, you may consider writing that in later, or replacing an attack configuration you use less.
Step 11: Find a die rolling app or website and clear it with your DM. I'm serious about this one. It is fine at first, but maximized empowered blasts aren't fun to roll and slow the game down. Make sure that all of your attack configurations are pre-entered and handy in the aforementioned app or website as you play.
From here on out, you need to grab feats, items, skills, a race, and all of the other things you'd do to create any character. I hope that you found it useful in demystifying and and creating kineticists. If you spot any factual errors or typos, please, please report them (either by replying to this thread or PMing me). Additionally, if you find that an ability that I thought was bad and/or situational to be generally useful (or the reverse), I'd like to know. Rating kineticist abilities is difficult because they have a lot of them, and because their utility wild talents lend themselves to creative use. Good luck and thanks for reading!
Reserved in case of future expansion.
Kholan
2016-06-24, 07:09 PM
This guide is so awesome! It totally simplifies the kineticist class. I've read the other two guides and they don't compare.
I am currently making a 4th level Blood Kineticist Deepsea Merfolk for my friend's game. He gave us a Bloodrager bloodline and Bloodrage for our level, kind of like gestault. We are getting a +1 CR monster template and access to monster feats (of which don't do a whole lot but are a nice option).I took the Black Blooded Bloodrager and the Black blooded template. With all of this, I am thinking about makinging a Blade and Whip Kineticist build.
Boegs
2016-10-26, 02:47 PM
[CENTER][SIZE=5]
Shroud of Water (water): A significant boost to your AC. You'll probably want to have at least some armor anyways, so this has its greatest utility in shield form. You get 1 shield AC plus 1/2 your kineticist level. You can increase the AC bonus by 1 for each point of burn you put into it to a max of 150% of the base amount. This means at level 10, you get 6 shield AC and can burn 3 for a total of +9. Your armor will be at least +11 when you accept burn from a water talent. That's a 30 AC before you even apply your Dex bonus, and it comes basically free with the element. Additionally, at level 10 you can get an upgrade to this that also gives you a 20% miss chance!
This seems to be incorrect ... here's an extract of the text of this talent:
This bonus increases by 1 for every 4 kineticist levels you possess beyond 2nd.
So the additional AC is equal to +1 for every 4 levels above 2 (not half your Kineticist level) ... so at Level 10 it's +4 (not +6) ... and the max you can increase it at Level 10 is +6 (for 2 Burn ... since you are limited to half of the base +4, or an additional +2) ... not +9.
Targen
2016-11-15, 07:50 AM
Nice guide! Just a couple of specific notes, though:
Telekinetic Finesse (aether) Burn 0: Further enhance your mage hand, disable device at range. It doesn't seem to describe at what range though.
It specifies "close range", which is 25ft + 5ft / 2 levels. Basic telekinesis also refers to ranges in this manner when discussing the impact of the extended and extreme range infusions on it.
Force Barrier (aether) ... Moreover, it looks like this doesn't extend up or down, since the spell Wall of Force specifies a vertical plane. This means that you can still deal full damage with the Snake infusion provided you have the room. This is potentially a very expensive very powerful defensive ability. Or potentially worthless, if your opponent can fly.
Force barrier begins:
You create an immobile sphere or hemisphere of force around your square or squares. The force barrier functions as a wall of force in all other ways
So it doesn't matter that Wall of Force specifies a vertical plane; the wild talent creates a sphere/hemisphere (presumably the latter is assuming you're standing on flat ground).
Ahah, thank you both Targen and Boegs! I'll get those updated tomorrow. Don't know how I bastardized shroud of water so badly...
EDIT: Done.
There are some interesting things you can do with an arbitrarily oriented hemisphere shield. And some decidedly powerful things if you are willing to devote yourself to being a 200+hp party shield that regenerates every round (with the requisite equipment: portable hole, paperclips, ladders...a complete absence of bags of holding...). New text for Force Barrier:
Force Barrier (aether) Burn 0 (optional 1); requires Force Ward: A personal Wall of Force, but in spherical form. Each round you want to keep it active without spending an action on it costs a burn. On the other hand, while that happens you can be pretty hard to damage. You can also just create a hemisphere around your square as well. Make a hemisphere face some point well above your opponent and use the Snake infusion to deal damage from a small opening on the far side of the sphere -- for an example of how to use the burn version of this ability. The spherical version may provide enough protection to get a wounded party member out of harms way...or you can get creative (read: abuse the heck out of it) with extradimensional space, teleportation, and/or the delay action and stuff for some pretty serious shielding. Beware that if the barrier pops, you take a burn. Its a nice ability, but not as good as: (the full version of the telekineticist's flight ability)
The burn you take if the barrier pops is fairly irrelevant as long as you are expecting it, as there are few things that heal 200hp worth of damage for the equivalent of 1 burn
Dαedαlus
2017-09-23, 03:32 PM
I think you're severely undervaluing Greater Shift Earth. Sure, the spell has a 10 minute casting time/section, but the ability is spell-like, meaning that it's only a standard action to use. In other words, you're Shifting a 750*750 foot area every round. There's more than a few combat options there- it's like wall of stone in utility, except way bigger and not a creation effect.
Triskavanski
2017-11-28, 12:35 AM
Well its a one year anniversary
Kinetic Healer - This heals just as good, if not better, than a Cleric's healing power. Remember that if you have a physical blast you do xd6+x+con. So you're pretty much going to heal at least the cost of your burn, and likely quite a bit more. Its a great one for when the parties main healer is running out of power too to top off people without having to have the healer waste more resources. With Aether Kineticist you also recharge your force ward each time.
Force Blast - It may not deal as much damage a real composite blast, but it is the only element that can take on ghosts and things of that nature. Fewer things out there resist or are immune to its damage as well.
Extreme Range - I think you might be missing the main thing about this one. You don't get it for your blasts as much as you get it for your mage hand ability, to move things at a rate of 60 feet per turn. Plus long range means if you can see it, you can deal with it.
Telekinetic Finesse - Disable device is just ho-hum with this. Slight of hand though is where its at. But the main reason you get it is you can justifiably say "Why yes my telekineses is finessable enough to unfold this very large sheet of canvas that I'm sticking between me and the enemy to block of line of sight.
I'm still occasionally lurking around.
I think you're severely undervaluing Greater Shift Earth. Sure, the spell has a 10 minute casting time/section, but the ability is spell-like, meaning that it's only a standard action to use. In other words, you're Shifting a 750*750 foot area every round. There's more than a few combat options there- it's like wall of stone in utility, except way bigger and not a creation effect.
750*750ft is supposed to take 4 hours with the spell. Moreover the spell text says "The spell cannot be used for tunneling and is generally too slow to trap or bury creatures." which clearly becomes false if you are able to move even 150*150ft of terrain in 6 seconds. However...you're absolutely right about the SLA taking a standard action unless otherwise noted, and it is not noted (apparently not true, see Psyren's response). Considering this ability comes online as an at-will ability at level 14, RAI is clearly that it wasn't intended as an underground in-combat tunnel-crusher or instant 75ft high wall creator. But RAW...ouch.
Extreme Range - I think you might be missing the main thing about this one. You don't get it for your blasts as much as you get it for your mage hand ability, to move things at a rate of 60 feet per turn. Plus long range means if you can see it, you can deal with it.
Interestingly, Basic Telekinesis specifically synergizes with extreme range. It definitely is worth both a mention and a color upgrade on the element specific infusion page, so thanks for that. As an infusion, this normally only applies to blasts, not the utility wild talents, so it doesn't help the mage-hand like abilities other elements may get.
Telekinetic Finesse - Disable device is just ho-hum with this. Slight of hand though is where its at. But the main reason you get it is you can justifiably say "Why yes my telekineses is finessable enough to unfold this very large sheet of canvas that I'm sticking between me and the enemy to block of line of sight.
I don't get the need for slight of hand. Using slight of hand at range with an invisible mage hand doesn't let you palm an item (because it is still visible), and I would argue that you can already use slight of hand with the mage hand spell for the other most important applications of the skill (you can obviously use it to take an attended item in line of sight, for instance). Your example of with the sheet of canvas is a good one, however. The important line in telekinetic finesse is "any sort of fine manipulation you choose" which grants full license for creativity. Moreover, "any sort of fine manipulation you choose" applies at a speed of 60ft/round if you have the extreme range talent, haha. I'll add that to the description, thanks.
Kinetic Healer - This heals just as good, if not better, than a Cleric's healing power. Remember that if you have a physical blast you do xd6+x+con. So you're pretty much going to heal at least the cost of your burn, and likely quite a bit more. Its a great one for when the parties main healer is running out of power too to top off people without having to have the healer waste more resources. With Aether Kineticist you also recharge your force ward each time.
xd6+x+con sounds good. But x here is essentially CL/2, because it seems that you can only use simple blasts (and no metakinesis allowed) with it. Even if you were allowed to use metakinesis/composite blasts with it, you wouldn't be able to apply gather power to reduce the additional burn since it would count as a utility talent if I understand correctly. Sure your team gains hitpoints using the action, but the damage you or your team takes in return can't be healed out of combat thereafter until a long rest. So you never use it for out of combat healing because it has such a cripplingly worse outcome than using a wand of Cure Light Wounds. And you wouldn't use it for in-combat healing after level 2-6 (where I grant it could actually be useful) because if I understand it right it ends up staying the equivalent of Cure Moderate (very eventually Cure Serious) Wounds, but becomes more expensive as you level up. Recharging your force ward doesn't make it better than your other options for the round, since that happens regardless of whether you choose to attack, or perform a bit of (generally counterproductive) combat healing. Since you can replace talents at 6th, 10th and 16th levels, it deserves better than I had given it though, and it is definitely marginally better for the aether element than the water element (and your other option for the aether element isn't that great). Speaking of which, I need to put this as belonging to the aether element in the list.
Force Blast - It may not deal as much damage a real composite blast, but it is the only element that can take on ghosts and things of that nature. Fewer things out there resist or are immune to its damage as well.
Incorporeal says: "An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source". Reading that should tell you that force blast does no more damage than any other composite blast, since it deals roughly half the damage of a real composite blast. The lack of enemy force damage resistance is very nice, if not worth the burn.
Psyren
2017-12-08, 02:35 AM
However...you're absolutely right about the SLA taking a standard action unless otherwise noted, and it is not noted.
By referencing the spell directly, it is noting otherwise.
thecrimsondawn
2017-12-08, 11:38 AM
I dont have the time to look over the guide atm, but just in case its not already there, please be sure to include the Kineticist enhancement options from 3pp sources such as Legendary Kineticist 1 and 2,. Everyman Options - Kineticist, and DSP's Psionics Augmented - Kineticists.
If there are any more 3pp sources out there, I would also like to know where they are so I can pick them up. Still, these few PDFs adding a world of options to the core Kineticist that I honestly dont think I could play without anymore.
I have no intention of touching the 3pp stuff. Not only does it change a lot of what it means for an infusion/talent to be good (at the time of some of the first 3pp material, Kineticists were thought to be greatly in need of a buff), but it also adds a whole bunch of new elements, which is a pretty crazy amount of stuff to add. It is also worth noting that this guide was initially created quite a while ago and I haven't added PPC:Psychic Anthology, PRG:Horror Adventures, or PPC:Elemental Masters stuff to this guide yet, which I will might do in the future.
Until I do (and in case I don't), here are my notes on the notable stuff from PPC:Psychic Anthology:
Utility Talents:
Amazing level 1 void talent: Absentia, which helps prevent scrying. Well, amazing if you were actually living in-universe, in practice it may not matter for most campaigns.
Useful level 3 void talent lets you use a variant of hold person on just undead (no burn if channeled).
Useful level 4 void talent Curse Breaker that gives +4 to saves against curses and hexes and grants a somewhat better version of the remove curse spell (uses burn).
The wood element that I omitted gets a better version of the Tree Stride spell as a level 8 talent.
The wood element gets its own Kinetic Healer.
Meh level 9 aether talent Aether Architect which can allow you to create admittedly cool force castles -- permanent with sufficient burn. Very useful **if** you have a day's preparation.
Special note for the Kinetic Invcation feat, which turns a whole bunch of spells into utility wild talents for you. You don't even need the feat if you have the appropriate racial affinity. The vast majority cost 1 burn to use though. Some notables
Water: Silent Image (2nd, 0 burn!), Sleet storm (3rd), Fluid Form (6th)
Earth: Slowing Mud (3rd, stagger and blind multiple targets, fort negates), Imprisonment (9th, but I think I'd rather have earthquake)
Air: Wind Walk (6th)
Void: Life Channel (1st, self only, 0 burn, gain temporary hitpoints for minutes/level when healed), Mind blank (8th)
Infusions:
Level 1 (1 burn) aether form infusion: Telekinetic Boomerang. If you miss with this attack, you get to try again without having to commit more burn. Yes please! Unfortunately the range is default (normally 30ft). Doesn't work with the Force composite blast.
Level 2 (2 burn) universal form infusion: Blade Rush, a slightly better charge attack (you can charge 30ft straight up, even without flight) for kinetic blade users -- who could already make charge attacks and with one less infusion burn. I expect the main use of this is for a cheap, quick pseudoflight if you can get yourself a feather fall effect which is actually pretty sweet. Therefore primarily useful for Earth element kineticists.
Level 2 (1-10 burn) universal form infusion: Focused Blast. Very useful when you need it, and it occupies what can be an otherwise awkward level 2 infusion slot. Costs 2 burn per +1 to hit and +1 to CL check to overcome spell resistance to a maximum of +5 bonus. Downside is that your blast range is left at the default (normally 30ft). Infusion specialization can eventually mitigate a +3 bonus at level 18, but the kineticists that benefit most from this are those that use blasts with substance infusions and don't care about the half damage: magnetic, chilled, gut-wrenching, entangled either to disable a foe or make it more possible for your party members to hit it.
Level 2 (2 burn) gravity/void substance infusion: Weighing Infusion. Entangle but for gravity, seems good.
Level 3 (2 burn) electric/charged water/thunderstorm substance infusion: Synaptic infusion, a slightly worse version of chilling, but being only 2 burn opens up quite a few options. Note that against a target who is using a move action to move through a wall infusion or similar, it is every bit as good as chilling. Excellent.
Level 4 (3 burn) fire/blue flame form infusion: Detonation. Like cyclone (20ft radius centered on you), but much more useful as the damage isn't halved (because it is an energy blast). Not too useful though, since you probably don't want to be in the middle of a fight where your teammates aren't. Fan of flames is probably better.
Level 5 (3 burn) earth form infusion: Tremor: You can actually effectively engage in combat with earth elementals and other burrowing creatures while inside walls now, yay. You can't use your composite blast, boo.
Feats (no plans to add to guide):
Elemental Knowledge: Elemental-based skill benefits. Not super interesting.
PRG:Horror Adventures:
Utility Talents
Gkkhh. Level 1 universal utility talent. F-f-f-f-f-familiar abilities. Alertness feat. Um. Wow. Oh, the talent is called Elemental Whispers. Familiar abilities seem to be your choice of +4 initiative, +2 to chosen save, +1 to natural armor, or a handful of other things, mostly +3 to chosen skill. Some elements have pretty important level 1 utility wild talents. Air kineticists and those water kineticists who wish to get Water Manipulator have a reasonably difficult decision to make. Fire kineticists probably don't want this enough to start with it but might pick it up later anyways.
The level 3 universal utility talent Greater Elemental Whispers is decidedly less impressive. You lose your familiar ability. Wysps can get you +1 to attack and damage in exchange, but small elementals don't seem particularly useful. Using a level 1 *and* a level 3 talent for this and the alertness feat seems wasteful.
PPC:Elemental Masters
Infusions:
Level 1 (1 burn) air/fire/void/water: Energize Weapon. Power-up your weapon with your blast, 1d6 at level 1, 2d6 at level 7, 3d6 at level 13, 4d6 at level 19. **Blue flame blasts deal double this additional damage**. This progression is almost half as good as sneak attack (without the blue flame blast bonus), so it seems like it is possible to build a character around this, sweetness. Does this mean kineticist volley archers are a thing even?
Level 2 (2-X burn) blue flame/cold/electric/fire substance infusion: Penetrating Infusion. -5 to enemy elemental resistance for that attack, and can invest further burn at a rate of 1 burn for an additional -5 to enemy elemental resistance. Fairly meh (as you tend to deal all your damage in a single blow anyways), but can directly translate to damage, which is neat for an infusion.
Level 2 (2 burn) universal form infusion: Spindle. 30ft range, can hit two adjacent targets (reflex negates), but physical blasts deal half damage. This is an alternative to Torrent in every way -- but unlike torrent, it is available to negative admixture blasts.
Level 3 (2 burn) negative/void infusion: Unnerving Infusion. Causes shaken status in living foes. Very sweet in the right party, still good by itself.
Level 5 (3 burn) negative/void infusion: Vampiric Infusion. Use void healer for free as part of your attack (and the talent heals you even if you aren't undead). Annoying extra burn cost for the void healer activation. Action-less healing is hard to come by though. This is actually strong, and is now the sole reason for picking up the void healer talent.
Special note for the Mobile Gathering (http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lk07?True-Masters-of-Elemental-Power) feat, which makes gather power even less inconvenient, and allows you to set up torrents and impales with impunity.
Kalkin
2020-12-26, 11:26 AM
After carefully reading the rules for a Pyromancer, I must say ypur table is very useful, but has some wrong assumptions (in my opinion, at least).
1) Metakinetic: Empower multiplies all the damage, not only the dice. It is based on Empower Spell, which multiplies ALL the variable value, not parts of it, as clarified in this message (there is a FAQ reference too).
Note: I cannot post links yet, so I cannot post the reference to this FAQ
2) Extra damage from the Elemental Overflow (+2 from levels 3-5) only applies when accepting burn. This does not happen when using infusions, metakinetics or anything that reduces burn cost to 0.This means that this extra damage is ONLY when taking burn (with the corresponding non-ethal damage), so there is no way to reach the +4 damage indicated on your table in those levels in the Burno 0 column.
3) You can combine several options that cost burn (but only 1 form and 1 substance infusions at a time), as long as the total burn cost is 1 - the maximum you can accept before lv6. The limit of 1 accepted burn applies to the total burn after reducing costs with class features and options. So, at Lv5 you could apply Empower (1 burn), Burning Infusion [substance] (1 burn) and Extend Range infusion [form] reducing the 3 burn cost with Infusoin specialization and Gather Power, so you take only 1 burn, and apply all effects at once, adding the Elemental Overflow for taking burn too.
If instead, you opt to make only two of these effects, and apply these two cost-reducing options (reducing all the burn cost to 0), you take no burn, and have no bonuses from Elemental Overflow.
I believe this changes your table a bit - if my reading of the class and its rules are correct.
greysoulwretch
2021-03-11, 06:19 PM
2) Extra damage from the Elemental Overflow (+2 from levels 3-5) only applies when accepting burn. This does not happen when using infusions, metakinetics or anything that reduces burn cost to 0.This means that this extra damage is ONLY when taking burn (with the corresponding non-ethal damage), so there is no way to reach the +4 damage indicated on your table in those levels in the Burno 0 column.
I may be mistaken here, but you seem to be implying that Elemental Overflow bonuses only apply... during an action where you're actively accepting new burn?
Considering that the language used in the rule says the bonuses are based on "the total number of points of burn" and that you can suppress the benefits of Overflow with a full-round action, that interpretation, if it's indeed what you're saying, doesn't seem to make much sense to me. A full round action to suppress wouldn't exist for a benefit that lasts one round or less. So far as I can tell, and as seems otherwise universally interpreted, Overflow is based on the cumulative burn you've accepted since your burn was last removed.
So. The table assumes the kineticist takes enough burn, say at the beginning of the day to pump a defense talent, to max out the overflow bonus, up to +3.
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