Tiering the Pathfinder Classes - Kineticist, Alchemist, Investigator and Spiritualist

[pabelfly]

I'm interested in starting work on a tier list for Pathfinder, in the same way that we have a tier list for 3.5 (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!). This link is a collection of discussions about the power and versatility of all the base classes of 3.5 DnD, and it’s quite a useful resource. I think Pathfinder could do with a similar resource as a point of information and discussion.

There has been an informal attempt to do a tier list for Pathfinder, which I've also used as part of the reference to this thread: (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?649283-%85-And-What-Is-the-*Deal*-with-Pathfinder-Tiers). But this lacks discussion on the classes and a shared consensus on how scoring works, both of which are as important as the tier number itself.

The current, work-in-progress thread for Pathfinder Tiers version of this thread is here (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650140-Why-Each-Class-is-in-its-Tier-Pathfinder-Edition-(Work-in-Progress)). This thread has links to previous tiering threads and short summaries of thread discussions for those who missed them when they were posted. Contributions and votes for older threads are still welcome and your votes still count.

This time, we’ll tier Kineticist, Alchemist, Investigator and Spiritualist.

For reference, in the informal thread:
Kineticist is tiered between 4.4 and 4.6
Alchemist is tiered at 3
Investigator is tiered at 3
Spiritualist is tiered at 3


So, the questions are: what should each of these be tiered at? And are there any notable archetypes for these classes that deserve separate tiering? And does Kineticist deserve separate tierings for each of it's different element types, if they're significantly different in power and versatility? I guess a discussion thread is the way to find out.





What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system. A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a Bard or Skald. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in Fighter and Barbarian territory. Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of chained Monk, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

[Thunder999]

Alchemist and Investigator are very similar classes, both have Extracts, Mutagen (it's not baseline for investigator but it's a talent) and are int based with plenty of skills, so I'm lumping them together.
It's a solid spell list for buffs and utility, good prepared casting (1 minute to fill an empty slot by default), it's a discovery tax to cast spells on allies, but once you can you can hand them buffs to drink with their own actions and/or give them personal range spells, mutagen is a solid stat boost with stacking friendly bonus type, studied combat is a good accuracy booster (just don't bother with studied strike, which is a bad damage booster), bombs are powerful and varied, capable of being a big damage nova, doing save or suck and even dispelling, if you don't want bombs then you just take vivisectionist to get sneak attack instead, Inspiration is a nice skill boost. Discoveries give lots of useful abilities.
They're effective and versatile.

Investigator Tier 3, Alchemist Tier 3

Spiritualist is basically a worse summoner, no summon monster, and the Phantom is a bit unimpressive, it'll never be as deadly as an Eidolon or Animal Companion (both of which can be be your classic pouncing blended) and few of the emotions are especially strong. The Phantom can do some scouting with the Incorporeal form, but can't go far from the Spiritualist or remain out of line of effect for long.
Spell list is OK I guess.
While not exactly a glowing review, it's still a 3/4BAB 6/9 caster with a companion, so an easy tier 3.

Kineticist is probably tier 4, it's easy to make one that does level appropriate amounts of damage, and very hard to do more than that. The good wild talents are spread across elements enough that no one kineticist will ever have many good options.

[Gnaeus]

Alchemist, investigator, spiritualist T3.

Kineticist T6. It astounds me how bad this class is. It makes truenamer look fantastic. It's complicated, full of massive traps, with very little reward for navigating them. It is astonishing to me that between this class, the class that throws bombs, and the class that uses gunpowder, this is pretty much the only class in the game that explodes if you hit it at the wrong time. I like AtLE as well as the next nerd, but the thought that a bending class could be thematically cool doesn't make this one not suck. Pretty much everything worth having is gated by multiple barriers, correct element, prerequisites, burn. Which means to do ANYTHING requires multiple levels of planning. And the results generally aren't that special. It is less useful and worse written than truenamer, and that takes work. Looking at this class in the same category as Alchemist is truly adding insult to injury, since alchemist is virtually everything kineticist fails to be. Like, if an alchemist wants to fly, he takes one discovery. Out of 10. Or one extract. Out of 21 that are free. For a kineticist to do that requires the correct element and 2 utility powers received 5 levels apart. It is easier for a truenamer to learn to fly than an air kineticist. It's like Paizo looked at wizard and warlock and decided wizard was cool but warlock needed a large series of nerfs and a bunch of complexity and also to randomly explode on contact for some reason. Did Aang randomly explode when hit? I missed that episode.

[Bucky]

I would not blame anyone for rating Kineticist anywhere between Tier 6 and Tier 2.3 or so.

Tier 2.5 for Air Kineticist, with a combination of extreme mobility, long standoff range and supporting abilities that outright nullifies many encounters with no resource expenditure and little to no help.

Tier 4.5 for Kineticist in general, underwhelming damage dealers that eventually get dragged out of tier 5 by some late but still powerful at-will utility talents.

Long writeup to follow eventually.

[Kurald Galain]

Alchemist is Paizo's trademark class, and the most popular non-core class along with Magus and Witch. They have a fun "mad scientist" vibe, tossing bombs gives them a very distinct mechanic, they've got a diverse "spell" list, and they're pretty effective both in combat and out. I dislike that their potions don't act like potions, but a low-level option remedies that. It's definitely a tier 3 class, but because bomb damage tends to lag behind melee classes and blaster casters, and occasionally backfires on the party, I'll give them a low 3, or Tier 3.5.
Notable archetypes: Beastmorph alchemist is the shifter that the shifter wants to be; and vivisectionist is a better rogue than the rogue. Notable bad archetypes include interrogator, which drops both bombs and mutagen; and ragechemist, which takes cumulative int penalties each time he's hit, until he passes out.

Investigator shares the Alchemist's "spellcasting" mechanic, its studied target makes them way more effective at beating face than you'd expect from the class name, and this is the best skill-user in the game bar none. No seriously, if your adventure runs out-of-combat scenarios as "skill challenges" then investigator is ridiculously competent at soloing them. It's one of the go-to classes if you want high numbers on everything, and a clear example of Tier 3.
Notable archetypes: the spiritualist (not the class), majordomo, malice binder, and sleuth all lose alchemy; so that's a clear drop. Tier 4.

Warlock is an elegantly designed class that's easy to build and play, and ends up pretty effective with its versatile at-will abilities. Add the flavor of much-praised shows like Avatar: the Last Airbender that players want to draw characters from, and you easily end up in tier thr -- needle scratch -- haha, no. That did not happen, and it boggles the mind how we came from such a great premise into such an utter mess that is the kineticist class. We've had numerous threads about how godawful it is; to recap,
Its damage is largely unaffected by common party buffs. Effects like Prayer, Haste, or bard song are a great boost to almost every damage class except this one.
No way to deal with DR or SR, except for one expensive and earth-only talent (and aside from that, the earth element has pretty much nothing else going for it).
Most of its "utility" powers are weaker versions of spells that a partial caster gets three levels earlier. As a result, the class ends up all-blast all-the-time, nothing else.
Although called an at-will class, most of its powers actually require you to spend burn, and this runs out way faster than a partial caster's spells per day.
Due to elemental restrictions, you likely can't have your favorite three talents on the same character (and you probably can't have your favorite two talents until level 10 or so).
Finally, lack of support. Where most classes are easily improved by common loot like a Flaming Sword, such gear just doesn't exist for this class.
On the whole, it ends up a disappointment for most players I've seen try one, and is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I'll agree with Gnaeus and dump it in Tier 6. Do yourself a favor and import 3E's warlock instead.

Spiritualist. This is a weird edge case that nobody really knows what to do with, and while it does okay, it's not particularly good at anything. It's a pet class except not really; it has pretty weird flavor that doesn't fit well in most settings; and it casts spells but its list isn't great. Unsurprisingly the class is not at all popular. Tier 4.
The spir has no less than two archetypes that emulate the Magus class. Of these, the ectoplasmatist is lacklustre; but the Phantom Blade is a competent gish with spell combat, and deserves Tier 3. Notable bad archetype is the soul warden (which doesn't get a phantom) and the quintessentialist (which basically can't do anything while the phantom is present). The latter is arguably Tier 5, because what's the point of a spellcaster that can't cast spells?

[pabelfly]

VOTE UPDATE

Alchemist
Thunder999, Gnaeus - 3
Kurald Galain - 3.5

Average - 3.17



Investigator (Spirtualist, Majordomo, Malice Binder, and Sleuth Archetypes)
Thunder999, Gnaeus - 3
Kurald Galain - 4

Average - 3.33



Investigator
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Kurald Galain - 3

Average - 3



Kineticist (General)
Thunder999 - 4
Bucky - 4.5
Gnaeus, Kurald Galain - 6

Average - 5.13



Kineticist (Air)
Bucky - 2.5
Thunder999 - 4
Gnaeus, Kurald Galain - 6

Average - 4.6



Spiritualist
Thunder999, Gnaeus - 3
Kurald Galain - 4

Average - 3.33



Spiritualist (Phantom Blade Archetype)
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Kurald Galain - 3

Average - 3



Spiritualist (Quintessentialist Archetype)
Thunder999, Gnaeus - 3
Kurald Galain - 5

Average - 3.67

[Kurald Galain]

VOTE UPDATE
Please note I've added a couple archetypes with different ratings, in my previous post.

[pabelfly]

Please note I've added a couple archetypes with different ratings, in my previous post.

Added in, hope we get more votes for the archetypes you mentioned.

[exelsisxax]

Alch, investigator, and spiritualist all T3
Who casts spells, has a good combat steroid or a combat pet, a smattering of skills and a bunch of class features? T3 does. It's a party and everyone is invited!*

Kineticist: T5
You know how gunslinger is a really narrow martial but definitely does damage and isn't made of wet paper? Kineticist is kind of like that except bad. You pretty much deal exactly one type of damage at relatively short range but you're also just bad at it unless you spend burn, which is limited and has significant drawbacks. There's a handful of really dumb wild talents (at-will earthquake) but mostly are a combination of overcosted, overleveled, and ineffective. Kineticists are bad at everything except amusingly healing, which can be nice through either the phoenix bloodline or kinetic healer. Still, it's a barely functional junkpile.
It's also very badly written, organized, and designed from the root. Paizo should be ashamed of this mess.


*terms and conditions apply

[Gnaeus]

Kineticist: T5 Kineticists are bad at everything except amusingly healing, which can be nice through either the phoenix bloodline or kinetic healer. Still, it's a barely functional junkpile.


Agree altogether. Just had to add... You know what else I can do pretty well with a Truenamer.....

Also, marginally related side note. When I'm stressed out and don't want to think about, like, my mortgage, I make low tier gestalts in my head. In the aftermath of covid, for example, I have an entire party of 3.5 T5 Tristalts I'm making, just for the mental noise, which I will ultimately write up just for amusement. Not going there with Kineticist. I'd rather think about actual problems when I go to sleep.

[Rynjin]

Alchemist is one of the class T3 classes alongside Inquisitor and Magus, and I'd say falls somewhere between the two. Like a 2.8 or something. It has a lot of powerful tools at its disposal, and is very flexible build-wise, even before taking into account archetypes, of which is has quite a few great sidegrade options.

Investigator, as much as I love it, is just the tiniest bit weaker than Alchemist IMO. It trades in build variety (and the ability to be a viable combatant before level 4) for sheer, unmatched skillmonkeying power. While having access to the same list as Alchemist, the drawbacks inherent to the Alchemist list (all spells being single target, needing a Discovery to even share them with others) hit it a little bit harder. T ier 3.1.

Spiritualist is tier 3-ish? Mid tier 3, like a 3.3. It has a lot of weirdness associated with its abilities and begs a lot of comparisons to Summoner, which it does not look great next to. Its spell list also isn't super hot. Regardless, it's still a competent class and well within the range of "stuff I'd be willing to play"; it's just not as much of a clear powerhouse as the other T3 classes.

Kineticist...urgh. I don't hate Kineticist, actually. It has a lot wrong with it, but I think the class of T5 and (especially) T6 (???) are overblown. The class is a competent combatant, with damage slightly below a mid-optimized dedicated archer character. and it IS essentially foolproof in that regard. It cannot really output damage lower than that.

By that same token, it cannot be optimized to do damage appreciably HIGHER than that either. The class is hamstrung as a damage dealer by being DELIBERATELY created to be unoptimizable; every Kineticist of a given element plays identically to another of the same element, period. There simply isn't enough talent variance to have more than 1-2 talents differ between Kineticists of an element, because of the 10 talents you get of each type, you'll only have like 15 to choose from as any given character, and several are awful to the point of being non-choices.

Aside damage, there's utility, and several Kineticist elements do provide appreciable utility. At-will flight, telekinesis, etc. are solid overall options.

While Burn is a "feelsbad" mechanic and I hate it, mechanically it is not actually as atrocious as it sees in terms of crippling your character. Most of the drawbacks are made up by the benefits you get for having high Burn.

All that said, the class is pretty much the epitome of Tier 4. It is "all right at solving many problems", as opposed to the Fighter which is very good at solving one problem and nothing else. People keep glossing over that second bit in the tier description. Maybe a low T4, like a 4.2, but not T5 by any means.

[thompur]

Kineticist is solid T4. What holds it back is mainly lack of quality skills, but as to damage, a competently built one will keep up fairly easily on damage.
My Earth Kineticist consistently does more single target damage than anybody else in the party (Except the power attacking spiritualist with the x4 crit scythe), at 11th level, doing
12d6+29 damage with composite blasts, and with the right infusions and wild talents do decently at battlefield control.
I admit that the class is a bit complicated, but once you understand how it works, can be a lot of fun.
At 7th level, when you can add a different element, it becomes somewhat more versatile.
But definitely a solid 4.

Investigator is 3.
Alchemist 3
Spiritualist...don't know, but probably 3.

[Thunder999]

Kineticist is certainly disappointing, but I just don't see how it could be tier 5 or 6.

The damage benefits from very little, but isn't actually bad.

A 5th level kineticist with a physical blast can Empower it every round with Gather Power to do 1.5*(3d6+3+con mod+deadly aim+elemental overflow) damage, lets take an 18 con, so 1.5*(10.5+3+4+2+2)=32.25 average DPR, this is at will, with no infusions to add on effects or do AoE.
In comparison a typical martial is looking at 2d6+1.5*Str mod+1(enhancement)+6 (power attack), lets say 26 strength (20 base, +2 belt, 4 higher since kineticist is relying on dex to hit, then +4 because we're a raging barbarian) so 7+12+1+6=26 average DPR.

Of course at 6 the barbarian gets a second attack, the kineticist can maybe get some AoE options to make up for it (elemental overflow actually scales up to replace the lost deadly aim damage), though few available with physical blasts are cheap or good.

It's not great, but it's hardly tier 6 either, and you probably have some mediocre utility on top.

[Bucky]

Here's the kineticist writeup I promised earlier.

A few classes have reputations for shooting themselves in the foot, but Kineticist takes it more seriously than the others.

Burn is a terrible resource. Scaling is entirely stat-based, like a Gunslinger's grit. However, there's no feat like Extra Grit to expand a burn pool. The self-damaging drawback adds injury to insult. A Kinetic Healer can never heal herself to full. Burn damage scales with kineticist level, so it can never be entirely shrugged off. Worst of all, most wild talents are spell-like, which means self-inflicting nonlethal damage while casting them forces a Concentration check, with a DC that scales faster than concentration, to avoid fumbling the ability while keeping the burn, and possibly a second one to avoid setting off her gathered power! Fortunately, every GM I've played allows the kineticist to ignore this interaction, but for most purposes the internal buffer can work around the problem.

Fortunately, an experienced kineticist gains a number of abilities to mitigate or reduce burn. Gather Power and the specializations are the obvious ones. Elemental Overflow effectively refunds burn by increasing CON. And a lot of utility infusions have a lesser form that can be invoked for no burn. Even with all this, though, a kineticist must take accept very sparingly, both because of the limit and because of the HP cost. Often, the optimal strategy is to spend a burn budget equal to Elemental Overflow limit near the start of the day, and not accept any more outside of emergencies afterwards. However, until level 5, the kineticist must rely entirely on gathered energy to avoid burn.

The class's other large drawback is the weak chassis. The d8 hit die may be bolstered by a CON focus, but it's effectively a d2 with no CON bonus when the kineticist is at maximum burn. A lack of shield or medium armor proficiency prevents the kineticist from compensating with a stacked AC - A kinetics who's carrying burn and wearing light armor is very squishy despite their CON score, and their defensive talent only slightly makes up for it. And 3/4 BAB with simple weapons isn't a sufficient backbone for some otherwise promising approaches like Energize Weapon archery.

In exchange for all this self-sabotage, the kineticist gets to be, if not SAD, at least 2AD DEX/CON.

Add all of this together, and a kineticist has a very weak first few levels. Her basic blasts aren't competitive vs. others' weapons, her infusions cost burn or power-gathering actions, and she doesn't yet have the practical ability to nova with metakinesis or composite blasts, and she doesn't yet have a secondary element to avoid resistance. She's only competitive in a slow, cluttered, high-control tactical encounter where raw damage per round matters less and she has time to take cover, gather power and nova an opponent who had nothing productive to do in the meantime, and this sort of encounter is rare and requires the whole party to plan around it.

At higher levels and to varying degrees, different elements can attempt to create those conditions instead of merely walking into them. Various infusions actively add clutter to the battlefield, and form infusions provide blind AoE and the ability to shoot around corners. Most elements have mobility utility infusions. Of particular note is the universal combination of move action gather power, quicken metakinesis, the Extreme Range form infusion reduced to 0 burn by Infusion Specialization, and Ride the Blast - at the cost of one burn, move anywhere you can see within 480 feet without using a standard action, available from level 13.

Aerokineticists are the queens of that strategy. They get double range (and thus Ride the Blast distance), true flight, a limited ability to both look and shoot around corners, and eventually the Cloud form infusion for cover that they can see through. Further, sheer distance is a potent defense against most attacks - 900 feet is simply out of reach for most means of counterattack, kinetic blasts don't suffer range penalties unlike weapon attacks, and evasion and Enveloping Winds help deal with the few damage sources that do have the range. If the kineticist does take damage or a debuff, she can usually disengage and wait it out or get healing from the rest of the party. And none of this costs burn beyond the start-of-day setup. If an adventure's environment is vulnerable to these tactics, she can clear the combat portions thereof at almost no risk to herself and with only minor support from the rest of the party - hence my rating at the bottom of tier 2.

For the other elements, it's a gradual climb from Tier 5 (or 6 for positive energy kineticists) to various points Tier 4 as they gain both versatility and better ways to avoid or benefit from burn.

[Kurald Galain]

If an adventure's environment is vulnerable to these tactics, she can clear the combat portions thereof at almost no risk to herself and with only minor support from the rest of the party
That's indeed a clever trick - albeit for one particular build/element, and only at very high level. By my reading, that is "being able to do one thing well, and struggling where this thing is inappropriate", which is the definition of tier 4.

[Gnaeus]

That's indeed a clever trick - albeit for one particular build/element, and only at very high level. By my reading, that is "being able to do one thing well, and struggling where this thing is inappropriate", which is the definition of tier 4.

Indeed. Given the number of fights where shooting around corners helps, or from 900 feet helps, compared with, say, the numbers of fights with enemies who are vulnerable to fear effects, I would call that strictly worse than an intimidate lockdown Samurai, which doesn't pull Samurai out of T5, despite actually being a thing you can do with every single samurai with a couple feats invested, rather than a tiny minority of Kineticists.


Kineticist is certainly disappointing,

The damage benefits from very little, but is actually bad.

A 5th level kineticist with a physical blast can Empower it every round with Gather Power to do 0*(3d6+3+con mod+deadly aim+elemental overflow+a readied attack that makes him blow up) damage, lets take an 18 con, so 1.5*(10.5+3+4+2+2)=0 average DPR + 1 burn inflicted on himself, this is at will, with no infusions to add on effects or do AoE.
In comparison a typical martial is looking at 2d6+1.5*Str mod+1(enhancement)+6 (power attack), lets say 26 strength (20 base, +2 belt, 4 higher since kineticist is relying on dex to hit, then +4 because we're a raging barbarian) so 7+12+1+6=26 average DPR..

Fixed that for you.

[Kurald Galain]

A 5th level kineticist with a physical blast can ... Of course at 6 the barbarian gets a second attack
I've seen this argument before in the frequent kinny threads. The thing is that yes, a 5th level kinny can do this; but at every level except fifth, other classes are ahead.

[Thunder999]

That readied action to attack is literally no different to attacking a caster mid-cast, and yet we don't all think wizards are useless so clearly it's not actually a big deal.

[Bucky]

It is slightly worse in that wizards don't take extra nonlethal damage when they fail the concentration check

[pabelfly]

VOTE UPDATE

Alchemist
Rynjin – 2.8
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur – 3
Kurald Galain – 3.5

Average – 3.05



Investigator
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, Exelsisxax, Thompur – 3
Rynjin – 3.1

Average – 3.02



Investigator (Spirtualist, Majordomo, Malice Binder, and Sleuth Archetypes)
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur – 3
Rynjin – 3.1
Kurald Galain – 4

Average – 3.18



Kineticist (General)
Thunder999, Thompur – 4
Rynjin – 4.2
Bucky – 4.5
Exelsisxax - 5
Gnaeus, Kurald Galain - 6

Average – 4.81



Kineticist (Air)
Bucky – 2.5
Thunder999 , Thompur – 4
Rynjin – 4.2
Exelsisxax – 5
Gnaeus, Kurald Galain - 6

Average - 4.53



Spiritualist
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur - 3
Rynjin – 3.3
Kurald Galain – 4

Average – 3.22



Spiritualist (Phantom Blade Archetype)
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, Exelsisxax, Thompur - 3
Rynjin – 3.3

Average – 3.05



Spiritualist (Quintessentialist Archetype)
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur – 3
Rynjin – 3.3
Kurald Galain - 5

Average - 3.38

[exelsisxax]

It is slightly worse in that wizards don't take extra nonlethal damage when they fail the concentration check

Not just nonlethal damage. Unconditionally unhealable, unpreventable nonlethal damage on top of being forced to burn more "spell slots" than they tried to use in the first place. In a bad spot this can render the kinny KO for the day due to burn overload.

[Rynjin]

Burn is a terrible resource. Scaling is entirely stat-based, like a Gunslinger's grit. However, there's no feat like Extra Grit to expand a burn pool. The self-damaging drawback adds injury to insult. A Kinetic Healer can never heal herself to full. Burn damage scales with kineticist level, so it can never be entirely shrugged off. Worst of all, most wild talents are spell-like, which means self-inflicting nonlethal damage while casting them forces a Concentration check, with a DC that scales faster than concentration, to avoid fumbling the ability while keeping the burn, and possibly a second one to avoid setting off her gathered power! Fortunately, every GM I've played allows the kineticist to ignore this interaction, but for most purposes the internal buffer can work around the problem.

It's not ignored, that's just not the case at all. I'm fairly certain Burn cost is paid before the spell is cast.

[Bucky]

Alchemist is Tier 3.
Investigator is Tier 3.

I don't have much to add to what's already been said for either.

[Gnaeus]

Not just nonlethal damage. Unconditionally unhealable, unpreventable nonlethal damage on top of being forced to burn more "spell slots" than they tried to use in the first place. In a bad spot this can render the kinny KO for the day due to burn overload.

And the wizard is commonly saying a few words in a language you don't know. The Kineticist? "Gathering power creates an extremely loud, visible display in a 20-foot radius centered on the kineticist, as the energy or matter swirls around her." You don't need a big spellcraft check to make that your priority target. In virtually any conditions, from a quiet room to a giant battlefield, that's a giant "screw with me" sign. He is literally standing in a battle, shouting KAA MAY HA while he forms a giant glowing ball in his hands.

And of course, after level 3 (or in specific cases, 1), wizards have increasingly superior ways to just say no to being interfered with. Let's also add how freaking unfair it is that I can punch a wizard summoning a demon in the throat and the worst thing that can happen is if he loses his spell.

[Thunder999]

Actually the wizard is just as blatant, as implied by the fact you get a spellcraft check and attack of opportunity everytime anyone casts anything and explained in an official FAQ



What exactly do I identify when I’m using Spellcraft to identify a spell? Is it the components, since spell-like abilities, for instance, don’t have any? If I can only identify components, would that mean that I can’t take an attack of opportunity against someone using a spell-like ability (or spell with no verbal, somatic, or material components) or ready an action to shoot an arrow to disrupt a spell-like ability? If there’s something else, how do I know what it is?
Although this isn’t directly stated in the Core Rulebook, many elements of the game system work assuming that all spells have their own manifestations, regardless of whether or not they also produce an obvious visual effect, like fireball. You can see some examples to give you ideas of how to describe a spell’s manifestation in various pieces of art from Pathfinder products, but ultimately, the choice is up to your group, or perhaps even to the aesthetics of an individual spellcaster, to decide the exact details. Whatever the case, these manifestations are obviously magic of some kind, even to the uninitiated; this prevents spellcasters that use spell-like abilities, psychic magic, and the like from running completely amok against non-spellcasters in a non-combat situation.

[KillianHawkeye]

Please explain to me this "Kineticist blows up" meme we're propagating? I don't get it.

In my experience of playing a Kineticist from level 1 to 8, I have...
The highest Con score and therefore the most HP in the party (over 100 at level 8), which...
Allows me to start the day taking up to 3 points of burn, which activates the full bonuses of my Elemental Overload (for extra attack and damage, and also more Con and Dex score) while still only lowering my HP to the same amount as most other party members...
The ability to deal a fair amount of one type of damage (by choice, I could have gotten a second element by now if I wanted)...
The guarantee that I will only ever drop into safe unconsciousness, since I will always have a lot of nonlethal damage before I ever reach negative hit points...
Some situationally useful utility powers, and...
Some situational limitations, because being underwater sucks when your only ability is fire.

I know it's not the strongest or most useful class, but I have never once exploded? :smallconfused: (I'm learning that ability next level, though. :smallwink:)

And, to quote Tony Stark, "Oh yeah, I can fly." :smalltongue:

EDIT: I rate it at about the same level as a Fighter gets, whatever that number is, with the proviso that it's not as simple to use in most cases. (Not sure if that affects tier numbering or not.) Fighters can't fly, though! Suck it! :smallamused:

EDIT 2: I'm certain that taking burn while manifesting wild talents isn't meant to force a Concentration check. That's just ridiculous. No one plays that way. If you do, you should stop.

[pabelfly]

EDIT: I rate it at about the same level as a Fighter gets, whatever that number is, with the proviso that it's not as simple to use in most cases. (Not sure if that affects tier numbering or not.) Fighters can't fly, though! Suck it! :smallamused:

Tiering isn't about simplicity of play (although complex classes can make it more difficult to understand and utilize their class features) but are more about how well they solve problems. I'll add this in later as a vote for T4, since that's Fighter's tier.

[Maat Mons]

Fighters actually can fly. That's why people like the Mutation Warrior (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo-fighter-archetypes/mutation-warrior/) archetype so much.

[KillianHawkeye]

Tiering isn't about simplicity of play (although complex classes can make it more difficult to understand and utilize their class features) but are more about how well they solve problems. I'll add this in later as a vote for T4, since that's Fighter's tier.

Well "hit (x) with (element)" seems pretty similar to "hit (x) with (weapon)" to me. :smallamused:


Fighters actually can fly. That's why people like the Mutation Warrior (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo-fighter-archetypes/mutation-warrior/) archetype so much.

Oohh, I didn't know this was a thing..!

[pabelfly]

Well "hit (x) with (element)" seems pretty similar to "hit (x) with (weapon)" to me. :smallamused:

Seems to me there are a few key differences - it's a lot easier to increase weapon damage than a Kineticist's element damage, and while a fighter might have to deal with damage reduction targeting his weapon damage type, but he'll very rarely face something immune to weapon damage in the way a Kineticist will face something immune to their element type.

[Kurald Galain]

Seems to me there are a few key differences - it's a lot easier to increase weapon damage than a Kineticist's element damage, and while a fighter might have to deal with damage reduction targeting his weapon damage type, but he'll very rarely face something immune to weapon damage in the way a Kineticist will face something immune to their element type.
Indeed. We had a thread with math (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23550495&postcount=114) about this topic. The outcome was that kinny's base damage is the same as a fighter's; but once you factor in buff spells (which help the fighter much more), magic items (which basically don't exist for kinny), and DR/SR/immunity, the fighter ends up doing about twice as much damage. It's quite the accomplishment to design a class that doesn't really benefit from buffs or magic items, really.

[Kitsuneymg]

Seems to me there are a few key differences - it's a lot easier to increase weapon damage than a Kineticist's element damage, and while a fighter might have to deal with damage reduction targeting his weapon damage type, but he'll very rarely face something immune to weapon damage in the way a Kineticist will face something immune to their element type.

Swords generally don’t need to deal with SR either.

Also, if I’m not just misremembering, doesn’t the blast provoke for being ranged *and* for being Sp?

I’m not familiar enough with Kenny or spiritualist to rate them fairly. I remember dismissing both as too complicated to be worth the results. Zen archer seems to be the same role and effectiveness as the bad warlock, and summoner (either one) does all the things the spiritualist wants to.

Investigator is a more fun class than alchemist, but nova bomb spam makes the alchemist slightly better from a tiering perspective. Both are in “tier 3”, but I think it breaks down to about:

Alchemist 3.0
Investigator: 3.3

Should we consider things such inspired blade1/empiricist19? I know generally no one considers multiclass, but this dip sees a ton of play from what I can see. More so than straight swashbuckler or investigator at least.

[pabelfly]

Indeed. We had a thread with math (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23550495&postcount=114) about this topic. The outcome was that kinny's base damage is the same as a fighter's; but once you factor in buff spells (which help the fighter much more), magic items (which basically don't exist for kinny), and DR/SR/immunity, the fighter ends up doing about twice as much damage. It's quite the accomplishment to design a class that doesn't really benefit from buffs or magic items, really.

What can a Kineticist do to boost its damage, besides getting a second element? Like, a Fighter can get Power Attack, Pirahna Strike, Vital Aim and so forth. Are there feats that a Kineticist can pick up to boost their damage, should they really want to concentrate on damage output?


Should we consider things such inspired blade1/empiricist19? I know generally no one considers multiclass, but this dip sees a ton of play from what I can see. More so than straight swashbuckler or investigator at least.

It's hard to tier multiclass builds due to the huge increase in complexity this would bring to tiering. My guess would be that a multiclass build is at least at the tier of its best class - why bother if it's not at least as good - and with some skill in optimization, maybe a tier better. Everyone else feel free to rebut this, this is more my personal experience than anything else.

[Gnaeus]

Actually the wizard is just as blatant, as implied by the fact you get a spellcraft check and attack of opportunity everytime anyone casts anything and explained in an official FAQ

Im glad that you edited and pointed out that was a FAQ. So pretending it was an actual rule, it still doesn't say what you say it says. It says that if I am watching a wizard, I can tell he is casting a spell. He can't like, charm person his way through a fancy dinner. It doesn't say he makes a huge noise and a 20 foot display, which is exactly what the actual kineticist rules say.


Please explain to me this "Kineticist blows up" meme we're propagating? I don't get it.

The part where they take unhealable damage if hit while gathering power. If anything, explodes is an understatement. I can heal damage from an explosion.



Allows me to start the day taking up to 3 points of burn, which activates the full bonuses of my Elemental Overload (for extra attack and damage, and also more Con and Dex score) while still only lowering my HP to the same amount as most other party members...

So, remember when you said that making an attack roll every round was as simple as a fighter? For a ranger it may be, but for a Kineticist it isn't. Burn is a complicated mechanic. You are making beginning of day choices, and every attack choices, which can absolutely nerf you if you chose wrong. I have built and played kineticist (in tourneys, not campaigns, admittedly, but honestly I think thats better for kenny, because I don't have to build my powers organically), and read the guides, and I am honestly often not sure when I want to voluntarily take burn. And choosing wrong is crippling.

I do not actually deny that it is possible to build a kineticist who can contribute to combat. I can build a 3.5 monk or hexblade who can do reasonable damage. I deny that you can make a Kineticist that is better than literally any other PC class in the game played at the same level of optimization and play skill.


And, to quote Tony Stark, "Oh yeah, I can fly." :smalltongue: Quite possibly you can. Kineticist can't. A subset of them can, by using 1/5 of their utility powers over a multiple level span. What are some other classes that can fly, with less resource expenditure than a kineticist? Truenamer. Battle Dancer. Hexblade. Mountebank. Adept. Dragon Shaman. Dragon Shaman and Battle Dancer get it pretty late, but at lower op, and Kineticists also often get powers late because they get one pick per 2 levels and have to take prereqs. But every single member of those classes can fly, either innately or with a single ability pick, of which they get more than Kineticist. Its not like "only green dragon shamans get fly" or "Truenamers have to pick the feather fall invocation before they can fly" And most of them access flight through powers that give them other abilities, like alter self or seek the sky. And those are single choices, not abilities that require multiple levels of planning. That mutagen warrior fighter also gives up less for flight than Kenny does.


EDIT 2: I'm certain that taking burn while manifesting wild talents isn't meant to force a Concentration check. That's just ridiculous. No one plays that way. If you do, you should stop. And the best way to stop is by playing a better class.

[Rynjin]

What can a Kineticist do to boost its damage, besides getting a second element? Like, a Fighter can get Power Attack, Pirahna Strike, Vital Aim and so forth. Are there feats that a Kineticist can pick up to boost their damage, should they really want to concentrate on damage output?

Physical damage Kineticists natively do more damage, and can take Deadly Aim/Power Attack, and Point Blank Shot works as well. That's...close to it.

During the playtest they could apply Vital Strike to their Blasts but Mark Seifter decided he hated fun.



And the best way to stop is by playing a better class.

Oi, no. **** on a class all you want; I surely did with Rogue. But don't **** on someone for PLAYING a class.

[thompur]

Physical damage Kineticists natively do more damage, and can take Deadly Aim/Power Attack, and Point Blank Shot works as well. That's...close to it.

During the playtest they could apply Vital Strike to their Blasts but Mark Seifter decided he hated fun.




Oi, no. **** on a class all you want; I surely did with Rogue. But don't **** on someone for PLAYING a class.

I've had great fun playing a Hydro/Aero-Kineticist to 12th, soon to be 13th after "Eyes of The Ten", a straight Earth Kineticist to 15th level in an AP I can't recall,
and an Earth/Hydro to 12th who just finished off a Rune Lord in "Waking Rune". All in all, it was a blast!!

[Rynjin]

I've had great fun playing a Hydro/Aero-Kineticist to 12th, soon to be 13th after "Eyes of The Ten", a straight Earth Kineticist to 15th level in an AP I can't recall,
and an Earth/Hydro to 12th who just finished off a Rune Lord in "Waking Rune". All in all, it was a blast!!

Yeah, they're fun enough for sure. Earth and Wood are both interesting options I've played around with. If Kineticists could actually bypass Energy Resistance and Immunity more easily I'd consider playing Fire.

[Coeruleum]

Did Aang randomly explode when hit? I missed that episode.

I think it's supposed to be a mix between a wilder psion and a warlock, but yeah, even wilder psions have to actually exert themselves to maybe make themselves tired for a round or take some damage, not just explode whenever anyone hits them with an arrow.

[AnonymousPepper]

I really can't add much that anyone else hasn't already. I think Investigator's in-combat abilities are a little clunky on the action economy, which makes me want to drop them slightly, I think Alchemist's utilities and capabilities push it closer to tier 2, and I don't think people remember that Truenamer literally did not mechanically function because its DCs for its skill-based spellcasting ramped up faster than your skill checks possibly could; badly written, underpowered, prone to exploding in a stiff breeze, and full of trap options the Kineticist is, but actually requiring houserules to be able to function at all even as intended, it is not. Play a different class if you want to be remotely good for the same amount of effort (other than the standout Air stuff already mentioned), but don't fall into the trap of thinking it fits in the Truenamer box; that is a very specific kind of hell, reserved for it and that one 3.5 Samurai option, and to be fully 6 requires outright rules dysfunction that affects the class in a negative way in a fundamental part of its kit.

Kineticist: 5.5
* Air: 3.0
Alchemist: 2.5
Investigator: 3.1
Spiritualist: 3.0

[Gnaeus]

I really can't add much that anyone else hasn't already. I think Investigator's in-combat abilities are a little clunky on the action economy, which makes me want to drop them slightly, I think Alchemist's utilities and capabilities push it closer to tier 2, and I don't think people remember that Truenamer literally did not mechanically function because its DCs for its skill-based spellcasting ramped up faster than your skill checks possibly could; badly written, underpowered, prone to exploding in a stiff breeze, and full of trap options the Kineticist is, but actually requiring houserules to be able to function at all even as intended, it is not. Play a different class if you want to be remotely good for the same amount of effort (other than the standout Air stuff already mentioned), but don't fall into the trap of thinking it fits in the Truenamer box; that is a very specific kind of hell, reserved for it and that one 3.5 Samurai option, and to be fully 6 requires outright rules dysfunction that affects the class in a negative way in a fundamental part of its kit.

Kineticist: 5.5
* Air: 3.0
Alchemist: 2.5
Investigator: 3.1
Spiritualist: 3.0

That isn't true for truenamer. A low op truenamer isn't particularly functional, but still has access to better abilities than a low op kineticist, who can't even access things like flight, as build planning over multiple levels is a mid op Hallmark. Above low op, truenamer doesn't actually have trouble matching the DC +2/level, as there are lots of ways to raise skill checks. (Like, there's one organization and one item, in the same book truenamer is in, which combine to a +20, which coupled with simple rank bonuses every level combine to match the scaling DC. It can be argued that with both truenamer and kineticist, the level of opti-fu to make them work would have been better spent elsewhere. But truenamer beats kineticist at any optimization level.

[AnonymousPepper]

That isn't true for truenamer. A low op truenamer isn't particularly functional, but still has access to better abilities than a low op kineticist, who can't even access things like flight, as build planning over multiple levels is a mid op Hallmark. Above low op, truenamer doesn't actually have trouble matching the DC +2/level, as there are lots of ways to raise skill checks. (Like, there's one organization and one item, in the same book truenamer is in, which combine to a +20, which coupled with simple rank bonuses every level combine to match the scaling DC. It can be argued that with both truenamer and kineticist, the level of opti-fu to make them work would have been better spent elsewhere. But truenamer beats kineticist at any optimization level.

Not having played Truenamer myself, I'm willing to take your word for it and bump generic Kineticist down to 6. Though, I'm side-eyeing the idea that deciding "hey, I want this thing later that has two prequisites" is any real level of optimization. Particularly since unless you're playing a CRPG, you aren't just presented with a list of things you currently qualify for to just pick impulsively from.

[Gnaeus]

Not having played Truenamer myself, I'm willing to take your word for it and bump generic Kineticist down to 6. Though, I'm side-eyeing the idea that deciding "hey, I want this thing later that has two prequisites" is any real level of optimization. Particularly since unless you're playing a CRPG, you aren't just presented with a list of things you currently qualify for to just pick impulsively from.

I would say it is among the best indicators for optimization. A low op kineticist will never have fly. It doesn't require decision making, it requires a planned build. If you are planning your character based on choices you will make 5 levels in the future, you are at least mid op. Low op play is obvious choices. I will take power attack because hitting things hard is obviously good. Fly is low op for a caster, because all they have to do is look at their list of level 3 options and know fly is a good superpower. Low op decision methods are things like "fireball sounds cool and has obvious applications" or "this character in a movie I saw fought with sword and dagger so I want to do that". Mid op requires system mastery and planning. High op generally requires combinations that are greater than the sum of their parts. The CRPG player is probably never low op, or at least not for longer than it takes him to understand the class. Low op is like the barbarian in my game where we say "ok, everyone gains a level" and she answers "ok, what stuff do I get at level 3. Is this rage power good?" "What do you want your character to do?" I don't know. Hit things hard seems to be working for me. What helps me hit things hard?" Or my 14 year olds sorcerer where she just wants to take a good attack spell. They aren't anti-optimization. They want their characters to be good. They picked a high Str and Cha, for example. That is a basic level optimization choice. But the thought "I'm going to take this now so I can do this cool thing in 5 levels" is not remotely on their radar. They are less likely to take air because they want to fly than to take Earth because they like Toph.

[pabelfly]

Side diversion on Truenamer - it's bad at low OP, and I wouldn't play it, but I wouldn't go so far as to say unplayable.

Let's say a low-OP player has decided they want to play Truenamer. They've read the chapter and example characters (and somehow haven't been turned off, even after that). Here's what their character would look like by level 20, IMO:

They've picked the example Elf. They started with base 15 INT (I'm assuming the Elite array), got +2 from being an Elf, +5 from ability score increases, and have a +6 INT item (+9).
They've picked Skill Focus (Truespeak), since it was specifically called out as a feat multiple times in the chapter, and the example character has it (+3)
They have an Amulet of Truespeak, Greater, since it's an item in the chapter and every Truespeaking character has either a lesser or greater amulet (+10).
They have full ranks in their skill (+23)
They have the True names of themselves and their allies (-4 to check DC)

So no custom items, no Paragnostic Assembly, no Item Familiar or Legacy Weapon or anything like that.

So that's a skill check of 45 against a check DC of 51 to buff allies, or 55 against a level 20 enemy (Lexicon of Perfected Map has lower checks). They're not going to be able to debuff enemies with high amounts of hit dice, like, say, Dragons, for example, but they can buff their allies if they roll a 6 or better (gets worse as the day goes, of course) and they should be able to use Lexicon of Perfected Map with little issue. Out of combat, they can assist with all sorts of utterances, as long as they accept the buffs might take several rounds to use. Flight, skill buffs, healing, and so forth aren't bad assistance.

It's not great, and having your utterances only work 50% of the time in combat would feel frustrating, but I don't feel it's so bad as to be unplayable.

[Rynjin]

I would say that having a 50% chance of succeeding on even USING an ability (I'm assuming it also gives a save), at best, with high op levels, fits the bill of "unplayable" perfectly.

People take that term far, far too literally. Yes, of course the character is "playable" in a literal sense, but there is legitimately zero reason to even conceive of the idea of DOING SO, making it very effectively unplayable.

[pabelfly]

New procedural update:
Archetypes are tiered separately from classes. Three votes are required for an archetype for it to make it to the master list, and the archetype needs to be more than half a tier stronger or weaker than the base class to be added to the list.

VOTE UPDATE

Alchemist
AnonymousPepper – 2.5
Rynjin – 2.8
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur, Bucky – 3
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor – 3.5

Average – 3.03



Investigator
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, Exelsisxax, Thompur, Bucky, Vasilidor – 3
Rynjin, AnonymousPepper – 3.1

Average – 3.02



Investigator (Spirtualist, Majordomo, Malice Binder, and Sleuth Archetypes)
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur, Bucky, Vasilidor – 3
Rynjin, AnonymousPepper – 3.1
Kurald Galain – 4

Average – 3.13



Kineticist (General)
Thunder999, Thompur, Killian – 4
Rynjin – 4.2
Bucky – 4.5
Exelsisxax – 5
Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, AnonymousPepper, Vasilidor - 6

Average – 4.97



Kineticist (Air)
Bucky – 2.5
AnonymousPepper – 3
Thunder999 , Thompur, Killian – 4
Rynjin – 4.2
Exelsisxax – 5
Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor - 6

Average - 4.47



Spiritualist
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur, AnonymousPepper - 3
Rynjin – 3.3
Vasilidor - 3.5
Kurald Galain – 4

Average – 3.23



Spiritualist (Phantom Blade Archetype)
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, Exelsisxax, Thompur, AnonymousPepper - 3
Rynjin – 3.3
Vasilidor - 3.5

Average – 3.1



Spiritualist (Quintessentialist Archetype)
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur, AnonymousPepper – 3
Rynjin – 3.3
Vasilidor - 3.5
Kurald Galain - 5

Average - 3.35

[Kurald Galain]

Let's say a low-OP player has decided they want to play Truenamer. They've read the chapter and example characters (and somehow haven't been turned off, even after that). Here's what their character would look like by level 20, IMO:
Ok, but what's it like around level 5?

[Drelua]

EDIT 2: I'm certain that taking burn while manifesting wild talents isn't meant to force a Concentration check. That's just ridiculous. No one plays that way. If you do, you should stop.

But... it does, by RAW, if you use gather power, with a DC that could easily get very difficult or impossible. I don't think anyone was saying you should have to make a concentration check every time you take burn, unless I missed something. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, I've never really bothered to figure out any of the occult classes, but this sounds like a house rule. Regardless of how obvious, or universal, you think a house rule is, it shouldn't be factored into tiering. Especially with how much of Pathfinder play is PFS, (or maybe I should say was, for PF 1E) where you cannot house rule anything and have to play by RAW.

And you may have had the most HP before burn, but if you're taking 3 burn every morning, cancelling out 3 points of your CON mod, then you effectively probably don't have the most HP unless everyone else really dumped CON. Even if you had 20, with 3 burn and a d8 HD that puts you even with a Fighter with 12 CON. Well, 1 HP behind from the 1st die being maxed, but close enough. Probably staying alive when you get knocked out is nice when it comes up, but it still takes you out of the fight and makes you very easy to kill if your allies aren't able to protect you. Most GMs probably won't be mean enough to coup de grace you, but if you get caught in an AoE...

[vasilidor]

Kineticist tier 6. I ban this one in my games due to how borked it is. Too easy to render a character of this class unplayable. If someone wants to play something along this theme I point them to the Elementalist in Spheres of power.
Alchemist and Investigator are tier 3.5 and 3 respectively.
I am going to say 3.5 for the Spiritualist... It reads like a nerfed summoner but i think it might have potential.

[pabelfly]

Ok, but what's it like around level 5?

It's in the middle of level 5 you have over 10K wealth and should be able to afford a Amulet of Silver Tongue, Lesser.

So..
4 INT modifier
3 Skill Focus
8 Ranks
5 Amulet of Silver Tongue

20 skill rank, and your DCs are 25, so 75% chance at the start of the day.


Kineticist tier 6. I ban this one in my games due to how borked it is. Too easy to render a character of this class unplayable. If someone wants to play something along this theme I point them to the Elementalist in Spheres of power.
Alchemist and Investigator are tier 3.5 and 3 respectively.
I am going to say 3.5 for the Spiritualist... It reads like a nerfed summoner but i think it might have potential.

Okay, I'll add these.

[Rynjin]

But... it does, by RAW, if you use gather power, with a DC that could easily get very difficult or impossible.

That's only if you get hit by a Readied attack, however. Somewhat of a niche circumstance.



And you may have had the most HP before burn, but if you're taking 3 burn every morning, cancelling out 3 points of your CON mod, then you effectively probably don't have the most HP unless everyone else really dumped CON. Even if you had 20, with 3 burn and a d8 HD that puts you even with a Fighter with 12 CON. Well, 1 HP behind from the 1st die being maxed, but close enough. Probably staying alive when you get knocked out is nice when it comes up, but it still takes you out of the fight and makes you very easy to kill if your allies aren't able to protect you. Most GMs probably won't be mean enough to coup de grace you, but if you get caught in an AoE...

Don't forget that Elemental Overflow cancels out some of that. You essentially end the day as equivalent to a Fighter with 14 Con at level 6 (16 at level 11, etc.), which is respectable; I personally don't give my own frontliners more than 14 Con usually.

It's still hella dumb that a Con-based caster ends up with equal or less HP than non-Con-based characters, but it's not as bad as it sounds.

The general practice with Kineticist is to never accept more Burn in a day than it would take to max Overflow. Which, again, is poor design (it disincentivizes you from actually using your abilities) but, again, is not mechanically CRIPPLING like others would imply. It just means you have an effective per day limit on Burn you can take before it does become an active detriment.

It incentivizes extremely boring play (max your Overflow at the start of the day by dumping points into your Elemental Defense, use passive stats to be a boring blaster), but, and I cannot state this enough, is nowhere near as bad as the people who keep saying they have never played the class (and apparently have not read it carefully enough to properly theorycraft its capabilities either) keep saying it is.

The idea that Kineticist is Tier 6 is absolutely cracked. You're saying a Kineticist is on par with a Commoner. d6, 1/2 BaB, no class features. That is what some people think the class is equivalent to.

Come on.

[Bucky]

I would say it is among the best indicators for optimization. A low op kineticist will never have fly. It doesn't require decision making, it requires a planned build. If you are planning your character based on choices you will make 5 levels in the future, you are at least mid op. Low op play is obvious choices.

Even picking everything in a greedy manner, just taking the best option for the current level every level, the utility talents will pull the kineticist out of tier 6. It's takes active self-sabotage like choosing a wood element with all the woodland talents in an Underdark campaign to reduce them to Warrior tier.

I went ahead and did a greedy build for a Void kineticist, one of the weaker elements, through level 12. This is what it looks like for the aforementioned Underdark campaign:

Race: Evader Half-orc (granting Weapon Familiarity for a non-blast damage source for the first few levels)
Level 1
Negative energy blast.
Pushing infusion to help keep melee critters off him.

Level 2
Elemental Whispers for scouting.

Level 3
Energize Weapon (no particularly good options).

Level 4
Eyes of the Void because the campaign involves lots of dark places.

Level 5
Weighing Infusion, which he can spam with Gather Energy to continue the keep-away game.

Level 6
Undead Grip to cover the weakness of negative energy blasts vs. undead. (Gravity Control for out-of-combat movement should be considered, but you said no flight, so our low-op player made the other choice)

Level 7
Expanded Element - Void (Gravity) for Darkness Infusion, as a smoke screen he and some of his party members can see through.

Level 8
Absentia to avoid some exotic detection modes while hiding in the dark.

Level 9
Singularity Blast for basic AoE capability.

Level 10
Eyes of the Void, Greater.

Level 11
Wall as a long range option that also has AoE.

Level 12
Ride the Blast, because even though he never took Extended Range, some form of extra out-of-combat mobility is sorely needed by now. Gravity Control is arguably better under the circumstances, but again, we're ignoring it.

I'm assuming the campaign ends at level 12. At this point, the kineticist's 3 BAB behind a basic 2HC Warrior and doesn't have heavy armor proficiency. In exchange, he gets a gimmick where he sprays the battlefield with darkness that he can see through perfectly. He gets mediocre ranged attacks with anti-mobility riders. His weapon attacks get +2d6 negative energy damage with a reflex save vs. entangle. And he can manifest a temporary familiar for scouting. All of this is no-burn tactics. I think falls somewhere near the bottom of tier 4 or top of 5, but I'd need a serious argument to buy that it belongs with the Aristocrats in tier 6 (and below the Warrior, who's in the 5.6 to 5.9 range).

[AnonymousPepper]

Okay, you know what, just... strike all my Kineticist ratings for now, I'll take a day or two to think about it and give the class a reread and come back.

I'd advise the rest of you to retract your rating and debate it some more yourselves before locking in a final rating as well.

[pabelfly]

Kineticist writeups. Comments welcome.



Kineticist (General) (4.97)

The Kineticist is a class with quite complex mechanics. But tiers aren’t about how complex a class’s mechanics are, they’re about how versatile and powerful the class is, and it’s not good news on either front. But good points first – you’re going to have great Fortitude saves. You'll have high HP... sometimes. You'll have some class options, both in and outside of combat. And there are some powerful abilities in the class if you dig around enough.

Now, for the bad. Problem enemies include enemies with elemental resistances or immunities or spell resistance, and any of these can really reduce your damage output. It’s hard to boost your damage output. You're not affected by common party-wide buffs, like Haste, Prayer, or Bard Song. There aren't really any magic items specifically tailored for the class. Selecting powerful abilities available to a Kineticist often requires selecting underwhelming powers several levels beforehand. Burn, the limiting mechanic of Kineticist, can be difficult to manage, can’t be cured outside of rest, and runs out quickly. You’ll think you’ll have high HP, since you have a CON focus, but burn is going to quickly make that dwindle to very low levels.

Overall, it’s a lot of effort to optimize for what’s generally a weak class, earning a spot in Tier 5. Air Kineticist gets tiered higher due to it’s ability to gain both permanent flight and long-range blasting, both of which add a lot of versatility to the class. See the separate entry for this for further discussion.



Air Kineticist (4.47)

Air Kineticist gets tiered separately from the other Kineticist types for two reasons. First is permanent Flight, and the second is long-range blasting. Permanent flight trivializes all sorts of non-combat issues. Whether it’s helpful in combat, however, depends on the situation – for enclosed spaces - buildings, dungeons, caves, and so forth, it’s not very helpful, but it’s great for more open areas. The same goes for long-range blasting – it’s great when you can use it, but that’s by no means guaranteed. Obviously, these two features have quite a bit of synergy.

Otherwise, Air Kineticist has all of the shortcomings (and the few good points) of any other Kineticist, which are discussed in more detail for the general Kineticist.

[Bucky]

You should probably mention the synergy between the flight and the long range blasting.

Although I should point out for the general debate that several other elements get a worse, late version of the combo. Water Elementalist gets late access to a permanent Air Walk substitute at level 12. Greater Flame Jet and its alter egos Greater Self Telekinesis and Greater Gravity Control kick in at level 10 and are close enough to flight for many purposes. And the Extreme Range infusion is universal, although it's only half as effective for non-Air blasts.

[KillianHawkeye]

Please explain to me this "Kineticist blows up" meme we're propagating? I don't get it.


The part where they take unhealable damage if hit while gathering power. If anything, explodes is an understatement. I can heal damage from an explosion.

So yes, there's a clause in Gather Power where you take the burn you're trying to avoid if you're attacked AND fail a concentration check while doing it. However, from experience I'd say 90% or more of Gather Power usage is in the same turn as your attack, so this simply never happens outside of a rare readied action by your enemies. So it's extremely unlikely to ever come up.

Even so, burn is a resource that you're supposed to be making use of, so despite the existence of things which mitigate burn, taking burn doesn't make you "explode". And with Con as your only important ability score, you're supposed to have enough HP to withstand taking burn, and it's not deadly if you take too much (unless your whole party is defeated, or other similarly unlikely scenarios).

To be frank, rather than an understatement as you claim, this problem is being massively overstated. It's simply not a serious issue in normal play unless you take a lot of burn recklessly.




So, remember when you said that making an attack roll every round was as simple as a fighter?

I don't think I said Kineticist was as simple to play as a Fighter, just that they were relatively similar to one in power level. In fact, I explicitly said it's NOT as simple, pls reread my original post.

[Bucky]

The general practice with Kineticist is to never accept more Burn in a day than it would take to max Overflow. Which, again, is poor design (it disincentivizes you from actually using your abilities) but, again, is not mechanically CRIPPLING like others would imply. It just means you have an effective per day limit on Burn you can take before it does become an active detriment.

It incentivizes extremely boring play (max your Overflow at the start of the day by dumping points into your Elemental Defense, use passive stats to be a boring blaster), but, and I cannot state this enough, is nowhere near as bad as the people who keep saying they have never played the class (and apparently have not read it carefully enough to properly theorycraft its capabilities either) keep saying it is.

In practice, a Kineticist has somewhat more flexibility due to Internal Buffer, which lets him get the Overflow bonus early and spend the burn on a couple of special attacks later. And it's totally worthwhile to spend individual points of burn on problem-solving utility, so long as you realize you only get a couple of those per day.

The real problem with squishy kineticists, though, is the lack of medium armor or shields. Your point investing the Overflow-activating burn into defensive talents is very relevant - about half the defense talents (aether, earth, water, wood) do something to offset the squishiness of a heavily burnt kineticist. Aether's Force Ward in particular changes how the kineticist manages burn, since if it's depleted from regular damage, taking one burn recharges it by the same amount of HP that the burn dealt nonlethally.

In addition, under optional Wounds and Vigor rules, Aether elementalists get to mostly ignore the burn's nonlethal damage because it comes out of their Force Ward, which immediately recharges! I'm ignoring this variant for tiering purposes.


So it's extremely unlikely to ever come up.
I consider gather energy backfires a much less severe drawback than not being able to gather energy and hold a weapon/shield at the same time.

[Kurald Galain]

You can do level-appropriate damage with minimal effort,
I'd take out this phrase, because the term "level-appropriate damage" is not really defined. Kinny's damage is comparable to, say, c-rogue or shifter or baseline fighter; so unless you want to write for every class that it can do "level-appropriate damage" then it shouldn't be written here either (just like the earlier discussion about some class having "two good saves" - it's just not noteworthy to have two good saves).

One thing to mention is that kinny's damage is unaffected by common party buffs, and that magic items for the class largely don't exist; this lack of support doesn't really help the class any.


And every element types have some powerful abilities in there if you dig around enough.
I suggest dropping this line as well, because it may be true in flavor, but not so much in terms of mechanics.


Air Kineticist (4.47)
FWIW, I don't think the distinction is big enough to rate this one separately. Flight is definitely good; but we don't generally rate archetypes with flight separately (like Mutation Warrior fighter or Magic Warrior Magus or certain oracle revelations or Void domain clerics). I mean we could, but it would make the list rather messy.

[Coeruleum]

Kineticist tier 6. I ban this one in my games due to how borked it is. Too easy to render a character of this class unplayable. If someone wants to play something along this theme I point them to the Elementalist in Spheres of power.

Some kineticists are focused on other things like telekinesis or time though. Spheres is still similar but not only the Elementalist.

[Bucky]

I suggest dropping this line as well, because it may be true in flavor, but not so much in terms of mechanics.

I don't think enough credit is being given to the universal (any-element) utility options, either. Elemental Whispers, Kinetic Form, Ride the Blast, Reverse Shift, Elemental Exile.



FWIW, I don't think the distinction is big enough to rate this one separately. Flight is definitely good; but we don't generally rate archetypes with flight separately (like Mutation Warrior fighter or Magic Warrior Magus or certain oracle revelations or Void domain clerics). I mean we could, but it would make the list rather messy.
It's not just permanent flight. The package is permanent flight, allowing the kineticist to keep distance to enable extreme range, with other defenses like enveloping wind to back it up. And that's just the mid-level package, coming online in the level 6-8 range.

Air has a number of good utility talents, more than they can actually take, many of which synergize with each other. Celerity, which can show up the same level Sorcerers get Haste, often doesn't even make the cut. At-will gaseous form? Also available. Evasion? Yep, it's there and it's air exclusive. At level 12, the kineticist can either complete the Windsight+Wind Manipulator(+Air Cushion) sensory projection combo, or use Ride the Beam to turn all that range into mobility like the other elements but twice as fast.

[pabelfly]

I'd take out this phrase, because the term "level-appropriate damage" is not really defined. Kinny's damage is comparable to, say, c-rogue or shifter or baseline fighter; so unless you want to write for every class that it can do "level-appropriate damage" then it shouldn't be written here either (just like the earlier discussion about some class having "two good saves" - it's just not noteworthy to have two good saves).

One thing to mention is that kinny's damage is unaffected by common party buffs, and that magic items for the class largely don't exist; this lack of support doesn't really help the class any.


I suggest dropping this line as well, because it may be true in flavor, but not so much in terms of mechanics.

I'll fix these, thanks.


FWIW, I don't think the distinction is big enough to rate this one separately. Flight is definitely good; but we don't generally rate archetypes with flight separately (like Mutation Warrior fighter or Magic Warrior Magus or certain oracle revelations or Void domain clerics). I mean we could, but it would make the list rather messy.

Enough people voted for it that it's rated half a tier better than other Kineticist options, and I don't see this difference getting any smaller. My current plan is to add any specific archetypes that have an average rating of half a tier or more over their regular counterparts. As for the specific archetype, permanent flight and long-range blasting is powerful and pretty easy to get, and it doesn't seem like you give up much to get it.

[Rynjin]

One thing to mention is that kinny's damage is unaffected by common party buffs, and that magic items for the class largely don't exist; this lack of support doesn't really help the class any.

What common party buffs are you thinking of that a Kineticist can't benefit from? The only major one I can think of is Haste, which is a big oof, but all the other common ones (Heroism, Good Hope, Inspire Courage, defensive buffs like Stoneskin, etc.) work fine for them.

[thompur]

What common party buffs are you thinking of that a Kineticist can't benefit from? The only major one I can think of is Haste, which is a big oof, but all the other common ones (Heroism, Good Hope, Inspire Courage, defensive buffs like Stoneskin, etc.) work fine for them.

You can benefit from all aspects of haste if you are using Kinetic Blade or Kinetic Whip. With Whip you can also take AoO.
Also, physical blasts IGNORE SR. By the time SR becomes a thing, most Kinnys can have both physical and energy blasts.

[Bucky]

My outlier rating for aerokineticist is based largely on table experience, including times when the kineticist flew off ahead and soloed the encounter or, in one case all the session's combat in a single flight and part of the next session's as well, leaving the party martials twiddling their thumbs.

[Kurald Galain]

What common party buffs are you thinking of that a Kineticist can't benefit from? The only major one I can think of is Haste, which is a big oof
Anything that refers to weapon attacks, such as bardic inspire courage. I agree that defensive buffs work just fine.


My outlier rating for aerokineticist is based largely on table experience, including times when the kineticist flew off ahead and soloed the encounter or, in one case all the session's combat in a single flight and part of the next session's as well, leaving the party martials twiddling their thumbs.
While I don't doubt your story, if you read the descriptive texts for the various tiers, then solo'ing a number of combats is still a T4 ability, not a T2 ability. Likewise, a martial with really high AC and really high damage is still T4.


Also, physical blasts IGNORE SR.
True, but they go against regular AC. By the time SR becomes an issue, average AC is much higher than touch AC.

[Rynjin]

Anything that refers to weapon attacks, such as bardic inspire courage. I agree that defensive buffs work just fine.

Ehhh, by the barest technicality RAW, but very obviously (to me) a typo. Kinetic Blasts count as weapons for Feats, they were almost certainly intended to count as weapons for "and effects" as well, like Unarmed Strikes.

[vasilidor]

Part of the problem, the biggest problem, is to use their abilities that have burn they wind up taking around 10% of their HP in subdual damage per point of burn. This is assuming a 20 constitution and overall average HP rolls. 4.5 H.P. per level from their D8 H.D. +5 from constitution and max HP at level 1. A 4 burn ability is going to cost them 40% of their HP. If their subdual damage exceeds their current HP they drop.

The whole class is a trap option filled with more trap options.

Maybe with enough system mastery it can be made to be in tier 4, but I do not see it as worth the effort.

[Kurald Galain]

Ehhh, by the barest technicality RAW, but very obviously (to me) a typo. Kinetic Blasts count as weapons for Feats, they were almost certainly intended to count as weapons for "and effects" as well, like Unarmed Strikes.

I don't agree. From what I've seen here, designer intent was to make a class that strictly deals X damage and that cannot be optimized to deal X+1 damage. They appear to have deliberately made a class that's more-or-less immune to optimization (not 100% immune, of course; but this is why the class is so frustrating to work with). This is the same philosophy that they've taken to PF2 as well.

[AnonymousPepper]

I don't agree. From what I've seen here, designer intent was to make a class that strictly deals X damage and that cannot be optimized to deal X+1 damage. They appear to have deliberately made a class that's more-or-less immune to optimization (not 100% immune, of course; but this is why the class is so frustrating to work with). This is the same philosophy that they've taken to PF2 as well.

I hate to say it but I do agree with this. It's extremely easy, and the preferred outcome frankly, to just have your GM go some variation of "I do not see it." or "I recognize the Council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-*** decision, I've elected to ignore it," but it doesn't change the design intent and the exact wording of the rules, the effect of which was to deliberately gimp the class hard. I'd never abide by RAW like this at my table as a GM, but I can't just say that it's not there for me to disregard in the first place.

[KillianHawkeye]

Part of the problem, the biggest problem, is to use their abilities that have burn they wind up taking around 10% of their HP in subdual damage per point of burn. This is assuming a 20 constitution and overall average HP rolls. 4.5 H.P. per level from their D8 H.D. +5 from constitution and max HP at level 1. A 4 burn ability is going to cost them 40% of their HP. If their subdual damage exceeds their current HP they drop.

The whole class is a trap option filled with more trap options.

Maybe with enough system mastery it can be made to be in tier 4, but I do not see it as worth the effort.

While this is sort of true, the class also come with built-in burn reduction features that mitigate the increasing burn cost of higher level blasts and infusions. You can't even take 4 points of burn in a single turn until level 12, by which time you have a 3 point reduction to using infusions, 2 points of internal buffer for emergencies, and the improved version of Gather Power.

In my experience playing from level 1 to 8, I can get away without using ANY burn most of the time and only need it if I really need both a blast shape and essence infusion at the same time.

[exelsisxax]

While this is sort of true, the class also come with built-in burn reduction features that mitigate the increasing burn cost of higher level blasts and infusions. You can't even take 4 points of burn in a single turn until level 12, by which time you have a 3 point reduction to using infusions, 2 points of internal buffer for emergencies, and the improved version of Gather Power.

In my experience playing from level 1 to 8, I can get away without using ANY burn most of the time and only need it if I really need both a blast shape and essence infusion at the same time.

So can you post the build that takes no burn and therefore is genuinely at-will that can compete with T4 martials like fighters that are quite literally at-will because attacks are not a limited resource? we've been waiting literally since kineticist came out, by the way.

[KillianHawkeye]

Just using your regular blasts with either a shape or an essence infusion, like I just said.

I'm well aware that a Fighter or a Rogue can out damage the Kineticist. That is not the point I was making. :smallannoyed:

[exelsisxax]

Just using your regular blasts with either a shape or an essence infusion, like I just said.

I'm well aware that a Fighter or a Rogue can out damage the Kineticist. That is not the point I was making. :smallannoyed:

So if it can't even compete with fighters and rogues are you also saying it's T5? generally bad and barely works at the one thing it purports to do (blasting)?

[Bucky]

At low levels, burn is a problem for Energize Weapon tactics. They can't gather power while holding an object, and can't use Energize Weapon while not holding an object, so aside from one Quick Draw turn they'd be stuck taking burn every time they use Energize Weapon until they get their first reduction at level 5. Taking the burn can be worthwhile at level 1-2 but not afterwards.

[exelsisxax]

At low levels, burn is a problem for Energize Weapon tactics. They can't gather power while holding an object, and can't use Energize Weapon while not holding an object, so aside from one Quick Draw turn they'd be stuck taking burn every time they use Energize Weapon until they get their first reduction at level 5. Taking the burn can be worthwhile at level 1-2 but not afterwards.

Energize weapon is just a bit better than power attack <4BaB before considering any sort of resistance, but notably has a use cost, needs to be taken as a talent, and kineticists don't have any good weapons to start with. A real martial is likely to be doing as nearly as much base weapon damage as the kinny has after adding energize weapon, and the real martial is likely to have higher strength and other combat boosts - rage/sneak/favored enemy etc that should eliminate any remaining difference at low level. At higher level, power attack is strictly better.

[KillianHawkeye]

So if it can't even compete with fighters and rogues are you also saying it's T5? generally bad and barely works at the one thing it purports to do (blasting)?

Please stop putting words in my mouth. I don't think it's generally bad at its one trick at all. Certainly not the best at it, either. It has different capabilities, like the suite of utility powers, that make up for it's lack of pure damage.

If Tier Lists are a measure of versatility, I'd actually say Kineticist is slightly higher (but still within the same tier) as a Fighter, while being slightly weaker at it's primary role.

And the resource management, while it might be a problem for players who don't understand how to handle it, makes it more interesting to play than a Fighter who just attacks and attacks, IMO.


EDIT: To be completely clear, most of my post in this thread have just been arguing against the idea that Kineticist's burn mechanic is as debilitating as people seem to think.

[pabelfly]

New procedural update:
Archetypes are tiered separately from classes. Three votes are required for an archetype for it to make it to the master list, and the archetype needs to be more than half a tier stronger or weaker than the base class to be added to the list.

VOTE UPDATE

Alchemist
AnonymousPepper – 2.5
Rynjin – 2.8
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur, Bucky – 3
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor – 3.5

Average – 3.03



Investigator
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, Exelsisxax, Thompur, Bucky, Vasilidor – 3
Rynjin, AnonymousPepper – 3.1

Average – 3.02



Investigator (Spirtualist, Majordomo, Malice Binder, and Sleuth Archetypes)
Kurald Galain – 4



Kineticist (General)
Thunder999, Thompur, Killian – 4
Rynjin – 4.2
Bucky – 4.5
Exelsisxax – 5
Gnaeus, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor - 6

Average – 4.85



Kineticist (Air)
Bucky – 2.5



Spiritualist
Thunder999, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax, Thompur, AnonymousPepper - 3
Rynjin – 3.3
Vasilidor - 3.5
Kurald Galain – 4

Average – 3.23



Spiritualist (Phantom Blade Archetype)
Kurald Galain – 3



Spiritualist (Quintessentialist Archetype)
Kurald Galain – 5

[thompur]

I don't agree. From what I've seen here, designer intent was to make a class that strictly deals X damage and that cannot be optimized to deal X+1 damage. They appear to have deliberately made a class that's more-or-less immune to optimization (not 100% immune, of course; but this is why the class is so frustrating to work with). This is the same philosophy that they've taken to PF2 as well.
Mark Seifter, the designer of the class,
disagrees with you

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2tkkv?Inspire-Courage-and-Kinetic-Blast#1

[AnonymousPepper]

New procedural update:
snip

Take my rating of Kineticist off for the time being, if you don't mind.

[pabelfly]

Take my rating of Kineticist off for the time being, if you don't mind.

Okay, removed it from both Kineticist and Air Kineticist. When you're ready to vote again, let me know.

[spectralphoenix]

A little late to the thread, but any thoughts on the Psychic Detective (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/investigator/archetypes/paizo-investigator-archetypes/psychic-detective-investigator-archetype) archetype for the investigator? Trading alchemy for psychic spell access seems like about an even trade, but I don't really have experience with it directly.

[Thunder999]

It's ok, there's advantages to normal casting, but you lose out on alchemist discoveries and mutagen, hurting your combat potential.

[pabelfly]

Time to start the class writeups for this. Comments and suggestions welcome.



Spiritualist is a 6th-level spellcaster whose claim to fame is the ability to summon Phantoms, this class’s version of a sidekick. Sidekicks have all sorts of utility in and out of combat, but Phantoms aren't as strong as Summons or Animal Companions. The spiritualist also gets sixth-level casting, which is always good, but a Spiritualist's spell list is fairly underwhelming compared to most other 6th-level casters. With WIS casting and a high Will base save, you’ll be great at will saves though. Don't misunderstand, it's not a bad class, it's actually fairly competent, but it is outclassed by other classes offering the same gimmick and earns a spot as a low Tier 3 class.



Investigator is a hybrid of Alchemist and Rogue. Their version of sneak attack is Studied Strike, which lets them add a great amount of damage to their attacks and doesn’t require flanking. Their version of casting, alchemy, gives them sixth-level casting, with plenty of buffing and support options, and it’s not too hard to pass these buffs to your allies. With 6 + INT skills and INT as your casting stat, not to mention Inspiration boosting your skill checks, you’ll have plenty of skill points and really high checks to solve problem out-of-combat. All up, a straight T3 class.



The Alchemist is arguably Pathfinder’s signature class. Their Bombs do lag slightly behind in damage over other scaling damage options - other scaling damage options can be applied multiple times each turn or scale at 1d6 per level, like Fireball. You can make bombs from various elements or with major debuffs, which is pretty handy. Their version of casting, alchemy, gives them sixth-level casting, with plenty of buffing and support options, and it’s not too hard to pass these buffs to your allies. With 4 + INT skills and INT as your casting stat, you’ll also have plenty of skill points to solve problem out-of-combat. All up, a straight T3 class.

[Kurald Galain]

With WIS casting and a high Will base save, you’ll be great at will saves though.
I suggest to either remove it, or to list with every single wis caster class (and dex-based martial class) that they'll have great will saves and reflex saves respectively.


Investigator is a hybrid of Alchemist and Rogue.
It's important to mention the inspiration mechanic; you get to add +1d6 to specific skills, for free, all the time (and can expand this with feats). This makes investigator the single best skill user in the entire game.


(other scaling damage options can be applied multiple times each turn)
You can in fact throw multiple bombs per turn. The reason why bombs lag behind is not that they're once per turn, but that they scale +1d6 per two levels (whereas e.g. Fireballs scale +1d6 each level). Also, splash damage is largely irrelevant; it's more important that bombs can be made for numerous damage types, and can have major debuffs tacked on.

[pabelfly]

I suggest to either remove it, or to list with every single wis caster class (and dex-based martial class) that they'll have great will saves and reflex saves respectively.

I'm pretty sure I actually did do that for all DEX and WIS classes.


It's important to mention the inspiration mechanic; you get to add +1d6 to specific skills, for free, all the time (and can expand this with feats). This makes investigator the single best skill user in the entire game.


You can in fact throw multiple bombs per turn. The reason why bombs lag behind is not that they're once per turn, but that they scale +1d6 per two levels (whereas e.g. Fireballs scale +1d6 each level). Also, splash damage is largely irrelevant; it's more important that bombs can be made for numerous damage types, and can have major debuffs tacked on.

I'll work on these edits, thanks.

[Rynjin]

No, without Fast Bombs you cannot throw more than one Bomb per turn.

[Kurald Galain]

No, without Fast Bombs you cannot throw more than one Bomb per turn.
Yes, and that's why every bomb-using alchemist takes Fast Bombs, just like how every wildshaping druid takes Natural Spell :smallamused:

We're not going to have separate tiers for class-without-a-common-feat.

[pabelfly]

Yes, and that's why every bomb-using alchemist takes Fast Bombs, just like how every wildshaping druid takes Natural Spell :smallamused:

We're not going to have separate tiers for class-without-a-common-feat.

Yeah, I'm fine with not doing any more tier list threads. I think what we have is pretty solid as-is.

[Rynjin]

Yes, and that's why every bomb-using alchemist takes Fast Bombs, just like how every wildshaping druid takes Natural Spell :smallamused:

We're not going to have separate tiers for class-without-a-common-feat.

It should remain mentioned as a small drawback of the class, just like Feat taxes are mentioned as a weakness of a lot of martial classes; it's why Bonus Feats are considered valuable.

This is another "we are tiering classes, not builds" discussion, I think.

[Bucky]

Perhaps we need an "archetype roundup". Mind you, I don't think Kineticists quite qualify, that would go under "tier classes not builds" the same way we wouldn't analyze Sorcerer Bloodlines separately.
In that case, I'd suggest the Psammokinetic is probably a higher tier by your metrics simply because it's locked into the best primary element and has a decent secondary element. Trading away the elemental overflow stat buffs for always being at max+1 elemental overflow, and having a basic ki pool, might be a + or - depending on playstyle, but the burn-averse one gets the full upside of the archetype and minimizes the downsides.

[Rynjin]

In that case, I'd suggest the Psammokinetic is probably tier 3 by your metrics simply because it's locked into the best primary element and has a decent secondary element. Trading away the elemental overflow stat buffs for always being at max+1 elemental overflow, and having a basic ki pool, might be a + or - depending on playstyle, but the burn-averse one gets the full upside of the archetype and minimizes the downsides.

I don't think it really bumps it up to T3, but it is better baseline than a standard Kineticist, and not because of the element thing. It has a wider variety of Infusions to choose from, being able to take basically every Air and Earth Infusion, while also getting to dip into Fire Infusions, at the cost of losing personal-range Haste, and gets an extra resource pool that boosts their damage for free and lets them bypass one of the main drawbacks of physical blasts (not being able to easily overcome DR).

[Bucky]

I don't think it really bumps it up to T3, but it is better baseline than a standard Kineticist, and not because of the element thing. It has a wider variety of Infusions to choose from, being able to take basically every Air and Earth Infusion, while also getting to dip into Fire Infusions, at the cost of losing personal-range Haste, and gets an extra resource pool that boosts their damage for free and lets them bypass one of the main drawbacks of physical blasts (not being able to easily overcome DR).

Celerity isn't personal range, it inherits Close range from Haste.

[pabelfly]

In that case, I'd suggest the Psammokinetic is probably a higher tier by your metrics simply because it's locked into the best primary element and has a decent secondary element. Trading away the elemental overflow stat buffs for always being at max+1 elemental overflow, and having a basic ki pool, might be a + or - depending on playstyle, but the burn-averse one gets the full upside of the archetype and minimizes the downsides.

I thought your suggestion of Air Kineticist was an interesting suggestion for an alternate tiering, which you did justify mechanically. I think we're veering into tiering builds if you start doing specific elemental combinations though

[Kurald Galain]

because it's locked into the best primary element

I don't think it's been established that air is the best primary element. As I recall, the main argument was that a character with ranged attacks can dominate combat if the other PCs are melee-based; but that's inherent to every ranged character, not to one specific class.

[Bucky]

I thought your suggestion of Air Kineticist was an interesting suggestion for an alternate tiering, which you did justify mechanically. I think we're veering into tiering builds if you start doing specific elemental combinations though

So that means we don't tier kineticist archetypes that lock in specific elemental combinations, of which there are about half a dozen, taking into account that those specific elemental choices affect their overall power to an otherwise tier-relevant extent?

[Rynjin]

I don't think it's been established that air is the best primary element. As I recall, the main argument was that a character with ranged attacks can dominate combat if the other PCs are melee-based; but that's inherent to every ranged character, not to one specific class.

Yeah, I feel like most people agree that Air, Water, and Earth are kind of tied for best spot, with Air maybe having a SLIGHT edge due to having in-class flight without sucking at everything else (like Fire), but calling it the definitive best is...eh.

[pabelfly]

So that means we don't tier kineticist archetypes that lock in specific elemental combinations, of which there are about half a dozen, taking into account that those specific elemental choices affect their overall power to an otherwise tier-relevant extent?

Let's do it like this:

A specific Kineticist archetype that's more powerful? Sure, let's see it.

One specific element that's more powerful than the others? Sure, let's see it.

Element combinations? No thanks.

Does that make sense, and seem reasonable?

[KillianHawkeye]

Does choosing Air really affect the Kineticist's tier placement just for getting longer range and better flight? :smallconfused:

[pabelfly]

Does choosing Air really affect the Kineticist's tier placement just for getting longer range and better flight? :smallconfused:

If a bunch of people want to vote on it and say it does, I'll do it. If other people aren't interested or aren't convinced, I'll leave it alone.

[Bucky]

Anyway, an overview of the other Kineticist archetypes I think are notable:

Dark Elementalists get all knowledge skills as class skills, and an Int focus and access to Skilled Kineticist make them pretty good at the walking library schtick. They also gain the evil ability to offload burn to the souls of their fallen enemies, breaking the daily burn cap of normal kineticists, but give up the ability to nova and some of their Elemental Overflow benefits.

Terrakineticists switch element depending on location. They don't get to freely choose their element until level 20, but good utility talent selections mean they can take some situational stuff (e.g. Cold and Heat Adaptation) that only turns on while in the correct environment, getting replaced by other abilities otherwise. The downside is that their energy blasts are somewhat more likely to run into resistant or immune creatures, but that's what physical blasts are for. I think Terrakineticists hit Tier 4 on versatility, even if it's complicated and unwieldy versatility.

Elemental Annihilator gives up all utility talents and restricts low-level infusion talents in exchange for the ability to full attack (with any bonus attacks from e.g. Haste) with blasts as a form infusion, improved damage on blasts, and a few restricted bonus combat feats. They keep elemental overflow from the base kineticist too. Rating pending, but even though losing utility talents hurts, they might well hit mid tier 4 by analogy to fighter.

Elemental Ascetic is a Kineticist cosplaying as a Chained Monk. Except that where Chained Monks get mostly underwhelming Ki powers and fast movement as they level up, Elemental Ascetics get increasingly significant utility talents and substance infusions for their punches. I think these guys are an overall improvement on the monk, but not quite enough to raise them out of tier 5. Call them Tier 4.6.

Cinder Adept must choose fire with no secondary elements. They also give up four talents in exchange for a cavalier-style mount and some minor abilities that only work while mounted. Tier 5.

Elysiokineticist is stuck with the anti-undead positive blast at level 1. The defense talent only works against attacks from evil creatures. Until level 7 the elysiokineticist is utterly incompetent against most of the bestiary, and aside from Kinetic Healer doesn't have much utility outside of combat either. Wood Blast brings them up to the standard of kineticist blasting, which still isn't great, and the wood element doesn't have any particularly strong utility talents to rescue them. Tier 5.5.

Psammokinetic is Tier 3, I already think air primary kineticist is high tier 3. It also gets a leg up on a regular Air+Earth kineticist by accessing the high level Earth talents two levels earlier and by applying one each of the key earth perks (rare metal damage) and air perks (Air’s Reach) to the same blasts. However, it loses a couple of air's viable talents.

And with Air element not currently separated, and several other posters claiming other elements are almost as good, the base kineticist should be bumped to at least Tier 4 on average because they can just choose the element with the good stuff.

[Rynjin]

"They can pick the good stuff" is actually one of the big reasons I pegged Kineticist as a low T4 in the first place instead of T5 like other people. I very much don't think "only getting the good stuff" (like Psammokinetic) is enough to bump it to T3, not even a low T3.

[KillianHawkeye]

Isn't "can pick the good stuff" basically something every class does, though? There's trash and treasure in everything.

I feel like the choice of element doesn't change that much, it just deserves a footnote saying "element choice can affect how good you are at certain things" or something?

[Rynjin]

Isn't "can pick the good stuff" basically something every class does, though? There's trash and treasure in everything.

Exactly. That's why I rate classes roughly based on the merits of their strongest options. You don't aren't a Wizard based on the power of an Evocation specialist, for example.

[Kurald Galain]

Isn't "can pick the good stuff" basically something every class does, though? There's trash and treasure in everything.

I feel like the choice of element doesn't change that much, it just deserves a footnote saying "element choice can affect how good you are at certain things" or something?
Yes, I agree.


Exactly. That's why I rate classes roughly based on the merits of their strongest options. You don't aren't a Wizard based on the power of an Evocation specialist, for example.
That's a good point. We don't rate individual wizard schools, or cleric domains, or a hunter animal companions either.

[Bucky]

Isn't "can pick the good stuff" basically something every class does, though? There's trash and treasure in everything.

I feel like the choice of element doesn't change that much, it just deserves a footnote saying "element choice can affect how good you are at certain things" or something?
The kineticist generally doesn't have the consistent DPR to get out of tier 5 on that basis alone. Placement above that rests on the ability to use talents to do things other than single target damage, which varies widely by element.

In practice, universal talents won't get you there until Ride the Blast comes online at level 12+. Air gets so many good utility talents that the ability to simply cast Haste at level 6 often doesn't make the cut - they can turn down an option that's a staple for tier 1-2 casters of the same level. Aether gets good sneaky talents like flexible long ranged telekinesis and at-will invisibility to badly overshadow the Rogues and Ninjas, but with downsides to blasting. Wood gets the ability to do nonlethal damage with its subpar blasting and delayed access to a handful of Druid-related plant spells. The other elements are somewhere in the middle for utility, but there are clear winners and losers, and even the relative winners vary widely in how they contribute.

Even with all that variance, I don't usually see kineticists change their starting element to "pick the good stuff" in practice. They seem to choose the element first and optimize from there.

[Thunder999]

I suppose it's because Kineticist has a lot less freedom to mix and match than a wizard.
A wizard just needs 1 good spell from the school each level, and even when they're not great, he's still got the entire rest of the wizard spell list.

A kineticist spends a good chunk of the game with only 1 element, has reduced level for the expanded elements when they do finally show up, and has no option to just casually grab a few wild talents from other lists.

A wizard can specialise evocation, ban conjuration (i.e. make some pretty poor choices) and then just use two spell slots to still cast Teleport, Planar Binding, Trap the Soul etc. when the party needs them.

Oh and then there's the fact that you can't even just pick secondary elements for their utility, because your composite blast is eventually going to be important for dealing adequate damage, so you'd better pick a pair of elements with a good one.

[Gnaeus]

The kineticist generally doesn't have the consistent DPR to get out of tier 5 on that basis alone. Placement above that rests on the ability to use talents to do things other than single target damage, which varies widely by element.

In practice, universal talents won't get you there until Ride the Blast comes online at level 12+. Air gets so many good utility talents that the ability to simply cast Haste at level 6 often doesn't make the cut - they can turn down an option that's a staple for tier 1-2 casters of the same level. Aether gets good sneaky talents like flexible long ranged telekinesis and at-will invisibility to badly overshadow the Rogues and Ninjas, but with downsides to blasting. Wood gets the ability to do nonlethal damage with its subpar blasting and delayed access to a handful of Druid-related plant spells. The other elements are somewhere in the middle for utility, but there are clear winners and losers, and even the relative winners vary widely in how they contribute.

Even with all that variance, I don't usually see kineticists change their starting element to "pick the good stuff" in practice. They seem to choose the element first and optimize from there.

A barbarian can be assumed to "Pick the good stuff" because picking the good stuff for a barbarian is pretty obvious. I have yet to see a player over the age of 10 who didn't realize immediately that Barbarian+ Rage+ 2 handed weapon+ a feat conveniently labeled "Power attack" =hulk smash. If you have to read a guide to figure out what the good stuff is, picking the good stuff is at least mid opp, maybe high opp. With kineticist, what does "picking the good stuff" even mean? Am I picking based on combinations of abilities I will have in several levels? Thats high op, the equivalent of a wizard being an outsider because he knows what it will do later in combination with Alter Self. Am I picking based on blasts? Utility powers? Defensive powers? Its hardly an obvious decision, or one which can be intelligently made without research and system mastery. A low op Kineticist will almost certainly have a helping of bad stuff. And a low op wizard will also. The difference being that most other classes can fix poor decisions much easier.

[Bucky]

In any event, regardless of your stance on "pick the good stuff", an archetype that gets locked out of all the top 5 elements (Elysiokineticist) even as expanded element options clearly doesn't belong in tier 4, right?

[Thunder999]

Kineticist really isn't that complicated, I gather it's not laid out very well in the book or even most websites, but the class is actually pretty simple, the good options are certainly more obvious than for any caster.

[Bucky]

the good options are certainly more obvious than for any caster.

You say that, but one rater (Gnaeus) failed to find any that were better than what an Expert gets (i.e. two more skill ranks per level and +3 on some skill checks).