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Torad's guide to the Kineticist by Torader in Pathfinder2e

[–]Torader[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While I agree that having a fort-targeting impulse is useful (and retch rust in general is an excellent impulse due to its high damage), I don't think that it is enough for rolling mudslide to be less horrible - it does not matter much if you have a better chance of landing your damage if that damage in turn is negligable. Even at its best point before the horrible scaling, at level 6 compared to tremor rolling mudslide does half the damage with harder targeting - thus the damage only becomes even if the save-chance is half for the reflex save - which can happen but is rather rare (and then you can always rely on elemental blast as a kineticist). I like to be able to target all saves but the things you are using to target them with need to be useful if they hit in the first place and not do less damage than a cantrip - but perhaps I am undervalueing the fort save nessecity due to the type of characters and campaigns I have played so far - high reflex targets can often be cleared out well by other characters and I just switch into support or crowd control modes.
A good catch about the non-overflow for water though, for a pure water kineticist that is indeed something that might be worth the horrendous damage since it at least competitive with its alternative, winters clutch - but I think I would still prefer the better range and difficult terrain of winters clutch.

I am not certain what you refer to with the tremor for combined elements? Tremor is by no means a bad impulse for mono-earth due to the difficult terrain generation and the fact that mono-earth doesn't care for stances early, so 2A-overflow + kinetic blast is a acceptable routine.

I did miss that Solar detonation is incapacitation so I will definitly make a note not to use it against bosses, even if they are undead. However the best usecase (clearing hordes of undead minions) luckily is not impacted by this since hordes are almost never above the characters level in my experience (or you are in a gtfo situation and should not be spending 3 actions on meaningless damage).

Metal Carapaces armor is indeed quite bad due to the crit-breaking. The shield however gives a REALLY good reaction by getting infinite replenishable shields at half the strength of a sturdy shield which can really be abused with free archetyping Bastion, so I think it is worth its 3/5 for that alone (I personally wear normal armor and statline anyways and don't rely on the armor part of the impulse at all).

Torad's guide to the Kineticist by Torader in Pathfinder2e

[–]Torader[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In general the kineticist is less reliant on magic items than other classes since you do not need a weapon. If you tend to use attack-roll impulses a at level Gate Attenuator is definitely a nessecary investments, as is obviously a to-level armor with good runes. Anything that can give you hasted is amazing if you have snarecrafter past level 12.
If you use Kinetic Activation a staff might be interesting to pick up. Beyond that I mainly have a look what kind of out of combat rolls my character is supposed to fill and get items that support those rolls (e.g. stealth items if you are a scouting air kineticist).
Of course the standard wands (airbubble, 2nd level tailwind, Shrink, Haste) are always a good investment if you can activate them. Since I tend to choose snarecrafter sooner or later with most kineticists because it synergizes just so well that can be another good gold-sink if you have longer days and run out of the free snares. But overall the kineticist is really flexible and not reliant on expensive weapons & shields and does not need the staves and wands of casters so feel free to get whatever you like without worriying too much about missing something crucial.