Comment on Winter Sleet impulse for Air/Water kineticist

• jonnyblais@pathfinder.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s a really strong effect and it requires some really careful positioning to work well.

  Using Weapon Infusion to give reach to your melee strikes helps in staying at a range to be far enough away from your allies to keep from wrecking them as well as Air’s tools for mobility (Four Winds, its Impulse Junction, Lightning Dash) to get your positioning exactly right (the water-air kineticist I’m playing is also an Elf with Nimble Elf and Fleet).

  Your non-reach-having party will probably be taking lots of hits just because threats will have to move to you, but in case they do, you’ll want to have your Dexterity as your second stat to maximize utility from your light armor to deal with threats and to bolster your Reflex saves. Water’s Ocean’s Balm and Deflecting Wave feats help with healing and negating damage outright respectively, though I’m skipping Ocean’s Balm in my build.

  The object in a lot of combats is to use your mobility options to get far enough behind enemy lines to cause havoc with the aura while still being a move action away from your targets. Getting a Slow from a critical hit with an Elemental Blast in the aura also helps eat up actions that would otherwise be used to hit you.

  I haven’t played with it a lot, and you can imagine lots of places where it won’t be the best option like profoundly close quarters combat, but the Kineticist has some other tools to deal with those situations too (the ranged options you’ve noted). It’s a truly great option where it’s great, and an own-goal when it’s not, but making tactical calls is the name of the game. On balance (haha), I’m a big fan.

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  • booty@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The object in a lot of combats is to use your mobility options to get far enough behind enemy lines to cause havoc with the aura while still being a move action away from your targets

    But the aura is 10ft. How does that work?

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    • jonnyblais@pathfinder.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Aura Shaper is a mid-tier feat that can expand the size of the aura to up to 30 feet, but earlier, you’re trying start a fight by activating your aura and move to something like this

      _ _ _ X
      _ O _ _
      O X _ 👨‍🚒  
      

      where _ is a blank space, X is your opponents, O is your allies, and 👨‍🚒 is you. Your group of allies is clustered to the left of O, and your group of enemies is clustered around the right side of the map, that is, around you, but you’re in a spot that has a blank space between you and any of them as well.

      Keep your friends far and your enemies close-but-not-that-close, as the proverb goes. You can then use Air and Water Impulse Junctions to keep your action-taxing distance from foes intact when they approach.

      As the fight goes on, positioning changes because your allies and enemies get a bit more intermingled, but those position changes are extremely costly for your foes (a decent chance of falling, no chance to avoid reactions because no Step) and free for you (Air Impulse Junction, Water Junction).

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