Kineticist Feedback Thread
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I'm unconvinced how useful Kinetic Burst is over Thermal Sunder. Thermal Sunder can potentially do a Sunder effect on any enemy with defenses. But Kinetic Burst only works on enemies with loose weapons.
Also, holy crap on a stick, when you get the M'henga, Kinetic Burst's Disarm effect is a HUGE negative when you fight the Tainted Rusher. She goes from doing normal damage with her pistol of about 7-9, or lust damage, to slugging you in the face for 30 damage, and she keeps doing it. She 2-shotted me, twice.
My kineticist is only level 3 so far, but I'm wondering if changing out the Disarm effect for something like Trip is better. Since it's lore-wise a giant burst of kinetic energy next to an enemy, I imagine it's at least as strong as a strong shove, and if they aren't prepared for it, they are ass over teakettle. On a random thought, I wonder how kineticist abilities do versus Tripped's effect of increased evasion against ranged attacks???
EDIT: At level 3, if you take the shield regen perk, in combat, it states "You psionically regenerates shielding." Spelling/grammar issue, remove the "s" at the end of regenerate.
EDIT2: got blinded against the Gryvain Agent/Selarith, but I noticed my Entropic Leech attacks never missed. Are Kineticist abilities not affected by accuracy/being barely able to see your target?
Also, holy crap on a stick, when you get the M'henga, Kinetic Burst's Disarm effect is a HUGE negative when you fight the Tainted Rusher. She goes from doing normal damage with her pistol of about 7-9, or lust damage, to slugging you in the face for 30 damage, and she keeps doing it. She 2-shotted me, twice.
My kineticist is only level 3 so far, but I'm wondering if changing out the Disarm effect for something like Trip is better. Since it's lore-wise a giant burst of kinetic energy next to an enemy, I imagine it's at least as strong as a strong shove, and if they aren't prepared for it, they are ass over teakettle. On a random thought, I wonder how kineticist abilities do versus Tripped's effect of increased evasion against ranged attacks???
EDIT: At level 3, if you take the shield regen perk, in combat, it states "You psionically regenerates shielding." Spelling/grammar issue, remove the "s" at the end of regenerate.
EDIT2: got blinded against the Gryvain Agent/Selarith, but I noticed my Entropic Leech attacks never missed. Are Kineticist abilities not affected by accuracy/being barely able to see your target?
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Reminder for all you lucky backers: You can switch Perks in the Level Up menu if Cheats are enabled.
Sunder only works on Defense from Armor, I think. I'm not sure how useful that actually is.
Disarm is a borderline worthless status. When I tested Disarming Shot, I found most enemies were either immune or had significant backup attacks. In many cases, they didn't lose any attacks at all.
Tripped enemies always stand up at the end of their turn, so it's impossible to set up combos with it. Even so, Trip would be a lot more reliably useful than Disarm (or Sunder).
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Fixed for next hotfix.
This is a bug with the Tainted Rusher, not the ability. Any enemy that can be disarmed should have their damage output reduced by that status, not the other way around (unless they're some real special plotty stuff where an NPC has a psychic blade binding their incredible power!)
That's a great oversight to address, and I'm looking into it now. Their chance of standing up is going to scale based on their intelligence.
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It's not as bad as the Tainted Rusher, but I think the Naleen Huntress does a slightly reduced amount of damage when disarmed. Not sure of exact numbers.
I have a complaint about the Psychogenic Vim/Vitality Siphon skills. Right now, both cost 15 energy to activate, but in none of the text is it mentioned that the abilities are one-time-per-combat. I would think if it's one time only, then there'd be no energy cost. Or if there's an energy cost, then there's no limit to activation times. One or the other, not both. I will admit, Psychogenic Vim should absolutely be one-time only, being able to spam a 75% max energy restore move for only 15 energy is crazy. But Vitality Siphon could whiff if you don't actually deal damage somehow.
No matter what, it should say on the text/tooltip if the ability is one-time-only, both on the skill selection screen when leveling up, and in combat.
I have a complaint about the Psychogenic Vim/Vitality Siphon skills. Right now, both cost 15 energy to activate, but in none of the text is it mentioned that the abilities are one-time-per-combat. I would think if it's one time only, then there'd be no energy cost. Or if there's an energy cost, then there's no limit to activation times. One or the other, not both. I will admit, Psychogenic Vim should absolutely be one-time only, being able to spam a 75% max energy restore move for only 15 energy is crazy. But Vitality Siphon could whiff if you don't actually deal damage somehow.
No matter what, it should say on the text/tooltip if the ability is one-time-only, both on the skill selection screen when leveling up, and in combat.
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Really enjoying it so far and looking forward to seeing what the class can do once we get some tailored gear. As it currently stands the damage output is pretty weak at high levels, but that's to be expected with something that's being playtested. I think the energy gain on entropic leech needs to scale, maybe restore a percentage of the max energy instead of being fixed at 5 points, even with psychogenic vim and a good supply of pexiga saliva I'm finding myself running out of energy before fights are over, and running back to the ship to harvest more can be a pain. That problem will probably be mitigated once the higher level abilities have been tweaked but I thought I'd mention it. Telekinetic Warrior is phenomenal, but it'd be cool if the damage type was changed to Crushing so that it can play with Deep Freeze debuff. Overall it's been pretty fun to play an ability focused class that doesn't get torn through like wet tissue paper, a refreshing change of pace from all my attempted Smuggler playthroughs.
I posted my initial thoughts on the blog post but I'll copy them over here for posterity.
Generally I feel kineticist is in a good place early on, you can use thermal sunder to reduce armour on tough things, the freeze + rocket hammer is really strong on Tarkus and the freeze effect stays on so you can combo it with vortex brand to get even more shatter damage.
The main issues the class have start to come apparent during the second half of Myrellion, the problem is that the class starts to fall off on damage output compared to the others when they get their second attack since that's a 100% damage increase in certain classes (usually I play gun Merc or melee Tech). Ideally the kineticist wants to be actively doing something every turn and enemies that use a lot of grapples really waste tempo as you blow through your energy pool really fast breaking grapples and can't make the damage up fast like the other classes. Nothing feels worse than popping a timed debuff then getting stuck in a grapple, but blowing a good chunk of your energy pool to break out also cuts down on your ability to use powers.
The other I mentioned and other people have is the issue with geo spike not being able to crit as enemies don't stay tripped. I feel even with that downside gravity is still good for trip locking in large fights to stop multiple attacks especially during Kara quest since even if you only trip half the opponents hitting all four and reducing the damage they can hit you with as they stand back up is super handy. What I would suggest instead is maybe give some of the powers like geo spike crushing damage instead since they will combo with entropy that you auto get and also not make you as reliant of specific melee weapons instead.
Generally I feel kineticist is in a good place early on, you can use thermal sunder to reduce armour on tough things, the freeze + rocket hammer is really strong on Tarkus and the freeze effect stays on so you can combo it with vortex brand to get even more shatter damage.
The main issues the class have start to come apparent during the second half of Myrellion, the problem is that the class starts to fall off on damage output compared to the others when they get their second attack since that's a 100% damage increase in certain classes (usually I play gun Merc or melee Tech). Ideally the kineticist wants to be actively doing something every turn and enemies that use a lot of grapples really waste tempo as you blow through your energy pool really fast breaking grapples and can't make the damage up fast like the other classes. Nothing feels worse than popping a timed debuff then getting stuck in a grapple, but blowing a good chunk of your energy pool to break out also cuts down on your ability to use powers.
The other I mentioned and other people have is the issue with geo spike not being able to crit as enemies don't stay tripped. I feel even with that downside gravity is still good for trip locking in large fights to stop multiple attacks especially during Kara quest since even if you only trip half the opponents hitting all four and reducing the damage they can hit you with as they stand back up is super handy. What I would suggest instead is maybe give some of the powers like geo spike crushing damage instead since they will combo with entropy that you auto get and also not make you as reliant of specific melee weapons instead.
Yeah good feedback here. I'm going to take the activate cost off of Vim (and allow Siphon to be used multiple times - but with an upfront 15 energy cost it's more of a risk/reward to try).
Not gonna do this, but there are item flags added for accessories that will increase energy restoration by kineticists by 25%-50%-100% - I think I actually placed one that might have slipped in this patch, though it was the 25% version.
Yeah, Kineticists actually have the most tools to escape grapple - getting an ability that lets them lean on a core stat for struggling AND an active "free escape" option, but their free escape is expensive as a consequence. As a space-wizard, I wanted them to have options to deal with grapple but still have it feel like one of the worst things that can happen to you.
Hmm. It's not 100% of the time, but when I'm throwing the Warden Shield (ranged weapon sold by the roaming vendor on Tarkus), I sometimes trigger a Psytuned Vitality heal. But Psytuned Vitality is only supposed to heal me when I do kineticist skill damage. Not sure what's happening. I only had it happen with the sex bots. Sydians and Raskvel don't seem to have it happen. EDIT: and now I can't get it to happen again.
Odd issue. The text for Entropy Waves in combat is copying the description for Vitality Siphon. To test, I re-perked into Psychogenic Vim, and the description for Entropy Waves still says the text for Vitality Siphon, though I think the energy cost is accurate for the Waves at 25 energy.
Speaking of Entropy Waves, shouldn't Psytuned Vitality trigger every turn Entropy Waves does damage? Since it's technically a skill doing damage? Currently, it only gives a heal proc on the first use. Oh wait, Psytuned Vitality is meant to trigger on ability activation, not damage.
Odd issue. The text for Entropy Waves in combat is copying the description for Vitality Siphon. To test, I re-perked into Psychogenic Vim, and the description for Entropy Waves still says the text for Vitality Siphon, though I think the energy cost is accurate for the Waves at 25 energy.
Speaking of Entropy Waves, shouldn't Psytuned Vitality trigger every turn Entropy Waves does damage? Since it's technically a skill doing damage? Currently, it only gives a heal proc on the first use. Oh wait, Psytuned Vitality is meant to trigger on ability activation, not damage.
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Psychogenic Vim vs Vitality Siphon, right now there's no reason to use Siphon over Vim. 75% energy (min 75) is way better than 30 energy in increments of 10 over 3 turns, plus a cast turn. Letting Vitality Siphon be recast would definitely help, but I think it needs to regen more energy still. Maybe a percentage based? Or just bump it up to 15 energy per turn?
With Telekinetic Warrior, it's a minor thing and probably not worth the effort, but maybe replacing the default rock with a special "psionic blast" attack could be cool?
With Telekinetic Warrior, it's a minor thing and probably not worth the effort, but maybe replacing the default rock with a special "psionic blast" attack could be cool?
100% Agree with this, playing a wizard should feel like a squishy nerd and grapples would suck.
I was more noting that in areas with a lot of grapplers exploration really bogs down, bothriocs being a particular nuisance since they are annoying to flee from. Maybe give levitate a bonus to escape chance to help with random encounters?
OK this isn't feedback but it's just something I thought up so I hope you don't mind, but a good explanation as to why you can't use telekinetic abilities and mind control and stuff outside of combat could be because you need the adrenaline rush from a fight to be able properly trigger your powers. It's not airtight, but it helps. I msure you could edit it or come up with something similar to cover any gaps.
Just a thought, hope you don't mind.
Just a thought, hope you don't mind.
Gravity Crush doesn't seem to do anything. I get the message "You grab hold of the gravity around Sophora and press it tighter, crushing her down with one of the fundamental forces of creation!", but she doesn't lose any shields or HP. Also, while levitating, Sophora somehow manages to trip me, although that shouldn't be possible since I'm in the air.
Geothermal Spike doesn't hit if the opponent has the ability to fly, even if they are not currently flying (ie Sophora). Unnatural Reserves also sometimes triggers (shown under debuffs) even when my character hasn't lost any HP in the fight.
@Fenoxo Uh, I think something went wrong with the Hotfix 2. Telekinetic Warrior doesn't seem to be have Crushing take effect, it's not comboing with the Deep Freeze proc. And I've tested both melee and ranged attacks, with no weapons equipped (just the rocks default). And I definitely have Hotfix 2 build, the Entropy Waves tooltip is corrected.
EDIT: Oof, larger issue. I have Telekinetic Warrior active, and went to put on a Rocket Hammer (from one of the Tarkus vendors). But when I go into battle, my melee weapon is reverted to Kinetic Force, and my rocket hammer disappears into nothing. Thankfully, it's just melee weapons this happens with, not ranged. When I re-perk into Third Eye Aim, the melee weapon deletion stops happening.
EDIT: when I switched back to Telekinetic Warrior, I couldn't get my melee to disappear again. So, it happened a few times, but a perk switch seems to have fixed it?
EDIT: Oof, larger issue. I have Telekinetic Warrior active, and went to put on a Rocket Hammer (from one of the Tarkus vendors). But when I go into battle, my melee weapon is reverted to Kinetic Force, and my rocket hammer disappears into nothing. Thankfully, it's just melee weapons this happens with, not ranged. When I re-perk into Third Eye Aim, the melee weapon deletion stops happening.
EDIT: when I switched back to Telekinetic Warrior, I couldn't get my melee to disappear again. So, it happened a few times, but a perk switch seems to have fixed it?
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Is Levitation meant to be disabled when you have interactable equipment ala, Nova and Seigwulfe? It's replaced by them at the moment. Also whatever the gravity flux check for standing up is needs to be tuned to actually be useful when you get it. I guess it being an aoe turn loss is pretty cool but I'd actually like a reason to use geothermal spike. If the crushing damage is applied to the Telekenetic Warrior, it doesn't combo with deep freeze properly as it doesn't remove the effect. It also eats your melee weapons too but luckily all I lost was a jolt hammer. Currently on Zeng Shi at level 9 and will continue to test as I go.
EDIT: I should mention that, for whatever reason, TW doesn't get rid of the Lasso on New Texas. Though I'm to understand that's because the Lasso is a battle only weapon I think? It's also pretty neat that I can still use the TW stuff on the Varmits in case I don't have good phys scaling for the lasso. Even without the synergy with deep freeze, the Kinetic Force attacks scale a lot better than most weapons too.
EDIT: I should mention that, for whatever reason, TW doesn't get rid of the Lasso on New Texas. Though I'm to understand that's because the Lasso is a battle only weapon I think? It's also pretty neat that I can still use the TW stuff on the Varmits in case I don't have good phys scaling for the lasso. Even without the synergy with deep freeze, the Kinetic Force attacks scale a lot better than most weapons too.
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Could you give more circumstances on your setup when the weapon got eaten? I also had mine eaten, but a re-perk away and then back to Telekinetic Warrior seemed to have stopping the weapon being eaten. And I can't seem to re-trigger it. I'm at Tarkus, at the moment.
Ah, is that the case? I haven't tried that and have just been using TW exclusively since it's still a pretty good and generally unresistable form of attack.
Either way, I'm pretty sure it's specifically changing a weapon after receiving the buff. I was using a Wrench I got as a drop from the Fem Rask on Tarkus up until Myr Deep Caves while relying on the freeze and crushing combo. After I leveled up with the buff I still had my wrench for a few more encounters while heading towards the taxi, after which I bought the Jolt Hammer from Emmy. I still had my wrench in my inventory, but I noticed I was using Kinetic Force during my next Nyrean encounter.
Edit: Your fix works~ Also I'm definitely sure it's specifically changing weapons afterwards, which is probably why the Lasso doesn't get eaten on New Texas.
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Considering the buffs given, the synergies with everything and the general feel with the class I can safely say that it's pretty... weak? Currently at LvL 12 on Phaedra , running an evasion focused build and taking quite a while to defeat enemies with pure damage, though I'm not anywhere close to dying thanks to the leech ability combined with Psy Vitality. I imagine this is because there are still a few bugs and kinks to work out, but generally speaking...
At the moment, there's only about two ways to play. Stacking constant psychic damage for short bursts thanks to all of your buffs, a method that works out fairly well from beginning to end but makes battles last forever. Or struggling immensely to really make use of any of your psychic abilities... until around level 10, where you get Mind Crush, which when combined with Enthropic Whip allows you for consistent, massive burst damage in-between trying to not die against high level enemies.
For the former, obvious weaknesses include lust based attacking enemies. Though those are often pretty easy to overcome by being libidinous yourself so I don't quite mind. For the latter? It's kind of annoying. I think I can see what the idea is. Gravity Flux into Thermal Spike is supposed to be your first big damage combo which serves as general utility thanks to the trip mechanic and flight cancellation. But since it seems that flying enemies only take extra damage and keep flying while the trip is simply treated as a lost turn, it kind of just turns into a stall tactic until you get reality schism. Furthermore, there's generally no reason to take anything other than Thermal Sunder, Psytuned Vitality and Vitality Syphon as your first 3 skills. There are a LOT of enemies that get stronger after being disarmed in the early to mid game, and enemies that don't use weapons are highly resistant to Kinetic Damage in most cases regardless. Thermal Sunder is pretty balanced, but it definitely seems to shine a lot more compared to Kinetic Burst. Psyionic Shielding falls off extremely fast, and I feel as if it was supposed to restore shields in the same way that Psytuned Vitality did. But it doesn't, and so just tanking everything and wearing good armor with Psytuned Vitality seems to be the way to go. This is also why Vitality Syphon is so good too. An early, fat as fuck Second Wind isn't bad at all. In fact on the other 3 classes it would be broken. But the passive leech that Psytuned Vitality gives combined with the constant leech Vitality Syphon gives is way more applicable in most situations, especially considering Telekinetic Warrior's replaced attacks are considered a psychic ability.
Overall though, this is a pretty fun class. (Potentially) Not having to worry about certain weapon scaling and having constant, rarely resisted forms of damage in exchange for being physically weaker and relying on much more high end armors is a neat concept, and I hope this ties in to Cybernetics and more Power Armor content. As of completing the crashed ship on Phaedra, my build has maxed out Will and Int scores with some trained stats in Phys since Third Eye Aim isn't worth it over Telekinetic Warrior. By using the Chameleon Silk Robe, Levitation and Knuckle Busters I'm able to generally not take much damage in the first place, and using no Ranged Weapon I'm able to heal off most damage done without suffering too much energy loss when combined with Haste and the Leech.
At the moment, there's only about two ways to play. Stacking constant psychic damage for short bursts thanks to all of your buffs, a method that works out fairly well from beginning to end but makes battles last forever. Or struggling immensely to really make use of any of your psychic abilities... until around level 10, where you get Mind Crush, which when combined with Enthropic Whip allows you for consistent, massive burst damage in-between trying to not die against high level enemies.
For the former, obvious weaknesses include lust based attacking enemies. Though those are often pretty easy to overcome by being libidinous yourself so I don't quite mind. For the latter? It's kind of annoying. I think I can see what the idea is. Gravity Flux into Thermal Spike is supposed to be your first big damage combo which serves as general utility thanks to the trip mechanic and flight cancellation. But since it seems that flying enemies only take extra damage and keep flying while the trip is simply treated as a lost turn, it kind of just turns into a stall tactic until you get reality schism. Furthermore, there's generally no reason to take anything other than Thermal Sunder, Psytuned Vitality and Vitality Syphon as your first 3 skills. There are a LOT of enemies that get stronger after being disarmed in the early to mid game, and enemies that don't use weapons are highly resistant to Kinetic Damage in most cases regardless. Thermal Sunder is pretty balanced, but it definitely seems to shine a lot more compared to Kinetic Burst. Psyionic Shielding falls off extremely fast, and I feel as if it was supposed to restore shields in the same way that Psytuned Vitality did. But it doesn't, and so just tanking everything and wearing good armor with Psytuned Vitality seems to be the way to go. This is also why Vitality Syphon is so good too. An early, fat as fuck Second Wind isn't bad at all. In fact on the other 3 classes it would be broken. But the passive leech that Psytuned Vitality gives combined with the constant leech Vitality Syphon gives is way more applicable in most situations, especially considering Telekinetic Warrior's replaced attacks are considered a psychic ability.
Overall though, this is a pretty fun class. (Potentially) Not having to worry about certain weapon scaling and having constant, rarely resisted forms of damage in exchange for being physically weaker and relying on much more high end armors is a neat concept, and I hope this ties in to Cybernetics and more Power Armor content. As of completing the crashed ship on Phaedra, my build has maxed out Will and Int scores with some trained stats in Phys since Third Eye Aim isn't worth it over Telekinetic Warrior. By using the Chameleon Silk Robe, Levitation and Knuckle Busters I'm able to generally not take much damage in the first place, and using no Ranged Weapon I'm able to heal off most damage done without suffering too much energy loss when combined with Haste and the Leech.
Sounds to me like the tainted rusher isn't the only one who has a bugged disarm status.
I'm also having an issue with Gravity Crush not actually doing damage and basically wasting a turn and energy. I've also experienced Debris Field lasting through into the next fight.
If you could give a list, that would probably be helpful.
Is 0.9.067-PUBLIC#3772 Hotfix #2?
I've been testing the Trip fix with the Rough Leash, and everything from Myrellion, Uveto, Zheng Shi, Dhaal & Phaedra II still stand up immediately,
I'll need to go through it again to check everything but my standouts are Jasvalla (Which makes sense sort of considering she's supposed to be challenging anyway), The Tainted Rusher, The Soaked Rask, and the Nyrean mobs. I didn't go out of my way for much other than these, and simply respec'd in Myrelion after a few close calls. I imagine these have something to do with enemies that rely heavily on only one of their weapons, but to be sure I'd have to check the Bunhoppers and Vanae as well.
As an aside, since we have a skill called Mind Crush... Will we be getting an antiquated holo disk used for card duels as an accessory?