Winter Sleet impulse for Air/Water kineticist
Winter Sleet impulse for Air/Water kineticist
Might be an oddly specific post, but I've seen this recommended, and I'm just not sure I understand how it would be used effectively. Surely an air/water kineticist should be acting as a ranged spellcaster most of the time, in other words, not being within 10 feet of an enemy and especially not of multiple enemies. Furthermore, this impulse doesn't discriminate, so even if you were within 10 feet of all your enemies, you'd probably be within 10 feet of your allies too, subjecting them to a bunch of slippery bullshit as well.
Am I missing something about what makes this useful / not a detriment?
The level 4 class feat Safe Elements lets you exclude your allies from your aura.
Aha, that's one thing I overlooked. It would help for sure. It still doesn't solve the fundamental problem, though, that I feel like despite being a CON based class, an air/water kineticist probably is trying to avoid being within 10ft of the enemy.
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). Tidal Hands and the Water Impulse Junction allow you to push enemies if they get too in your face, which can save your taking a move action and keep enemies at the ideal spot for your aura.
Your frontliners without reach will probably be taking lots of hits just because threats will have to Balance over 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. If you have Free Archetype, you can go Rogue to get Nimble Dodge against attacks that Deflecting Wave won't cover and Mobility to make your Air Impulse Junction and other incidental positioning bulletproof.
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.
Even if you don't want to be in the mix actively debuffing with your aura and you want to be ranged, the Balance clause makes the aura function as a very strong deterrent zone. Balance requires that you be on uneven terrain to do it, meaning that an opponent outside your aura without reach would need to Stride to the square inside your aura and then use the Balance action to make it the last 5 feet without falling. It's now spent two actions just to get to you and it's off-guard for having taken all that trouble.
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 options you've already noted that don't synergize with Winter Sleet). 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.
Update: it's also worded so that if you get an opponent prone in your aura, they can't get back up. Standing is a non-Balance move action, which would render them prone again.