Here is the Updated Kinetics Guide v5.0 with changes and updates for Issues 4&5. Changes from the previous guide are marked with a * and listed at the bottom.
As always all effect numbers are the BASE UNENHANCED numbers. This should let you accurately figure your effect from these powers after applying enhancements.
Kinetics - The Defender's Guide
v5.0
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Transfusion (Level 1) - Transfusion is a AE heal power that is centered around the target. The area is fairly large
and extends slightly beyond the visible effect. Transfusion has one of the fastest activation times and recharges of all the AE heals. This is to compensate for the to-hit roll and target-centered nature of the power. Transfusion also halts the
target's regeneration for a short time.*
Stats:
Healing effect: Transfusion scales from 22.3 points of healing at level 1 to 238.81 points of healing at level 50,
this progression
is not strictly linear. The amount healed is a percentage of your HP, for Transfusion this amount is 23% of your base HP. Your base HP are your characters HP for your level without any modifiers including accolades.
Endurance Debuff: The target of this power will lose 10pts of endurance. This effect will vary depending upon the
relative level of the mob compared to yours.
Regneration Debuff: The target's regeneration is stopped for a short time.
Endurance Cost: 9*
Activation: 1s
Recharge: 8s
Range: 60ft
Area of Effect: 20ft around target
Base Accuracy: 90%
Duration: Instant/13s Regen Debuff
Enhancers Available: +ACC, +END Drain, -END, +Heal, +Range, -Rec
controller note: The healing ratio for controllers is 19.8% and the endurance debuff is 10pts of endurance.
Siphon Power (Level 1) - Siphon Power is a combination damage debuff/buff. It is a single target power and after landing a successful hit will provide a AE damage buff to all those around the user. The AE portion of this power covers a decent area and takes some practice to get it to affect the most teammates possible. Siphon Power is one of the great staples of the Kinetics set and I highly recommend learning how to use both the buff and debuff portion of this power to maximum effect.
Stats:
Damage Buff: The buff of Siphon Power is an even 25% to the base damage of an attack power. Other than time limitations and the maximum cap on a damage power there is no stacking limit to the amount of times this buff can be applied to a hero. This buff also stacks with the buff from Fulcrum Shift.
Damage Debuff: The debuff portion of siphon power is a 25% reduction in damage. This can be stacked on a target multiple times and the maximum debuff to a target's damage dealing potential is 90%. This effect scales with the relative level of the target.
Endurance Cost: 12*
Activation: 2s
Recharge: 20s
Range: 80ft
Area of Effect: 20ft around user
Base Accuracy: 75%
Duration: 30s
Enhancers Available: +ACC, -END, +Range, -REC
controller note: The buff for Siphon Power is 20% and the debuff is 20%.
Repel (Level 2) - Repel is a personal force field that will automatically knockback any enemy that touches its area of effect. Repel has use as both a personal/team protection power and as a lockdown power against dangerous enemies. Also Repel has a small chance per pulse to drop toggle powers in a PvP setting.*
Stats:
Knockdown Buff: The field is slightly larger than melee range and therefore is good, although not complete, protection from melee damage. The power has a continous endurance cost and will also use a small amount of extra endurance each time the field knocks an enemeny down. Note that enemies resistant or immune to knockback will ignore Repel. In PvP a target can only be knocked down once every 10s, this is called knockdown suppression.*
Toggle Drop: In PvP Repel has a 1% chance per pulse to drop a toggle power.*
Endurance Cost: 1 per pulse*
Activation: 1s
Recharge: 20s
Range: Melee
Area of Effect: Melee
Base Accuracy: n/a
Duration: Toggle
Enhancers Available: -END, +Knockback, -REC
controller note: The knockback distance is slightly less for a controller.
Siphon Speed (Level 6) - Siphon Speed is a combination movement and recharge debuff/buff. Like most kinetics powers it requires a successful hit against an enemy target and then provides the user with a boost to his movement and recharge. This power combined with Inertial Reduction can eliminate the need for a Kineticist to take a pool travel power.*
Stats:
Movement Buff: Siphon Speed provides a movement speed buff that applies to all movement powers, except Teleportation. This will increase ground movement to a speed slightly faster than base Super Speed. This effect scales with the relative level of the target.
Movement Debuff: Siphon Speed debuffs the target's movement speed considerably. Speed can only be reduced to a minimum of 10% of the creature's top speed. This effect scales with the relative level of the target.
Recharge Buff: Siphon Speed provides a 25% haste effect. This stacks with all other haste effects, including itself.*
Recharge Debuff: Siphon Speed debuffs the target's recharge by 25%. A mob cannot have its recharge reduced below 25% of its base recharge. This effect scales with the relative level of the target.*
Endurance Cost: 9*
Activation: 2s*
Recharge: 60s
Range: 80ft
Area of Effect: n/a
Base Accuracy: 75%
Duration: 60s
Enhancers Available: +ACC, -END, +Range, -REC, +Run, Slow
controller note: The speed buff and debuff is slightly less for a controller. The recharge debuff/buff is 20%.*
Increase Density (Level 8) - Increase Density is a ally targetted buff to damage resistance and protection from status effects. This is the first of kinetic's two ally targetted buffs. It provides decent protection as a resistance power, but
where it really shines is as a means to remove and protect from ill effects from mobs such as ink men and abberants. Increase Density has a slight disadvantage in that it slows the movement speed of the target slightly.
Stats:
Resistance Buff: Increase Density provides a base of 25% resistance against Smashing and Energy damage. Note that a character's damage resistance cannot exceed 90% for tanks, 85% for kheldians in dwarf form, and 70% for all other Archetypes.
Effects Buff: Increase Density provides a strong buff against Disorient, Hold, Knockback, and Immobilization effects. It also frees the target from these effects if they are active when hit with this power.
Speed Debuff: Increase Density debuffs the target's movement slightly.
Endurance Cost: 6*
Activation: 2s
Recharge: 3s
Range: 70ft
Area of Effect: n/a
Base Accuracy: n/a
Duration: 60s
Enhancers Available: -END, +Range, -REC, +RES
controller note: The resistance buff is 20%.
Speed Boost (Level 12) - Speed Boost is the second ally targetted buff in the kinetics line. This power has several beneficial effects which include an increase in movement speed, an increase in endurance recharge, a reduction to power recharge rates, and a protection from slow effects. This power is one of the staples of the kinetics line and is your first "high demand" grouping power.*
Stats:
Speed Buff: Speed Boost increases the target's movement speed to all movement powers, except teleportation, by a significant amount. The ground speed is slightly less than base Super Speed.
Endurance Buff: Speed Boost will improve the target's endurance regeneration by a base of .966 end/sec.
Recharge Buff: Speed Boost provides a 50% reduction to the recharge time of the target's powers.
Slow Buff: Speed Boost provides protection from slow effects.
Endurance Cost: 9*
Activation: 1s
Recharge: 2s
Range: 50ft
Area of Effect: n/a
Base Accuracy: n/a
Duration: 120s
Enhancers Available: -END, +END Recovery, +Range, -REC, +Run
controller note: The speed boost is slightly less, the endurance buff is .773 end/sec, and the recharge buff is 40%.
Inertial Reduction (Level 18) - Inertial Reduction is a AE movement power. It will provide all characters within the AE at the time of casting with the Super Jump power. This is a good personal travel power and can be very useful to groups as IR is faster than Flight and able to clear obstacles better than Super Speed. Unlike actual Super Jump, IR takes no endurance to use after the initial cost.
Stats:
Leaping Buff: IR grants all affected by it with the equivalent of the Super Jump power. All other leaping powers will stack with IR. Note that your maximum jump height will not increase, but instead your maximum jump length will improve.
Endurance Cost: 27
Activation: 2s
Recharge: 60s
Range: PBAoE
Area of Effect: 25ft around user
Base Accuracy: n/a
Duration: 60s
Enhancers Available: -END, +Jump, -REC
controller note: The leaping buff is slightly less for a controller.
Transference (Level 26) - Transference is a targetable endurance drain/endurance heal much like transfusion. Like transfusion this power is centered around the target and has to hit the target in order to function. This power is one of the most powerful abilities in the Kinetics line. The endurance drain of this power is a useful form of defense that can be used to negate powerful enemies since they no longer have any endurance to power their strongest attacks. See the addendum for a note on this power.
Stats:
Endurance Buff: All allies around the target will instantly receive a base of 60pts of endurance when this power goes off.*
Endurance Debuff: The target of this power will lose around 60pts of endurance. This effect scales with the relative
level of the mob to the user.*
Endurance Cost: 3*
Activation: 3s
Recharge: 30s
Range: 60ft
Area of Effect: 20ft around target
Base Accuracy: 90%
Duration: Instant
Enhancers Available: +ACC, -END, +END Drain, +END Recovery, +Range, -REC
controller note: The endurance buff and debuff are 40pts.
Fulcrum Shift (Level 32) - Fulcrum Shift is the crowning power of Kinetics and delivers upon its' promise of "dramatically turning the tide of battle". This power acts as a mass Siphon Power. The target of this power and enemies
within the AE get hit with a Damage Debuff. Each affected enemy then radiates an AE damage buff for you and any allies near that enemy. You also create an AE buff that is centered around you as well. Just a small cluster of enemies can easily add 100% damage to those in melee range and if you hit the right clusters its possible to stack icons from one side of the screen to the other. This power's effect also stacks with those of Siphon Power. This power can make every member of your team hit the +damage cap for their powers.
Stats:
Damage Buff: Fulcrum Shift provides one +25% damage buff per enemy affected by this power. In addition the user of this power radiates an AE buff that provides a +50% damage buff.
Damage Debuff]: Each target affected by Fulcrum Shift suffers a 25% reduction in his damage dealing. The target's damage cannot be reduced to less than 10% of his original damage. This effect scales with the relative level of the mob.
Endurance Cost: 18
Activation: 2s
Recharge: 60s
Range: 60ft
Area of Effect: 30ft around target, 20ft around other mobs, and 20ft around user. Maximum affected targets is 10 per use.*
Base Accuracy: 65%
Duration: 45s
Enhancers Available: +ACC, -END, +Range, -REC
controller note: The buff portion is 20% around the enemy and 40% around the user. The debuff is 20%.
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*Changes from v4.0 to v5.0
-- This guide integrates all issue 4 changes from the unpublished v4.5 of the kinetics guide and the issue 5 changes.
-- All kinetics powers received a change in endurance cost. For most this was a 20% reduction. Increase Density received a 50% reduction and Transfusion gained a 20% increase (I5).
-- Listed power change for Transfusion, regeneration halt (I4).
-- Listed power change for Repel, toggle drop in PvP and knockdown suppression in PvP (I4).
-- Listed power change for Siphon Speed, recharge buff/debuff (I4) and enhancement change (I5).
-- Listed power change for Speed Boost, slow protection (I5).
-- Listed power change for Transference, increased drain (I4).
-- Listed power change for Fulcrum Shift, AE target limit (I5).
-- Added short PvP note to the addendum (I4).
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Addendum to Guide:
--
Damage debuffing powers have a slightly odd "feature" that might make you come up with different then expected results. Damage debuff powers are affected by mob resistances, but not how you would normally think. (Siphon Power being a "energy" power you would normally expect mobs with energy resistance to be less affected by it, but this is not the case.) If a mob has a resistance, or vulnerability, to a certain type of energy
AND that mob has an attack that is based on that type of energy, the amount the damage will be debuffed is altered by the mobs resistance.
For example: A Freak Juicer has both a punch (a smashing attack) and an electric shock (an energy attack). Juicers are
vulnerable to energy attacks and have no resistance to smashing attacks. So for sake of the example the Juicer's punch and electric shock both do a base 100pts of damage. You lay down a Siphon Power on the juicer which debuffs his damage. His punch is now reduced by 25pts to doing 75pts (this is the expected 25% reduction in damage). However, since the Juicer has a 25% vulnerability to energy attacks his electric shock is actually debuffed an extra 25% beyond the base 25%, making the final debuff 31.25% (25% of 25 is 6.25) so the Juicer's electric shock only does 68.75 points of damage.
This works in reverse as well. A mob, such as Hamidon, with 90% resistance to all attack types would only be debuffed 2.5%. I realize this doesn't seem logical, but it is the way the game works for now.
-- You will notice that I mention that some effects "scale with relative mob level". Basically powers have lessened (or greater) effects on a mob if its level is higher (or lower) than yours. If you want to see the exact scaling please download
THIS spreadsheet. It has many useful tools that I have gathered for planning characters and slotting powers, especially for accuracy and debuffing or buffing effects.
-- Recharge reduction uses the X/(1+Y) formula, where X is base recharge and Y is the total amount of reduction expressed as a decimal.
-- Transference is a direct drain power. Therefore any enhancers that you place in either endurance recovery or endurance drain will directly affect the other aspect of the power. The amount you drain and gain will be identical. This number is fixed though, so even if the mob does not have enough endurance to drain the total amount you will gain the maximum amount you could have drained. As another note, transfusion is not a direct drain power and the amount of endurance drained is totally independant of the health given.
-- For Reference the base end regeneration rate is 1.66 end/sec.
-- PvP note: Kinetics powers will seem less effective in the arena for several reasons. First is that endurance drain
effects are 75% less effective in PvP than PvE. Second is that other kinetics effects only reduce the base unenhanced
numbers, not the final enhanced number. Finally the to-hit and melee nature of kinetics means that you need to be close and cannot always rely on hitting. Since PCs often have higher DEF than NPCs and tend to move around more, this can make life difficult for a kineticist in the arena. Kinetics buffs are still very powerful and learning to use your powers in a team setting can often overcome many of the PvP limitations.
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As always I appreciate comments and feedback.
I agree with Zyphoid. There really isn't a monolithic "VIP community" in this regard; one block of people who all generally think one way or the other. We frequently dissent and argue over exactly what free/premium players should and shouldn't have access to. Personally, I agree with you, that VIPs should embrace free/premium players more, make them feel welcome in the game.
In reality much of the attitude has gone away over the months since Freedom launched, but I was here when it launched and the vitriol was heavy then.