Kinetics: A Different Look v2.0

KINETICS: A DIFFERENT LOOK v2.0
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Introduction:

The following is a guide on the power set 'Kinetics', found as a Primary set in the Defender Archetype, and a Secondary set in the Controller Archetype. The Defender Primaries are known as Support or 'Buff/Debuff' sets. 'Buffing' is a term used for any power that increases the abilities of yourself or an ally, and 'Debuffing' is a term used for powers that decrease abilities, usually on an enemy.

Kinetics, at its core, is what most people would call a true buff/debuff set. Its difference from the other power sets lies in it's concentration on both single targets, and the 'damage output' of your allies and enemies, along with a few great utility powers. Kinetics can be a strange set at first glance, but for those that are interested in a different type of Defender, it can be quite rewarding.

Players will find that they can be quite effective at soloing with this set, or even hardcore-soloing, but I personally feel that doing so actually detracts from the true power of this build. Fulcrum Shift is a great area damage debuff, but having the damage buff aspect hit a team is more beneficial to me. In other words, I feel the build-to-team option is inherently stronger than the build-to-solo option. Since most other guides I see about kinetics purely focus on stats or soloing instead of strategies, I will step from the norm and give ideas, and hopefully give you a ‘different look’ at a rather fun set of powers from a more team-oriented position.

Incidentally, I personally feel that most defenders are at a loss when it comes to PvP, as it now stands. From the small testing I have done in the Arena, most of Kinetic’s effects are easily negated by inspiration use, forcing the player to adopt the ‘phase shift -> buff/heal -> re-phase’ loop. If you have any consistent Arena strategies you would like to see added to this guide, please contact me. Otherwise, I’m afraid that PvP puts Kinetics users at a distinct advantage outside of being a tragically simple ‘buffbot’.

As this is a Defender primary, I will concentrate mainly on discussing these powers with Defenders in mind. However, I will do my best to note the differences found when the Controller chooses this set as a secondary. Except where noted, keep in mind that controllers have roughly 80% of the effectiveness of each of the powers, in addition to getting them at much later levels.

PROS and CONS
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Why/Why not use the Kinetics powerset? Every set has pros and cons when compared to other sets, so I'll point out some of the more obvious ones that I've come across, or that I've heard asked about.


PROS:

++ Has it's own 'built in' transport powers, two of which can be used on allies, two on self.
~Siphon Speed (SipS - self) and Speed Boost (SB - ally) emulate Super Speed.
~Inertial Reduction (IR – PBAoE) emulates Super Jump .
~Currently, none of the powers are affected by Travel Suppression.

++ Capable of letting entire team hit the fabled ‘Damage Cap’.
~Fulcrum Shift, looked at as *THE* power of the set, allows this.

++ Can function relatively well in both attack and support roles.
~Some powers affect you as well, allowing you to do more, more often.
~Build can be targeted to function well in melee range, blaster range, or both.

++ Has two Endurance Recovery powers, Speed Boost (ally) and Transference (AoE)
~By eliminating the need to wait for endurance, you decrease downtime.

++ Has two Endurance draining powers, Transfusion, and Transference
~Works fantastic with Elec. Blast, and many builds use End drain as a focus.

++Probably the only set that lets you create a ‘Pure Build’, and still function.
~Multiple powers can replace entire sets of power pools.

CONS:

--Little direct damage mitigation. No self defense/resist buffs versus damage/status.
~ Set must rely on decreasing damage/speed of foes, or Repel for KB.
~ Increase Density (ID) only affects allies and resists only Energy/Smash damage.
~Although the set can drain endurance for protection, the Elec Blast line is needed
~Usage of power pools or APPs needed if choosing a soloing build.

-- Nearly all powers require a ‘to-hit roll’ on an enemy to have an effect.
~ Powers will require increased accuracy to get full, consistent benefits.
~ ‘Misses’ can cause you to burn endurance or hit points trying to get an effect.
~ Some powers are useless outside of combat, or if the mob dies during ‘casting’.

-- The only heal in the set requires a ‘to-hit roll’ *and* close proximity to the target mob.
~ This can cause your ‘rear line’ to be frustrated with not getting vital heals.
~ This requires you to be relatively close to the action to get healed.

-- Players can see your powerset as being minimally useful until later levels.
~ This can cause problems finding teams, especially if they only desire healing.

-- Powers have short durations, which can cause the dreaded ‘numb clicky finger’.
~ Most buffs have short durations, which means some battles, that’s all you’ll do.
~ Can be discouraging to newer players, making them feel like buffbots.
~ Some people don’t like staring at recharging powers instead of the battle.

Although I am sure there are many other valid points, these are the ones I see or hear most often, especially from new players. Defenders are already hampered by the forced idea that ‘Blue Shield icon=Healing’ so having an eclectic powerset can be a chore to explain continually.

POWERS
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Transfusion (lvl 1) Ranged (Foe AoE), Foe –End, Foe –Regen, Team Heal

Game Description: Transfusion (TFZ)drains an enemy of some endurance and transfers that energy, in the form of hitpoints, to allies near the affected foe. You can use Transfusion to heal yourself as well as your allies.

Explanation: This is a basic heal that requires you to hit an enemy with, which will then cause a comparatively large ‘healing aura’ to emit from them. This is both a boon and a curse. Although the Area of Effect (AoE) of the ‘aura’ is quite large, it’s usually only useful for your allies that are in range… which are usually the scrappers, tankers, and melee builds of other archetypes. Your rear-line blasters will either have to get up the guts to stay close enough for the heal, or complain about them not getting proper ‘heal love’. A nice side effect of this power is that it drains a small chunk of endurance out of the mob targeted. Although not much, it can add up quickly when combined with Transference, or Electric-based powers. Finally, this area heal is quite strong and fast compared to other area heals, and a few single-targets.

Play Tips: This can make you big friends with tankers and scrappers, and big enemies with blasters and controllers. Since not only does it need a bad guy to ‘fire’, it’s also centered on the bad guy… which can easily spell doom for those too far away from the effect, or those already high-tailing for cover. And if you target an enemy with it that dies, the power fires, but you get no effect. I believe this is currently a bug, but I have yet to get any definitive answer from repeated petitioning/bug reports. Because of these quirks, you’ll either have to explain this healing power often, or even skip it altogether. Yes…. People skip the heal. And yes, you can slot it for endurance drain instead, which will not add to the healing numbers, unfortunately. TFZ is very useful against certain mobs and AVs due to the –regen component. For a short while, the enemy struck by this is unable to regenerate, and can really put the hurt on a big boss or AV, since they wont be able to regenerate that big HP bar back any time soon.



Siphon Power (lvl 1) Ranged, AoE on Self

Game Description: You can siphon the power from a targeted foe, reducing his damage potential. The power is transferred back to you, increasing your own damage potential, and that of all nearby allies.

Explanation: Depending on the style of your build, this can easily become a ‘bread and butter’ power for you. After the ‘animation’ of SipP occurs (and it actually hits), you’ll have a nice AoE damage buff centered on yourself, while decreasing the target’s damage. This can be used both offensively and defensively, and it can stack. Keep in mind that there is a damage debuff floor you can reach, which is around 80-90%, depending on the enemy.
Example 1.) KineticsMan is fighting a minion by himself. Upon a successful hit with SipP, the minion now has a -25% damage debuff on him, and KineticsMan gets a +25% damage buff. With the extra damage available, KineticsMan is able to defeat his enemy quickly.

Example 2.) KineticsMan is fighting a lieutenant and a minion by himself. Upon a successful hit with SipP, the lieutenant gets the -25% damage debuff. This decreases the incoming damage enough to where KineticsMan is able to defeat both enemies quickly, and without as much chance for death.

Example 3.) KineticsMan is in a mission with 3 of his friends. Through the powers of Hasten, Siphon Speed, and AM (Accelerate Metabolism, a power of the Radiation Emission line), and a line of 6 SO Recharge reductions, he is able to spam his Siphon Power and hit a nearby boss a total of *4* times with SipP, stacking 4 different icons of SipP onto himself, his friends, and the poor boss. The boss now has a total of -90% damage on him, and KM and company have a total of +100% damage! The heroes are able to dispatch their foe with alarming speed and a minimal chance of being killed thanks to the double-effect of SipP’s damage debuff/buff.

Playtips: Because this power can stack, and continue to add effects each time, it is popular to slot it heavily with recharge reductions, and combine it with hasten. Against a single foe, you can easily drop them to minimal damage-dealing, while effectively doubling (+100% for 4) your own attacks, and any nearby allies in the power’s AoE. For reference, 100% is a hair more than 3 damage SO’s. Also, this is one of the only forms of defense that the Kinetics line has… reducing the amount of damage the enemy can deal. Generally speaking, it can take as little as two SO recharge reducers to get around 3 seconds of double-stacking, but many people choose to slot it a bit more, to at least have 1 accuracy and 3 rechargers. This can help you in your lower levels for the damage decrease/increase it will give you (especially against hard-hitting bosses), and in later levels, you’ll end up using it specifically to reduce bosses to the damage levels of minions. I feel it’s quite useful, even in the end game, especially for those nasty Praetorian AVs. However, be careful, as this counts as an energy attack, and can be resisted as such. You’ll still get the +dmg benefit, but your target will have a reduced –dmg modifier if they have heavy energy resistance. Also, the range on this (and Siphon Speed) can be useful as a pulling technique. Since they do no damage, they have a smaller chance of aggro’ing the rest of the group. And since you’ll get them doing less damage, the alpha strike would be markedly reduced. Much thanks to forum-goer Glowworm_Nexus and their buddy Southern.Cross for pointing that out.



Repel (lvl 2) Toggle: PBAoE Knockback (small AoE)

Game Description: Repel creates a zone of kinetic energy that violently repels nearby foes. Each villain that is repelled costs additional endurance.

Explanation: This creates a rather tight circle of knock-back around you, just a bit larger than melee range. This is Kinetics’ second answer to self-defense: If the opponent is flying through the air, they cannot attack. This power is heavy on end drain, especially since you can get it as early as level 2, and SO’s aren’t widely available until as late as level 22. However, due to it’s knock-back potential, it can be used as both an ‘OH CRAP!’ power, when swarmed with too many enemies to deal with, or as ‘Boss Incapacitation’ by keeping a boss in near-perpetual lockdown from knockdown. This power emits ‘pulses’ while it’s on, and each pulse generates a large non-damaging KB in a spherical shape around you. I hesitate to say this, but due to the quick amount of pulses, a whole ton of enemies in the game (save those immune or super-resistant to KB) can be put down with this power, including many bosses. Granted, resistance can mean you might stand next to the enemy watching your endurance bar get sucked away, but generally within the first 3 seconds or so, they’ll fall down, if not get knocked back. But otherwise, this is a great power for ‘keep away’, or if you just want to have fun knocking minions off rooftops. Also, this power can be used for pseudo-herding (gasp!), by knocking all the mobs into the same corner. The endurance cost, however, keeps this from being a ‘turn on and leave on’ power. And, like a lot of KB powers, hovering/jumping over the enemies turns it into a knock down, instead of a knock back, so keep that in mind if you enjoy hovering.

Playtips: This is the most hated power of the set, due to it not dealing damage, using an inordinate amount of endurance, and needing practice to use effectively. If you are more interested in dealing damage, you are better off *not* picking this power. Most players will drop this power in favor of any other power, including group teleport, due to its characteristics. Not all my characters have this power, but that’s mainly due to character concept. If you are using this as your “oh crap!” power, you’ll want to put a recharge or two in the power, just to have it come up when you need it. If you really want to use it effectively, however, you’ll have to put at least another slot or two of endurance cost reduction into it to save your precious blue-bar. I have seen multiple kinetics defenders use this power in ways that would make Lord Recluse himself cry (unless he’s totally immune to KB), just because the KB powers can keep an entire section of mobs stuck in the corner and not fighting. The only downfall is that occasionally enemies will get a hit on you in between pulses, and since this adds zero to your resists or defense, you’ll take the full brunt of the blow at full to-hit chances. This is not a bad power, it just doesn’t do damage, so it is usually left out of most builds. I advise you to try it, and then ‘spec it out if you find other powers you would rather use. Some final uses: It’s great for annoying Storm defenders when they realize they’re not the only ones that can use KB for fun and profit, and there’s just something fun about knocking back a mob high in the air, yelling ‘Pull!’ and letting everyone (and yourself) try killing the mob before it hits the ground.



Siphon Speed (lvl 6) Ranged, Foe –speed, -recharge, Self +speed, +recharge, Res Slow

Game Description: You can siphon the speed from a targeted foe, slowing his movement while speeding your own.

Explanation: Another combo debuff/buff, this power is similar to SipP but affects speed, and only affects you. This will reduce the travel speed and recharge rates of your enemy by about 25%, and increase your speed to *roughly* just below Super Speed levels, as well as giving you about a 25% increase to your recharge rates. 25% is not much, compared to the 70% of hasten, the 50% of Speed Boost (a later kinetics power), or the 25% AoE of Accelerated Metabolism, but it does have quite a few strong points. First, it can stack, meaning much like SipP, SipS can be used continually on the same mob to slow it to a crawl. Secondly, the speed stacks, but isn’t noticeable after the first two, possibly due to the rate of diminishing returns, and the fact that it can be insanely hard to stack 3 for any length of time.

Playtips: I feel that Kinetics can do quite fine without any travel powers, and this power is the first reason why. This can easily become your default travel power, despite needing an enemy to “suck speed” from. One notable effect is that it is currently *not* affected by suppression like most travel powers are. Once slotted for stacking (and/or combined with Hasten) this power really starts to shine. Repeated stackings can cause you to bypass Super Speeders, and beat even teleporters to the mission door. Keep in mind that this does not have the ‘stealth’ effect of Super Speed, so you can run the chance of barreling into a suddenly-spawning group of mobs bent on causing you debt, death, and destruction. This power becomes infinitely useful pre-14, especially if you combine it with ‘Recall Friend’. You can easily get around even more difficult areas to faraway mission doors (deep in the Hollows, anyone?) and teleport your entire team there, saving time, effort, and possible debt. By itself, that recharge rate buff, stacked or not, is by no means a perfect hasten replacement, but when combined with hasten, can make you an insane super-power-clicking crazyperson. Just make sure to have it suitably slotted with accuracy, because the recharge rate without hasten or SipS buff can be quite intolerable. Just keep in mind that this power *requires* a to-hit roll, and a mob to hit. There *will* be times in your travels that everyone will fly by you because all you have to pick from are a bunch of +5 purple minions to suck speed from. Other times, you’ll laugh as the slowbies try to keep up with your mad dashing around maps. And for those of you bent on taking Hover, The speed stacks with it, making it a bit easier to fly around. Finally, the speed buff is enough to overcome 1 or possibly 2 ‘Slow’ effects on your hero, which is great for caltrop fields. For those interested, if you are able to have 3 SipS stacked on yourself, you basically get the effect of hasten, which is just about 70% reduction in recharge times.



Increase Density (lvl 8) Ranged, Ally +Res( Hold, Immobilize, Disorient, Knockback, Smashing/Energy damage), -SPD

Game Description: Increases an ally’s mass, freeing them from any Disorient, Immobilization, or Hold effects and leaving them resistant to such effects for a while. Increase Density also protects the target from Knockback, as well as Smashing and Energy Damage. Because the target grows more dense, their movement speed is slowed. You cannot use this power on yourself.

Explanation: The first true nod to stereotypical defendering, this is a single target buff for your allies. It focuses on removing 3 status effects (and gives resist to them) while adding some KB protection and a 25% Energy/Smashing damage resistance. The first thing to note is that this buff has had a pretty short duration. The duration is about 60s and is good for a few teammates, but if you have a full 8 man party, you’ll definitely notice how short it is. Other than that, it’s got some nice status resists, especially for those scrappers and tankers in your group. Mezzes can quickly spell doom for your teammates, making it quite useful to have. It can also be used to break those holds, so it’s useful after-the-fact as well. I have yet to notice any appreciable effect of the ‘slowing’, but I usually follow this up with a Speed Boost to prevent any problems.

Playtips: I get mixed reactions about this power. Some demand it stay on them 24/7, others could care less if you even have it in your build. It has a relatively quick casting time, which is great to get your allies out of a few mez loops. Depending on the concept, you can slot this any way you like, but if you’re planning on using it heavily for buffs/protection, I’ve found that a recharge reduction or two works wonders in keeping it in-line with Speed Boost, making it easier to hit your party members with quick 1-2 combo buffs whenever the original buffs start to drop. I don’t think the Slow effect does anything, whether it’s by design, or a bug, or if it’s something I don’t notice. The 25% Smash/Energy buff can be quite useful, especially against bosses/AV’s that like to smash/use energy, and it can be increased easily. Hardcore/Solo/Offender builds usually opt out of this power the second-most (Repel being the first), due to the fact that it’s ally-only. I feel it’s great in a team, due to both the mez-breaking and the large combo of resists. It’s also great one-slotted with a recharge or a resist enhancement, if you’re saving slots for other powers. I personally use this as a reactive power instead of a proactive power, due to the extremely short duration. If you’re interested in keeping this on your whole team, understand that you *will* be using this constantly, especially on an 8 man team. The casting time is about 2 seconds, with a recharge of about 3 seconds, with a total time of 5 seconds. If you cast it on everyone in your 8 man group (7, since you can’t buff yourself), you’ll spend about 35 seconds *just* buffing everyone. And then 25 seconds later, you’ll have to do it again. Unless you plan on spending slots on this for recharge and endurance reduction, you might want to use this proactively only in smaller groups, or reactively whenever you see someone go ‘zzz’.


Speed Boost (lvl 12) Ranged Ally, +Speed, +Recharge, +Recovery, Res Slow

Game Description: You can hasten a single targeted ally. The target’s movement speed, attack rate, and Endurance recovery are all greatly increased. You cannot use this power on yourself.

Explanation: Probably the most requested power out of any Defender set outside of Force Fields and Healing, this power wraps up a mini-superspeed, mini-hasten, and Stamina all in one tidy package. The Stamina portion is about .9/sec, which actually makes it almost as good as the real stamina, and can be slotted higher. The mini hasten adds about a 50% reduction in recharge rates, as compared to Hasten’s 75% and Accelerate Metabolism’s 25%. The Super Speed portion puts your ally at just a bit under real-SS speed, but it still quite a benefit. Add in the fact that this power can be gotten at 12, before Superspeed, Stamina, and perma-Hasten are available, and you’ll see why this is so asked for.

Playtips: If you’re a team player, this will be your first game changing power. Chances are you’ll only ever hear this referred to as “sb plz kthxbai”, “hey u sb”, or “PLAES PL ME WIT UR SB” or “Storm Defenders are Better”, but you’ll eventually decipher the codes and reply with a quick-targeted Speed Boost to the requestor. Unfortunately, because of all these benefits, you’ll probably learn to hate this power. People will demand it from you if they see it in your power list, and will call you dirty expletives for not immediately dispensing with the power whenever commanded. If you do not have it in your build, and you team with people, the other heroes will make fun of you, and secretly plot your demise. Other defenders will scrawl terrible dirty lies about you on bathroom walls when they realize how nifty this power is whenever you use it. Then, you’ll have a few people who are desperately afraid of anything faster than a slow plod, and will call you an equal amount of dirty expletives for using this on them. This power, in and of itself, can totally change team dynamics, especially before levels 20+. In a team, you’ll want this running on every member, and you’ll want to re-cast it every time it drops. With just one SO end recovery enhancement, you can nearly double someone’s endurance recovery. Allies with powers in desperate need of recharge SO’s will now be easier to cast with that 50% reduction in recharge time. Before the days of Perma-Hasten and Perma-Accelerate-Metabolism, this power can save your team, or kick it into overdrive. Although it can be a pain to keep an entire 8 man team fully SB’d, that 50% reduction is insane… imagine having almost two SO’s worth of recharge in each of your allies powers before they even have a full set of DOs? And a nice boost to endurance recovery to help keep their blue bars running full? Exactly. This is a truly awesome team power that should definitely be given attention if you like to group up. Incidentally, it gives a nice travel power to those who don’t have one, especially if you’re able to SipS off of badguys and need your team to keep up. This also stacks with Hover, so your flying allies will have an easier time maneuvering around the battlefield. Interestingly enough, this power can be slotted with both run speed and end recovery enhancements, so you can go a few different ways. One time I had this 6-slotted with run speed SO’s (note: I believe the runspeed caps with just 2 SO’s), just to watch lvl 7’s zip across The Hollows at sound-breaking speeds. Unfortunately, they sometimes zipped neatly into a group of +6 bad guys, but hey… you can still slot it for speed! For me, 3 end recoveries is plenty for most of my uses, giving a better-than-stamina effect, and still saving slots. However, if you enjoy watching everyone’s blue bars stay relatively full, 6 slots of end recoveries will make that a definite possibility. On the flip side, keep in mind that the speed portion can be used to get your friends out of being Slowed, especially on those nasty Tsoo caltrops. Finally, you can also use this in combo with ID for someone using an awaken, especially in combat… Toss the ID first to remove the disorient, then the SB will start recharging their endurance. While it’s nothing to match a true resurrection power, it helps immensely when things go poorly for your team.


Inertial Reduction (lvl 18) PBAoE, +Jump

Game Description: You can reduce your Inertia, along with that of all nearby allies. The affected heroes can then jump incredible distances for a while.

Explanation: Everyone around you in a rather large radius effectively gets the power “Super Jump” for 60 seconds. The recharge rate on this power is also 60 seconds. So, it starts out being perma, and gives you another travel power to use, this one requiring no to-hit, and usable anywhere.

Playtips: My favorite power of the set, bar none. With SipS, I can emulate super speed. With IR, I can emulate Super Jump. With most kinetic builds I make, I pick no travel powers thanks to these two. IR is also great for those in your group that love using Super Speed… it will actually give them some ability to negotiate some tougher deep/high levels, such as Terra Volta and Faultline. And again, there’s nothing like seeing the chaos you can create by casting this at the exit from the Hollows. Instant party maker as everyone instantly feels the need to jump for the next 60 seconds. This power does no damage, and doesn’t affect enemies in any way. However, I feel it’s useful for a team build, just because it can help out those with super-speed (gives them vertical movement), flight (IR is faster), and teleport (Saves endurance). And since it’s part of your power set, you’ll effectively have a slot you could use in a different power pool. Super Jump requires two powers, and can be gotten at 14. This requires only one power, and it’s not affected by suppression (Jousters rejoice!). This power does not need to be slotted to be effective, but I know a few people that sometimes add another endurance reduction to help cut down costs. The endurance cost is negligible unless you run plenty of toggles, since it only costs 34, and lasts for 60 seconds. This power is often replaced by the ‘Leaping’ line for those interested in solo play (or more defense), because the Leaping line gives you access to both Super Jump, and two great anti-status powers: Combat Jumping and Acrobatics. The two powers are enough to keep you out of most immobilizes and holds, so it might be worth looking into. (See Power Pool below for more info). For a final note, using the ‘rock skip’ (tapping the jump button while running, giving you low-height hops) method, you can travel quite quickly when you don’t have a target to SipS off of, because the increase in jump speed translates to quicker groundspeed, even while indoors.


Transference (lvl 26) Ranged Foe AoE, Target –End, Team +Recovery

Game Description: Transference (TFE) drains an enemy of some of his Endurance and transfers that Endurance to all allies near the affected foe. You can use Transference to recover endurance for yourself as well as your allies.

Explanation: This works exactly as your Transfusion heal, except instead of getting HP back, you get back endurance. You can drain roughly 60 endurance, and get back about the same amount. Depending on the mob level, this effect varies greatly. On most minions, you can drain anywhere from half to almost all of their endurance with just one of these. On most bosses, you can take anywhere from a sliver to a half of their endurance. And, fair warning, there’s quite a few enemies ‘resistant’ or ‘immune’ to endurance drain, such as plenty of AVs, sappers, FF generators, and a few others, including those mobs higher level than you. The good thing is that you’ll still usually get your normal amount of endurance back, but you won’t have as much of an effect on the mob.

Playtips: Wow… another total game changer. By the time other people have 6 slots in your stamina (Lvl 20, all slots 21 & 23, 1 from 25), you show up fashionably late at 26 with this showstopper. Base Endurance for everyone (barring accolades) is 100pts. You can get 60 points base if this power hits something, and you’re in the AoE. This can, will, and always will be an excellent substitute for Stamina, especially if you’re saving your slots for other powers. Although I appreciate Stamina, I don’t feel it should be the cornerstone of every build I hear about. This power, combined with your Speedboost, should keep you and your teammates from ever having to stand idly by and wait for endurance to charge. Add a hasten, or a few recharge reducers (or both) and this becomes a power you can toss multiple times a battle. With 3 recharges and 3 Endurance Recoveries, You can toss one of these about once every 15 seconds, and roughly fill up your entire bar when it hits. Or, slot it with 6 rechargers and giggle as you toss it out every 8 seconds. Also, this one is slightly different than Transfusion in the way they deal with enhancements. Transfusion can accept Endurance Drain enhancements, which have negligible (if any) effect on the healing properties. In other words, if it heals everyone for 250 hp, and sucks 10 endurance out of the enemy, adding 6 ED enhancements will just affect the endurance drain. However, Transference can accept endurance drains, and will effectively increase the amount of drain and the amount of return you’d get. In other words, if you are draining now for 80pts of endurance, you’ll get 80 endurance back. The interesting thing is that Endurance Recovery enhancements will give the same effect, but will actually do better over the long run, because they’re not resisted like endurance drain is. In other words, if you use drain enh, you’ll get mixed numbers (70,80,50,etc). If you use recovery enh, you’ll get straight solid numbers (80, 80, 80). Longer story shorter, if you slot this for draining, use recovery enhancements, not drain enhancements… you’ll see a much bigger difference.


**Side note**
In all honesty, there is nothing wrong with taking Stamina in addition to this power, or instead of this power. Stamina works 24/7, while this power works only in battle, and only if it hits. However, given the effect of the power, I feel it’s much stronger and useful than stamina, for a whole lot less slots, and a lot less powers. In addition, Stamina only affects you, where transference can affect your whole team, or at least whoever is surrounding the monster you target. Can you pick both? Yes. Can you pick one but not the other? Yes. However, in respect to this guide, I feel that Kinetics is a perfect ‘team’ player, and those slots and powers are better used in other areas. As a Kinetics user, you have the capability to totally replace the need for any of your team members to take any of the fitness pool powers. Between Speed Boost (which can give nearly double the stamina effect, plus ‘benefits’) and Transference, you can remove the chance for most of your group to run out. As a side effect of all this endurance recovery, your allies will use less ‘blue insps’, and can probably spare you one or two if you ever run low or miss too many transfers. I feel that too many new players are instantly swayed by the current belief that “Stamina is mandatory for every build”, when in all honesty, it usually isn’t. If you’re going for maximum DPS and a few required respecs to get the ‘most’ out of your build, then yes, you’re going to want stamina, because you’ll be needing extra damage enh instead of slotting endurance reducers. Plain and simple, your play style may require Stamina and Transference both fully slotted, or you may not require either. The only way you can test this out for yourself is to do just that… test it out for yourself. Team-based PvE Kinetics defenders shouldn’t need Stamina, and that’s the way I feel.


Fulcrum Shift (lvl 32) Ranged Foe AoE, Foe –Damage, Team +Damage.

Game Description: Fulcrum Shift drains the power of a targeted foe and all foes nearby, transferring it to all adjacent allies, the caster, and those near the caster. Affected foes will deal less damage, while your affected allies will deal more. The more foes that are affected, the more power your allies receive. Fulcrum Shift can dramatically turn the tide of a melee battle.

Explanation: The ‘level 9’ power of the set, and it’s the crowning jewel. You know how SipP works, right? Well imagine that when you used SipP, it also made an aura like transfusion or transference. Now imagine if any enemy in the range of that aura were also equally debuffed. Now imagine if all those enemies buffed any allies in range of them for as many enemies were debuffed. Oh, and since you cast it, you get an extra 50% buff. Get the picture? Confused? Roughly speaking, if you were to hit 6 enemies with this power (quite easy, even solo on heroic settings), you could effectively get 200% extra damage for a while (50% buff + 25%x6 buff=200% buff). If you have your attacks minorly slotted (3 dmg SO’s, or less if you have one or two SipP icons floating), you can hit what’s called the ‘damage cap’ with your defender, as it all adds up to you doing a total of 300% more damage. I hate numbers, so just keep in mind that a group of 8 heroes can practically decimate a large amount of foes quite quickly with only one well placed Fulcrum Shift, especially if it hits a group of 10 or more.

Playtips: Oh. Em. Gee. This is the reason why people play Kinetics. All enemies affected get your standard 25% damage debuff. You and any nearby allies get +25% for each enemy hit by the FS, plus some extra emits from you. Hit 6 guys? 150%. 10 guys? 250%. And it stacks with itself, you can hit the same group twice. Keep in mind that every archetype has what’s called a ‘damage cap’ which basically means “This is the most damage a hero can do with a given power at their level”. What this can do is *almost* make up for not having lots of damage enhancement slots in your Secondary blasts. This also stacks with your normal SipP effect, so you can get a few nice rows of icons covering up your screen in a good battle. Because this is so useful and easy to pull off, I find myself slotting my attacks for damage less and less. Although some people believe that the AoE limit of i5 severely hampers the effect of FS, I don’t really see too much of a problem. I tend to slot it heavy for rechargers, and when a team of 6-8 people are all hitting their damage cap, even an extremely large group of mobs can be whittled down in short order, especially if the team has their own AoE attacks. The one problem I *can* see is for those more interested in the damage debuff of mobs. Whoever doesn’t get hit by your FS will still do max damage, but I’ve had hectic battles where enemies weren’t tightly grouped enough for me to hit them all anyway, and I still survived. Again, I’ve yet to see any huge problem with this, but I tend to team more than solo, especially since FS is more team-oriented than solo-oriented. Besides… 10 guys doing 25% less damage pales in comparison to 8 different 100pt AoE attacks doing 300%-500% more damage. Ever get in an all blaster/defender group? You’ll see what I mean.


***What’s a Battery?***
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Many of the kinetics powers are given an extra boost compared to other similar powers due to the fact that they require ‘live targets’, and generally, a close proximity to them. This is the reason why many Kinetics users have adopted the term battery much like how other powersets have used the term ‘anchor’. A battery is a mob that is allowed to enter amongst the friendly group, and then slept, held, or otherwise mezzed to keep it inactive. As long as the mob stays alive, the kinetics can use this enemy as a ‘battery’ to keep everyone around it ‘charged’ with health and endurance by repeatedly using transfusion and transference. Forum-goer Eisregen offers his strategy:
[ QUOTE ]

Requirements: A single target Hold or Immobilize -- Fear, Sleep or Disorient will do in a pinch. Tesla Cage works fine for this, as will any Controller set or a power like Electric Fence from the Electrical APP. Teleport Foe or Challenge will be helpful but not required.

Isolate an enemy from the herd, mez them, advise the squishies to hug that enemy. This is better explained ahead of time, of course. Now you have an anchor [battery]to use Transfusion (or even Transference if needed) on your backfield. A bit on the complicated side, I know. But in a longer battle it's proven thoroughly useful. And yes, my Controller does have Challenge... why?

[/ QUOTE ]

By using the Battery technique, you can keep a mob in your group for easy heals/endurance boosts, siphons, you name it, and if your team remembers to not carve the held mob into itty bitty pieces, you can effectively have your own Devouring Earth style pet that keeps your team alive against all but the heaviest onslaughts. This works great for your rear line, who might not be inclined to go charging at the enemy like many scrappers and tankers.




SECONDARY/PRIMARY POWERS
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The first separation between Controllers and Defenders will be found here. Defenders get this set as a primary, so their entire outlook for the game is vastly different than a controller. In other words, I will explain what secondaries a defender has to choose from, and explain how a controller primary will benefit from kinetics.

Keep in mind that Kinetic Defenders have a few minor holes in their defenses. First, these Defenders get no status protection. Secondly, Kineticists get no direct damage mitigation for themselves (No stealth, no bubbles, etc). Thirdly, almost all of their powers must hit to have any effect. Now I know that can be said for every set in the game, but when your only defense is to hope you can stack 2-3 SipP’s (Or a vitally needed Transfusion/Transference) on that AV you’re helping beat down, you’ll go insane watching all those MISS! Comments float up over their head.


Defenders- Secondary Power Set
The blast secondaries are all nice since they all mesh quite well with Kinetics. Your best bet is to focus on what you want your hero to do, and how you want to accomplish it, and that will possibly help you pick your secondary. I’ll explain each below, with what I feel is the strength of each set. These comments are made with the strengths and weaknesses of the Kinetics line, as a whole, in mind. One last note, if you choose to use SipP and FS a lot (heavy recharge slotting/perma-hasten), you can slot your attacks for their secondary status effects instead of damage. A 6-slotted Damage SO power can do quite a bit of damage off-hand, but 6-slotted for accuracy debuff or defense debuff can turn a tough battle into a cakewalk. For this simple reason, take a look at your favorite set’s PBAoE or Cone attacks. These powers usually increase your risk by forcing you to be extremely close to the enemies, but they give you rewards in spades by usually giving a highly powerful version of your favorite set’s status effect. I’ll refer to these as Specials, because they have special effects, and it reminds me of old-school gaming. To get the most out of those specials, 6 slot them with their status effect (-accy, -def, -end, etc)

Electrical Blast (Endurance Drain): The Electrical Blast line focuses on damage, with a status effect of – Endurance, or more appropriately, Endurance Drain. Short Circuit should become the cornerstone of this build, along with transfusion and transference to capitalize on the amount of endurance drained, and thanks to Short Circuit’s –Recovery, keep it drained. Used effectively, a Kin/Elec defender can ruin the enemy’s chance of counterattack as they wait for endurance. I enjoy this type of build, as it fits well with my playstyle, and those I play with. If the enemy isn’t able to attack, they’re not able to damage us. You can also slot your blasts for endurance drain instead of damage, especially once you obtain Fulcrum Shift. You won’t see the massive drain that a 6-SO slotted Short Circuit or Transference can do, but it helps against the few pesky mobs that retain that eensy bit of blue left in the bar or were outside of the effect entirely. This power set is excellent for those who like to get close into battle and help out your tankers and scrappers. And even though I’m personally annoyed that SC isn’t the ‘super critical-inducing robot destroyer’ power that the game description says it is, it’s still pretty useful against non-robot foes. If you choose to go the non-draining route, you’ll still have Aim and Tesla Cage at your disposal, along with a level 9 targeted (not PBAoE) nuke, and a sentinel (think pseudo-pet) that can help you dish out damage… or get more aggro. Keep in mind that with this set, Endurance Drain can become a valid defense, as enemies without endurance cannot make any big attacks (and sometimes small ones), which is almost the same as a hold in many cases. Short Circuit is this set’s special, and as described above, can effectively eliminate an enemies endurance bar for a short while.

Radiation Blast (Defense Debuff): This set works well if you don’t want to slot as many accuracy enhancements. These blasts all have – Defense attributes, which will help your siphon’s hit more often. Cosmic Burst also has a disorient attribute, so it helps reduce some incoming damage for a while, and let you fire off a few more siphons without fear of retaliation. Irradiate is quite useful for the extra defense debuff it has, and can be the perfect wedge under those enemy shields to get your powers to hit. Slotting for defense debuff can really make the difference, especially against elite bosses and AV’s. In any event, you’ll find that the powers in this set are generally quite quick, which can allow you to spread out your defense debuffs evenly between your enemies. And a team that hits 95% of the time is much better than a team that hits only 75% of the time. Irradiate is this set’s special, and can very nearly bottom out the enemies defense, making them sitting ducks.

Dark Blast (Accuracy Debuff): This set is a great pick for adding some defense to your Kineticist. These blasts all have –Accuracy attributes, which in a heated battle, can save your rear. Proper slotting can drop enemy accuracy to the floor, and things like SipP and FS can make up for the damage. You also get an early Snipe attack, and a disorient (Dark Pit) and an immobilize (Tenebrous Tentacles)… all great for team action, and either increasing the chance you’ll do more damage, or decrease the amount of damage coming in. Also, with three cone attacks, you have the opportunity to spread the damage from your Siphons and FS across a group of bad guys at a time. Don’t knock accuracy debuffs… Some of your powers are strong enough to drop enemy accuracy by a large margin, and they can stack upon one another. An enemy that hits 5% of the time is better to fight than one that hits 95% of the time. Dark Blast sacrifices a PBAoE special to get two cones, Tenebrous Tentacles and Dark Pit. Tenebrous tentacles combines an AoE with a –Accy debuff, and Dark Pit gives a disorient with a rather long duration. 6-slotting either can give you a unique special to use on those close-up mobs.

Energy Blast (KB/Damage): This set is usually picked for the large amount of single-target direct damage it’s capable of. However, do not discount the KB effects. Enemies that are busy getting knocked down aren’t attacking you, which can give you the extra bit of time you need to focus on another enemy, or fire off some other powers. Warning: If Repel annoyed you, EB will annoy you more. Don’t forget that both Transfusion and Transference require you to be within range of your target to get the benefit, and reckless KB’ing can leave you stranded. I enjoy this set just because it makes me *feel* powerful. Enemies flying through the air gives a pretty good visceral rush, and combined with some of the damage, can make you feel a bit more like a blaster than a defender. EB is another set that’s uses often for solo builds just for those reasons. In addition, EB comes with the ‘Aim’ power, which is good for your alpha strikes. Oh, and sometimes the game will let you juggle an enemy with repeated blasts, giving you extra KB/KD, especially if you fire at an enemy you just Repelled. I’d have to say that either Energy Torrent or Power Push would be this set’s special. Energy torrent has an amazingly wide and long cone with a high chance of knockdown (and high damage… great for FS) while Power Push has a near 100% knockdown rate. Depending on your view, either can be six-slotted for maximum KB effect.

Psychic Blast (Status/Damage): This set usually gets poked fun at, but can become powerful later on, usually around lvl 10. User’s generally focus on their primary until Psychic Scream is available. Despite having two starter blasts that are slow to activate, the set is more of a jack-of-all-trades than anything. 4 powers with –recharge help reduce the amount of attacks coming your way, and are complemented greatly by siphon speed’s slow debuff. There’s also an immobilize to keep a baddie nicely planted for easy siphon/TF access, along with some disorients and a sleep. These powers are good for helping mitigate the damage you get coming in by taking a bit of each of the other power sets, adding in some pseudo-controls and mixing them together. Psychic damage is also not widely resisted early in the game, which results in having more damage early on, allowing you to get prepared for all those mindless zombies and robots which will give you a hard time later. I generally have the best luck with Telekinetic Blast, as it deals both Psionic and Smashing damage, and makes a great complement to Will Domination, your first two ‘quick’ single target attacks. Will domination is also quite useful for its sleep component, as your attacks that do no damage (such as SipP/FS/etc) will not break the sleep. Psychic Scream would be this set’s Special, having a –recharge boost that meshes nicely with siphon speed. If you don’t feel that’s a good fit, Psychic tornado is an AoE you can get much later that has Knockback. Psychic is lucky in that it’s not usually until the 20s before you start to run across enemies resistant to it, so it’s almost a Special almost into itself.

Archery Inherent Accuracy bonus/-Def
Archery is often poked fun at for having a somewhat less-damaging set of powers. Kinetics can help alleviate that a bit with SipS and FS, and a SipP or two can turn you into a mini-gatling-bowman. Although this set doesn’t have a Special as per se, it does get a rather nice Cone attack at lvl 4, which meshes well with the melee-range kinetics player. There’s also a disorient (and two Fire DoT’s) that can supplement your otherwise lethal-based damage. The –Def helps you and your teammates hit more often, which is always a plus. Otherwise, somewhat of an average set with some interesting quirks, and is probably best suited to work with Trick Arrow unless you just like throwing arrows around like a crazyperson.

Sonic Blast -Resist
Sonic Blast might end up being the next Flavor-of-the-Month for Offender builds, and you can’t blame them with the wonderful –Resist debuff. The secondary effect of –Resist can really add up to a lot of damage, especially paired with SipP and Fulcrum Shift, and can technically have your team doing *more* than the damage cap. If you can do a maximum of 400pts of damage to an enemy when you’re fully buffed/slotted, the –resist will help you do just that much more. -25% resist? 500pts. -50% resist? 600pts, and so on. The special this time is a toss-up between Howl and Shout. Howl is a cone that can affect a small group with -Res and Shout is a single-target attack that has a nice –Res debuff on top of great single target damage. If you’re setting up for a nuke, or need to take a group/target down quickly, combine one of the two powers (or both) with your SipP and/or FS for a nice team-damage-buff sandwich. Serves up to a team of 8. Enjoy!

Summary: As a kineticist, you can either pick your secondary to fix problem areas for your powers (Dark Blast, Rad Blast, Psy Blast-all have direct negative statuses), or you can pick your secondary to augment a strength of your powers (Energy Blast, Elec Blast-Energy for power and defense through KB, Elec for DoT and defense through endurance drain). I don’t feel one power set is ‘better’ than another, but I do feel that each power set will distinctly change the way you need to play your hero. Electric-for-Drain defenders will sometimes want to play very close to melee range, where Energy-for-Damage defenders will want to focus on specific enemies, concentrating their blasts where they will have the most effect. One plays more like a scrapper, the other plays more like a blaster. Neither are wrong, and both are fun to the right player.


Controllers-Primary Power Set
Controllers can get away with using the entire Kinetic set as well, with the exception of possibly taking a transport power instead of IR, due to it not showing up until lvl 28. Depending on their build, Kinetics can be looked at as a ‘pet buff’ set, or a ‘self buff’ set, due to the ways the powers can interact. For the most part, if you’re looking to make your pet stronger, or looking to make up for not having more than one, Siphon Power, Speed Boost, Fulcrum Shift, and Increase Density are powers you might want to look into, because even a fire imp can be happy with those buffs. And things like FS or SipP add a new dimension once things are held… What’s +300% damage times double-for-held again? Oh, and don’t forget that if an attack does no damage, it won’t break sleep, so you can definitely pull off some extra siphons from your enemies if you need to. Keep in mind with that 80% decrease in abilities, you wont always see the same effects as a defender does. Eg.: since your FS will buff/debuff for 20% instead, you’ll need 2 stacks of fulcrum shift for a total of 11 FS icons, in addition to the PBAoE icons, to ‘hit your cap’.

Earth Control: Earth is sometimes overlooked for it’s lack of damage output. However, with the addition of kinetics, it can be quite fun. For starters, with the large amount of immobilize powers at your command, powers like speed boost or siphon speed can help you run rings around the enemy, or scat quickly away to safety. SipS is also good as an augment to hasten, helping your holds cycle faster. Transfusion is great to pop on those held enemies to get some much needed life back. Although you’ll get the transport powers, especially IR, much later than your defender friends, they are still quite useful. Most importantly, all your buffs will affect your Stone Pet! Ever see a super-speeding Rocky-pet with a stacked Fulcrum shift on him? That’s some scary stuff right there. Picking Kinetics isn’t for every earth controller, however, as most of the powers distinctly push you towards lots of pool powers (skipping much of the kinetics set), or a team-only build. If you’re looking to stick with pool powers in your build, Kinetics might be a great choice.

Fire Control: Almost the same as earth’s response, you’ll be focusing either on teaming aspects, or buffs for your imps. Hot feet and siphon speed is pretty humorous to combo, since you can have an AV running slow-mo for a large part of the match. SipP is a good complement to this set, especially if you enjoy using Smoke, since the –accy is a natural complement to SipP’s –damage. And those speedy little imps are just hilarious to watch scatter after you speed boost them… just be careful… it seems to make them a whole lot more aggressive, and can pull a ton of mobs in short order before you’re even ready. And let’s not forget how fun it can be to tear up a group of mobs with your FS’ed imp gang!

Gravity Control: Personally, I always thought GC got the short end of the stick, and that was even before they started ‘fixing’ Singularity. GDF is no longer the superpower it once was, and a single singularity just doesn’t do what it used to. In this case, you’ll probably want to use Kinetics as a self buffing set, and maximize your benefits from Transfusion, SipP, and SipS. You can make a fun team-only build with this set, but not everyone enjoys teaming. My advice is to grab SipS, slot it heavy, and spam it every battle to help your powers come back faster… this in and of itself can make you a force to be reckoned with, especially once something is held. Propel may have a terrible activation rate, but a few siphons can make it do a world of hurt, especially if the mob is held. And don’t forget… those SipS stack and can give you the edge you need to have your AoEs to come up faster!

Ice Control: Wow. Look at all that –Speed and –Recharge in your powers… You know what that needs? Yep… Siphon Speed. Who cares about your holds when the enemy is moving/attacking at 5% speed? Jack benefits well from Speed Boost, as sometimes the speed can carry him all the way into melee range, letting him pull that Ice Sword out. You can also use repel to keep enemies on your Ice Slick. And the combo of Repel+Arctic Air, although a bit of an end-hog, can really reduce your chance of getting hit, and KB the heck out of anyone that breaks through. And with all those guys Slowed, your SipS can get you back home in case the battle was going sour.

Illusion Control: Spectral wounds gets a big boost from SipP, naturally. Although your Phantom army is not affected by your buffs, Phantasm *is*, so take that as a nice consolation prize. All this aside, I think Illusion is a perfect setup for a ‘Sneaky Ninja Assistant’ type hero. Instead of dealing damage and snapping enemy necks, you focus on augmenting your team to tip the battle in your favor. Your invis powers are great to use on your allies, and with the addition of Recall Friend, you can scout territory for the perfect place to drop your friends off. Once you get your pets, you’ll be able to help out quite a bit more, but don’t neglect your Kinetics line… It can get you into teams in those early levels when you’ll really need them.

Mind Control: Another set that people just don’t like for whatever reason. This set works well with kinetics because between your siphons and your confuses, you can keep the enemy occupied, without letting your chosen confuzzled buddy steal all your XP.
Example:
MindConMan sees two minions mugging a beleaguered citizen. Afraid to lose out on vital XP and influence, he confuses minion 1. Minion 1 feels a bit strange and befuddled, so to figure out the problem, he begins striking at Minion 2. Minion 2, being quite angry at being struck for no reason, begins striking back. MindConMan sees his opportunity, and begins siphoning Speed and Power from Minion 1. Minion 1 is too busy fighting #2 to pay attention, and #2 is too busy fighting #1 to care. MindConMan is able to use those first few attacks to strengthen himself for the battle, and soundly trounce both enemies before vital XP is lost.
As long as you are careful on how fast you siphon your enemies, you can usually get off 2-3 shots before they notice, and 2 is definitely enough to get you powered up to use your other powers. Also, with transference, you can use Telekinesis with near impunity, scooping up quite a few bad guys at a time to throw into corners for your blasters or scrappers to go chew on.

POWER POOLS
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This is where it can get tricky. Many people swear by certain power pools, and refuse to make characters without them. Most notably, Fitness and Speed pools tend to be found in most builds you come across, just because they’re insanely useful. However, Kinetics is strong enough to forego almost all of the power pools. In case you didn’t notice, if you pick every power in both primary and secondary, you’re forced to pick at least two pool powers, one at 24, another at 30. Once you get Inertial reduction, you can be ‘set’ for travel powers, unless you prefer another mode of transportation. Also, with powers like Transfusion (healing), Transferrence (Endurance recovery), you can also forego the entire fitness line. In each pool, I’ll mention any Kinetics powers that give similar effects, but please feel free to play your character in any way you feel is fun, and the best for your playstyle. Also, keep in mind that your powers and buffs can reduce or eliminate the need for your allies to take these pools too, so if there is a person or group you know you’ll constantly play with, Kinetics makes a great addition to a ‘Superteam’ build. With your buffs, they can focus on slotting their primaries and secondaries instead of the various power pools.


Concealment: There is no equivalent in the Kinetics line. This set is good for keeping you out of most agro ranges, and the minor defense it adds. This also has the much vaunted ‘Phase Shift’ which honestly seems like the main point of defense for Defenders in the Arena.

Fighting: No self equivalent. Consisting of two attacks, and two toggles, (one resist, one defense), this can be useful for those wishing to have a melee attack, and the possibility of some resist/defense in a set without much of either. If you need defense, however, I advise picking another power instead, unless you are interested in the added resist of Tough as well. ID can halfway replace Tough on most of your allies, but leaves Lethal as still being unresisted. Tough can be useful, but i5 changes can make it one to avoid. Still, it takes only two power choices to grab, so it’s up to you on your selection.

Fitness: I am personally becoming quite angry at this powerset, mainly because everyone feels that it’s necessary in any build. In fact, one of the reasons why I started playing kinetics was due to not wanting to have to factor in a 6-slotted stamina and 2 other ‘worthless’ powers into my build, especially pre-20. The benefit of Fitness is that the whole set is passive. No clicks, no toggles, no to-hits. You get it, and it works. To me, however, Fitness pales in comparison to Kinetics, especially if in a team. If you need to maximize DPS, you need to maximize your fighting time as well. I’d rather have 120 extra endurance every minute than Stamina’s 70. And with transference, even if you only slot one accuracy and no recharges, you can still get this off (technically) twice a minute. If you slot in some recharges, or slot in some endurance recoveries, or get hasten, or a combination of all three, you can recharge quite a bit of endurance for yourself, as well as any nearby allies. 6 slotted transfusion, with 2 accy, 2 recharge, and 2 end recoveries gives you about a 140% chance (vs even minion) for an 99 point end boost, about 3 times a minute. Even if only one goes off, you’re already better off than Stamina. Hasten and all Recharge SO’s? One blast about every 8 seconds. But I’m rambling... The point is I personally don’t feel it’s necessary, but you might, especially if you play the range game, and don’t want to get close enough to the enemies to get the effect of Transference. Stamina is very, very helpful, especially in many solo builds, or builds that are extremely toggle heavy. To team-oriented Kinetic defenders, it’s not as helpful, unless you play purely ranged. Solo builds will also want to look at this power set, because you’ll probably be too busy managing enemy movements to concentrate on casting and being in range of Transference whenever you need it. Longer story shorter, SB can replace stamina on your allies, and you can use Transference to help both yourself and your allies out. SB also trumps Swift the same way IR trumps Hurdle… there’s just no comparison. There’s no equivalent to Health, unless you count repeated Transfusions.

Flight: For those of you who hate knock back, grab hover. Hover changes a play-altering toss through the air into a harmless and relatively quick ‘aerial backflip’. Hover is an amazing battle movement power when slotted, and is great for those who need to get a better view of the action, or just need to stay out of melee range. With just a few slots for fly speed, and a successful SipS, you can roughly fly as fast as base fly. Air Superiority is also good for those melee-fenders out there, especially for it’s high chance for knock-up/knockdown. Fly can be useful, but you might be better off with IR, especially with travel suppression. Group fly can be useful, but you’ll probably get much better mileage out of IR. So, no direct equivalent, but some pretty fun replacements. Keep in mind that being above a mob turns knockback into knockdown, so Hover and Fly can be very useful for those who use Repel or /Energy.

(cont'd)

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Leadership: As far as Kinetics goes, this is my favorite line of all. The first three powers in the set are ‘Auras’, meaning they’re a PBAoE toggle power that affects both you and your teammates, followed by a dead-person-buff click power. Although everyone can argue back and forth about which of the first two to take (Maneuvers for defense, or Assault for Damage), Tactics is really why I take this set, and usually ignore the first two powers. Taking Tactics to the extreme and 6 slotting it with accuracy buffs, you can roughly add the equivalent of an accuracy SO or so to all your attacks, and all the allies around you. I use this to save slots on all my powers, because I can get away with not placing accuracy enhancements into all the various to-hit powers of Kinetics and my secondary. And, you get the added benefit of helping your teammates hit more often. Vengeance is a nifty power that you can use if one of your teammates gets one-hit-killed or snuffed out in the middle of a fight. Casting this on their dead body gives all teammates around them a really nice all-around buff (heal, dmg, accy, defence, etc) which can be a lifesaver. On the other hand, it’s a power that makes many heroes wary, since I have used it to great effect, but other people find it counter productive to get a power you can only use when people are defeated. Keep in mind that there is the idea of end drain with these aura skills, as they are toggles. And, like Murphy’s law says, right when you need a toggle to be on is right when it’ll drop, whether from lack of endurance or getting mezzed. Mezzes drop toggles, and the leadership line has both a long recharge and a long activation time… Having them drop at the wrong time can be pretty rough. If you’re not worried about mezzes, then you should be okay. I tend to pick Maneuvers on most of my Tactics-minded Kineticists, due to the lack of other defenses in the set.

**Side Note:**
The best part about leadership, which a lot of people don’t seem to understand, is that they *stack*. One measly person with a slightly slotted maneuvers running may add 8% defense to the team. But if the whole 8-man team has maneuvers, and slotted the same way, they can have a total of 64% defense added. Imagine how much you could do if everyone that you teamed with had 1-3 of the leadership pool? Exactly. If you plan on playing with the same general team, you might want to conspire to have more than one of you take the leadership pool… with i5’s reduction in defense, stacking Maneuvers can help alleviate some of the damage you’ll have headed your way, or stacking Assault can help your team hit the damage cap much quicker. And since you’re a Kinetics user, you can use SB to keep their endurance up… Up to you to decide!


Leaping: Since Kinetic defenders have access to a Super Jump in the form of IR, many choose to skip this line. However, forum-goer Quason prefers the leaping line in place of IR, as it helps him in battle from his experience. The reason: Acrobatics (and CJ) gives nice KB and Mez resistance. I feel that it’s a matter of playstyle and concept, so it’s up to you to decide do plan for Acrobatics (and two other leaping powers) early, or use a respec to fit it in later. Hover gives great KB protection at the cost of a single power, for instance, and is available from level 6. However, if you’re sick and tired of being KB’d *and* held, Acrobatics is a good way to go. In my experience, the times that I need hold protection not even stacked Clear Minds can save me. However, that is my experience from how I play. YMMV! In any event, you have two pool powers you’re forced to take… it wouldn’t be anything to drop IR in favor of Acrobatics if it fits your style/concept/defense-needs better. Definitely worth a try!

Medicine: Nothing wrong with picking from the medicine line, especially if you’re playing to team, and wish to heal more than harm. Stimulant is nice to duo with ID, especially since it has a verified sleep resist, and ID has those nice energy resists to supplement, but some may see it as overkill. Aid Self and Aid other are pretty great, especially if you’re having problems getting your Transfusion to hit, or if your blasters are too scared to get up close for the heal. Just keep in mind that these are all interruptible, so watch out with using it in the middle of a big AoE battle.

Presence: I’m not going to lie… I feel this is a bad set for anyone (eh… maybe more useful in i5 for tankers?). It was useful back when Tanker Taunt didn’t work real well and they wanted to convert to provoke-botting, but I don’t see this as a great addition to a Kinetic defender. However, If you’re willing to sink an extra power or two in here, you can get access to two Fears, which can be great to help you control aggro in a group. This is more of a personal playstyle pick, but it’s up to you. I pick this for the fear powers, mostly, and that’s usually for a roleplay/concept character.

Speed: I admit it… I’m a hasten addict on some of my Kin defenders. Between this and Siphon Speed, I throw power after power into battle, peppered with transferences to keep my endurance up. Super speed is a great addition to your powerset for times that SipS doesn’t hit, or if you just need to keep up with your speed-boosted allies. Whirlwind, however, might be a bit useful if you don’t take repel, since it doesn’t seem to drain endurance like Repel does. Keep in mind that your Kin defender is *not* gimped without hasten… Hasten becomes more of a personal preference with a Kinetic defender, especially since SipS can stack on you. I use it to save slots, and help me spam transfusion/transference while still having some other slots available. 2 of my kins have hasten, the others don’t. All are equally fun to play, so it’s up to your own personal preference. My current ‘main’ uses an autocasting 6-slotted Siphon speed with tactics running. Within about 15 seconds or so of entering battle, I have this cast twice. Once the third one is cast and is stacked, I have the effects of a hasten, without the endurance crash at the end. It only works in combat, but I never need hasten outside of combat. YMMV.

Teleport: Infinitely useful in a team, especially if you’re dealing with people who don’t have helpful/accessible travel powers. Recall friend would be my main pick here, as between SipS and IR, you can easily leave your team behind. Teleport Foe can be useful to pull foes, depending on your playstyle. Teleport, to me, pales in comparison to the other travel powers at your disposal, especially once you take a look at endurance costs. Team teleport would probably be useful if it just teleported your whole team to you… but since it works more like group fly, it’s probably not anywhere near your best interest to grab. However, if it fits your concept, and you can make it work, feel free!


Summary: Power pools are used to flesh out your toon, whether by way of concept, or for battle. One thing that you’ll need to look at in your build is that every power only does so much with a single slot, and some powers require other powers to get. The good thing about this is that many of the power pools can indirectly reduce your need for other enhancements or slots in other areas. Stamina can reduce your need to slot endurance reductions. Tactics can reduce your need to slot accuracy enhancements. Hasten can reduce your need to slot rechargers. On the other hand, IR means you don’t need to pick the Leaping pool. Siphon Speed can keep you from needing to pick Super Speed. TFE can replace Stamina. The combinations are endless, but you’ll definitely need to take a look at what’s more important in your build… slots or powers, and what you would prefer to lose in order to gain from these power pools. That sort of personal insight can point you in a better direction than I can. Good luck!


EPIC POOLS
==========

Sometimes called APP’s (Ancillary power pools) or EPP’s (Epic power pools), these are those special cross-archetype powers you can get once you are into your 40’s. You can go one of a few ways on these, either choosing a set that gives you powers that would be useful, or choosing a set with powers that fit your concept, or even choosing 1-3 of the powers of the set to allow you to grab powers from any of your other non-EPP sets. No one way is truly better than the other, but if you’re interested in adding more versatility to your set, there are many that pick the Psychic and Electric sets to help augment your skills. I’ll give my rating after each set to give an idea of how useful it is for a pure-build Kineticist, and rate them A-D (A most and D least).

Dark Mastery
This set focuses on ‘drawing power from the Netherworld’ to put some interesting effects on enemies in nice AoE effects. While some of these powers are very similar to those in Kinetics, they’re different enough to consider adding, especially to fit a theme or concept.
Oppressive Gloom is an AoE disorient that is fueled by your own hitpoints. It’s not directly strong enough to work on some lieutenants and bosses (I don’t have exact magnitude numbers), but it can be used with transfusion to give you a pseudo-hold that can help in a pinch. Dark Consumption is a PBAoE attack, and every person you hit with it gives you some endurance back. Although possibly a bit redundant with Transference, it can fit into a ‘Drainer’ concept quite easily. The second tier has Dark Embrace, a toggle armor that resists smashing, lethal, negative, and toxic. A Kin defender is usually lacking in the defense/resist area, so this can be quite useful. The final tier offers Soul Drain, a PBAoE version of a mini-FS. Every enemy hit by this not only is damaged, but gives you a +DMG and +ACC bonus. While possibly redundant again with your Kinetics powers, it can still fit nicely into a concept.
Rating: C. If you’re playing a melee or sapper-style build, those PBAoE’s can be a nice complement to being that close to the enemy, especially if you have a nicely-stacked FS on you. Otherwise, I honestly feel that the rest of the powers pale in comparison to what Kinetics gives you, especially with regards to hitting your damage cap and sapping endurance.

Power Mastery
This set focuses on some energy-related powers, to give yourself some added benefits and bonuses, or one of the more powerful melee attacks in the game. Conserve Power is a self-buff that most other archetypes use to reduce endurance use drastically. However, with transference, you shouldn’t have a problem keeping your bar filled. One important contrasting point: if you concentrate on attacks and leave TFE out of your attack chain, this can effectively help you do quite a bit more damage in a small amount of time with minimal endurance loss.Power Buildup is a self-buff that increases your damage and accuracy, much like Aim or buildup, but it also boosts all your secondary effects, like heals, disorients, and so on. This power is great in some other sets, but kinetics, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem to be affected by it the way you’d think. FS and TFE are unaffected from what I can tell, which makes it a dealbreaker. You can use this with your secondary powers to great effect, as something as simple as a power-push can throw an enemy for 2-3 times normal length once boosted with Power Buildup, or making your Electrical blasts drain a staggering amount of endurance from the enemy. The armor at tier 2 this time is Temp Invulnerability, the infamous tanker power giving resistance to both smashing and lethal. While good as a tanker power, I feel that it’s limited as an APP due to it having a limited amount of resists compared to the other APPs, even though TI has the highest amount of Smashing and Lethal resistance. Finally, 3rd tier brings us Total Focus, that crazy punch Energy blasters and tankers are bringing out whenever they can. Despite the recharge, it has immense single-target damage capacity, and can effectively put many targets in perma-stun. If you need a single-target high-damage power, this can be extremely useful.
Rating: B. I hate even rating this powerset, because I know it’s a great and worthwhile set, especially paired with other primaries/secondaries. However, due to the bugs with Power Buildup with Kinetics, and Conserve power *almost* being a reverse transfusion (saves the endurance instead of giving it back to you and draining the opponent), I hesitate to recommend this as a perfect complement to the Kinetics set. Controller Primaries and Defender Secondaries get much more benefit, so it will come down to your playstyle (and how much you prefer to resist S/L damage compared to other armors) on which one you should pick

Electric Mastery
One of the more commonly seen APPs, this is a natural complement to a sapper build, if only for asthetics. First tier gives us Electric Fence, and Thunder Strike. Both of these are pulled almost directly from the Electric secondary of the Blaster set, so no big surprises here. Electric Fence gives us an immobilize with some interesting endurance drain, and Thunder Strike is a rather nice PBAoE that has a chance for Disorient and Knockback instead of a basic –End attribute. An extra mez can be nice for those trying to play keep-away from those heavy melee mobs, and a PBAoE attack, despite the chance for KB, is good for those who stand side-by-side with the scrappers and tankers dishing out damage on the front lines. Second tier gives us Charged Armor, which gives Smashing/Lethal protection, and tosses in a Energy protection as well . Finally, last tier gives us Power Sink. This is perfect for a sapper build, or for those who melee and want another reason to avoid getting stamina. This is another PBAoE effect, but instead of damage, it drains a portion of endurance from surrounding enemies, and gives you the total drain back as endurance. Even lightly used, it’s great as a personal supplement to TFE, but if you’re a sapper, you’ll love the extra chance to keep your enemies drained.
Rating: B. Two PBAoE attacks are great for a front-line Kineticist, but not much help to those playing the range game. Charged Armor is useful against those later AVs who spam electric/energy/nova attacks. The immobilization effect of Electric fence seems a bit underpowered, but it drains the targets end at 5 per tic. 6-slotted for drain this means about 15*5, or 75 endurance drained from one target. However, if you’ve picked a different set than Electric Blast, and would like to dabble in the area of supplemental sapping, this can be an interesting set. This set is nearly on par with Psychic, with only one minor status protection separating the two.

Psychic Mastery
Consisting of 3 powers from the Controller’s Mind Control primary, and a new themed armor, Psionic Mastery is usually picked for it’s armor and/or Crowd Control abilities. First tier gives us a choice between Dominate and Mass Hypnosis. Despite being pulled almost directly from that set, Dominate gives us a nice damaging hold, and Mass Hypnosis gives us a great AoE sleep attack. Since our siphons that do no damage do not wake up sleeping enemies, you can sleep a group, run up, and get off a few siphons (and a fulcrum shift) before blasting the crap out of them. Dominate can be a nice complement to Psy-Blast’s Will Domination, and can generally be a good hold to use against those not resistant to Psionics. Mind over Body, the second tier armor, is a nice addition to those hunting Rikti and other Psionic-using baddies, as it adds a Psionic resist, along with the usual Smash/Lethal resist. Psionic resist is one of the rarest forms of protection (until i5 comes out with their Sonic types), and can be quite useful just for those two reasons. The last tier can be a letdown for many, as it is Telekinesis from the Mind Control set. Most people fear KB because it doesn’t fit their playstyle, or they don’t know how to control it effectively. Much like Repel, you’ll need some practice with this to get used to it. An interesting side note is that while you are running the power, the foe, and anyone you run into him are effectively held or KB’d back quite a distance. This can drain a lot of endurance, but is great for clearing a room enough for your team to retreat, or to help herd, or to just create some fun chaos here and there.
Rating: A. I only rate this higher than Electric and Power purely due to the psionic resist of the armor, otherwise, I feel they are both equally great additions to a hero. If you aren’t into Psionics, but still want a full or almost-full (3-4 powers) APP set, choose between this or Electric. The sleep is great to open with, since it can give you time to set up your siphons/FS, and the hold is great to turn a random minion into a battery for your blaster types to huddle next to for TFZ and TFE boosts. The armor’s psionic resist is excellent, especially if you find yourself fighting a lot of Rikti/Carnies. The only downfall is that Telekinesis is *not* for everyone, much in the same way Repel isn’t.

Summary: APPs are useful to either augment your hero’s capabilities, or flesh out their concept. I’ve seen people take APPs in ways that you wouldn’t think would benefit a Kinetics defender, but work great with their playstyle and/or their concept. Keep in mind that you don’t have to take *all* of an APP, and can use some of those slots for other powers in other sets that you desire. I do, however, recommend grabbing at least one set (and therefore two powers) for the armor, as Kinetics is in dire need of damage mitigation, and the resists from those armors can take you a long way, especially if slotted heavily.



BUILD TYPES
===========

I really didn’t want to go this route, because I hate cookie cutter builds. Everyone has unique playstyles and has a ‘vision’ of what they would like to do in battle (or out of battle) as well as what they are capable of dealing with, and let’s not forget fun! But here are some tips and strategies for those people that are looking for help with their specific build. I look at ‘toons as having 3 build types: Assist, Damage, and Hardcore. Technically, there’s a fourth, PvP, but as I said above, I don’t feel Kinetics defenders are very useful in PvP just yet. If you have any suggestions, or (preferably) would like to show me strategies, please let me know. Otherwise, the main rule is *KNOW YOUR OPPONENTS*. Take a quick second to scan your targets, and see if there are any enemies that are a bigger pain than others. Take down those that affect you or your party the worst, and don’t feel weird about flitting around the battlefield tossing heals and buffs everywhere. Kinetics is a very hands-on power set, and standing in one place won’t help you, especially if your group gets spread out.

ASSIST
Assist is your team build. These builds tend to stick more with their Kinetics powers, and slot their other powers to be more helpful in a team setting. They tend to do comparatively little damage, but make up for it in wrecking the enemies so their allies can roll through them. Dark and Radiation blast sets are great complements to this build, since the secondary effects either prevent damage, or allow you and your teammates to hit more often. While this build can solo, DAMAGE and HARDCORE builds are better suited for that.
ASSIST builds should look at:
1.) Focus on healing/buffs, and slot your attacks for debuffs. Although you won’t do nearly the damage of your allies, your buffing/debuffing can actually hurt the enemy much more than a few extra points of damage will. Fulcrum Shift will eventually help you do damage, but concentrating on one aspect (buffing/debuffing) can help get you and your team to 32 much faster than spreading yourself out.
2.) Team-friendly power pools. Even if you pick all your primary and secondary powers, you still will have 2 points where you’re forced to grab a power pool. Leadership can be quite useful, especially since tactics helps your kinetics powers hit more often. Recall friend can be helpful if you find yourself getting to missions before your teammates (and you often will). Grant invisibility can give your teammates a bit more defense, especially your squishy rear line.
3.) Learn how your powers work, use them to your advantage, and *tell* people how they work. People who hate super speed might not realize that speed boost also augments their recharge and endurance recovery. Blasters might not realize they have to be close to the action to get healed. Sometimes it’s good to let a minion (preferably held somehow) into your group to have an ‘anchor’ to bounce all your heals, buffs, and transferences off of. In teaming, communication is the number one priority, especially if people have never worked with a Kinetics defender before.
4.) Your most powerful Kinetics skill in an Assist build would be your Speed Boost. I highly recommend 3 slotting it as early as possible, while trying to give it 6 slots by 22. A fully slotted SB with End Recovery SO’s gives a simply phenomenal boost to your teammate’s blue bars, and the recharge reduction it gives them will help your team burn through the opponents like wildfire. This is one skill, if not the skill, that can nearly eliminate any downtime at all.


DAMAGE
Damage is your in-between build, not quite hardcore, and not quite team. From what I understand, this is what everyone else calls a ‘solo build’ but I feel it’s quite a bit different than a true ‘hardcore solo build’ and gives you some leeway with the idea “I can work on my own, or in a team”. These builds tend to focus on their secondaries, and use the powers in the Kinetics set that best suits their playstyle. By concentrating on one or two aspects of their power sets, they can do a bit more damage, and generally fare much better in combat by themselves, or in the front lines of a team. Energy and Electrical are great for these builds in giving them a bit more defense, especially from melee-range attackers.
DAMAGE builds should take a look at:
1.) Focus on your Siphon Power skill. This helps in debuffing the badguy, but more importantly, giving you an extra 25% damage. Once you get some slots and SO’s in here, you can easily stack 3-4 on a single enemy. 6 damage SO’s = 200% damage. 4 SipPs=100%. Add them together, and you’ve hit your cap, way before FS.
2.) Your attacks cost a bit more endurance than most blaster attacks do, so you’ll need to slot in some endurance reductions, work stamina into your build, or wait for transference. Accuracy helps your attacks hit more often, so you’re not wasting your blue bar.
3.) Siphon Speed can be quite useful, since it will help your attacks recharge, and give you an easy way to escape.
4.) When you pick your secondary, think of how it will affect your build and your slotting, especially in reverse. Rad blast (-def) means you’ll have better accuracy. Dark blast (-accy) means better defense. Elec blast means endurance drain (foe hold/lockdown). If you can find powers to supplement your chosen kinetics powers, you’ll be much more efficient.


HARDCORE
To solo ‘hardcore’ means you do not want or need any assistance during your playtime. You don’t need other teammates slowing you down and hogging your xp. Or maybe you want to do this build just to prove you can. Or, maybe you play at erratic times and pick up groups are few and far between, if ever. No matter what your reason, the HARDCORE build uses the power pools to sew up any holes in defense or augment any powers they need to. With this build, you’ll probably not pick any of the ally buffs, and use those power picks in other more vital places, such as your secondary or your power pools. These builds can still function quite well in a team, but more in a OFFender category than in a defender one. I separate this from the DAMAGE build because that a HARDCORE build should be able to do just that, “solo 99-100% of the game”… very hardcore. It may be a too crazy for most people to understand, but if you’re up to the challenge of making it to 40, or even 50, just by yourself, you’ll need those ‘ally-only’ powers to take a backseat to pool powers to shore up your defenses. I highly recommend you try to make a DAMAGE build instead, because trying to hardcore solo the entire game is not a task for the faint of heart.
HARDCORE builds are the devil. Er… I mean, should take a look at:
1.) Don’t pick the powers you’d usually use on others. I know, it’s evil, but if you’re soloing, you don’t need them. Ditch what you can, and use them on power pools instead. You can get away with picking just Transfusion, Transference, and FS, although it might be a bit tough at times. Don’t forget to 6-slot your hasten and stamina, and you might want to look at getting something like the Leaping line or Hover to prevent you from getting KB’d or Held.
2.) You need to do the most amount of damage to the most people with the most minimal risk to yourself possible. Your attacks that do no damage (such as your siphons) will not awaken slept mobs. Stealth+superspeed=invisibility plus suppression, while Stealth+Siphon Speed= Quick alpha-strike nuke-and-runs. IR+attacks=Jousting. If you can work Siphon speed into your build 6-slotted, please do, as the unsupressed movement and recharge boost can really help you clean house, even more if you stack it with perma-hasten.
3.) Pick a secondary that fits your choice of soloing. Dark and Psychic get snipe attacks relatively early. Dark blast has a bunch of great defense in the way of –accy debuffs. Energy can help you play keep away from mobs running into melee range. Radiation blast can save you from using extra slots on accuracy. Elec blast can keep those mobs from being able to attack back from massive end drain. Some AoE attacks will be more useful to you than others. Take a good hard look at the sets and figure out *exactly* what you want to do, both to save you time and energy, and from keeping you from grinding towards the next respec mission because you flubbed on a slot or a power pick.


PVP
PvP is setting up your character purely to run through arena battles. I don’t like how Arena battles are set up from a gameplay, mainly due to accuracy/defense having a weird synergy unlike the rest of the game’s stats. Currently, the only way I’ve found to stay relatively alive and useful is to have Phase Shift, and to use it here and there to buff your friends, and then hide. Kinetics defenders seem unnaturally squishy, and simple team tactics of just spreading out can cause big problems for a Kinetics user (Fulcrum Shift won’t hit nearly as many people, for instance). I don’t like PvP for defenders, but I’m not saying they suck at it. I just can’t figure out good, useful strategies right now.
PvP builds should take a look at:
1.) Playing a different AT. No, not really, but to me, Defenders are really hurt in the arena. Maybe if the dev’s made our debuffs more powerful? I just hate the idea that all we’re there to do is just phase->heal->rephase.

2.) Posting on the official boards ideas that they have to make the Arena much more viable for Defenders. Maybe one of us will have the ‘perfect idea’ that the devs are looking for.

3.) Ladioss_Sopp’s guide (see Appendix for info) for this mention on PvP battling: 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.[/i]

3.) If you still desperately want to do the arena, or are looking forward to bashing some player villains once CoV goes fully live and integrated with CoH, you might want to work phase shift into your build. I keep saying Phase Shift, because it’s the only power out there that gives you full immunity (not just +def or +res) against powers out there. You might have a better chance if they change the rules or adjust the setups, but in my experience, smart enemies tend to smack the squishies first, especially if the squishies in question are healing/buffing. [/i]

APPENDIX
=========

HELPFUL IDEAS AND TERMS
========================

Battery: A minion that is held/immobilized/mezzed inside the party’s group to allow the kinetics user to repeatedly heal/drain/buff the group using him as a guinea pig. Ex. “The target I have Tesla Caged is our Battery. Please do not kill him until the end of the battle”
Suck/Drain: Used as a verb to replace siphon and your other ‘draining’ powers. Ex: “I’ll drain power off the boss” or “I sucked his speed away”. Unfortunately, this can lead to other players making fun of such statements as “I’d have killed that boss, but I couldn’t suck him fast enough to drain his blue” and similar.
Slap/Hit: The animation of a target when hit by Speed Boost or Increase density. Because the target flinches, and the caster looks like he’s hitting, sometimes players request a ‘Slap’ or a ‘hit’, especially when roleplaying. ‘SB’ is usually used when time is of an essence, or when people would just rather play than ‘pretend’.
Sap/Sapper: Term used for either evil evil terrible Malta guys that drain your endurance, or for Kineticists (or other builds) that focus on ‘sapping’: The draining endurance, or sometimes health, of mobs. Eg: “I sapped the boss’ end and he’s not getting any back for a bit. Scrapper? Make yourself useful.”
End: Short for ‘Endurance’. Eg: “End Rest” (Rest until endurance has recovered)
Enh: Short for ‘Enhancements’
IR: Inertial Reduction
ID: Increase Density
TFZ: Transfusion. Used to differentiate from transference and task force. The Z is used to emulate the last syllable of Fusion.
TFE; Transference. Used to differentiate, and people sometimes use the e for ‘endurance’, as in ‘Trans-Fer Endurance’
YMMV: Your methods may vary
SipP: Shortform of Siphon Power. Done this way to match SipS.
SipS: Shortform of Siphon Speed. SS is usually ‘Super Speed’, so I did this to clarify.
KB/KD: Knockback/Knockdown
Mezzed: Held in some way, effectively out of a fight
Accy: Accuracy
Rechargers: Recharge rate reducing enhancements, or the ones that say ‘Attack Rate increase’
CoV: City of Villains
CoH: City of Heroes
AoE: Area of Effect
PBAoE: Point-blank area of effect (usually means centered on caster/self)
PvP: Player versus Player, seen in the arena, or in the upcoming CoV/CoH meetup.
Offender: Defender=Defense, Offender=Offense. Term used for defenders that focus on damage/secondaries instead of their primaries. They reduce the amount of their buffs/heals/protections to better assist during battle with actual attacking. Most solo (and all hardcore) defender builds can be considered ‘offenders’ for this reason.
Toon: Another term for your character or hero in the game
Respec: A term used for ‘respecification’, where you basically get to re-pick all your powers and slots starting over from level 1 to the level you currently are when you start the respec. Sometimes given out for free, usually gotten from special task forces.
SuperTeam: term coined by Arcas where each hero in a team is designed with the other teammates in mind, and the end result is where the whole is much stronger and more deadly than the sum of it’s parts. Teammates can be considered ‘gimped’ by themselves, but when in team, a unique synergy comes into play. Quite awesome if done right.
Gimp: S&M freak interested in leather and masks… or more commonly used as a term to describe a hero who isn’t up to another person’s standards. Eg: “That blaster 6-slotted stamina, hurdle, swift, hasten, health, superspeed, stealth, invisibility, phase shift, hover, and didn’t have any slots left for his primary powers? Guess he was afraid of being called a gimp.”

SUMMARY
=========

I hope this guide helps players understand kinetics a bit more. New players need to know what they can accomplish with their Kinetics users, and established players might need to understand our powers and why we chose them.

Not all defenders should be classed as ‘Blue Shield=Healing’, and I think that Kinetics really helps break that stereotype. Defenders can also buff, debuff, attack, and support, and still be viable teammates no matter what their playstyle is.

I believe a character that is fun doesn't necessarily need to be 'min-maxed' or 'twinked' for maximum DPS. I believe Stamina and/or Hasten isn't needed in every build, unless you're considering 'Endurance Recovery' or ‘Power Spamming’ to be the cornerstone of your 'toon (useful, but not always necessary). I believe that every power can be useful to someone, but player mentality really limits the 'uses' on powers that do little damage or have small effects. I believe that pure builds (all primary and secondary powers, only two power pools, and all 4 APP's) can be quite fun and effective, despite calls to the contrary. I also think that choosing powers to fit a concept/roleplay are quite great, if the concept is interesting. I believe that respecs aren't necessary to make a quality character, and the best characters are ones that can do well both at their current level, and at an extremely low exemplar level. Finally, I believe that this game is best played with the idea of 'fun' in mind, as opposed to finding the quickest way to level or twink/min-max your character.

Although I respect those that solo or hardcore-solo, I feel that the Kinetics line is clearly designed for team action. Although it’s not difficult to solo with this powerset, to me it’s much more useful in a larger team, especially once Fulcrum Shift comes into play.

*However*…

This is by no means a guide to discouraging soloing or solo tactics, just merely a supplement to those guides for the ‘other side of the story’, as it were. I feel forum-goer Quason put it neatly: …I can't imagine a better compliment to the powerset than the fact that you and I can both play it so differently and still both be effective with it. Quason is right, this set can be played strong solo, strong teamed, or a mixture of the above. Take my words with a grain of salt, and think of how they apply to your own game strategies, tactics and gameplay, and go from there. For an excellent look at a great solo-style of playing a Kinetics Defender, as well as a total flipside to my opinions on kinetics, please see his quite great Kin/Elec Meleefender v3.0 guide.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#3624664
Highly recommended reading, if anything, just to give you a healthy explanation of how else the powers can be useful and effective if you don’t want to focus on a teaming build. His experience *proves* that you do not need to make a teaming build if you don’t want to. My guide, if anything, should be viewed as a ‘different look’ at how useful all the Kinetic powers are in their own ways… not as an argument to his. Read both, and you should have a near-complete understanding of how to make your Kinetic Defender (or */Kinetic Controller) work the way you most want it to.

And lastly, if this guide helps at least one person be a better player in CoH, or more importantly, helps them to have fun with their character and Kinetics, then I think I’ve done my job.

CLOSING NOTES, THANKS, AND SOURCES
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Dedicated to the funnest noob regen scrapper I ever teamed with, Leveina. Love ya, baby!

Most of this information has been pulled either directly from the game, or from various ‘planners’ such as Joe Chott’s CoH planner ( Http://joechott.com/coh ) and Sherkhan’s City of Heroes Character Builder ( Http://home.comcast.net/~SherkSIlver/index.html ). From what I understand, they are no longer ‘supported’ as much as they once were. If someone has a better/more in-depth planner, please let me know.

Where things were iffy or unclear, I did some in-game testing (at the cost of much influence and failed respect trials… lol) and balanced numbers according to both the developer’s notes on power changes, and a few other quite good Kinetics-based guides, such as the ones found on the official CoH boards such as:

Ladioss_Sopp’s Kinetics – A Defender’s Guide v4.0 http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=2123962
And v5.0 (updated for issue 5)
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#3624664

Quason’s Kin/Elec Meleefender Guide v2.0
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=1862067
And his updated v3.0 guide for i5
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#3624664

Syphon Strike’s Kin/Psy Offender Guide
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...amp;PHPSESSID=

KineticKat’s Kinetics Guide for Non-Defenders
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...art=1&vc=1

Justice Zero’s Regarding Defenders
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...llapsed&sb


And where possible, I used ‘HeroStats’ ( http://www.herostats.org ) to cull these numbers out, and try to get specific data as much as possible.

And for those of you that are confused at how I play, why I play certain defenders with certain quirks (no dmg enhancers, etc), or are more interested in the idea of ‘duo-ing’ or ‘superteams’, please check out Arcas’ The SuperTeam: Advanced Grouping ( http://coh.coldfront.net/index.php/content/view/658/32/ ) I feel Kinetics is a great part of a duo/superteam because many of their powers can ‘make up for’ other teammates not picking things. Heck, a Kinetics defender can make all power-pools pretty pointless, but I digress. Thanks Arcas, for a great guide and inspiration to make a ‘SuperDuo’.

Much thanks to Eisregen, The_Mighty_Storm, Quason, Concern, Clintonian, Glowworm_Nexus, and everyone else from the official CoH boards. Had it not been for your pleasant discourses on powers, archetypes, the game-in-general and so forth, I wouldn’t have had the energy to make this guide, nor a reason to. I appreciate any and all of your comments, whether or not I agree with them, since they give me insight I would normally not have. Thank you.

More thanks to the following people that either pointed out bugs (F’r Instance, the 3 paragraphs I had on leadership disappeared) or showed alternate views on various powers or my descriptions. In no particular order: Ohmage, Rasalgethi, QDoggie, Zonamab, The_Feign, Tara_Massive, Chazzmatazz, 8_ball, and so on…

FYI: This is all my own work, with credit given where I pulled information from other sources. Please contact me before posting this on other sites, as I would like to keep the information uniform and up-to-date, and don’t want someone to be using an old version of this guide. And please don’t steal this and say it’s yours, because it isn’t. It’s there for everyone, with me as just the lowly chronicler. Please PM me with any ideas or updates you would like to see added to this guide. Thanks!

And a final apology to all those who didn’t want to read all that <blank> written by me. Enjoy the book… heh…



History
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V2.0-Much testing to better explain APP choices. Many typos/clarifications fixed/added. Addition of Sonic/Archery secondary sets and notes. Comment from Glowworm added. Removed ‘Theoretical Builds’ to save on space/annoyance.
V1.2-Minor typo’s and fixes (Thunderous blast, PA affected), Explanation of Battery added, along with strategy from Eisregen
V1.1-Major edits due to terrible problem with Cut-n-pasting such a large document. Fixes: powers (ID, SB, SipS, leadership, Transfusion), clarification (thx to Quason), and other problems rising from the huge cut-n-paste fiasco.
V1.0- First posting on CoH boards

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Phew, that took FOREVER to read, but it was worth every moment of it. Great guide, one I shall use for my wittle bitty kinetics, who is kin/sonic.

Also, /sonic comes with a cone sleep power {Siren's Song} which could be used to great effect in tandem with Mass Confusion, keeping at least 20 or 26 foes sleeping...

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Doom.

Yep.

This is really doom.

Also made a kin/sonic, there's so much sonic I might've chose something else, but I'd rather try it too like everyone else. Maybe the "herd" will thin out in the later levels.

EXCELLENT work. I love it. Defintely confirmed a lot of what I've seen/heard/and assumed about a lot of powers. I have more direction now and am even taking a few different routes as well.

Thanks a bunch!

Signed,

A very grateful reader

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Wow, now that is what I call a guide. Excellent, and thanks for taking the time to write it. Now what happened to my kin defender the Entropian?

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Princess Grace - MA/Inv scrapper
Solana - Mind/Energy dominator
Lyonette - Kat/SR scrapper

This guide is so good I want to marry it. THANK YOU for being so thoughtful and methodical in putting it together.

I started a new Kin/Dark last night, and now that I've read this guide my mind is filled with potential build ideas. I can't wait to get back to playing!

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Good Stuff. Thank you for your effort here. Wow. Copied it to openoffice to print and it was ONLY 38 pages :P Thanks again.

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An absolutely terrific guide (I've read plenty). What I think is most important is a discussion of the tactics and the author's opinion on the powers, rather than a computer readout of cost and percentages. I've been playing a kin/elec lately and I've loved every minute of it. And strangely enough, I agree with almost every single one of your opinions on the powers (haven't seen Transference or Fulcrum shift in action yet. Reserving judgment). Again, awesome guide here

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