Kin is fun. Kin means never having to take a travel power unless you want one. Kin also means you can skip the Fitness Pool if you want to.
Inertial reduction gives you and any one near you "super jump".
Siphon speed isn't just an enemy slow power. It also increases the speed at which your powers recharge including.... Siphon Speed. With decent slotting you can get near perma hasten with this power and SOs. This power also increases your Run Speed to Super Speed levels.
For teams that have l2p'd Fulcrum shift is the reason you bring a kin along not speed boost. Speed boost is nice, especially if you are teamed with a stone tank, but it isn't the "best" power in the set.
The speed reduction in ID isn't enough to eliminate the +speed from SB most of the time it hard to tell that you have lost any of the movement speed that SB grants. The KB protection in ID is very useful as is the mez protection it provides especailly on PUGs and especially when teamed with non-mez protected squishies or fire and dark tanks and scrappers that lack KB protection.
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I have a kin def, so I'll share my stories with it. As far as Ice goes, I think a lot of people skip several powers from it, but don't remember which ones.
I would still get stamina even with transference. You don't have to get a travel with Inertial reduction, but I ended up getting one anyway as I hated stopping to reuse the power, but Im kinda weird. You could easily skip it. Ive never had it come in handy on teams as 99% of people have their own travel power.
Fulcrum Shift is your bread and butter, and in a large group you can get everyone close to the damage cap.
I would still say that speed boost is still my favorite power, as the ability to not make end an issue for the whole team, all the time, plus increasing recharge just comes in handy all the time. Take it as soon as possible, I slot 3 end mods in mine, maybe one range cause I had the slot to spare, helps from chasing people down.
There is a good bind around here that makes the keypad 1-8 to speed boost that teammate number, which helps a lot. A little searching and I'm sure you could find it.
The sleep power I'd definatly skip unless you solo.
On the Ice side: Ice control is unique in that you can choose whether you want to be melee-oriented or ranged-oriented. With Kinetics as a secondary, I would bet on Melee-oriented would be best.
Must-haves as soon as they are available are Block of Ice at 1, Arctic Air at 6(This is what makes you melee oriented -- it is a PB AoE toggle that combines Slow, Confuse and "afraid" (they try to run out of the area), Ice Slick at 12, Jack Frost at 32.
Chilblain, single target immobilize: If you plan to solo at all, take this and slot it up as a damage power. It will also immobilize Bosses and AVs. While I skip the single target immobilize on most other controllers, I took it on my Ice controller. My main damage powers are Block of Ice followed by Chilblain and Air Superiority and vet attacks.
Frostbite, the AoE Immobilize: Frostbite is more skippable on an Ice controller. It has its strategic uses, but using it over and over again is likely to get you killed. The LAST thing you want to do is use Frostbite on top of Ice Slick, as it make Ice Slick useless. On my Ice Controller, I didn't take Frostbite until level 30.
Shiver, a huge Cone Slow with -Recharge: This is the power you would take instead of Arctic Air if you were going with a Ranged build. With a melee build, it is skippable but very nice to have. Especially with Ice/Kin, see if you can fit it in.
Flash Freeze, a ranged Sleep: Easily the most skippable power in the set, it still has its uses, especially for a Kin where you an Siphon off of slept foes. Still, this is the first one to skip.
Glacier, a PB AoE Hold: Recommended as a "panic button" power, it is useful even with its fairly short duration and long recharge. Slot it with 2 Acc, 2 Hold, 2 Recharge.
Flashfreeze is the most skippable, followed by Frostbite and/or Chilblain.
Kinetics Must haves: Transfusion, Siphon Speed, Transference, Fulcrum Shift. I consider Speed Boost a Must Have, but a surprisingly large number of people skip it because they hate being a "buff-bot."
Repel is the only strong defensive power in the set, but it is the most often skipped.
On Siphon Speed: This is a key power. You sap speed and recharge from a foe to boost your runspeed and recharge. If you want to skip a travel power, this makes it possible until you can get Inertial Reduction. The most important part is the Recharge boost.
Siphon Power: Important in lower levels, this becomes less important in upper levels because of Fulcrum Shift. Still nice to have, though.
Increase Density, ally only mez and knockback buff. Very short duration (1 min) makes this really, really frustrating to try to keep on a team -- Most Kin players don't try and only use it as a buff situationally. It is useful to break allies out of mez, though. Not essential.
Inertial Reduction, temporary Super Jump to you and anyone in its range. This allows you to skip a travel power. Skippable if you take a travel power, but nice to have.
Repel is the most skippable, followed by IR and then ID.
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To elaborate a bit on Local's comments on the Kin side, Repel is skippable because it conflicts with the rest of the set... Transfusion, Transference & Fulcrum Shift all require you to be in melee to take advantage of the buffs while Repel forces mobs away from you. It has some utility as a panic button but as a controller you already should have that covered.
Inertial Reduction is a 60 second super jump, perma out of the box. From that you may decide it's a great power to have... however you have to wait until level 28 for it as a 'troller. I find it a useful travel substitute on a Kin defender, but then they get it at 18. Level 28 is a long time to wait for travel although with the Raptor pack and Zero G Pack you could probably stretch them if you're careful. My Mind/Kin controller skipped IR and took AS/Fly instead. In the interests of full disclosure that Mind/Kin had outleveled the Atlas/KR safeguards before they were added to the game.
Increase Density is a useful power... but the duration is too short to really proactively keep it on your teammates. I took it in the 40's mainly to stack mez protection on the tank in the STF... or to use it as a reactive power to break a teammate from mez.
I won't comment on the Ice side as I have absolutely zero experience with it other than what Local has told me so that advice I'd take straight from the horse's mouth as it were 
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Wow, thank you all for the great responses.
Seems like I got some of it right on my initial assessment, but some of it I obviously needed more info, thank you all.
Well now I am more excited to go to work on this build and see how it goes. To the Ice\Kin mobile!
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Ice has 4 powers that are "generic" Control powers, two that are generic offshoots, one that's shared with a Blaster secondary, and 1 unique. If you've played any Control or Dominator sets you're already familiar with a lot of the powers.
The generics are:
- Chillblain (ranged single target immob)
- Frostbite (ranged AoE immob)
- Block of Ice (ranged single target hold)
- Glacier (mag 3 player based AoE hold, see Illusion/Flash, Fire/Cinders)
The first generic-offshoot power is the ranged sleep. It is an AoE sleep like Plant/Spore Burst but on a longer recharge. It also causes around 6 points of damage to the enemy and notifies them prior to the attack, so you cant open with it. It is roundly inferior to Mind's and Plant's sleeps, a little better than Earth's, and IMO inferior even to the Defender epic AoE sleep.
The second generic off-shoot power is Ice Slick. It's a ranged AoE knockdown zone. The most similar power avaiable is Earth/Earthquake. It can be targeted from out of line of sight. Ice Slick is a strange power in that it is incredibly useful when you are solo or the only Controller on the team and next to worthless when some types of Controllers (particularly Plant and often Fire) join the team, as knockdown is cancelled outright by most AoE immobs and Slow effectively is.
The power that's shared with Blasters is Shiver. Our version is superior. It sinks Recharge and Slows enemies. The game describes it as a cone, but at 180 degrees it might almost be called "everything you can see." Slotting range in this power makes the AoE so huge that its uncontrollable, so be careful about overshooting. The way the math works out for -Recharge, Shiver + Arctic Air on a +4 enemy is exactly enough to maximize -Recharge instantly at a x4 reduction in recharge rate (e.g. a power that normally recharges in 5 seconds recharges in 20). The Controller power most closely related to Shiver is Earth/Quicksand in that both are AoE slows with sidebar debuffs that can't be enhanced and have no additional effects.
The unique power is Arctic Air. It's one of only two toggle PBAoE control powers (the other is Fire/Hot Feet, which is more of a damage aura than a control). Arctic Air causes slows, -recharge, afraid (a desire to run away), and a chance for confusion. Affected enemies will slowly run for the edges of the aura, but because of the confusion component often turn around and come back. The confusion and fear do not have graphical components, so often its hard to tell this power is working; try turning to the Combat tab and read how often you're snaring enemies. Build advice varies on this power but IMO it should be taken as early as you can get it and slotted heavily for endurance, gradually shifting toward Confusion duration and eventually incorporating procs (Contagious Confusion in particular). This power is a huge part of the reason my lvl 50 Ice/Thermal can solo on Invincible, as long as he's careful to avoid getting mezzed.
A few addenda:
Siphon Power is costly in terms of end, partly because the power recharges fast and you click it a low levels for want of something to do, unless you get lots of teammates with the buff. It's not bad as a debuff for hard targets at high levels.
Frostbite is very useful at high levels because it's a readily available Containmenter, and Fulcrum-Shifted, Contained (potentially damage-capped doubled) Fireball/Psionic Tornado/Frostbreath/Fissure is dandy. Also keeps clumped mobs together when FS isn't quite recharged yet.
Get Siphon Speed. Max its recharge and get decent accuracy. Get Hasten. Max its recharge.
Inertial Reduction is a pain if you ask me. Recasting as you travel is no fun (not quite as annoying as Teleport). Nearly everyone has a travel power by 28, and some will be confused by it. I take Combat Jumping for combat mobility, IO advantages, and a smidge of defense, but most of all for immob protection. Tactically, you can't afford to be immobilized as a kinetic. Therefore Super Jump doesn't cost any extra powers for me.
-kb protection is also a most for the same reason immob protection is.
You don't *really* need Health, since you have a substantial heal. In fact, Kinetics obviates most standard character problems or weaknesses, like travel, recharge, end, damage, and hp. Picking IO set bonuses almost doesn't seem worth it some times. (I'd recommend +max end, +max hp, + positional defense, +acc.)
I haven't played a Ice/kin high enough to know how it works with taking AA and skipping Stamina, but AA has a high enough cost that I would at least get Stamina and then after you hit 35 find out how much you'll need Stamina. It's probably fairly doable to go without Stamina if you add in enough IOs to help out with end issues.
I'll second that and suggest you get stamina, at least until you have transference slotted up. Even post-transference, if you plan to run AA with leadership pools (tactics is useful for kinetics) and an epic armour, I would recommend keeping stamina. You don't "need" stamina, but it's nicer without worrying about transference hitting.
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I haven't played a Ice/kin high enough to know how it works with taking AA and skipping Stamina, but AA has a high enough cost that I would at least get Stamina and then after you hit 35 find out how much you'll need Stamina. It's probably fairly doable to go without Stamina if you add in enough IOs to help out with end issues.
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Definitely get Stamina on the way up. Much more fun.
I'm experimenting with a high-def Stamina-less build right now which I respec'd into at 42. (I left the old with Stamina build intact, just in case.) With AA (sometimes), Tactics, Maneuvers, Weave, CJ, and Sprint (+stealth IO) running, (not to mention constant FS, SB, Block of Ice, Ice Slick, Transfusion, Frostbite, Fault) you've got to use Transference almost as often as it recharges.
The build has less End Redux in its powers than I usually have, since it has to take full sets to get defense bonuses, and I can't take Health (for the +recov uniques) or Stamina because the pools are maxed to get that glorious defense.
I have only played this build on mid-sized teams 3-5, so even more Speed Boost and likely Transfusions (though less needed damage and control, perhaps) might make it too costly. I only crashed my toggles once during a couple hours of play last night, but one really has to be on one's toes.
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The power that's shared with Blasters is Shiver. Our version is superior. It sinks Recharge and Slows enemies. The game describes it as a cone, but at 180 degrees it might almost be called "everything you can see." Slotting range in this power makes the AoE so huge that its uncontrollable, so be careful about overshooting. The way the math works out for -Recharge, Shiver + Arctic Air on a +4 enemy is exactly enough to maximize -Recharge instantly at a x4 reduction in recharge rate (e.g. a power that normally recharges in 5 seconds recharges in 20). The Controller power most closely related to Shiver is Earth/Quicksand in that both are AoE slows with sidebar debuffs that can't be enhanced and have no additional effects.
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Quick note Tex. The blaster version of Shiver has a substantial advantage over the troller ver.. A 12 second recharge base (vs 30s for trollers). Yes, the slow scalars favor the troller on the first application (81.25% vs 65%), but the blaster (who is clearly forgoing some AoE damage by taking on the debuffer sidejob) can stack it rapidly, crushing even a boss-heavy spawn's danger factor.
Not saying that Shiver is anything less than terrific for trollers. It's a vital tool, but for /Ice blasters, Shiver is the bread AND the butter.
Hey guys and dolls.
So next to Dominators, Controllers are the AT I have the least experience with. I have a Grav\Storm at level 11 that I like, but despite having that character for over a year my alt-idos has kept me from really playing him.
However I recently started a new troller, an Ice\Kinetics that I could get some help with. I almost always try to get Health and Stamina, which means 3 powers in fitness pool and 2 more powers in a travel power pool. (Havent decided which Travel power to get yet.) With 5 powers gone to pools that usually means I can't quite get all my primary, secondary and Ancillary powers.
So I am wondering which powers for Ice Control and Kinetics are good. I have some thoughts so far, but I'd like other peoples opinions since others undoubtedly have more experience with controllers than I do.
Obviously I want speed boost. Word around here is that any time a controller skips speed boost in their build, god kills a kitten, and I don't want any of that on my hands.
Inertial Reduction, Fulcrum Shift and Transference, all look very useful. However Repel seems like it's kind of a waste of endurance. Though if there is a good use for Repel please let me know, I'd gladly reconsider.
Increased density seems like making my team mates resistant to holds and knockdowns etc is a good thing, but then I also slow them down, which is not good. I think this could be overcome with speed boost, but I have to wonder how many team mates I am going to meet without some sort of mezz\kb protection....
Also, how useful is siphon speed? I have never been huge on slow powers, and Ice control seems like it is going to have plenty of slow in it, so wouldn't this power just be redundant?
Siphon power I think I want , -damage on them and +damage for me and my team seems like a no brainer unless I am missing something.
For Ice Control I can't see a lot I don't want except for maybe Flash freeze. I'm not usually huge on sleep powers since as soon as they are attacked they wake up, and on larger teams no one goes un-assaulted for long. It seems like Ice control has more effective holds and Immobs. Plus Ice slick is great for keeping the enemy from attacking.
Also, with some of the Kinetics powers, I am wondering if I really need health or Stamina all that badly. Transfusion seems to provide some healing and Transference seems to provide End, though that won't be til level 38 or so. I am not looking at ancillary powers yet, I will look at those when I get closer to that point and have more of a feel for the build.
So is there anything I am missing, is my read on these powers more or less accurate or am I way off? Any feed back is appreciated, (aside from "lrn 2 play n00b.)
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