Actually, a kinetic does not need a travel power. Siphon Speed and Inertial Reduction are a fine substitution.
But since you already want to have Hasten (stacks nicely with Siphon Speed to eliminate most recharge times) and Hover (with stacked Siphon Speed this is an unsupressed, super-fast combat-travelpower with ghetto knockback protection... the best method to keep your kinetic maneuverable) it is really a matter of personal taste.
So, you have the choice between Inertial Reduction, Superspeed and/or Fly without having to worry about prerequisite powers you would not have taken otherwise.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
I'm teaming with a Kinetics right now who has taken Hover and is using it in conjuction with Siphon Speed to move around very quickly.
"Idealism is such a wonderful thing. All you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use." - Kerr Avon
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No need for a travel power at all. You'll find yourself using IR primarily if you go that way, simply because it doesn't need an attack.
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I'm teaming with a Kinetics right now who has taken Hover and is using it in conjuction with Siphon Speed to move around very quickly.
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well get back to playing then!
back to seriusness though. my kin has hover and fly as well as hasten. siphon speed and increased density are also there and so is recall friend
hover with siphon speed is very very nippy, and fly is the best travel power for lazy buggers
post transferance you don't need to get stamina so that should free up some powerpicks for you
None at all, but if you're not going to take the leaping pool, I'd strongly recommend taking Hover. Kinetics tend to spend a fair bit of time in mele and as such you'll want something to help with knockback.
3 slotted swift, 3 slotted hover, and siphon speed gives you a pretty good speed on hover for combat purposes (and as Kinetics is quite a "slot friendly" set you can probably wangle spending those slots in travel powers). Inertial Reduction gets you around between missions fine (now with no rooting on the animation - YAY!)
Re: "You don't need stamina". Noone needs stamina if they're willing to make sacrifices on perfermance and build of their character, Kinetics does function better than most without Stamina, but I find it far more efficient with it.
My lvl 39 Corruptor has kinetics, but I still took flight early on. Siphon Speed does add to flight speed so there is some nice synergy there, it certainly saves some slots.
Hover plus Siphon Speed is a great combat mode for moving, but I wouldn't advise it for cross zone travel.
I've just respecced in Teleport, which works nicely with Hover which then works great in combat. I like it, and Teleport is very fast across zones.
You can get away with not taking a travel power, but there are advantages if you do.
Personally I never took one on my kin def and don't plan to on my corrupter. Took hover at lvl 49 for hami raids though.
IR makes a very good travel power as long as you watch where you land and Siphon Speed is good as long as you don't miss on a +5 mob. I would even run across the Gulch to SB team members in the hollows when we didn't have someone with Recall Friend available although some of the mishes in IP meant getting past +6/7 mobs and I didn't really want to risk them.
I did take invis and that makes IR much safer although firing it off whilst invis will not buff others
- you still need to keep an eye on when it is about to run out though.
Mind of Gaia lvl 50 Defiant's first Mind/Storm 'troller.
Deadly Doc 50 Dark/Dark Corr
and lots more on Pinnacle,Union and Defiant
I'd say yes, and no 
TBH once I hit IP and Talos, trying to siphon speed off +4's and upwards didn't work very well, and I ended up getting splatted alot, so in the end I took SS as I already had hasten. Once I had IR available, I 'specced out the SS in favour of IR. I now have Fly and hover as well as IR, simply because hover works great with Siphon Speed for inside the missions, and I like to chat while travelling.
Defiant 50's
Many and varied!
@Miss Chief
Thanks for all the advice one and all. Just hit lvl 6 and took siphon speed, really impressed. I like the sound of hover in combat and may go down that route. Once again, thanks to the best MMORPG community. 
this body is merely a shell
you can not touch me
you can not harm me
I am not afraid
@biomass341d
Originally on my kin defender, I neglected the travel pools and opted for siphon speed and IR. However, respecced out of IR, and took SJ (for acrobatics) and super speed (stacks with stealth for invisibility). Am umming and arring now whether to drop the leaping pool (acrobatics is PANTS for its kb protection as ANYTHING stronger than a sneeze de-toggles you) and speccing in hover instead for the kb protection (I had that for a while - and stacked with siphon speed, it's got a base speed comparable to fly).
It all comes down to personal preference at the end of the day.
Acrobatics is pants for anything ELSE than KB protection.. Everything that will knock off acro will also knock off hover. In addition you can get -fly'ed.
But having hover for semi-KB protection is ok.
AS for the topic, it is a personal choice. For PVP you want real travel powers, but for PvE it is possible to go without. It's up to you.
Taking acrobatics for a kinetic is a wasted power slot IMO as it achieves little more than hover with some serious drawbacks: it is noticeably more expensive endu-wise than hover and without hover it can be very hard to position yourself for your kinetic powers (yes, you need the endurance from transference) as soon as you stack speed.
And one remark about stamina: It is true, you don´t need stamina, but you will be miles away from your maximum potential if you skip it.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
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And one remark about stamina: It is true, you don´t need stamina, but you will be miles away from your maximum potential if you skip it.
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i hav e no stamina on my kin and i keep the team constantly speed boosted (ish theres always the stoney who whinges when they're a snail for 30 seconds) i fire off all my kin powers as soon as they're charged and when they're not i blast my lil green battery out. this is whilst running hasten, quite often with fly left on by mistake too.
i don't run out of stamina so i fail to see why the lack of this means i'm not utalising my full potentional
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Taking acrobatics for a kinetic is a wasted power slot IMO as it achieves little more than hover with some serious drawbacks: it is noticeably more expensive endu-wise than hover
[/ QUOTE ]0.06 EPS is hardly noticeable.
someone said IR doesnt root you anymore...
does on my kin def... which is odd, cause the patch notes implied that IR would be one of the powers which would no longer root you.
personally, i had ss until lvl 22. then i used a freespec to drop ss for IR and sell all my old enhances. IR is fine as a travel power. i did have hover briefly on the toon, but decided to drop it so i could work on the leadership pool.
my only gripe with the kinetics set... is that when i swap toons i keep thinking sprint is turned off cause they're moving so damnably slow. 
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does on my kin def... which is odd, cause the patch notes implied that IR would be one of the powers which would no longer root you.
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It looks like click powers are still being worked on.
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
"1. AOE Heals will not root
2. Self Buffs will not root
3. Self Heals will not root
4. Everything else will."
so... pretty much every kin power will root you... except transfusion. ah well, there go my dreams of reapplying IR mid jump
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"1. AOE Heals will not root
2. Self Buffs will not root
3. Self Heals will not root
4. Everything else will."
so... pretty much every kin power will root you... except transfusion. ah well, there go my dreams of reapplying IR mid jump
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Yet further on in the thread the question of how Twilight Grasp and Transusion will work, since they both debuff the targeted foe, is raised. Does this mean that the debuff will override the "AoE Heal will not root" rule so that these heals instead root you during animation?
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so... pretty much every kin power will root you... except transfusion. ah well, there go my dreams of reapplying IR mid jump
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I thought transfusion does root you, because it affects an enemy and is therefore no 'selfbuff'?
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"1. AOE Heals will not root
2. Self Buffs will not root
3. Self Heals will not root
4. Everything else will."
so... pretty much every kin power will root you... except transfusion. ah well, there go my dreams of reapplying IR mid jump
[/ QUOTE ]Transfusion WILL root you, since it affects an enemy. IR shouldn't, since it's a self buff.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"1. AOE Heals will not root
2. Self Buffs will not root
3. Self Heals will not root
4. Everything else will."
so... pretty much every kin power will root you... except transfusion. ah well, there go my dreams of reapplying IR mid jump
[/ QUOTE ]Transfusion WILL root you, since it affects an enemy. IR shouldn't, since it's a self buff.
[/ QUOTE ]
But surely IR is an PBAoE Buff, not simply a Self Buff?
So doesn't that put it back into the rooting category?
find me: @Ebon Hawk or @Jayd Dragon on Union
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"1. AOE Heals will not root
2. Self Buffs will not root
3. Self Heals will not root
4. Everything else will."
so... pretty much every kin power will root you... except transfusion. ah well, there go my dreams of reapplying IR mid jump
[/ QUOTE ]Transfusion WILL root you, since it affects an enemy. IR shouldn't, since it's a self buff.
[/ QUOTE ]
But surely IR is an PBAoE Buff, not simply a Self Buff?
So doesn't that put it back into the rooting category?
[/ QUOTE ]PBAoE buff toggles (Dispersion field, shadow fall, tactics) are not supposed to root, so it would be logical for it to work same way for clickies.
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But surely IR is an PBAoE Buff, not simply a Self Buff?
So doesn't that put it back into the rooting category?
[/ QUOTE ]PBAoE buff toggles (Dispersion field, shadow fall, tactics) are not supposed to root, so it would be logical for it to work same way for clickies.
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That was my take on it too but, as usual, we will have to wait until the changes hit test to see if that's right.
Back to the OP, apart from a brief flirtation with the leaping pool my kinetics defender managed just fine with Siphon Speed, Hover and IR all the way to 50.
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
Wow.. An original question!!
There is no build that needs travel power. I've seen a SR Scrapper with swift+quickness only and he says it works fine. And it does.
With my troller, I've played without travel power 'til L35. Then I used respec and replaced Inertial Reduction and Repel for Hover and Fly (mainly because it's quite useful for Hamidon PA dropping).
Quick answer to the OP: Siphon Speed and IR work fine.
@False Fiction - Virtue / Defiant
Current projects - [Glaciologist - Ill/Cold Troller] [Cloudshaper - Storm/Dark Def] [Harald Wartooth - Elec/Psi Domi]
Just created a kin/dark defender. Looking at the powers, do I need to take a travel power ? Inertial Reduction sounds a bit like SJ, can I survive until lvl 18, or is it better to take a travel power and then respec it out ?
this body is merely a shell
you can not touch me
you can not harm me
I am not afraid
@biomass341d