What can I expect with my new Fire/Kin?
By
Fury Flechette,
Posted on: 2009-11-18 13:08 in Controllers
Well, here we go. I won't necessarily try to disuade you from rolling a fire/kin, but I will encourage to explore all the different venues that control has to offer. Mostly, fire/kins are built for one thing and that thing is farming. So, to your questions...
1. Potentially a high contribution. You have a very potent heal, three nice buffs in Speedboost, Increase Density, and Fulcrum Shift, and the ability to refill your teams blue bars very quickly with Transference. A well played fire/kin can keep most of the team near their damage caps, offer mez protection for squishies, and help with endurance issues. Unfortunately, many farm builds will skip speedboost and ID because they are ally buffs and do nothing for the farmer.
2. Solo you will do quite well against large mobs of enemies if you face the right enemies and build for smashing/lethal defense.
3. Fire is an endurance heavy set, but Transference offers you a way to replenish your blue bar on demand. Some /kins will respec out of Stamina once they reach Transference. However, it requires you to pay closer attention to your endurance and stop burning things for a moment.
4. AoE damage is excellent for a controller. Your damage will come from two sources. Hotfeet, a PBAoE, damage toggle with a run slow and fear effect and your AoE immobilize. The immobilize is essentially for maintaing containment damage on hotfeet.
As to your final question, there isn't a simple answer. Are they the best at dealing AoE damage? Probably yes. Are they the best at locking down mobs? No. Are they best controller to have in an AV fight? Probably not. Can they solo GM's? Not that I have seen.
In my opinion, fire/kins tend to draw in a lot of newer players because they see them dealing epic amounts of damage or solo'ing mobs set for 8 players. However, they are also somewhat late blooming with one of the set defining powers coming at level 38 and often make use of IO sets to achieve an appropriate level of surviability for what they do. You may find the first 38 levels painful to work through and might not enjoy gathering the sets neccesary to soft cap your lethal/smashing defense. It depends on what you consider fun. For a lot of new fire/kins they hop into it not knowing that the payoff comes much later.
Welcome to the world of controllers, although it seems you already have a lvl 50 controller so I'd assume you know a touch about control now, but I'll add my two cents.
Fire/kins are not uber out of the box, like most controllers....as I hope you already know. You won't really feel "powerful" until you get imps and quite honestly the build doesn't mature into de uberhouse (I just made that up) until you get something aoe-ish from your epic pools.
Fire/kins are powerful for a few reasons:
1. Containment damage boosted even higher by Fulcrum Shift.
2. Easy containment set up by fire cages + flash fire
3. Energizer bunny-ness by transference and siphon speed (you don't run out of end and stuff recharges quickly...add hasten and Weeeeeeeeeee!)
4. Pbaoe damage of hotfeet + aoe epic damage and three crazy fire monkeys makes mincemeat from most baddies. (see 1. and 2.)
It is the classic farming build of the controller set. Chances are people seemed disappointed you weren't a fire/kin either because 1. they wanted to farm or 2. They've seen them clearing farm maps and assume they are the be all end all of team controllers and don't know any better.
The truth is any controller should be welcomed in any teaming situation. They are considered a "support" class and most builds are very powerful at support through damage mitigation from their primary and buffing and/or debuffing from their secondary. Some step outside of the support world (while still being very good at support) and can serve as the teams damage dealer and/or meleer/tanker. Depends on the build/playstyle/slottings/skill/etc. Fire/kin has the flexibility to be many different things, team support, farmer, or damage dealer. No particular style is better than the other, just better in the situation they are built.
The beauty of the controller is that they can serve as the team general, overseeing the battlefield and controlling (pun slightly intended) the pace and outcome of an encounter. It also seems to be one of the ATs that eventually attracts a lot of veteran, skilled and well thought out players. Enjoy.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
I've actually leveled mine up instead of getting it PL'ed so my perspective will be of someone who actually struggled through the beginning part of the fire/kin career where it isn't nearly as rosey as it is at the end.
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About an 8 or a 9 if you play well. Speed boost and the huge kinetic heals/endurance buffs are amazing. However, I've run into many bad fire/kins who are used to AE farming environment and don't understand how to use their powers outside of that environment. I'd rate their contribution as a -5. And amazing as a fire/kin is in a farm environment, there are many other controller combinations that are as good or better outside of it.| 1. Value to team play (1-10) 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest ranking |
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| 2. Solo play potency (1-10) are fire/kins good solo'ers? |
Fire/kin players who got PL'ed to 50 will never know this, since they get to play with all their tools in place.
Ratings:
Pre-stamina: 3
Post-stamina: 4
Post-imps: 6
Post-transference: 8
Post-epic blasts: 10
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| 3. Endurance hogs (1-10) do they use end like drunken sailors? |
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| 4. AoE on fire damage (1-10) I ask this as it seems it has a very wide ranged cone of attack. |
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Finally, out of all these sets "is" e.g. Earth Control, Gravity Control, Ice Control,..etc,..is Fire/Kin the best? This question would be best asked for those of you who have played the other sets and can give a good comparison. I know there will be bias here towards other groups and sets, I just want to know I will have tons of fun with this fire/kin and just need the pat on the back and reassurance to know that I am in for a good and wonderful journey. 
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I leveled my fire/kin and already had a lot of experience with a 50 kin defender. Since then, I number 5 level 50 kins, with another coming up. IMHO, you will see three basictypes of fire/kins out there, with many straddling between a few.
1. The farmer: Eventually planned to be a godly expensive build, they have one goal. Farm maps fast! Expect a build and playstyle more akin to an assault tank than a controller.
2. The team playler/roleplayer: While they may plan to farm, their mindset more lends to teaming, and thus their build is not built to maximize a farm build. They might have powers like leadership or powers based on their character's concept. (I'm more that way myself, but I always play as a kin first in many respects as I am usually hanging on huge teams and doing task forces every chance I can get)
3. The complete noob: No, I don't mean the player who's still learning his toon but doing well. I mean the PLed idiot with plans for glory and no care for the team other than how awesome they are.
Sadly, I've seen way too many of number 3, so call me jaded if you like. As a serious kin player, I've seen too many who either don't have Speed Boost (one of THE best buffs in the game and a serious reason why teams will want you), or more often just never give it out. And that is just lazy and selfish. I keep a bindset on all my kins to use the numpad to refresh SB based on team position. SB gives, speed (a mixed blessing), +recharge, and a massive end recovery boost. It is so useful, and empowers your whole team! You get it available at 20 and should take it at 22 after Stamina at 22. Practice SBing on the go and you will get it down fast. And you shall be loved. Let your team know it's ok to remind you if they need it refreshed.
Your heal is POWERFUL! At lower levels, play healer and practice it. If the mob dies that you were hitting, it produces no effect, so picking the right target can be tricky on a fast, high damage team. Transference and Fulcrum Shift have the same trouble, so practicing with the heal will get you set. 5 slot it for 2 accuracies and 3 heals early on, and you have a useful team tool.
Then there is Increase Density. A power you may or may not want. On a 1 minute timer, it's kind of a pain to keep up, but can be very useful to have at lower levels if you want another tool for buffing teammates and see if you like it. I find it a power I like to have, but rarely use, mainly because it lasts only a minute, whereas SB is 2 minutes. But man it is nice at times.
My point here is this. A fire/kin is awesome. A fire/kin can do damage like a blaster and mow through mobs. A fire/kin with some support can farm better than most others. But on a team, you should focus on the kin powers and the controls, or you will never truly make the most of that combo. Leveling gives you a lot of chances to do so. Good luck!
After rolling 7 or 8 plus toons so far, I decided it was time to build a Controller fire/kin. I wanted to do so for some time since I've been on as of Jan. 09'. When playing the game I would always get tells asking me if I was a fire/kin and disappointingly I had to tell them I wasn't. From what I've read in these posts, a fire/kin is pretty potent to team play, thus it seems the big demand for them.
So, with that being said, for those you "vets" out there who have built your fair share of fire/kins, what I can expect going forward? I am currently at level 10 with her now and so far not much excitement yet and haven't been getting a flood of invites yet like I thought I would. I would think probably as my powers are not at the full benefit stage yet to where a team could really use me is one case. So, to make this easy to rank a Fire/Kin, I broke it down like this:
1. Value to team play (1-10) 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest ranking
2. Solo play potency (1-10) are fire/kins good solo'ers?
3. Endurance hogs (1-10) do they use end like drunken sailors?
4. AoE on fire damage (1-10) I ask this as it seems it has a very wide ranged cone of attack.
5. Feel free to add any other goodies that I may have missed here. (1-10)
Finally, out of all these sets "is" e.g. Earth Control, Gravity Control, Ice Control,..etc,..is Fire/Kin the best? This question would be best asked for those of you who have played the other sets and can give a good comparison. I know there will be bias here towards other groups and sets, I just want to know I will have tons of fun with this fire/kin and just need the pat on the back and reassurance to know that I am in for a good and wonderful journey.