Kin/Rad - Reroll Now!

I. Introduction:

Let me start by saying, roll another combination. That’s right, you heard me. If you want to do damage, for Pete’s sake roll a blaster or join all of the other walking demigods with their scrappers. If you want to help your team, make some other defender or perhaps a controller. You are going to be disappointed and unless you are making the toon for some kind of theme, do something else. Trust me, you’ll be much happier.

Why are you still reading?

Seriously, I am not kidding and this isn’t some literary ploy. Odds are you will be much happier with some other combination. I’ve taken this road, and it’s long… and painful… and mostly futile. In fact, this is the toon that caused me to quit playing CoX for six months or so. Yes, it is that bad.

You’re still here…

Fine there’s one in every crowd. I know that I suffered through 50 levels of this combination to find the truth of the matter. You have little to no place on any real team where another person couldn’t come in and offer more. I know you’re excited and your fledgling hero has that new character smell. You have visions of being a rolling ball of boosted AOE destruction. I know that I did. However, don’t take the short version, before I talk about any powers, I’m going to continue to try and get you to make another character.

Here are the problems:
(1) You have no natural method of surviving.
Read that again; carefully. It’s very, very important. Your only power that will keep you alive is a targeted heal, that while powerful, needs to hit and won’t fire if the mob dies. It is amazing on how often both of those occurrences happen. Even so, you are playing a reactive game and if you manage to get agro away using your AOEs, the incoming damage will likely be more than you can handle.

Of course, all of this goes without talking about your complete lack of Mez and knockdown protection. Even if you manage to keep up with damage with your targeted heal, you can’t really be using it when you are held, slept, stunned, or flopping on the ground. All of those occasions occur with alarming frequency in the later levels.

To make yourself at all survivable, you will need to dip heavily into the power pools which means you’ll give up on several quality of life items. You’ll have to skimp on some of the blast set to fit in what you need and the slots will get very tight as you six slot powers to get those elusive defensive bonuses

If you do go through the effort to get some defense, you will likely spend a whole lot of time, and more than a billion inf in making it work.

Note: See light at the end of the tunnel to talk more about this

(2) You do defender damage.
That’s right, there is no hero AT that does worse damage than you. Here are the damage scales for Melee and Ranged damage at Level 50:

Dmg Type    Blaster    Controller    Defender    Scrapper    Tanker    Kheldian
Melee       55.610     30.586        30.586      62.562      44.488    41.708
Ranged      62.562     30.586        36.147      27.805      27.805    34.756

Class     Base Damage   Enhanced Dmg   Build Up &/or Aim   Capped
Defender     36.1           72.2             90.2          144.4
Tanker       44.5           89.0            133.5          177.9
Blaster      62.6          125.1            164.0          250.4

Attack       Base Dmg |  SO Dmg | 50 IO*  |% to slot Enh | Proc?
Neutrino Bolt   21.7      7.16     9.20      66.1%         Yes
X-Ray Beam      36.1     11.91    15.23      39.8%         Sometimes**
Irradiate       36.1     11.91    15.23      39.8%         Sometimes**
Electron Haze   48.8     16.10    20.69      29.4%         Sometimes**
Proton Volley  101.2     33.39    42.91      14.2%         No
Cosmic Burst    76.6     27.28    32.48      18.7%         No
Neutron Bomb    36.1     11.91    15.23      39.8%         Sometimes**
Atomic Blast   198.5     65.51    84.16       7.2%         No

II. The Kinetics Set:
We’ll start with the primary. Kinetics is a melee centric defender set. Its powers almost universally require you to be at close proximity to the mobs you are affecting (if you want to see any benefit from them. You can play a Kin standing far away from the fight, but you limit your damage, and to some degree survivability, even more). Its primary effects are buffing your damage, recharge, and endurance along with that of your allies. It has a very powerful heal which trades power for versatility.

Originally I had laid out all of the power details, trying to be incredibly comprehensive in my guide. However, I came to the realization that I don’t read it when other people give all the power numbers. So instead, I’ll summarize the power and give thoughts, tactics and other tips on slotting and using the power.

Transfusion:
Type: Mob centered AOE heal
Value: 10/10

This is a very powerful mob centered AOE heal, which is sadly your only real means of survival for a long time. While it is an incredible heal, it has some huge downsides. It has to hit first and foremost which isn’t a problem until you are trying to save a teammate and the RNG decides that you are going to miss. The second problem is that at the end of the cast time, the mob has to be alive. If it is not, the heal graphic shows, but no targets are healed. While this doesn’t seem like much of a problem, with all the AOE’s that occur it can be more problematic than you think. Finally, you have to have a mob next to someone who needs healing, which for non melee folks can be tricky.

Now for the positives, the heal is very powerful, healing close to 50% of a targets health when fully slotted. It recharges relatively quickly and the cast time is average. That means that in the lower levels, it usually will be enough to keep you alive should you want to solo missions and hunt smaller spawns. Don’t try to use this for hazard sweeping as you will quickly be overwhelmed and in later levels you definitely don’t want to be getting much agro until you have some of the Epic defenses.
Making sure you are healed is not usually too much of a problem (short of the 5% miss rate and the mob dying on you.) Getting it to heal any non melee class can be tricky. There is no reliable method of healing a blaster, controller, or fellow defender unless they stay right in the thick of it.

A not commonly known aspect of this power is the fact that it also drains some end from the target as well as debuffs their regen.

Tips:

• Target the tank. Much of the time, the tank will be targeting something big and threatening that is likely standing right in front of him. If you are having trouble keeping people buffed and getting an enemy targeted who’s near someone you need to heal, targeting through your tank, or scrapper is a good idea.
• If someone is dying, target them and cast. One of the most frustrating things about this heal is that you can’t heal a person, you need to find a mob that’s near them to heal. With the exception of blasters, you can sometimes catch them by targeting them instead of a mob and toss a heal. I only recommend this if they are dropping fast and you don’t have time to turn in their direction and pick a mob.
• Target bosses if you can or something with half health or more. It’s amazing how often whatever you are trying to target dies before the heal goes off. Target a boss, which will likely drop a lot slower or at least something that has most of its life left.
• Spam this power in an AV fight even if you don’t need the healing. Knocking down their regen is nearly as good as doing damage.

Slotting:
I normally 6 slot this power. It’s really your main, and for many levels, only survival tool. While you could go less, you are shooting yourself in the foot by not doing so.

Basic: Acc,Acc,Heal,Heal,Heal,Rech

I wouldn’t do anything less than that. However, you do have a few nice bonuses you can pick up from the Healing IO Sets.

There are several set options you can play with, but only two of the sets make a whole lot of sense. Doctored Wounds will grant you a 5% global recharge with 5 slots, add an accuracy IO to that and you have my favorite slotting. The Touch of the Nictus is a nice alternative, using 3 slots for a 9% global accuracy or bumping to five slots for both the accuracy and a decent Max End bonus. As an added bonus, the Touch set gives you enough bonus that you can 5 slot the power and still get good effect out of it. Of course your sixth slot here could always be used for one of the super shineys.

Tips:

• The power has a decent radius, so get in a crowd of blasters and trigger this off, even if you’ve Fulcrum Shifted. Odds are, the support and ranged toons didn’t get much of that bonus.
• While it’s not going to save you, having a 25% damage debuff on a boss goes a long way on increasing your limited survivability.

Slotting:
More often than not, I leave this power with one slot. It’s mildly effective with it and there are no sets to get bonuses out of anyway.

Basic: Acc
Mini Fulcrum: Acc/Rech/Rech/Rech

With the Mini Fulcrum option, you are recharging the power every 7 seconds, with a 2 second cast time. If you are lucky, you can keep 2-3 of them on the blasters for an entire mission. 50-75% bonus damage for a blaster is enough to speed things up significantly.

Tips:

• You can bounce people into a corner and keep them there. Realize it’s one end per bump and you’ll drain pretty quick, but you can keep a boss bouncing pretty well with some practice.
• There’s a place to play Hellion Soccer in Atlas with this power.

Slotting:
While I wouldn’t use the power for any serious use myself, there are some who want it.

Basic: End

The set options for this power are quite good… kind of like they realized how bad knockback powers are in general and are trying to be nice about it. The kinetic crash set is pure gold with a huge recharge bonus, an Knockback prevention, and some regen to boot. Four slots will get you the knockback protection and six gets you the recharge.

Tips:

• You will find that your Irradiate power tends to make people want to run away. This is a nice power to use on the boss that you don’t want to chase all over the place.
• Get enough recharge to have it stacked on you 2x, it makes a big difference.
• Combine this power with hover and you have the equivalent of flight
• You can use this for a travel power assuming that you are not going through zones that are significantly higher than you.

Slotting:

As long as you are not soloing smaller spawns (2-3 mobs). I found I used the power enough to justify five slotting it. If you have lots of Global acc and rech, you can reduce the slots to 3-4.

Basic: Acc, Acc, Rech, Rech, Rech
High Glob Acc: Acc, Rech, Rech, Rech
High Glob Rech: Acc, Acc, Rech, Rech
High Glob Acc & Rech: Acc, Rech, rech

You can see that as you acquire more set bonuses, you can drop some of the slots from the power. I still like to 5 slot it with lots of accuracy and recharge, however, if you are purpling, or have several global +9% bonuses and run tactics, you might find that to be overkill.

As for set bonuses, there aren’t any great low hanging fruits. Partially because the slow sets don’t have enough recharge in them to make the power really shine. However, if you are trying to cap some defenses, six slotting the power and picking up Pacing of the Turtle isn’t a bad idea, just make sure you have enough global recharge to compensate.

Tips:

• If you do use this power, keep it on the folks drawing the most agro. Don’t try to keep it on everyone all the time. Also, make sure you have them speed boosted so they don’t lag behind people.
• For the people who are not getting all the agro, make sure to throw this on them as they get mezzed.

Slotting:
One slot is all the power really needs, unless you are looking to get some set bonuses/unique slotted here.

Basic: Res

Perhaps the best reason to take the power earlier is to get some of the Resist IOs slotted into the power. The four that I would consider are: Aegis Status Resistance, Impervious Skin Status Resistance, Steadfast Protection Knockback Prot and Steadfast Protection Resistance/3% def. Since status protection is near impossible to get on this character, having those IOs will go a long way towards adding to your survivability.

Tips:

• Bind this power to a third mouse button if you have one. It makes casting it on the fly so much easier.
• If you have Neutrino Bolt on auto fire, you can buff while attacking. You will buff someone, attack who they are targeting, select another player to buff, buff them, auto attack who they are targeting and so on. It’s a nice way to keep this power up and still be contributing to the teams effectiveness.
• You can use this bind for targeting and speedboosting players on your team: /bind numpad1 "+ $$powexecname Speed boost$$teamselect 1"
• If you cast it just before you enter the mission, and right after you enter, it stacks with itself giving +100% recharge and some insane endurance recovery.
• If you have a stone tank, keep this on him/her all the time, they will love you to death for it. It’s a great way to always be on teams.
• A tip from the forums: When confronted with SB Plz request over and over, especially if you’ve been good at keeping the power up, just start chain casting it on them over and over until they get the point.

Slotting:
Out of the box, the power is plenty good. I have never enhanced it further than placing a single end mod in there. However, some people really like to solve their team mates end problems, so adding a few more wouldn’t be the worst thing. If you buff in combat a little recharge isn’t bad either, although usually global recharge is enough to cover this; especially if you are spamming Siphon Speed

Basic Slotting: End Mod
Enhanced Slotting: End Mod/End Mod

As for sets, there are a couple that you might want to take advantage of. This is a nice place to slot Blessing of the Zephyr for the Knockback protection. If you are heading down the defensive route, two more slots gives you 3% defense in several categories. Combine that with an end mod and you have a very nice buff on a power that’s typically team only. Two slots using Energy Manipulator will get you a small recovery bonus as well.

Tips:

• Make sure to let people know they have it, most people won’t notice until they actually jump.
• Be aware when the power is wearing off, you don’t really want to have to cast this while standing in the middle of a large mob you just landed in.
• A stealth IO is a nice proc to have here so you don’t get creamed on the way down.

Slotting:
Another power that’s good with minimal slotting. If you are using basic IO’s, adding a recharge to it is nice to make sure you can recast when you want too. A jump enhancement makes it as good as Super Jump.

Basic Slotting: Rech
Alt Slotting: Rech/Jump

There are few set items that you can choose from, but Blessing of Zephyr is one of them. That allows you to place a –KB proc here, or add more slots to go the defensive route. Another good option is to place a stealth IO in this power. It alleviates some of the danger from landing right in the middle of a mob.

Tips:

• This power was made to help people recover from their tier 9 nukes. Many nukes, yours included, drain all of your end when you cast them. If it’s your nuke, pop a blue, hit transference and you are back in the fight at full end.
• See all of the tips for Transfusion.

Slotting:
This power is important enough that you really want to slot for it. I recommend six slots, but you can manage with anywhere from 3-6 depending on your set bonuses and if you took Stamina or not.

Basic Slotting: Acc/Acc/End Mod/End Mod/Rech/Rech
Lite Slotting: Acc/End/Rech/Rech

Six slotting with the Efficacy adaptor gives some really nice bonuses, including a global recharge. It’s a lot of slots, but this is one of your signature powers and well worth the investment. If you are going the defense route, performance shifter isn’t a bad set, but you won’t get much out of the proc to get the defense bonus from the sixth slot.

Tips:

• Target something that is going to live.
• Wait until someone has agro, you can not take an alpha nor sustained agro.
• If you have access to an AOE sleep, Fulcrum Shift does not wake the mobs up. You can sleep them, walk in, Shift, then bast away.
• If there is another Kin on the team, keep track if they are using FS as well. You can’t get more than 300% damage boost.
• Monitor your damage boost with the power attributes window to see if you are capped or not

Slotting:
While Fulcrum Shift is one of the best powers in the game, it does not accept any Set IOs. So you are limited to basic slotting. I recommend 3-5 slots for this power depending on your global bonuses.

Basic Slotting: Acc/Acc/Rech/Rech/Rech
Lite Slotting: Acc/Rech/Rech

There are no set IO options for this power.

III. The Radiation Set:
The Radiation Blast set was unique to Defenders on the hero side. It has a decent amount of AOE attacks and one very good short range single target attack. There are no real defensive powers in the set (short of a ST Mez and the Nuke), one of the reasons that pairing it with Kinetics can be problematic. It also doesn’t have a particularly great secondary effect, -DEF. While that’s fine in your teens when hitting can be an issue, most of the time people overslot for accuracy anyway and the –DEF goes to waste as characters are already capped at their 95% to hit chance.

While it is not perhaps the best of the defender blast sets, it has a few things going for it. First is a fair amount of AOE attacks, most of which are up fairly often. The second is the huge amount of procs that you can slot. Finally is the fact that it’s a unique and very classy looking power set.
Sadly, the procs only help a bit for you. Procs can be enhanced with –RES not +DMG. So having a proc heavy build is much more suited to a set where you can floor resistance, like Cold, Storm, Rad, or TA. Having large amounts of Procs can be counter productive in a build with so much +DMG available to itself. Still, if you can balance the damage needs, you should be able to have a nice balance and get your damage up close to the blaster realms.

Neutrino Bolt:
Type: Single target ranged attack
Value: 8/10*

This is a bit of a controversial power. You have to take it and it does ridiculously poor damage out of the box (21.69 at level 50). Even enhanced, it still barely will tickle a mob. To its credit, it has a very low recharge time and the animation is pretty quick as well. More important, is that it can take three damage procs among others. With the speed that you can spam the attack, and the number of procs you can add to it, I think it becomes a must slot power. That is assuming you can pay the going rates for all of the procs that you are going to need.
The inherent def debuff of the power is ok, but it’s not something I have ever really noticed all that much. Again, people slot for accuracy quite a bit and –DEF is just not as useful once characters start hitting their 20’s

Tips:

• You can leave this power on auto fire and it will blast while you are doing other things, like healing, or buffing. It works especially well while buffing speed boost as you get an attack off when you select each player in turn. The recharge is about right for casting Speed Buff, then Neutrino Bolt.
• Create a Maco to toggle on and off the blast, it’s up far too much to manually click. /macro NB powexec_auto Neutrino Bolt.
• If you do turn the blast on auto, make sure to turn it off after each fight. I have aggroed new mobs while speed boosting people. When they select a target, and I have the attack on auto, I attack that target. So make sure to turn it off.
• You likely also do not want the power on auto if you are trying to heal. There is nothing worse than trying to heal someone and killing the target next to them with your auto attack.

Slotting:
Much of this depends on whether or not you want to pay to trick this power out. If you don’t, then I wouldn’t devote more than 1-2 slots too it. It just doesn’t do enough on its own to justify slots without trying to get procs into it.

Basic: Acc/Dmg

As for set options there are a ton depending on what you are aiming for. If you are like me, and use this for a main attack, you are going to want to get the three damage procs into it: Shield Breaker Lethal, Touch of Lady Grey Negative, and Apocalypse Negative. Since the third proc is only available at level 50, you have options as you level. One is to put the Achilles Heel –Res proc in that slot, another is the Devestation Chance to Hold. Both of them give nice benefits to this quick firing power. Entropic Chaos has a chance to heal proc which I’d avoid. You’ll rarely see the benefits when you need them.

I typically use the remaining three slots to get some set bonuses and the thunderstrike set works well for some ranged defense and recovery. You can use the rest of the shield breaker set to get some melee defense as well as a bit of welcome status resistance. Again, enhancing damage on this power is a bit of a waste, so using non damage sets is just fine. However, since you are likely using three or more slots for procs, you have very limited options.

If you run tactics like I recommend, then slotting all five procs and an Accuracy IO would likely be the best slotting you can get.

Tips:

• Since this has a much stronger –def debuff you could use this and irradiate to tackle much harder to hit enemies Slotting:

Your slotting will depend on how you are using the power. If it’s one of your main attack powers than you need to devote a lot of slots to it. If you are using it as a poor man’s hold and –res debuff along with Neutrino bolt, you can skimp on the slots.

Basic Slotting: Acc/Acc/Dam/Dam/Dam/Rech
Light Slotting: Acc/Dam/Dam/Dam

If you are using this power, there are two sets you would want to consider, Thunderstrike and Decimation. Thunderstrike would be the better of the two as it adds to Global Accuracy and gives some really nice defensive boosts. Decimation is decent for Global Recharge and some max endurance. You can also add in the Hold or Resist procs as well as the Unique proc if you are not placing it in Neutrino Bolt.

Tips:

• As with all of your AOEs, you need to make sure that someone is getting agro other than you. Frankly you won’t stand up to many mobs and an AOE is certain to tick a bunch of them off. Make sure your tank has them amply taunted or you’ll face plant a lot.
• Since this power is a sphere radiating on you, you need to be right in the middle of a mob to have the best effect
• While the defense debuff is huge, I rarely use it before casting Fulcrum
• It usually takes about 3 applications of this and Neutron Bomb at capped damage to beat a hazard spawn

Slotting:
I’d be hard pressed to not six slot this power. To me it’s the crown jewel in the set since you can get it off so quickly. You really want to concentrate on recharge to get the power to come up as much as you can. Damage is of course also critical.

Basic: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg/Rech/Rech
Minimal: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Rech

While you can slot six procs into the power, that’s kind of a waste, so the goal is to cap damage and acc with as few slots as possible and then add procs for more damage. The ideal slotting would be 2 acc/dmg hami-o’s and your choice of four of the damage procs. If you have enough global accuracy and can hit things without slotting accuracy in the power, then 2 damage IO’s, three basic procs and the unique proc will cause the most damage possible with the power.

If you are slotting for set bonuses, then nearly all of the PBAoE sets have very nice defensive options. SCirocco’s Dervish grants 9% global accuracy with four slots which can be nice. Obliteration gives nice Melee defense bonuses as well as Acuuracy and Recharge! Multi Strike has moderate defensive bonuses and likely isn’t worth the loss in damage unless you are looking for much cheaper options. Finally Eradication is ok, but not nearly as good as the others.

Placing a –res proc from Achillies Heel in this power can be very useful as you tend to spam it a lot and it usually hits a fair number of people. The defense debuff sets are nice, but avoid them on this power as you are going to have to eke out all the damage you can to be a solid team contributor.

Tips:

• Since this is a cone, you want to be slightly back from the action to get more targets. Dive in after the tank, Fulcrum Shift, Irradiate, then jump out of the combat and line up someone in the middle of the pack. Toss your haze and neutron bomb (if you have it) dive back in just as Irradiate has recharged. It’s not a bad attack chain and you can fill the gaps with the quick firing Neutrino Bolt.
• Cones work wonders in tunnels
• While you usually don’t want to use powers with knockback around the melee folks, the knockback on this is so spotty that you can usually do it without ticking too many people off.

Slotting:
If you are going to take this power, and use it, then you want to at least 5 slot it. That enhances the power sufficiently and gives you a very nice option for set bonuses as you get inf. Since it’s a high endurance attack I wouldn’t go with fewer slots since it needs to be good to make up for its cost.

Basic Slotting: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg/End
Post Transference: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg/Rech

The Positron’s Blast set is the best thing you can do for five slots. Take the damage proc with it and you get a nice 6.25% recharge bonus. That also leaves a potential slot to place another Achilles heel proc, or even a second damage proc. This power should slot for damage before procs, but if you already have capped damage, then the procs will stack very nicely. For silly money, you can slot the purple Ragnarock set . Like all of the purple sets, it has excellent global accuracy and recharge. However, I can’t really recommend you look at this until you have filled other more pressing needs.

Tips:

• If you can manage to get enough defense, or sleep the mobs and slow the boss, you can trigger this off to lead an attack chain that does some very sick damage.
• If you are pulling, don’t target a boss, your best bet is a minion since you don’t do enough damage to actually one shot them.
• Don’t use the power unless your team is ready.
• As a solo kin, this is really not a power you want to lead with as some of the mobs will come forward and try to agro you. You want mobs in a nice little clump for all the /RAD AOEs and the KIN/ buffs.

Slotting:
If you are just going to use it to pull, then one slot is fine. For team usage, 4+ slots would be recommended. Since it’s not going to be a base attack, four slots is likely fine.

Basic Pulling: Acc
Typical Sniper: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg

Some of the sniper sets are very good for bonuses. Extreme Measures can help with Melee defense and recovery, but will need 6 slots. Sting of the Manticore has some modest defense but a very nice 7.5% recharge with 5 slots. Calibrated accuracy has an accuracy bonus at 4 slots that can help. Much of the time, if you are slotting this power, it’s not really for the power as much as the bonuses.

Tips:

• While you are still leveling up, trigger this before hitting a key power, such as Cosmic Burst to stun a mob, or Fulcrum/Transference/Transfusion.
• If you find you are hitting 95% of the time anyway, then look to use the power as a damage boost on small teams or solo missions.
• Try to time it so that you are not wasting your Aim on buffs, as long as they are likely going to hit, instead use it to cap damage in cases where FS will not do it on its own.

Slots:
Much of the slotting decisions will be determined if you are going to use Tactics or not. If you are not, then a minimum of three slots for recharge IO/SOs would be in order. If you run tactics then one slot is sufficient for the times you just want that extra bit of Acc.

Basic Slotting: Rech/Rech/Rech
Lite Slotting: Rech

The two sets that come close to must have for this power are Gaussian’s Synchronized Fire Control which gives 2.5% defense to AOE/Ranged/Melee and 1.25% to the typed defenses as well as recovery for a six slot investment. Adjusted targeting has three very desired traits, Accuracy at four slots, Recharge at five, and status resistance at 6. While the slot investment is high, it’s a high payoff for the bonuses.

Tips:

• Mag 2 won’t stun a boss, so if you are soloing, target a Lt. with this to mitigate some damage. It does save you a lot of pain to take a foe out of the fight.
• Even capped damage won’t let you one shot anything but minions with this attack.
• If you take the dark pool and the stun aura, you can use that to stack mag and stun bosses.

Slotting:
I would consider five slots a minimum and likely would put six in here. The attack is by far and away your best single target attack and should be enhanced as far as you can. Like all of the ranged attacks there are some nice options to slot in this power.

Basic Slotting: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg/Rech/Rech
Minimal Slotting: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg/Rech

For sets you have two leading options, Thunderstike or Decimation. Thunderstrike really wants six slots in a defensive oriented build. Decimation can live with five slots for the global recharge, and add in another slot for a proc or further bonuses. While you toss this power out a lot, it’s still on a longer recharge than Neutrino bolt so procs aren’t quite as valuable in it. Even with good recharge you are looking at using the power every 4 seconds or so.

Tips:

• If your tank can’t hold agro, or the foes are using lots of AOE based attacks, then darting into the combat for FS and out to use Haze and Neutron Bomb will allow you to do some respectable damage while mitigating risk.
• I tend to use this attack first, followed by Irradiate since the debuff and dot in Irradiate tend to make foes run briefly. If you reverse the order and Irradiate first, you hit a lot less enemies with Neutron Bomb.
• While I am not 100% certain, I find that if my initial target dies before the attack finishes, no one in the area is hit. Until I can confirm, I make sure to target Lt’s and above who are at half health or better. It’s also another reason to use this as your opener attack.

Slotting:
As long as you are going to use this as one of your main attacks then five slots is nearly a minimum. It’s damage out of the box, is mediocre, so enhancing it heavily is a good thing. If you are running tactics, and have enough global acc, then you can shift more to damage and recharge and skimp on accuracy.

Basic Slotting: Acc/Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg/Rech
High Global Acc: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Dmg/Rech/Rech

There are a lot less set options for targeted AOE damage. Positron’s blast is really the best of the full sets, granting you more global recharge for five slots. With a sixth slot you can add in the Achilles heel proc which does nice -res for an AOE attack. If you are not going for the set bonus, this power will benefit more from procs than it will for damage in most cases. Your best damage would be to have the three damage procs and then slot for damage/recharge/accuracy in that order. For a max bonus/damage setup you could take four from Positron’s blast (including the damage proc), and then the Lady Grey damage proc and the shield breaker proc. That gives you near max damage as well as some global acc and recovery.

Tips:

• This attack, without Fulcrum Shift, is not powerful enough to defeat foes on its own. Make sure to get a decent damage bonus (say 200% going before using the power)
• Be careful when using this power against Freaks. Since they resurrect, you will often find yourself facing half a spawn after wiping them all out.
• Never use the power unless you have a blue inspiration or a team that can cover for you. Missing an opponent is a bad thing when you can’t use any of your powers and everything detoggles.
• With some fast timing, you can use the blue immediately after the power triggers and before any of your toggles check for end. It is possible to keep toggles off if your timing/lag allows it.

Slotting:
Depending on how much you use the power, you can argue that anything from 2-6 slots would be fine. For an emergency one off power 2 slots would be fine. For a maximum use, 5-6 slots would be recommended.

High Availability: Acc/Dmg/Dmg/Rech/Rech/Rech
Emergency Use: Acc/Dmg

This is one of the powers that you should never sacrifice damage IOs for procs, even if you can place them here. The power does enough damage that you’ll always be better off slotting for it than the unenhanced damage from a proc. The PBAoE sets are very nice and have great bonuses. If you have the money, Obliteration is a terrific set to six slot. It gives acc, rech, and def bonuses and has enough recharge % to get Atomic blast up as much as possible. Scirroco’s is a good set as well if you are going to four slot the power.

IV. Power Pools:
There are few builds that are solid without power pool picks, Kin/Rad needs them as much or more than others. While I will not go into the detail I did with the primary and secondary, I will touch on each pool and their powers as well as how they will help you.

Concealment:
A pool dedicated to hiding yourself from mobs. Not a great choice given the number of methods of getting stealth with the IO system or other power pool picks.

Stealth 2/10
Useful if you don’t want to spend money on +stealth IOs. The defense isn’t enough to warrant using in a defensive build.

Grant Invisibility 1/10
I can’t think of any times, short of the days of Katie Hannon runs that anyone really thought getting turned Invisible was a great thing. It’s a mostly wasted power pick.

Invisibility 3/10
Some possible benefit from stealthing missions, but too many power picks to get what you can essentially do for free.

Phase Shift 5/10
If you are already taking concealment powers for stealth or concept purposes, this is not a bad power to take. The ability to hit a panic button is nice.

Boxing 4/10
A tolerable single target melee attack that can disorient. You can use it with Cosmic Burst to stack mag on a single target.

Kick 2/10
Another mediocre attack that has a lesser secondary benefit in knockback.

Tough 8/10
Decent smashing and lethal protection. Since that’s some of the most common damage, it can really help you live through encounters.

Weave 9/10
Decent defense to all damage. With IO slotting in other powers and additional pool picks you can get your defense up to the soft cap, significantly improving your characters survivability.

Swift 2/10
Of the two entry powers into this pool this is probably the lesser choice for you since you have access to a massive run speed buff.

Hurdle 3/10
Adding a bit more vertical component is likely of more use to you than the speed, however, neither of the entry powers is particularly useful.

Health 4/10
Since you have a great heal that you will be forced to use on multiple occasions this power is more of a quality of life thing. However, there are some nice unique heal IOs that can be placed here.

Stamina 7/10
There are few cases to make to say that less endurance is better.

Hover 6/10
Adds some much needed defense, and with Siphon Speed, is nearly as fast as Fly.

Air Superiority 5/10
While Defender melee damage is pitiful, the knockdown effect makes this attack worth considering, especially as you are leveling up.

Fly 3/10
Probably not needed as Siphoned Hover is better and saves a power choice. Only needed for quality of life reasons or concept.

Group Fly 1/10
Buggy and hard to use. Plus everyone else will already have their own travel power.

Maneuvers 7/10
Adds a small amount of defense, but with enhancements can add to a defense oriented build. Also a great place to put some unique IOs.

Assault 4/10
While you have a lot of +dmg abilities, if you solo much, this is a nice power to take. 18% damage is useful until you can stack enough Siphons or Fulcrums to start really boosting your damage.

Tactics 9/10
For kinetics, where hitting is paramount, this is nearly a must take power. The fact that it has some terrific set options only adds to its usefulness.

Vengeance 1/10
A rez power that grants you nice bonuses for a short while. It can turn the tide of the battle, but I’d rather have powers that kept the battle from going bad in the first place.

Jump Kick 2/10
A poor attack made worse by the lousy damage defenders do in melee.

Combat Jumping 6/10
Protection from immobilization and defense make this a very nice power to consider.

Super Jump 2/10
While it’s a little better than Inertial Reduction, it’s only really worth taking if you need it for Acrobatics.

Acrobatics 7/10
The only Mez protection that you can get short of IOs. If it had a little better protection, it would be a must have power. As it stands, it’s a very nice power to get.

Aid Other 4/10
One of the frustrating issues with your main heal is that you need a mob near the person getting hit. If you want to heal more, this wouldn’t be a bad option as you can target who you need to heal without worrying about the battlefield positions.

Stimulant 1/10
A shorter and worse version of Increase Density, don’t take it.

Aid Self 1/10
Your main heal is so much faster, better, and since you can stand next to something before casting, reliable.

Resuscitate 2/10
A rez, which is not worth getting two other powers in this set to cast.

Challenge 1/10
A single target taunt… which you can’t really survive for all that long.

Provoke 1/10
Even worse, and AOE taunt that will put you in trouble.

Intimidate 3/10
Single target fear, low mag and not useful enough to keep you alive

Invoke Panic 5/10
A PBAoE fear that could help you stay alive, but having to take two other powers from this pool limits its use.

Flurry 1/10
A long animating attack that does poor damage for a defender

Hasten 9/10
Your value to the team short of being a buff bot is to put out AOE damage. Having those AOEs up more, along with Fulcrum, Transfusion and Transference is huge. You want this power and you likely want to three slot it for recharge.

Super Speed 6/10
While you have access to a run power, this one doesn’t need a hit check and grants stealth as well. It’s a quality of life pick, but a good one.

Whirlwind 1/10
Short of a costume change macro, there is little to like about this power for a Kinetics Defender

Recall Friend 4/10
While I love this power to speed teams up, it’s not necessary and doesn’t really help you much. A complete quality of life pick.

Teleport Foe 2/10
Somewhat useful for pulling enemies out of a group that you can’t handle. Otherwise, not really useful.

Teleport 2/10
A travel power that uses a lot of endurance and is really fast. Not really needed for anything other than concept reasons.

Team Teleport 4/10
While not great, you can use it to make sure those blasters come in with you to get their dose of Fulcrum Shift.

<Reserved for Sample Builds. I don't have them formatted and will get to it as time permits.>

I'm still wondering if you're serious and why no one responded yet. But probably I don't need to wonder at all.

My kin/rad defender is one of my best, if not THE best toon I've ever rolled. This guy does anything and he does it great.
He's even that great that I re-rolled him on my second acc, both are 50 and a blast to play, solo/team/TFs.

BEST. COMBO.EVER. <3<3<3<3<3<3<3

As someone who has a 50 kin/rad, I have to say this guide summarizes my feelings on the matter quite well. If I could ever reselect any one powerset on any one of my characters, I'd yank rad blast without a second thought. I don't bother to slot my attacks because I don't use them.

That said, I still enjoy playing the character, but I don't bother chipping in on damage.

I have a 50 Kin/Rad and the toon is one of my oldest, seeing play since before Issue 1. In fact, I just did Khan last night with him. I do not have any special or expensive IOs on him at all and he did quite well.

I do not think that the debuff effects of the powers were given enough credit. Like Poison, Kin's can debuff the h*** out of a single target. It seems like they were made to help take down AVs. -Dam, -Recharge, Slow, -Regen, -Def (And not small numbers either) all serve to really add a lot to teams.

I have played a lot of defenders and it is true that in the lower levels, it was got pretty hellish running solo. Not because I was dying a lot, but because the battles were always a bit longish with having to heal/debuff during the fight. But, this combo is made for being on teams.

Interesting; I don't think I've ever seen such an extensive guide written by someone who didn't like the powersets they were writing about. It sounds like what you were really wanting to play was a blaster, or possibly a scrapper, rather than a support character.

For another viewpoint, I'd like to mention that if you DO want to play a support character, a kin/rad is a very decent choice. Its among the best choices for an offensive force multiplier, and as a team leader if I'm looking for that kind of support I'd tend to pick a kin defender over a fire/kin controller, because a kin defender is more likely to know how to support something other than their fire imps.

Advantages of rad secondary;
Fast animation - especially Neutrino, which is good for kin which needs to be very reactive so you need to avoid long animations. If you don't want a quick, reactive set, don't play kin. Neutrino, slotted with the Achilles proc, can with constant spamming average something like a -10% resist debuff on an AV, which incidently does not scale down for the purple patch, so it still works on the STF for example. You are not doing this mainly for the damage, you are doing this to multiply other peoples damage, i.e. providing support.
AoEs - Best available to a defender, the only set with 3 AoEs (not including the nuke), unless DP has that, I don't know that set as well. More AoEs = almost always better on a team.
Cosmic Burst - as mentioned in the guide, great attack, none of the other defender blast sets get this kind of damage WITH a mezz stackable to shut down a boss.
Defense debuff - As mentioned, this is not often needed for well slotted characters, but for things like Paragon Protectors which go into MOG, Rikti Drones, etc. its pretty handy given the need for Kin to hit things for so many powers. Its other main use is to allow that Achilles proc to go in.

Really, the only defender secondary I'd consider for effectiveness over Rad is Sonic, because its a great AV debuffer. Its very single target oriented, though, which makes the rest of the game slower. One could make an argument for Dark, for the -tohit debuffing and ability to pin foes with the Tentacles Immob, but since both AoEs are cones it means a lot of zooming in and out of combat.

Finally, I do suggest that anyone playing a support character, especially a kin who can die without the ability to fire off powers, pick up a -knockback IO. At worst, even if you hate the market, do some tip missions on the way up and buy one with 2 alignment merits, making sure to get the lowest level one you can.

I have to agree with Scientist.

I mostly specialise in support characters, as I enjoy the more tactical and strategic side of play.

The Kinetic/Rad defender was my first Kinetic, and I loved it so much that I eventually went on over the last few years to have 4 other kinetic defenders. Played right, the Kinetic Defender transforms any team completely.

For as start, as the guide points out, you get a really big, powerful heal, but it takes some practice and aiming to make it work. Aiming through the tank or another melee character works well. But also learn your shortcuts to target the nearest enemy, or set up your own bind for that, just for emergencies.

Siphon Power is a nice buff/debuff that the guide totally undersells and underrates. Self-stacking, even with basic DOs you and your nearby teammates should be on +50% damage buff pretty much at all times thanks to this power, not to mention the way the enemy boss doing -50% damage pleases the tank.

Siphon Speed is a really unique power that is adorable. Thanks to this power alone, the Kinetic is the one powerset that never really needed a travel power, and this power alone can turn Hover into Inertialess flight. But more to the point, by the time you are looking at IOs, this power should easily be triple stacking, and turning your Hasten perma with the least effort of any build. Really nice builds can quad-stack Siphon Speed pretty effectively, meaning no other power but Hasten ever *needs* any Recharge enhancing at all.

Increase Density this is the buff most controllers skip, and is worthwhile for any Defender to take. Its adds fairly decent Damage Resistance to just a few damage types, but the real gem is that it protects teammates versus mez and KB / KU / KD. In the early levels, you'll be the one *happy* to see those Ruin Mages, because Earthquake holds no fear for any of your team (except you, and you took Hover, right?).

Speed Boost this is such an awesome buff. The only tiny fly in this magnificent ointment is the few players that haven't learned to handle the extra movement speed and don't want all the other benefits because they can't work out how to move carefully. This one Buff is like granting two of the most common and desirable Pool Powers to your target, but better. Hasten and Stamina.

Except with just 2 SOs of end-mod, Speed Boost will be giving roughly double the recovery difference that Stamina does when 3-slotted, and it stacks with Stamina, making anyone a dynamo of endurance recovery. Okay, the Hasten effect is only 50% recharge, not 70%, but it stacks, and puts the buffed teammates halfway to perma-Hasten before counting any of their own +recharge bonuses or buffs.

Speed Boost is one of the best buffs in the game, and unlike Fortitude, Adreneline Boost, etc, it is fast recharging and can be applied to the entire team all the time.

Oh, and yes, Stone Tanks will adore you and have your babies.

Inertia Reduction is the most skippable power of the Kinetics set, but even that is handy for when you can't find a target for Siphon Speed, or when a teammate is moaning about crossing Terra Volta with only super-speed. With this buff and Speed Boost, this powerset can grant 2 awesome travel powers (Super Jump and Super Speed) to any teammate that has none.

Tranference is the power whereby several Kinetics builds back before inherent Fitness didn't need Stamina themselves. Not only does this allow you to easily completely recharge your own and your teammates endurance every 5-10 seconds when in full super-recharge battle-mode, and not only can it instantly refuel the blaster after his nuke, but its a serious debuffer on bosses. I'll often fire off just this power (nicely IOd) and a single Transfusion heal targeting a Death Mage +3 and he's completely drained of endurance before the fight has begun.

Fulcrum Shift is often seem as the true gem power of the set. It certainly is awesome, and again, one of the very best buffs/debuffs in the game. With your stacked Siphon Speed power and perma-Hasten (mostly perma thanks to the Siphon Speed) you are firing off a Fulcrum Shift in every single mob, and often 2 times on a tough mob. Fulcrum can be recharging and firing every 15 seconds or so when you have your momentum going.

Every single mob is suddenly doing significantly less damage, while your team in the AoE are instantly at capped damage. Total table-turner on ambushes and tough mobs.


The Kinetic Defender (of any variety) only has two difficulty settings: (1) Too Easy and (2) Dead. There's simply no in-between. Anything that does not kill you will seem ridiculously easy.