Fire/kin or Plant/kin?

As of late I've had this strange itch for creating a /kin, no particular reason why but I think the urge to zoom around the city giggling insanely at how fast I'm going has driven me a tad mad...

Anywho, I'm stuck between the two combos mentioned above. I have a 37 fire/rad that's wonderful but sadly needs to take a break due to lack of funds and enhancements (last thing I did before leaving the game because of financial reasons was respec my fire/rad and sell off everything I own and buying lots of recipes but no salvage, yay past me). So I'm familiar with fire and know how to work it. But I also, once a upon a time, wanted to make a plant/energy dom for the simple reason that plant seemed like a cool powerset. Now that plant is a controller primary I would like to give it a try but I don't know anything about it.

Now because of lack of funds I would like to have a toon that can solo/farm relatively well (solo because as a college student I don't really have much time unless I plan on pulling an allnighter just so that I can play an hour of Co* and farming because I have other plans for future toons but money is an issue especially with the IOs going beyond the millions worth of influ) who can become a true cash cow considering that my level 50 blaster is far from being such a thing.

I know the stories of fire/kin and have read many a thread about them (in fact I have a few opened in tabs so that I can read them after this post to see if any one of them can help me decide) but I'm not to sure if I would like to roll up a fire or a plant troller.

Which is why I've decided that the wonderful people on the forums might be able to help me decide. And so my question to you folks is this: Should I roll up fire/kin or plant/kin or some other type of /kin based on my conditions outlined above? Or should I give up on a new troller and finish up my fire/rad? <---- Altitis will not allow me to do this...I think at least.

i would suggest using plant/kin if you already have a fire control

the best thing to not lose interest in a toon is to try to not repeat powersets and plant can benefit a lot from FS (carrion creepers + FS) and with the huge rech you will have seeds of confusion and spirit tree up a lot

Plant Control is wicked-awesome as soon as you get Seeds of Confusion; it's on such a short recharge (especially with Siphon Speed and/or Hasten available) that you can bust it out on pretty much every group. While Plant doesn't have Hotfeet, and your Flytrap won't be putting out as much DPS as a pack of imps, your AoE immobilize does serious damage and Carrion Creepers are epic. It may not be QUITE as efficient at farming as a fire/kin, but it's incredibly powerful, and becomes so right out of the gate (instead of waiting until the 30s before you get good). Since you've already tried fire anyway, I vote Plant.

I really enjoy my plant/kin/stone. It starts off faster than fire due to seeds.

(imo of course)
Plant is the superior team controller and by a large margin vs fire
Fire does more damage, but the difference at times isn't huge because the aoe immob does double damage and Carrion creeepers is pretty good too.

Perma creepers is not a difficult goal to attain, but the problem is that the patch moves pretty slowly. When you zip off at max speed to the next spawn it can take awhile for the patch to catch up. So you are often not benefiting from it even though it is perma. So a map with close spawn points is definitely better than when they are spread far apart for creepers.

I'll just through out some arbitrary numbers.

If you want 30% more control go with plant
If you want 30% more damage go with fire

I have both a fire/kin and plant/kin.

When I team, I use the plant/kin. When I farm, I use the fire/kin. I believe you'll be happy with either or.

Assuming that I go the Plant/Kin route, what APP would be best? I was originally planning on stone but fire seems to be a good source for attacking potential, which would compliment plant/kin better? Is there another alternative?


And thanks for the replies!

I prefer stone over fire in every way other than aesthetics.
Seismic smash is amazing on a kin and gives you some strong single target burst for taking out bosses which plant normally kills at a snails pace.
Perma capped hp (which is almost as good as a res shield if you haven't gotten your hp accolades yet)
Softcapped s/l
Fissure > fireball for damage over time because it cycles way faster and it takes the FF +rech proc.

Plant/Kin is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Perma Creepers, redonkulously low recharge on Seeds, massive damage from Roots+Epic AoE, limitless End to fuel your primal fury. You'll be wanted on every team, and you'll solo like a champ.

Plant/Kin.

For all the reasons listed above, yes Fire does do more damage, but Plant is better on teams and you'll farm very well with it.

Also, the Pet isn't as bad as some folks let out.

Off topic, but I'm waiting for my Elec/Kin trollah :P

Popular vote says plant/kin and I have to agree. Ive played both at 50 and had WAY more fun with plant control. I set up a farming build for under 200million influence and Im almost on par with most fire/kins that Ive run into where they've spent upwards of a billion...I call that a win. Plus on teams I still dole out all kinsda hurt. I invested heavily into procs all over the place and I gotta say its paid off. I went with stone mastery for thematic and practical reasons and never looked back. So yeah..plant/kin is a lot more effective right outta the box for teams and soloing.

Show those fire/kins that they arent the only farming trollers anymore!

I would vote Plant over Fire. Even if Fire has better damage, the recharge time for Flashfire drives me nuts even with 2 recharges, Hasten, and Siphon Speed. I like sets that play fast and Plant is much better for that. Really, the damage for Fire is what saves it. It terms of control, it's rather lacking.

My 2 cents on the matter of the two trollers, I've never played a Plant/ troller before however, I've had many opputunities to split my "Demon" map with quite a few. The Outcome? Well, I've always, I do mean always reached the top-corner on my side of the map while the assisting Plant/Kin (with Fire APP since Demons we call them shoots fire damage) was just reaching their first half on their side of the map. When it comes to farming, speed is a factor.

Also, I rarely used Flashfire or Cinders when running farms. If I do its because two or more mobs are way too close to each other. I'll stunn the mob closer to me with Flashfire and then Cages so they won't stray away dazed and hit the other mob thats-to-close-for-comfort with Cages and run in and hit Cinders ... LOL It's a meltdown in progress which is a better controller between the two IMO.

I'm not knocking off Plant just sayin if your purpose is to farm then you should use what is best to get it done with. Some prefer ss/fa brutes, some prefer others but Fire/Kin still reigns the best IMO.

Also, I've read somewhere on the forums that Bonfire does NOT KB foes after they've been hit with Fire Cages. Instead of Gravitional Anchors slotted within it, a set of Posi are in there for more damage which really makes a difference. Still slotted with 5 purp sets anyway so 6th set will not benefit the toon. Anyways the fire/kin still have not been respecced out of it's Fittness Power Pool which will add more powers like Bonfire to test out if it actually don't do KB whan the mob is caged up.

In this day and age there are many other options besides the /Kin set. That particular set honestly drives me insane with its need for baby sitting. But then, I don't have much of a "farmer" mentality, and am able to make do with even sets like Ice Control, which, with some coaching from people in the market forums, I was able to transform from a leach into a self sufficient and heavily IOed fun factory.

So the first thing you need to ask yourself is "why am I rolling this character." If it's because you think you need to farm* to succeed at high levels, I say stop right there, tell us the character you really want to play, and we will direct you here on the best way to obtain IOs for him or her, and the folks on the market forum will explain how to make each drop you find count. The only reason to roll a farmer is if you truly, truly enjoy the actual act of farming. How many enemies you can kill how quickly has little meaning when doing it makes you miserable.

In any case, an alternative to either /Kin set is some variety of /Psi Dominator, who will put out a lot of damage, requires far less maintenance, and is absolutely terrifyingly overpowered even outside of the farming world due to high endurance and hit point recovery, mezz protection, an endurance bar that refills every time you pop domination, and mag 6 holds/stuns/confuses/sleeps/immobs.

[EDIT: For clarification purposes, by "farm" I mean hand picking very easy enemies to kill in large numbers very quickly. Just about any Controller or Dominator has methods available for killing large numbers of enemies at level 50. The only question is speed, and whether you mind being locked into a specific "optimal" choice of enemy. Fire/Kin is not a build I would want to try against +2 Rularuu or Arachnos, for example.]