So teach me about being a Kin.

I have this Mind/Kin who I finally got up to Speed Boost the other day. Most of this was solo, a lot of time spending enjoyable hours running Khonshu's Lower Level AE arcs. If your looking into an alternative way to go through the early levels while waiting for Rogue to hit you could do a lot worse.

I got bored with her. Set aside for another try at a Tank.

Got on a team the other day with my Kin. At first I wasn't really sure what role I played. Did the same thing I do when solo. Ran up close thinking I could just Sleep everything and consequently died. A lot.

That is when I noticed I was teamed with a blaster and a scrapper. Why weren't they rushing in and doing all the work?

I resisted my tanker instincts and held back. SBed 1, then the other. Hit my dmg Buff then started to use my controls to selective annoy the baddies. 2 minutes later the process started all over.

Seemed to go pretty well. I died a lot less anyways.

I guess I want to know is this the way of the Kin? If it is, I'm fine with that. Love my Fire/Emp. Maintain your Imps and you are fine.

Looking for advice it seems. Come teach me how to be a good KIn.

Bashful Banshee.

okay.

Here's the deal with playing a kin: Your powers are not for you. If you try to take "personal" advantage of most of your powers, you'll be going splat on a regular basis.

Most of your enemy-debuff / player-buff powers affect players around your selected target. Transfusion, Transference, Fulcrum Shift all activate in PBAOE around your selected target. Siphon Power lowers your targets damage percentage, and increase the damage percentage of players in a PBAOE around you, and Inertial Reduction also functions as a PBAOE. Of the remaining powers, Increase Density and Speed Boost only affect players, and repel only affects your avatar. I

One of the keys to the Kinetics set is making use of all of your powers. A kin can remove endurance, remove damage, increase teammates damage, increase team-mates movement speed / recharge rate / endurance recovery, prevent knockback / immobilize / stun / teleport, increase Smash / Lethal / Energy Resistance, heal, return endurance, slow enemies down, and for some builds, play the part of a wrecking ball and send enemies flying.

The kinetics set easily one of the most versatile and powerful buff / debuff sets available in the game. That versatility comes with a price though. Buff Duration and Delivery.

The shields on a Thermal Rad, Cold Dom, or a Force Field bubbly last for 4 minutes. Increase Density lasts for 1 minute.

While Speed Boost's endurance recovery, recharge rate, and speed enhancements far outstrip those of Radiation's Accelerate Metabolism, the effect only lasts for two minutes, which is the same as Radiation's Accelerate Metabolism. While AM can be dropped on an entire team at once, buffing 7 different players takes a bit of work.

The heal on a Controllers Transfusion clocks in at a level 50 base of 209 hp. That's not far off from Empathy's and Therm Rad's 230 hp Single target heals... but Transfusion requires an accuracy check.

Kinetic's Transference and Cold Dom's Heat Loss are also in a class of their own, able to directly give endurance back to players... both also have to-hit checks.

***

Keeping all of the buffs flowing can be a strenous task... which is why most Fire / Kinetics make for poor team-mates. When playing a Kinetics... you really can't do anything BUT play kinetics. Just going down the list of team-mates and SB / ID'ing each one will take up a chunk of time on a full 8 man team, neverminding the jerk who says "no SB please" and then you have to remember to skip them over... or you SB them till they quit the team.

Now, as a pairing, Mind and Kin both work together well / don't work together well. Kinetics can keep some of your more endurance obnoxious controls, such as Telekinesis, up and running. Almost all Mind Control attacks can be launched from range, as even the shortest one, Telekinesis, can still be activated from 50ft out. So you can stay out of the mobs for the most part.

However, Kinetics can also turn around and bite you. I don't know if the bug(s) (have) been fixed, but it is/was possible to Fulcrum Shift a Confused AV... watch the Confuse wear off, and then watch the Granite Armored Tank with Rooted and Fortitude drop like a Blaster (ITF). (I don't see very many mind controllers these days because of those confuses).

On larger teams, being an effective kin isn't going to leave you a lot of time to do much controlling. If you can handle switching back and forth between defender mode (laying on the buffs / debuffs) and controller mode (laying on the controls), you should be able to make the build work.

There is at least one place something sort of like this does happen. If you are in a mission where a boss is supposed to become "friendly" after taking a certain amount of damage, and the boss hits that level of HP while s/he's Confused, the boss will become invulnerable to your abilities but keep attacking you until the Confusion wears off. The only place for sure I've seen this is in the new-ish missions with I17.

I've never seen a Confused enemy get a buff. What the OP may be misremembering though is that the Contagious Confusion proc used to affect pets. It was awful. I remember my Ice pet killing me on several occasions prior to the bug fix.

I'll agree with je_saist on some points.

Kin is largely support - like Empathy.

Basically, instead of the "heal meh" that you get when you play an Empathy, you will get "sb meh" when you play a Kin.

And, yes, most Tanks are about rushing in.
As a Kin you are officially a squishy.
Unless you are teaming with a Tank with Taunt that is rushing in and Taunting first, then I wouldn't suggest that you rush AT ALL.

Take on a support roll, keep you team mates buffed first, then make sure to debuff your team mates targets second.
Since your heal is target based, try to keep the front line healed and hopefully they will return the favor by keeping any enemies from getting back to where you are.

To get a really good feel how to play a Kin, I suggest running on a no tanker/no scrapper team. Once you have that down, you will be aces.

I love my fire/kin corr, here is my best tip.

Bind transfusion to Q and SB to E. That way you don't have to go searching with either hand while you are playing.

That is some good advice. It seems I am on the right track then. Building her for support and not dmg so much.

Enjoying both sets so far, and don't see it really changing.

Goldracer any idea how I would actually bind those keys? Because that sounds handy.

Thanks a lot everybody.
Bashful Banshee.

I love me some Kinetics!

My main is a Kin/Rad Defender so it's not quite the same but...


I did notice that you said on your Mind/Kin that you were using sleeps against mobs when you were teamed. Sleeps are great when solo'ing....not really that useful when teamed (especially when there are ATs that do AoEs all the time).

I would agree with some of the others that have posted here....don't worry about ID'ing peeps unless they need it. I really only ID people that get mez'ed (and/or if it's an AV/tough fight I might buff 'em with ID before-hand). SB I do try to keep it on the team as much as possible. I know I love getting SB and hate when it wears off so I try to keep it on

I would say keep on being a 'tanker' in the mental sense; however, being a Controller is a bit different than being a Defender with Kinetics. I'm always rushing in first (or close to first) when I'm in a team. I usually do the following: jump/run in, Irradiate (PBAoE -def on mobs plus my procs), Transfusion, Fulcrum Shift, Transfusion.

Depending on the mobs, I sometimes do Irradiate, FS, Transfusion but....anyways...I'm too much into 'Tankfender' mode....you can be a 'Tanktroller' :P

I'd buff my teammates, lay down the holds (not sleeps) and try to heal and keep Siphon Power on you/teammates. I have found having the AoE sleep is good for any additional aggro that wasn't expected.

Oh and the single target sleep is perfect for AVs though. For example: in the STF, you can put to sleep any of the 4 AVs (Ghost Widow, Mako, Black Scorpion and Scirocco) with just 1 application of the sleep (as long as it hits ).

So I have arrived at lvl 25. Still having lots of fun and have a new question.

When I finally get to FS will my chain be my Mass Sleep, FS, Siphon Power, and then my damaging attacks?

THis!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome With my Mind/Kin I typically open combat with Mass Hypnosis, fly in for Fulcrum Shift then back off and hit 'em with Terrify followed by a confuse on a boss and a hold on anything else that looks problematic. My single target chain is Dom/Lev/Mez with Siphon Speed tossed in as it comes up. Confuse is a fantastic way to change that problem mob into an asset... nothing's more fun than confusing a Malta Sapper and watching him drain that boss dry for you Mass Confusion I tend to keep as a "Oh S!@$" button or to quickly stack confuse on an AV.

I hated my mind/kin all the way up to lvl40 or so. Dmg sucked and I was constantly dying. Now I love her to bits. She was relatively cheap to slot with purple sets and she's fantastic mitigation/buff on an ITF. I run her quite often on those (lots o fodder for the FS).

You'll get the best performance on a team acting as a buff bot, esp. if you have a lot of dmg dealers on the team. However, if you don't feel like spamming the SB every 2 min, just pick two or three main dmg dealers/tanks and focus on SBing them. It actually takes practice to be able to keep a whole team buffed and attack full on at the same time. For a long time after I hit 50 on this toon, I just stuck to frequently buffing 1-2 lead toons with the SB until I could get down the timing/attack chains/distance.

Now I've got it that any team she joins steamrolls anything that gets in our way.

binds: each line needs to be copied and pasted individually. Create a text file to keep all to make it easier to reference later. I have hundreds...

Bind files are easier when importing large numbers... but harder to explain on how to set up.


/bind NUMPAD9 "assist"
/bind G "powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind shift+G "powexec_name Increase Density"

/bind NUMPAD1 "+ $$teamselect 1$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind NUMPAD2 "+ $$teamselect 2$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind NUMPAD3 "+ $$teamselect 3$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind NUMPAD4 "+ $$teamselect 4$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind NUMPAD5 "+ $$teamselect 5$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind NUMPAD6 "+ $$teamselect 6$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind NUMPAD7 "+ $$teamselect 7$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind NUMPAD8 "+ $$teamselect 8$$powexec_name Speed Boost"

/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD1 "+ $$teamselect 1$$powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD2 "+ $$teamselect 2$$powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD3 "+ $$teamselect 3$$powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD4 "+ $$teamselect 4$$powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD5 "+ $$teamselect 5$$powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD6 "+ $$teamselect 6$$powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD7 "+ $$teamselect 7$$powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind SHIFT+NUMPAD8 "+ $$teamselect 8$$powexec_name Increase Density"


Mouse control binds: I created these for raids and such. I use the mouse for targeting enemies, nearest, previous and next enemy with the regular side buttons.

/bind shift+mbutton "powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind alt+mbutton "powexec_name Increase Density"
/bind shift+BUTTON4 "target_friend_near$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind shift+BUTTON5 "target_friend_next"



/bind alt+c "e wave$$local These are not the droids you are looking fo$$powexec_name confusion"
/bind ctrl+c "e wave$$local These are not the droids you are looking fo$$powexec_name mass confusion"

Ice Ember

I've never played this combo but I imagine the way I'd approach it on large teams is to Speed Boost the team, throw a few support powers around, and then run toward the next enemy group when about 80% of the mob was down and the team had things under control. Then I'd sleep the next group from afar and start confusing the hard targets from safety. When the team came speeding toward the mob, I'd Fulcrum Shift, Terrorize, and basically repeat the whole process.

I call this overall technique "pre-tanking." I think I am the only person who uses the term. But I think it's something Mind Control does better than any set... and actually only two sets in the game can really do it at all, (the other being Illusion, which has pets that tend to interfere with the strategy.)

One thing that will make this strategy especially useful is if you can find a way to become invisible. Super Speed + a Stealth proc in a travel power (I use Sprint) will do that. You may also consider using the actual "Stealth" power + the proc in Sprint, since your Siphon Speed will eliminate some of the downsides of Stealth--it depends on how fast you want to be able to move.

If you do decide to use my pre-tanking strategy, one thing that's crucial is for you to learn which mobs in the group need to be confused. Malta Sappers, for example should always be your first priority, then (for me) the giant robot looking bosses with the burn patches (HUGE damage to enemies). For Carnies, it's the Master Illusionists followed by the Illusionists themselves (because when they get confused their first action is to use Flash, an AoE hold.) For Circle of Thorns, you want to hit anything that can summon AoE's particularly the ones who have Earth Control (I think they are "Ruin Mages"?) Tsoo Sorcerors are another prime target.

To really get this strategy going, slot Confusion with the Contagious Confusion proc when you hit level 50.

I found with my Mind/Kin that when I was teaming I focused more on the Kin aspect (even outside of trying to keep SB on folks). It's been a while, but I think I removed Mesmerize from my attack chain and used Mass Hyp a lot less (one AoE wakes them all up anyway).

Sometimes I would hop ahead and try to "tenderize" mobs by throwing some confuses at them. When I wasn't trying to chase folks clamoring for SB anyway.

For solo play Mass Hypnosis + Terrify is a huge amount of mitigation. You can get a great deal of mileage from this combination. And as Local_Man pointed out Terrify doesnt start out with impressive damage, but slotting it up for damage, getting some self damage buffs from Kinetics and hitting a "contained" mob is pretty decent AoE for a non-epic controller.

On a team, I reccommend just using Terrify as an opener to allow you to safely get into melee range for your Kinetic buffs. Sleep is useful on teams but not nearly as much as it is solo when since you can control how and when to "wake up" villains.

If it hasnt been suggested already, I would consider Hasten to allow Terrify to charge that much faster. Because you have siphon speed, combining Hasten will get Mass Hypnosis, Terrify, Total Domination and Mass Confusion all back that much faster.
I would 6-slot Terrify as soon as you can. It is well worth every slot you can give it.

So I was thinking about Hasten and also when I Respec out of Stamina can I eliminate the entire Fitness pool? Was thinking that I could just use the Heal if I need extra health.

Any thought.
It seems I am making her a total support hero. Have Invisibilty pool and Leadership as well now. What else can I do?

You basically described all controllers, at least before they get their pets. Buff your team however you do, then stand back and use your powers on whatever mob seems strategically opportune.