Kinetics secondary.

Long time lurker, infrequent poster here.

I've been trying to break myself of my controller habit and have found a few Defender combinations quite fun. I've pretty much settled on Kinetics being my Toon-Du Jour and am looking for some advice on a secondary.

Secondaries I'm not keen on using: AR/Archery/Ice/Sonic as I've done them to death.

The remainder are largely unexplored (with the exception of dark blast) so if anyone out there can give me some pros/cons of pairing Kin with Elec/Psy/Energy or Dark it would be largely appreciated.

What I'm looking for is some nice teaming powers/attacks that I can throw out between Kin powers. The option to solo would be nice as well, taking into consider the vast quantity of mez being tossed around late game. I realize soloing with a kin won't be as efficient as some other primaries, just something to do untill I can find/make a team, depending on the hour.

Opinions? Advice? Lets hear 'em

I personally favor electrical secondary, since it makes for a good sapper build. But, even with the new Vigilance, Elec is still pathetically weak, and the end-drain isn't as obnoxious as you'd like it to be, so there's no real mitigation until you get Tesla Cage. The one big advantage the set carries is the pet sentinel. When you do get mezzed you can still have a pet on the field launching some kind of attack.

Energy's... not so good... for the primary reason that your most powerful buffs / debuffs are pbaoe's (Transfusion / Transference / Fulcrum Shift)... so it's slightly important that your target actually be in the middle of a mob when you activate your powers. A target that's busy flying out into the middle of nowhere makes laying down your powers kind of hard. I've only played with Kin / Energy's before, and on paper, I can't ever see myself making one. The goals of Ranged Energy (minor control and distance mitigation) are just too counter to the goals of Kinetics (keep your teammates close... and your enemies closer).

PSI... well. I've had next to no experience with Defender Psionic Range. On paper I don't see any particular reason why Kin / Psi wouldn't combo well together. Good Damage on Organic Targets, decent mitigation with a stun, sleep, immobilize, a powerful single knockback, and generally higher range.

Dark... I've had experience with a kin / dark on a friends account... and I've got a Cold Dom / Dark. Dark's pretty good with the defender side since you get a good to-hit debuff with each attack. The Dark Pit / Tenebrous Tentacles / Night Fall combo will stun and floor a mob's to-hit, making it easier for you to take personal advantage of Fulcrum Shift, Transference, or Transfusion. You also can get some great IO buffs from the accurate to-hit debuff set(s).

Nrg gets the best early single target chain and Energy Torrent is a great power. However, I found myself knocking back my own heal targets when I played an Nrg/Kin corruptor. That does not mean the combo is bad, it just means I can't help shooting stuff even when I know I shouldn't.

Kin/Elec is my favorite pairing, so I am biased towards that. It lacks the third single target attack most sets get, but after 26 you can throw out AoEs as part of your chain without concern for end use, so that wasn't a big deal to me. Sapping endurance with Short Circuit + Transference is very potent. Elec Blast can look amazing with power customization. I love the sounds (although after an hour or so of playing on an all electric blast team the sounds can get a bit grating). Tesla Cage is not only a Hold, but it also stops end recovery, so it can be good to use it between Short Circuits to keep an enemy's end from coming back, even if that enemy is hold resistant.

My Kin/Dark is still in her late teens or early twenties. I made her a long, long time ago and pretty much abandoned her because she is on a server none of my friends play on. I have played dark blast on a corruptor and enjoy the cone combo. The DoT nature of the set is tricky, as you can waste endurance by shooting at stuff that would have died had you just waited for an earlier attack to finish it off. I imagine that is less of a concern for a Kin, since wasting endurance is not a big deal. This set also lacks that third single target attack; additionally it lacks Aim.

Psy blast has a decent single target chain early which becomes very good in the 20s. The AoEs are acceptable and come with solid mitigation in the form of -recharge and knock up. I like Psy's nuke as much as I like Dreadful Wail (very much). When something resists Psy damage, it tends to resist it a lot, which can make some enemies very frustrating when solo. It also lacks Aim.

Rad Blast has some good synergy with Kin. Kins like to be near or in melee and that works well with Irradiate. Kins need to hit their enemies, the -defense in rad blast helps there. Cosmic Burst is not only a third single target attack that does a lot of damage, but it is also a control power (but this does not come until level 28). Aim + Fulrcum + Irradiate + Neutron Bomb is very cool.

Dual Pistols Chem rounds can stack nicely with the -damage from Kinetics. The redraw can be a problem. There is no Aim, but you get a solid set of single target attacks and decent AoEs. After 38, you have a very, very good AoE in Hail of Bullets and that AoE operates from exactly the spot you want to be when using Fulcrum.

Of the four choices you mentioned, Kin/Dark is probably the best soloer. It has alot of extra control at its disposal which is both group and solo-friendly. Some might say its not as solid of a synergy because you need to be at range for the cones and in close for the kinetic buffs, but I have never found this to be an issue. I move all the time during combat.

Psychic is a secondary I have always wanted to like, but just cannot get past the sound effects. On paper it seems like a very solid powerset with much more control than electric, thereby being perhaps a better soloer.

I agree with Je_Saist about energy, Its a wonderful powerset, but definitely has synergy issues with Dark, Rad, Storm and Kinetics primaries. It pairs better with Empathy, Forcefields, Sonic and possibly the others which I have zero experience on (TA, Cold, Traps).

Having a Kin-Electric on Guardian (currently at 36) I can tell you that Je_Saist has given you a very good run-down on this one as well. My main toon is Emp-Electric and he uses "sapping", and I was intrigued by Kin-Electric as a more powerful "sapper". Kin-Electric is a moderately skilled soloer and can survive reasonably well due to the +damage that he can deal, but you still have only "Tesla Cage" for dealing with alpha strikes making it somewhat problematic raising difficulties to higher spawn sizes.

Listen to Strato_Nexus, he is usually right

Excellent source of information, thank you all.

A couple of nitpicks/inquiries.

I've used dark blast paired with dark/ before and found although the cones were super fun, although the damage was pretty low. I'm afraid having to wait for the cones to complete their damage cycle will feel pretty strange with the frentic zipping about that comes with siphon speed. Dark Pit sounds like it'll be pretty good with Kin, but isn't it just a minion level stun?

Not to sound like a doubter, since you all have more /elec experience than I do, but is the damage really that bad? I figured Kins' +damage buffs would more than compensate.

Rad seems tempting, for the aim + cosmic burst control.

So damage aside, does elec's -endurance measure up against dark's -tohit?

Once again, your info is superb, thanks!

I've got a kin/rad and like it quite a bit. A quality PBAOE like Irradiate goes great with Fulcrum Shift, the -def is welcome since almost all your primary powers have a to-hit check (even slotted for accuracy, this can be a problem with to-hit debuffers or high-def enemies), Cosmic Burst is great, and the abnormally fast recharge on Neutrino Bolt means you don't really need X-Ray Beam or other filler attacks to keep things going.

I have a Kin/Dark, planning to remake it into a Corr. I would say the set has pretty decent synergy in that you can lower the enemies To-Hit, allowing you to get close enough to benefit from your Kin Powers without really putting you at risk from overly aggressive melee attacks. Often I play with a sort of 'divide and conquer' approach, using Tentacles/Dark Pit to keep the minions occupied while I debuffed the stronger enemy into nothingness with constant To-Hit debuffs and my Kin abilities.

With Siphon Speed you only really need four attacks; Dark Blast, Gloom, Tenebrous Tentacles, and Night Fall. Moonbeam is also nice, if you wanted to easily pull a single powerful target rather than mixing it up with all the minions. I wasn't really a fan of Life Drain, being that I had a very powerful heal already, or torrent as I didn't need or want KB attacks.

BlackStar is also pretty sexy with Fulcrum Shift, and debuffs/kills the enemies so badly that you have little reason not to use it liberally, especially considering you can use Transference shortly after to get back to full power.

I really liked Kin/Elec.

Kinetics requires you to stay in melee range to get your own heals, end boosts and buffs. Electrical Blast has both AoEs fireable from point blank range. Dark, for example, will have you hopping in and out to cone and then buff/heal, all of which can get quite hairy if you've Siphoned Speed recently.

Elec suffers from low damage output, especially if you slot Short Circuit for end drain over damage. Fulcrum Shift makes this matter a lot less than it would for other primaries.

Elec/Kin is easily the best sapper I've played, and Ive played Elec/Elec and Elec/Energy Blasters too. Sapping the masses takes two Short Circuits, but sapping a boss can be done from range with Transference. This and Tesla cage makes up for the lack of dirct safety Kinetics sometimes provides.

This is far more information than I expected, thanks to all!

I really like the idea of sapping in theory, but unlike /rad or /darks secondary effects, /elecs don't "work" untill they are completely empty. Its something I'd sincerely like to try, but I may wait untill I get a few levels of Kin/ under my belt to get the hang of things before I try anything like Sapping.

Do Defenders get better -end values than other classes that use electric attacks? If not, its something I feel the Devs should look at to make the draining feature more attractive. It seems more incidental than the other secondary effects (like -tohit, -def) and its something that the player has to really build towards to be effective. Not that its hard to build for, with just a few power picks, but if one doesn't choose those powers, the secondary effect is much weaker than its /rad /dark counterparts. Obviously, take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I haven't actually seen it in action.

Ultimately, I've decided to play two kins, one /rad and one /dark to decide what I like the best. Strato said it best when he said that /elec damage is fine for him because he has a decent low damage tolerance. Its what works for him. I couldn't agree more. This thread has really helped me decide powersets not only for this defender but for plenty of others down the road.

I figure I'll play both of them to around Fulcrum Shift level before I make my decision. Who knows, I might just cap both.

The only attack that does any meaningful End Drain is Short Circuit, and it drains equally well for Blasters, Defenders and Corrupters. (Oh, and the nuke.)

Even on a Defender slotting for End Drain instead of damage in Lightning Bolt and Charged Bolt, I'm pretty sure you'll kill most targets before draining them.

For a Kin/Elec, End Drain as a really useful tactic kicks in at level 27, slotted Transference.

I'd play kin/rad over any of the remaining ones you listed. Seeing as how the "power" sets are eliminated I'd also consider a kin/dp, it is a pretty cool looking set.

I have played kin/rad a ton... and not sure that I would advise it. It can be fun, but depends on what your goal is.

I rolled mine envisioning near blaster numbers and being a rolling ball of AOE destruction. This was not the case. What I ended up with was a sub par blaster that could provide some team benefit. I was just as squishy and had no real mitigation so to speak.

Now if there was no other kin on the team, I contributed a ton. However, in the 50s game, I found a lot of kins roaming around (although I think fire/kin is no longer quite the FOTM it was then) so I shelved the toon and have never really gone back to it.

All that being said, it was an enjoyable, it not terribly effective toon.

Well certainly as a Kin/Rad you have to think of the team first. Even with the heaviest IO slotting you are looking at 20-30% def which is just not enough to survive with the kind of aggro that you end up drawing. I never finished the IOs on mine as the toon underperformed from what I would want to sink the billion or so inf needed to really make it work.

The irritating thing about Fire/Kins as a Kin defender is that while they are not all that team oriented, they rarely need to be. They can stop the alpha, and do enough damage to wipe mob to mob on most settings. So if they are not helping the team, it really doesn't matter much as a good one doesn't need the team all that much if at all.

I may have to rethink my position on Kin/Rads as with the reduction of Fire/Kin controllers, the Kin primary is likely growing in desirability. Although I will still say that you will do far better with a secondary that has more mitigation in it. Defender scale capped Rad damage is still not going to impress anyone and doesn't offer enough mitigation to make up for Kin's serious lack of survivability.

Torrynt, you might like a Rad/kin Corr.

With Scorpion Shield you can quite easily softcap your s/l defense, making you incredibly sturdy. Since with FS you can cap your damage, Scourge will hit even harder. Scourge also works very well with Rads best AoE being DoT.

Once you blow somethings head off with a damage-capped Scourging Cosmic Burst, you'll fall in love

Archery/Kin will let you open up with a mini-nuke. With Kin's boosts, that is nothing to sneeze at. Throw in Psy Mastery (And why not? You've got endurance to spare. ) and you'll be able to put enemies to sleep with Mass Hypnosis, Fulcrum Shift them, then hit them with Rain of Arrows and use Telekinesis or Domination to incapacitate the rest while you replenish your buffs, health, and endurance and wipe them out.

What's all this about kin/rad being disappointing? I love my kin/rad, and have never felt subpar in any way. It does combine two powersets that encourage an aggressive, melee-oriented playstyle, so you will have quite an adventure staying alive at times, but the payoff is becoming a walking explosion. Irradiate/Neutron Bomb don't pack the ultra up front numbers of a blaster, but kin buffed they do really solid damage and I find they recharge about as often as you need for insertion between kin related activity.

Procced out Neutrino bolt is also a dream. The rad nuke satisfies, and cosmic burst is of course everybody's favorite puffball.

I also run a kin/dark, which requires a bit more thought for cone usage, but still melts the baddies away. The dark aoes are subtle in their melting power. Try proccing them out and behold the wonder.

Incoming wall of text, I apologize ahead of time.

Firstly, Nice lurking there! I lurked myself for over a year before I ever said a word on the forums. It's nothing to be ashamed about, Einstein himself was a bit of a lurker as well IRL.

Secondly, Hello everyone on the Defender forums, I'm Ryxx. My brother (Elegost) suggests I get out of our server (Victory) forums and spread out to the other sections cause I'm somewhat of an introvert in that aspect (He just loves the scrapper forums to death).

Thirdly, and to the point, I LOVE Kins. At 50, I have 3 defenders, 1 controller, and 1 corrupter. They are Kin/dark, Kin/Ice, Kin/Archery, Fire (control)/kin, and Fire (blast)/kin; with a kin/rad at 40, an earthkin at 42ish, and other various incarnations at lower levels. *points to link in sig*

-Kin/dark-
My first was Kin/dark, initially captivated at both the thought of dark pit/tentacles/fulcrum shift and dark pit/oppressive gloom, but upon reaching 50 was underwhelmed by its ability to take down mobs (especially compared to my then-awesome firekin controller). Even at damage cap, I would fire nightfall, tentacles, repeat, and run out of endurance before anything would die. I still loved the heck out of this toon; it is great for teaming in general, and a full FSd gloom dishes a ton of damage, especially since you can fire it pretty damn often with a few Siphon Speeds up. Other than a numina, I never felt the need to buy any IOs to improve it, which in hindsight might have helped its deficiencies. Eventually I got a little bored with it and wanted to try again, so when it became available I rolled a-

-Kin/ice-
I'm pretty sure that to this day, Ice storm and blizzard are still using blaster modifiers (or is it corrupters'?) for their damage, so they do amazing DOT, although only if the mobs stay in it for most of the duration. I promptly IOd this toon to the teeth, (recharge build, later backed down a little because I got WAY more recharge than necessary) and am still playing him as my main kin to this day, bringing him to almost every ITF and STF we run. I really do think Ice synergizes well with kin, as most defender nukes are pretty worthless overall (even with FS); but blizzard is amazing. Being able to eat a blue and get the rest of your end back by yourself is pretty handy. On a somewhat side note, I also happen to love /ice for defenders. I also (at 50) have emp/ice, rad/ice, cold/ice, with a dark/ice in the mid range and a storm/ice at 26. If you hadn't limited yourself to just certain secondaries, I would have suggested /ice to you, but I can understand getting tired of a specific set.

-Kin/Archery-
I'd never had an archery blaster before, so I was pretty excited when I (and thought I was being original) thought it would be pretty cool to have my own fulcrum shift+nuke more than once a minute, so I rolled up a kin/archery. I was hopeful all the way to 38, and was subsequently underwhelmed. Sadly, a fully fulcrum shifted defender Rain of arrows is still nowhere near as strong as a blaster's BU+Aim Rain of arrows. I know this for a fact because I partially played this toon alongside my brother's archery/em blaster and we put them to the test when they were at close levels to each other. This toon was the biggest letdown I ever had and I only keep it because I still use it to pocket kin around AP for my new characters on my other account occasionally.

-Kin/Rad-
I don't know why all the hate for this build, I love it to death. Originally I rolled it because it seemed to have the most aoe potential (arguably more than /ice), and I wanted to put it to the test. I have this at 40 right now and I've loved every step of the way. I can't say anything bad about this combo other than I wish neutron bomb came MUCH earlier. Irradiate is great in that you're probably right where you need to be when you fire it (right after FS) and ready to follow up with a neutron bomb afterwards, with strong single target attacks as well. I don't take the snipe on my kins (tried it, couldn't stand it) so there was no need for it there. My only beef is that the nuke is still craptacular like most defender nukes and doesn't hold a straw against blizzard, but that's no reason not to enjoy everything else about this build. I would recommend it to anyone.

-Kin/Psy-
I've never played these together myself, but I do have a FF/psy defender in mid 40s. I've also seen some of my friends seemingly enjoy their kin/psys, but I've never understood the draw. I can't stand the long rooted times for the attacks, but some people do seem to like it. I'm also not a general fan of cone attacks, so psychic scream is annoying to use to me. IMO Psychic tornado just takes way too long to fire, and the damage isn't worth it, although if you value secondary effects, /psy may be the option for you.

Kin/sonic might be a good idea; I've never tried it myself, but sleeping everything, FS, picking them off one by one seems like a viable solo tactic (although /dark can accomplish something similar), but personally, I don't like to have to deal with cone attacks on a kin.


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TL;DR: In my experience,
Kin/dark: pretty good for teaming, pretty good for soloing
Kin/ice: pretty good for soloing, great for teaming
Kin/archery: don't even think about it, you'll be really let down
Kin/rad: Ok for soloing, great for teaming