Rad/Kin thoughts.

Well with GR going live I took the time to level up a Rad/Kin pretty much expecting a similar but slightly better experience than a Kin/Rad. I think I am pretty spot on for my expecations.

Levels 1-20: Far better than a defender. You get your attacks quicker, do more damage with them, and have scourge too boot. While the new Defender inherent will make the solo performance about the same, I actually enjoyed the 1-20 ride.

Levels 21-30: If you are on a team, which you will be a lot... it's fine. Again, you have lots of attacks and can do decent AOE damage. However, your attacks are starting to fall behind the damage curve. You are also starting to see the glaring weakness that is your lack of Defense of anything more than a powerful heal, and a single target stun.

Levels 31-38: Things are pretty painful at this point. I think here the defender has an advantage as they bring more ot the table from 32 on. They have their set definding buff and can really help a team. Their damage is better as they can self buff for some nice damage. They also get their second/third main AOE at 35 and can begin to add some nice but small AOE damage.

Level 39+: I'd say corruptors have the edge. You can finally get some defense and with IOs manage to make an average toon. There are some things that a Rad/Kin can do well, however, like the defender I think there are typically better toons to do it. Rad is just not a great pairing for Kin when it comes down to it.

Strengths: Team damage support with light AOE addition to the team. Very active set, kind of fun.

Weaknesses: NO defense without heavy Power Pool slotting, Epic shields, and IO help. Every fight is a damage race.

So have any of you had any experiences with Ran/Kin that are different than what I found? If so, how are you approching this set?

Rad is actually great for a Kin due to the -def of Rad and the AoEs. Does it lack in mitigation? Hell yes. I still find it a fun pairing. It's at worst a top 4 pairing for Kin. Fire, Ice, and Sonic being the other obvious picks.

EDIT: Heh, forgot Elec, but I have a love/hate relationship with Elec. If I want Elec, I go controller because it's a much better made set than Elec blast.

I have a Rad/Kin and really didn't like it all the way to 50, which is why it took three or four years to level up.

A few months ago I respecced to a nearly soft-capped (S/L/E) build. That made it a whole lot more fun. You wind up getting stunned a lot when you jump into a mob for FS. But if you carry a bunch of Break Frees you can survive at +0/x8.

If I had it to do over again I'd go with Fire/Kin or Sonic/Kin; the -def secondary effect is mostly worthless, especially with IOed characters (you wind up getting a lot of Acc bonuses which make -def mostly beside the point).

I think people see this combination and the natural pairings... -DEF and a lot of AOEs. It really should work great. However, you forget how useless KIN is for survivability and how low Defender/Corrupter damage starts. You end up with a sub par blaster who can really make a team move into overdrive.

As long as you approach the character with that in mind, it's just fine. Otherwise, be prepared for disapointment.

I really don't get people who level characters to level 50 that they hate let alone write a guide about how much it sucks and why people should just reroll their characters. I've have had one character make it to 30 that got rerolled. Anything else was axed before that point unless I was going to keep it for the long haul. If you get something to 50 that you hated, then you only have yourself to blame.

For what it's worth, I leveled both of them faster than about any characters I had. They averaged about 3 weeks to 50. Why? It's easy to find stone tankers who want you on their teams. I also really wanted to like this character... badly. I love Kin on controllers, and Rad has the AOE goodness that would seem capable of making it shine.

So I was willing to try the ride to 50 (since it was such a short one anyway) and make sure that I wasn't missing a hidden gem somewhere along the way.

Also, I don't hate the character. I think in my guide I mentioned it's a fun set. However, it's not a good set. It also points out some of the glaring discrepencies among the ATs. I am editing the guide to be a little less harsh, while including the corrupter information in it as well.

Since my initial gripe on the Defender version was damage output, it seemed reasonable to try the corrupter version. Lo and behond, same isssues with perhaps a little less hastle getting there when you don't have a team... (although with the change to the inherent that issue might be gone as well).

As for the purpose of the guide, I did the trip to 50, now twice. I wanted to share my experiences and open eyes if someone wants to go down the road. I could just post that the AT is underpowered... but most people would dismiss that as a troll. I've played it, put the time in it, highlighted what it does well and how to play one if you want to go about it.

Before editing the guide, I was going to solicit opinions on the corrupter side to see if anyone else has made this work. It certainly is possible that I've dropped the ball.

I have a rad/kin. It is more of a team toon rather than a solo toon. It doesn't do too much damage by itself. However, its debuff/kinnage is really valued in a team. As soon as I put rad/kin in my search comment, I get tells everyday for ITF, RSF, Baracuda, AE, and tv libs farms. Sometimes I even get tells while I'm doing a SF, and if I'm almost done with the current SF, the next team will actually wait for me. I got this toon to level 50 about a month and a half ago and it has accumulated 1500+ merits because of all the SFs he's done.
On farms, I don't need to take the aggro and I also get a chance for drops. I've gotten 2 purples and a LOTG7.5 in farms that I was invited to.
I spent about 300 mil to outfit him and he currently wears the title Master of Lord Recluse Strike Force.
If you don't mind being support, which I don't, then rad/kin is a decent combo.

Its also a great pairing for a brute when farming. The -def helps against +3s/+4s so he can seamlessly plow with SC/LR-->TS-->BL. Kin are obviously amazing here too.