Ice/Kin duo partner questions

Hi Everyone!

My wife and I are planning a new duo focused around her rolling an Ice/Kin Corruptor. The goal is to compliment scourging, Fulcrum Shifted Ice Storms and Blizzards for a variety of tasks. We mainly play as a duo but with the new ‘teleport to a trial’ system we group here and there. We definitely want to focus on several targets at once (+1/x6-8) and still be able to take on tough single targets such as EB’s and AV’s.

So far I have a couple possibilities in mind but won’t rule out any other suggestions if you have any!

The first was a Storm/Sonic Defender. With Fulcrum Shift bringing us to near damage cap levels I figured the only way to squeeze more damage out of this duo would be through resistance debuffs. Freezing Rain coupled with a Defender’s higher –RES values on the Sonic attacks seems like a good combination. However defensively this pairing would seem lacking. I figured I could make smart use of knockback with Gale, Shockwave, and Hurricane to herd enemies into walls and corners and keep folks flopping around to mitigate our damage intake – but will that be enough? Thematically all the rains and the storm powers would make us quite the pair.

My second idea was doing something with /Time. Time’s additional recharge benefits on top of my wife’s Siphon Speed and Hasten would increase her output. While Slowed Response’s –RES value is not as great (any idea if this stacks like multiple instances of Freezing Rain?) Time’s overall ‘jack of all trades’ style would fill in some other holes. Especially, Power Boosted Farsight would help our defenses far more (unless I’m proven wrong) than the Storm/Sonic Defender would. My only question is – do I do this as a Corruptor or a Controller? On the Corruptor side I could leverage more –Recharge with Psychic Blast, and as a Controller I have a thing for area confuses. Plant and Electric sound fun or Ice and its Arctic Air? Or do I even go with a Robots/Time Mastermind?

The last idea was something with Cold Domination. Leveraging Kinetic’s albeit melee based heal with Cold’s shields. Cold’s single target debuffing would certainly meet our goals of tackling EB’s and AV’s and in the end it offers some storminess with Sleet for a –RES debuff. I believe Cold’s benefits are sung from the rooftops, but this is a very slow blooming set and we have been known to drift away from duo’s if the dangled carrot just seems too far away.

So any thoughts on the above or even other options would be of great help! Thanks for your time!

All 3 of your ideas would make for a awesome pair. I'd skip time myself, as it seems the biggest stretch thematically, and for several other reasons, which as I think about summing them up, sound pretty minor on a case by case basis, but taken in aggregate, well. OK. I just like Cold and Storm better in this situation.

For your Stormie. Well, first, Storm is an offensive machine, but, it doesn't get credit for how defensive it is, too. I love Stormies just because they are so darn safe. I personally would skip the KB cones, especially Gale. Every time I've taken gale (on a defender, obviously, controllers are stuck with it) I've respecced out of it. It's not a worthless power, but it's not complelling enough to take a a slot usually. Hurricane does the job just as well 99% of the time, and adds -tohit. And Hurricane doesn't need ACC slotting to work well.

I find that Freezing Rain's knockdown and 'run away' effect is usually plenty of mitigation for many spawns. Hurricane neuters most melee threats. Standing under a Lightning Storm is also an awesome defense. If people are still getting to interested in ya in a bad way, Tornado often fixes things. It's a little too chaotic for a lot of people, but in my experience you can keep the chaos very minimal, and escalate it as a defensive technique only as needed.

When you get to an AV or GM who ignores repel and KB, that's when you can unleash everything.

As for a Cold.... Well I'd say they are every bit as strong, but you will be personally more vulnerable. Storm's tricks work for your team and you, but Colds biggest bonus to survivability isn't available to the Coldie himself. That said, Cold is much more controlled. And much more predictable. Some would label it as much more reliable, even. Huge +def chunks are always nice. Plenty of great AoE Debuffs. Cold develops a good deal later though, if that is a consideration. On the other hand, Cold has a source of -regen, which Storm totally lacks. Cold also has end management tools, which Storm just wishes it had. Granted, you will probably never be gasping for end if you're always teaming with a Kin, but...


A couple of synergy comments.. Heat loss is likely easy to make perma with a SB. And it's -end would compliment the Kins sapper leanings quite nicely.. And on the Storm front (pun intended) the SB would both allow the recharge and end necessary to allow stacking of multiple Lighting Storms and Tornadoes. Perfect for tough AVs.

Make an SS/Fire Brute and let her Fulcrum Shift your Foot Stomps? The greedy approach, you know.

Personally, I would go with something that will make the two of you safer, either with defensive buffs or tanking.

For super fun combos:

Anything/Shield Defense Scrapper will have a TON of fun with a Kineticist, and you'll be able to tank for her on AVs assuming you build for the soft cap.

Anything/Fiery Aura Brute, same as above, but a bit less durable (ironically. FA is just difficult to make super tough, meanwhile being vector capped makes you pretty hard to kill with a healer packing that much -damage around). Fiery Aura is amazing damage capped though.

Illusion/(Radiation, Cold Domination, or Time) Controller. Perma PA can tank for you and do passable damage, and you add to her menagerie of debuffs a bunch of your own that she can't provide.

Traps/Sonic Defender, Fire/Traps Corruptor or Bots/Traps Mastermind. A Trapper is a fantastic thing to have around for trials and hard targets, will make both of you more durable with FFG, has tons of -res, -regen, some damage, all around just a great set. Sonic adds even more -res, Fire adds straight up damage (which will be appaling teamed with a Kin), and Bots add damage, -regen, and, built right, defense capped distractions.

Edit: Forgot to mention a response to something in your OP: Bots/Time is also quite a good combination, although the +recharge from the set is wasted on pets.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.