/kin or kin/ with what?

So...I'm thinkin my next project will be a kin of some kind and I'm lookin for suggestions for at, powersets, and synergies.

I do NOT want to get stuck in the SB bot mentality!

I have a lowbie grav/kin troller that I may dust off if thats a decent combo...conceptually it's an awesome combo, but will it "work"? I am a team player and love my "support" toons, when I'm not all "BRUTE SMASH!!!"

Suggestions?

The real issue with Kinetics is that it's a very demanding powerset. It gives you and your allies huge amounts of recharge which means most of your Kin powers will be up most of the time so whatever you pair with it can get crowded out in the middle of a fight. My Illusion/Kin Controller is fun but only because I can get Phantom Army and Flash out very regularly.

On a positive note, with the changes to group buffs, you won't have to spend 10 seconds or so targetting and buffing all of your team every two minutes.

If you're going for a Kin Defender, I recommend Ice or Dark. Both sets are quite quick with fast animations (mostly) and benefit from Kinetic's power boosting capabilities. One thing to consider is that to benefit from Kinetics yourself, you will be in melee range a lot so consider sets that have PBAoEs or any kind of melee mitigation if you can. My personal favourite is Oppressive Gloom from the Defender Dark epic.

You may not wish to be a Speed Boost Buffbot but Kin's powers are so potent, the set has the potential to overshadow whatever other powers you take. Of course, how you choose to balance this is entirely up to you. Enjoy, whatever you take, Kin is a lot of fun.

I'm also looking for something to pair with kinetics.

The top of my list were Dark Control and Plant Control because they have multiple pet powers, ranged AoE holds, fast confuse animations, and they can take their single target hold at lv1 instead of lift/crush.

For blasting on a Defender or Controller I like Radiation Blast simply because of the defense debuffs helping with your chance to hit. IIRC radiation burst is -37% in one shot. Plus X-Ray beam just looks cool!

None of these seem quite right to me though. I think I'd be happiest if they ported it to Masterminds. Pet commands don't interrupt you busying yourself with kinetics, and there are certain pets that blow out their endurance, the knockback protection would be welcome, and AoE buffs suit the pets perfectly. As popular as fire/kin was and as much trouble as a melee pet set like ninjas can be, I'm really surprised that MM's didn't have Kinetics at launch and astounded they don't have it by now.

I have played 3 kins...admittedly before the change to speedboost...I found both my corrs to be fun on teams but useless solo...one was ar/ and the other elec/ both fun concepts but couldn't kill a damn thing!

So what actually works well with kin? I'd like to take advantage of things like siphon power as much for myself as helping anyone smart enough to stay close to me for when I fire it off hehe

Will grav/kin work as a troller? I'd love to actually 50 out a troller one of these days, but i'm not sure this will be the best option...but I love the concept lol

Speaking as someone who has a level 50 Grav/kin and with several other level 50 Kin controllers, defenders and corruptors. I can say that Grav/kin was my least favorite.

It can solo safely, but team wise, many of the powers will end up angering teammates if used poorly.

I find the sets that work best with kin are ones with PBAoE attacks since you want to get up close with Fulcrum Shift anyways. Also, you have massive regeneration with Transfusion. My Favorites are Fire Control, Dual Pistols, Electric Control and Electric Blast. Oh yeah, team with Brutes, they love the FS candy and good Brutes Taunt and herd for a big FS so they can really SMASH.

Just my .02 inf

<double post>

Edit: double post please delete.

No worries, by "recent updates", I really do mean recent! Issue 22 for the first set of changes and the first patch after I22 for the second set. Really recent!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I have taken Fire/Kin and Plant/Kin up to 50, as well as a Kin/Elec Defender and a Kin/Sonic Defender.

My favorite is the Plant/Kin.

The Kin/Elec Defender was designed to be an endurance drainer -- it was only moderately successful, (Electric Control is much better) but was a good buffer. The Kin/Sonic was a beast team damage -- with the Kinetics buffs and the Sonic debuffs, everything melts. But both of these are pretty weak solo -- Kinetics is almost all offense and very little protection (Defense, Resistance or Debuffs). I've run a Kinetics Corrupter some too, and it had the same problem of all offense and almost no protection.

Fire/Kin is very popular for a good reason -- it is great for killing lots of foes in large groups, but I didn't find it all that much fun to play. AFire/Kin certainly makes a good farmer. Admittedly, I never finished up a fully IO'ed out build, but I found that my Fire/Kin would either wipe out groups or get wiped out herself -- again, a lack of protection.

But the Plant/Kin had great AoE control to provide the "protection" that Kinetics lacks. With Seeds, Creepers and Vines, I found it to be a lot more survivable than my other versions of Kinetics, even solo. The character (named "Flora the Explorer") was initially designed to be part of a duo with an Elec/Shield scrapper, but she didn't stay in the duo after about level 26. It is a great combo, especially once I added Super Speed with a Stealth IO. Full invisibility let me get into position for optimal use of Seeds.

I haven't tried Dark/Kin. I think it will have some nice synergies, with the PB AoE stun, Haunt to draw aggro, the AoE hold and lots of To Hit Debuff. Hard to say how it will compare with Plant/Kin. The downside is that it is fairly low damage, but it provides a lot of "protection."