what set bonuses should a kin/dark look for?

Usually this is easy- when in doubt, slot for recharge.
Barring a carefully planned out UberBuild, anyway.

But with this guy recharge isn't really needed, and I find myself at something of a loss.

What bonuses would be helpful?

I'm thinking melee def maybe, as he spends a lot of his time hanging out in close and people's accuracy is usually pretty bad anyway with his Tentacles and various other acc debuffs going.

But, all ideas welcome!

I'd consider 3x Defender's Bastion + 3x Superior Defender's Bastion for 17.5% range and 4.5% maxhp mandatory. Moar tentacles. Vigilant Assault won't help you, so don't worry about that.

Maxhp set bonuses in general are nice low hanging fruit. Fits perfectly in frankenslotting setups; you don't really need that much damage slotting in your blasts, right? Two maxhp set bonuses that definitely catch my eye are:
2xDark Watcher's Despair (tohit debuff) = 1.5%
2xTouch of the Nictus (accurate heal) = 1.875%

And of course there's a ton of 3x set bonuses for maxhp, Numina's, Stupefy, Apocalypse, Devastation, Shield Wall, Gaussian's, Performance Shifter, Soulbound Allegiance, Freebird/Celerity/Unbounded/T&S, Steadfast Protection, Ghost Widow's Embrace, etc. Check Paragon Wiki for the big list: Sets that improve Health

Mixing in some s/l defense could help as well. 4xKinetic Combat gets you 3.75% s/l and 1.5% maxhp to boot. If you don't care about debuff slotting in TT, 6xEnfeebled Operation pretty much has your name written on it. 5xSiphon Insight is almost as crazy. 3xDiscouraging Words if you want more flexibility.

This is the goal I have in mind for my wife's Kin/Dark/Mace Defender. Softcapped to S/L/E, a good batch of recharge, and some preparations for i24 (enough to-hit between slotted Tactics and the Kismet+6 to insta-snipe, plus Blackstar taken and slotted). Slotting is open between Transfusion and Gloom because it looks like everything I wanted bonus wise was gotten.

No incarnates are taken on the build (my wife took perma-Clarion, though) and accolades are currently off. The Defender faithful will give better critiques, but this can act as a start.

P.S. I also tried not to insult you by suggesting a "cheap" build, as I know you can burn orders of magnitude more inf in a month than I make. I picked things simply for what they offer to the build.


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Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Kinetics
Secondary Power Set: Dark Blast
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Transfusion -- Empty(A), Empty(11), Empty(13), Empty(13), Empty(15)
Level 1: Dark Blast -- SDefendersB-Acc/Dmg(A), SDefendersB-Dmg/Rchg(25), SDefendersB-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25), SDefendersB-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), SDefendersB-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), SDefendersB-Rchg/Heal%(46)
Level 2: Siphon Power -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(37)
Level 4: Gloom -- Empty(A), Empty(5), Empty(9), Empty(9), Empty(11)
Level 6: Siphon Speed -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(7), RechRdx-I(7)
Level 8: Moonbeam -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(40), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43)
Level 10: Increase Density -- GA-3defTpProc(A)
Level 12: Speed Boost -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 14: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(15), RechRdx-I(45)
Level 16: Tenebrous Tentacles -- Cloud-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Cloud-Acc/ToHitDeb(17), Cloud-Acc/Rchg(17), Cloud-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(19), Cloud-%Dam(19)
Level 18: Inertial Reduction -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 20: Night Fall -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(21), Posi-Dam%(21), Posi-Dmg/Rng(23), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(23)
Level 22: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), Aegis-Psi/Status(48), S'fstPrt-ResKB(50), S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(50), ImpArm-ResPsi(50)
Level 26: Transference -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(27), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(27), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(31), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(34)
Level 28: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(29), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(29)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(31), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(31)
Level 32: Fulcrum Shift -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(33), RechRdx-I(33), RechRdx-I(33)
Level 35: Life Drain -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Nictus-%Dam(36), Nictus-Heal(37), Nictus-Acc/EndRdx/Heal/HP/Regen(46)
Level 38: Blackstar -- Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Erad-%Dam(39), Erad-Acc/Rchg(39), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(39), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(40), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(46)
Level 41: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(42), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(42), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(42), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(43), GSFC-Build%(43)
Level 44: Scorpion Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(45), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(45)
Level 47: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Ksmt-ToHit+(48), LkGmblr-Def(48)
Level 49: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(3), Panac-Heal/+End(5)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(3)
------------

Recharge not needed? But you need to spam fulcrum shift as much as possible! And spam siphon power on the AV!

On my Corruptor
I went Ranges, Smash, Lethal cap
I Picked up the Nuke for the upcoming i24 changes.
I Picked up the Snipe and slotted accordingly making it perma via the kismet, Tactics and slot enhancers.
And of course I went with recharge.

Honestly after building up his Incarnates a bit more and unlocking Hybrid. I find him a bit too busy. On a team I feel like I either have to keep on top of the Speed Boost spamming it after or during every other fight or I end up forgetting to use it. Solo I'm more about jumping in and firing off a bunch of AOEs. Mezz kills the build though. I'm doomed if I don't have a Break Free.

I picked up Barrier to be defense capped. Which I know is a bit over kill with the other defenses and such, but I figured I could then slot up a few more Break Frees. It allows me to now have less worries jumping into a fight.

I do notice that I need to fire off Transference every 3 or 4 attacks. Combine that with Fulcrum shift, Siphon Speed, Siphon power and I am doing A LOT of debuffing and buffing for so few attacks.

I wish the buffs / debuffs last a bit longer.

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I've got a 50 Kin/Dark/Lev. I strongly reccomend Leviathan Mastery. Not necessarily because it is UBER but because you summon a swarm of sharks to double up immobilize cones and you get a single target hold where you get a GIANT FRACKIN SHARK to swallow them whole. He is super busy though and I have a hard enough time keeping my Kinetic thing going to interupt it with pew pewing sharks at people. But damn if I don't giggle every time I see some poor schmuck get swallowed up

Oh, you also had a question about sets, my bad. Yes, get a little bit of recharge so you can have as many stacks of siphon speed and FS as possible. I'm still building mine, but I plan on using a good bit of -to hit sets and have a decent range defense to benefit more from that -to hit. I find I stay hovered and back to fully leverage my three Cones and get in close when there's only one hard target. I went intuition alpha to enhance range, damage (since I gimped it in slotting for -to hit) and -to hit. The Hold is gravy (I don't have any powers that do -def).

Good stuff everybody, thanks for the feedback!