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Kinetics for the controller

After I played many radiation emission controllers, I started looking at other options. I had a fire/kinetics controller that I started way back in the days of the original winter lord event. He had stalled at 19th level shortly after that event, and in the next 18+ months had only advanced to 21st level. Late last year I decided to start playing him again, so I decided to learn more about the kinetics set. I’d teamed with kinetic defenders and controllers before, and even had my own kinetic/electric blast defender who was in the high 30s when I started playing my fire/kinetic controller, Late Bloomer, again.

After researching the set, learning the numbers, and reading how others built and played their kinetic defenders and controllers, I felt I had a pretty good idea how to play mine. Late Bloomer went on to be my second level 50 character. I hit that at around 190 hours, playing solo probably 75-80% of the time. I actually started teaming more in the 40s just to get a better feel for playing the character on a team. The fire control side of the character doesn’t really change a lot in play style (although it did change slightly for me in terms of power selection), but the kinetic set makes for a much more active play style. You’ll be firing more powers, more often, usually to more noticeable effect. Fire/kinetics is a powerful build, but it is also an active build and easy one to screw up.

I’m going to just deal with the kinetic powers here, although in another part of my overly verbose collection of fire control, radiation emission, and kinetic information, I will start talking about sample builds, slotting, power selection, and so on.

As with my work on the fire control primary and the radiation emission secondary, I am speaking about PvE below unless noted otherwise. I don’t partake of the player vs player (PvP) portion of the game. I might on occasion go into the PvP zones, but I don’t hang out there, nor do I seek out combat with other players.

Kinetics

Transfusion: As with radiation emission, this starting power is just your basic healing power. Transfusion differs from radiant aura, however, in that you must have an enemy to target and attack for this heal, and a tohit check is required. This is a recurring issue in the kinetic power set, but it is such a powerful set that coping with this requirement is worth it. Transfusion is one of the strongest heals in the game, sitting at the top with dark miasma’s Twilight Grasp, another heal which requires a target and a tohit check.

Transfusion also has the benefit of a -regeneration effect, which will come in quite handy as you hit higher levels and start fighting arch-villains (AVs) and giant monsters (GMs). The hardest part about these fights sometimes is just inflicting damage quickly enough to overcome the high regeneration rate these enemies have. When I’m fighting AVs and GMs, I put transfusion on auto. The difference is significant.

Because the transfusion heal is centered on the target, kinetics heal is often called the melee hero’s best friend. That means if you want to heal yourself, you have to be up close and personal with your target. This normally isn’t problematic for a controller, but when fighting AVs and GMs, you risk getting tagged by their large area effect attacks. Pay attention to how these enemies attack and time your heal to just after they do an area effect attack if at all possible. This does not mean to not heal your melee teammates just because you can’t go in and catch the heal for yourself. But when you need a heal, make sure you can get the timing right, or find a less lethal target for your own healing needs so you can more safely approach.

Effect:Heal X via pseudo-pet (centered on target), -10% endurance (-3.663% if target is another player), -50% regeneration for 20 seconds (-3.979% regeneration if target is another player)

Available at: 1

Accuracy: 1.2

Recharge: 8 seconds

Endurance Cost: 7.8

Tick Frequency: N/A

Range: 60 feet

Accepts: Recharge Reduction, Endurance Reduction, Range, Endurance Modification, Accuracy, Heal

Animation time: 1.17 seconds

My slotting: 2 Accuracy, 3 Heal, 1 Recharge

Max targets hit: 1

Looks like:

Siphon Power: With siphon power, we start seeing the leech-like aspects of the set. Sure, transfusion drains a little endurance to generate the healing effect around your targeted enemy, but it is such a small amount and has no associated -recovery that it doesn’t impact fights except in the most infrequent instances. Siphon Power, on the other hand, has a cool animation, an excellent sound effect, and just feels like you are yanking your enemy’s strength out and using it to boost your own. When you use this power, you reduce your enemy’s damage by 20% while increasing your damage and all teammates in a XXX radius around you by XXX%.

Later in the game, when you have Fulcrums Shift available, many people will tell you to drop siphon power and just use fulcrum shift. The folly of that is that when you get to that stage of the game, you are going to start facing arch-villains more. The damage debuff from fulcrum shift just isn’t enough to reduce these enemies to mewling kittens. Stack siphon power for an additional damage debuff, and when you are down to just the AV, you’ll also get an additional damage buff that’s more noticeable because you aren’t getting capped by fulcrum shift the way you do going against a couple of large spawns back-to-back.

Effect: -20% to smashing, lethal, fire, cold, energy, negative energy, toxic and psionic damage for target, +XX% to via pseudo-pet

Available at: 2

Accuracy: 1

Recharge: 20 seconds

Endurance Cost: 10.4

Tick Frequency: N/A

Range: 80 feet

Accepts: Accuracy, Recharge Reduction, Endurance Reduction, Range

Animation time: 1.93 seconds

My slotting: 1 Accuracy

Max targets hit: 1

Looks like:

Repel: This is a cool power. On the meaningless but endless entertaining end of the spectrum, you have such things as Hellion bowling. Some kinetic defenders or controllers will occasionally gather in Atlas Park, turn on repel, and walk in to hapless Hellions on the street. Repel, slotted with 3 knockback enhancers, can just about send the poor fellow out of sight as he goes flying away from the instigators of the game. Repel doesn’t inflict damage itself, but the landing from such a knock certainly came.

On the slightly more useful, but still very fun side, you can use repel in combat to keep enemies from spending too much time in melee range with your or a nearby teammate. This power has a pulse knockback effect that ticks every half-second. Since the pulse is a fairly small radius, however, that leaves a lot of time actually for an enemy to get in and get a quick hit off before being blasted away. Repel is handy, but it won’t eliminate melee damage, and since melee attacks are typically the most dangerous, it still leaves you fairly vulnerable. The upside is that knocked enemies take time to stand up, during which time you aren’t taking damage and can even run close in (but not too close or you’ll knock them away again) to get a heal or transference (see below) off to renew yourself.

The power data for repel indicates it is auto-hit, but I’m not sure if that is PvE only or if it is also auto-hit in PvP.

Effect: magnitude 6.231 knockback (PvP note: supresses for 10 seconds after a knockback tick) to target for 0.5 seconds (2nd PvP note: melee characters with knockback protection in their defense sets have around mag 10 knockback protection, acrobatics supplies mag 100 protection, and knockback protection invention enhancements provide mag 4 protection), -1 endurance to self (that is, every tick that inflicts knockback costs you endurance, even if the enemy resists knockback effects), 3% chance to drop a toggle against a PvP target

Available at: 4

Accuracy: 1

Recharge: 20 seconds

Endurance Cost: 0.39 per tick

Tick Frequency: 0.5 seconds

Range: 7 foot sphere centered on kineticist

Accepts: Recharge Reduction, Endurance Reduction, Knockback Enhancement

Animation time: 1.07 seconds

My slotting: skipped – recommend 1-3 endurance reduction plus knockback enhancement to taste

Max targets hit: N/A

Looks like:

Siphon Speed:

Effect: -62.5% to target run speed, fly speed, jump speed, and jump height (non-resistable), -5.25 Max RunSpeed, -20% recharge debuff (non-resistable), +297.5% run speed to self, +116.025% fly speed to self, +20% recharge enhancement to self – all effects for 60 seconds

Available at: 10

Accuracy: 1

Recharge: 60 seconds

Endurance Cost: 7.8

Tick Frequency: N/A

Range: 80 feet

Accepts: Accuracy, Recharge Reduction, Endurance Reduction, Range, Slow

Animation time: 1.93 seconds

My slotting: 2 Accuracy, 3 Recharge – also consider 1 Range enhancement

Max targets hit: 1

Looks like:

Increase Density:

Effect: 18.75% resist Smashing and Energy to target, -10.38 magnitude Stun, Hold, and Immobilize protection, -8 magnitude knockback/knockup/repel protection, 100% resist teleport, -12.5% jump height, jump speed, fly speed, and run speed – all effects for 60 seconds XXX

Available at: 16

Accuracy: N/A

Recharge: 3 seconds

Endurance Cost: 5.2

Tick Frequency: N/A

Range: 70 feet

Accepts: Recharge Reduction, Endurance Reduction, Range, Resist Damage

Animation time: 2.07 seconds

My slotting: 1 Resist Damage

Max targets hit: 1

Looks like:

Speed Boost:

Effect:+50% recharge buuf, +50% recovery, +175% run speed, +68.25% fly speed, 50% recharge debuff resistance, 175% run speed debuff resistance, 68.25% fly speed debuff resistance – all effects for 120 seconds

Available at: 20

Accuracy: N/a

Recharge: 2 seconds

Endurance Cost: 7.8

Tick Frequency: N/A

Range: 50 feet

Accepts: Recharge Reduction, Endurance Reduction, Range, Run Speed, Endurance Modification

Animation time: 1 second

My slotting: 3 Endurance Modification – when teamed with a stone tank, I often replace 1 End Mod with 1 Run Speed – consider 1 Endurance Reduction in later levels if you can find a spare slot

Max targets hit: 1

Looks like:

Intertial Reduction:

Effect: +2780% jump height, +24p% jump speed, +4000% movement control, +4000% movement friction – all effects for 60 seconds

Available at: 26

Accuracy: N/A

Recharge: 60 seconds

Endurance Cost: 23.4

Tick Frequency: N/A

Range: 25 foot sphere centered on kineticist

Accepts: Endurance Reduction, Jump Height, Recharge Reduction

Animation time: 2.03 seconds

My slotting: 1 Endurance Reduction

Max targets hit: N/A

Looks like:

Transference:

Effect:

Available at:

Accuracy:

Recharge:

Endurance Cost:

Tick Frequency:

Range:

Accepts:

Animation time:

My slotting:

Max targets hit:

Looks like:

Fulcrum Shift:

Effect:

Available at:

Accuracy:

Recharge:

Endurance Cost:

Tick Frequency:

Range:

Accepts:

Animation time:

My slotting:

Max targets hit:

Looks like:

Soon to come: Power pools, epic power pools, sample builds, and more details on all the information covered so far.

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