Sunday, April 27, 2008

CoH - Kin / Elec Build

Going back to City of Heroes for a bit. One of my larger, and more common, complaints about some of the players is those who try to play one class as another. I've droned on multiple times about blappers not existing, and detailed basic changes made to the way blasters play in order to eliminate blapper play from the game. I've gone off about Fire / Kinetics that simply don't qualify as a kinetics class. One of the things I haven't done though is show my own power sets and my own builds... so... here we go.

The first build here is a Kinetics Electric Defender. The Kin / Elec build is popular because of it's huge amount of endurance drain, and a decent targeted AOE nuke. My build, however, is not yet complete. I simply ran out of money for IO's, and I made a mistake on one of my epic powers. So I'll go over what I've done with the build, and where I'm going with the build.


The kinetics primary power is Transfusion. This is a multi-purpose power as it heals friendly forces, debuffs an enemies regeneration rate, and drains enemy endurance. The downside to transfusion is that it is a targeted attack, and thus is reliant on the accuracy check.

Because I didn't have the money for Numina's Convalescence, mine is currently 4 slotted with Doctored Wounds. Because most of the healing sets are low on +accuracy I have two accuracy boosts attached.



Siphon Power boosts the damage rate of friendly forces around the -kin while decreasing the damage of the targeted enemy. However, it has a limited number of allowed enhancements, and there isn't much reason to slot Siphon Power. I have just an accuracy boost and an endurance reduction on it.

Siphon Speed is the next IO slottable power. As with other Kin powers it is multipurpose. Some players will slot Siphon Speed with travel enhancements, but the real beauty of the power is the slow debuff it can put on opponents. I've got it 4 slotted with Pacing of the Turtle io's for the 9% accuracy boost, and a single Tempered Readiness IO to make up some points on endurance, recharge rate, and slow boost.


Increase Density is another power I've written about before. It's one of the best short term buffs, and with the recent addition of real numbers, easily matches the Empaths Clear Mind for hold protection.

The reason why ID is slotted with Aegis IO's is that one of them is the Aegis unique, which offers a 3% psionic resistance, and a 20% reduction to all status effect timings.


Speed Boost is the next power in line. Not really a case where I ran out of money, although it is. This character hit 50 before the endurance modifications where introduced. By the time Endurance modifications were available, most of my influence had been spent on the secondary attack powers, or was going to my Willpower / Dualblades scrapper.

A lot of players slot Speed Boost with speed enhancements, which is a bad idea. The beauty of cracknip is that it boosts both endurance recovery, and recharge rate. I've already got one of the IO's that is just about perfect for this power set, Efficacy Adapter. As can be seen in the pop-up the Efficacy Adapter IO set has plenty of recharges and endurance recovery options.


Transference is another power that Efficacy Adapter seems to be built for. As shown, it's currently slotted with accuracy and endurance modifications.

Fulcrum Shift is the ultimate power for a kinetics as it massively shifts the damage from an enemy mob to a friendly mob. Mine is currently 3 slotted with recharges and 2 slotted with accuracy to make sure i don't miss, and that it comes back up in time the power to stack. After two doses of Fulcrum Shift, most team-mates are maxed on their damage output.

Inertial Reduction is one of the throw-away powers for Kinetics, along with repel. I took IR as my level 49 power to assist with Issue 8 hamidon raids. It's still useful in the Lady Grey Task Force, but that's about it.

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Onto the attack powers, and where I spent money like there was no tomorrow... which was a mistake, as I'll clarify with each power.

Charged Bolts is the attack power that has to be taken, no way around it. I have Charged Bolts 5 slotted with ThunderStrike IO's for the 7% accuracy boost at pump 4, and a damage rate that is pushing straight into ED.

Now, I'm going to say this as plain as I can... even though I have a near maxed attack boost for my Charged Bolts, that does not make this a blaster power. To put this in perspective, against a level 45 minion, Charged Bolts only does 110 points of damage. Even with a full blown Fulcrum Shift Charge, this just isn't a blaster power. So, rule #1 of Defenders, they are not blasters, and do not have damage.



Ball Lightning was the next attack power I took... and you seriously don't want to know how much I spent to 5 slot this power with Positrons Blast. Yes, the damage is once again pushing straight into ED, and there is the accuracy boost and recharge boost... Long story short? I should have spent the money on my primary powers.


Voltaic Sentinel was the next attack power. It's a great power because it creates an untargetable pet that fires out with about the same strength as the basic first attack. As a pet, Voltaic Sentinel will continue to fire even if the player is status effected. This is great for Defenders who are weak against such as effects as sleep, hold, stun, immobilize, and hold.

On the other hand... it's still a secondary attack power... which means it's weak compared to the Blaster equivelent.


Thunderous Blast is the only decent damage power available to the Defender with electric secondary. It's also a full blown nuke, and a targetable AOE attack. Basically this means the Kin / Elec can throw Thunderous Blast from a good distance away, and have time to get to cover as the endurance is drained away.

Coupled with Fulcrum shift, a mob of oranage minions can just about be cleared. It's also about the only time you'll see a defender with electric secondary kill anything. Again, you seriously do not want to know how much I spent to get 5 Positron Blast IO's.



The last power in my attack set is Zapp, which is the sniper power. I've got it 5 slotted with Calibrated Accuracy IOs for the Accuracy and recharge boost. A single level 50 crafted damage IO adds in some of the punch that the Calibrated Accuracy IO set lacks. This is the power that's hit Paragon Protectors in full elude or MoG... Slight problem... it does next to no damage... at all. The animation is pretty cool, and your expecting Armageddon... but what you get is slightly less powerful than Charged Bolts...


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Okay, so I don't think much of my attacks. I spent large amounts of influence to boost my damage rating up to levels hitting ED, only to find that soloing con-yellows is a bit of a problem. That's okay. Defenders are not blasters, and the secondary attacks are intentionally meant to be 1/3-1/2 the power of their blaster counterparts. Personally, I'd rather Defenders not be so weak, but the difference is designed to force players to concentrate on their primary power sets... or pool powers as I'll go into now.

Pool powers are meant to round your character out, providing travel capabilities, and allowing some ground to be made up where an archtype might be a little weak.

Now, I hold that IR is a throw-away power. I say this because IR can only be gotten well after the player has passed level 25, and Siphon Speed is reliant on Accuracy. I'd rather have a travel power that I know I can trust to be there... I'd also like to shore up some of the weak points in the Defender build... in my specific case the lack of knockback, hold, or immobilize protection. So, I went with the Leaping power pool.

Combat Jumping, or as I've called it, Combat Prancing, is 4 slotted with Serendipity for the +accuracy boost... this could actually be improved... Another defense set offers a higher boost, but I couldn't afford it due to the attack powers that I was trying to add damage to.




Not much to say on Super Jump, other than it has a +stealth IO.



One of the downsides of the Kinetic path is that there is no native revive power, nor any direct heal. In order to shore up my lack of healing, I took the med power pool for Aid Self, Aid Other, and Resuscitate.

Aid Other was a power where i spent some money to get the Numina IO's. A Quick glance at the benefits, and it's hard to ignore a +12% to regen rate, and a +6% buff to all healing powers.


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Okay... now to the Epic Powers, which is where I did mess up, big time. Stuff like my IO choices on my primary powers can be fixed by earning inf... But in order to try and prevent the end-drain from my nuke, I took the Epic Power Conserve Power... which turned out to do nothing when my nuke was fired... and I was better off waiting for enough endurance to fire off Transference. A respec will change my choice to the Epic Power Build Up.

As of now, what won't change is my other Epic Power, the Temp Invulnerability. It'll get IO slotted though.



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Okay, that's it. That's my current Kinetics / Electric build. It's far from perfect, with several weaker IO sets, and some powers that could be IO'd that are not... but it works.

The key to defenders is that they don't attack, at all. As shown, I spent tons of money maxing out my damage... and yes, I could drop and re-arrange a few powers to get a couple more attacks. However, that would be pointless... since most of the time a Kinetics is busy with the primary power set.

As a buffer, healer, and debuffer, I'm far more powerful, and useful, than I would be trying to attack.

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