Psylenz

I have a traps/Dark. Remember the Acid mortar really helps out on damage, and with -tohit from dark blast, you have another 'hole' in traps that is fairly well covered in -tohit.

Points well taken Draggyn.

Thee is so much I disagree with, where to begin... My improvements (at least in my opinion) are in bold

After 75 months, the biggest QOL improvement they could make would be new/refreshed maps. I can only use 'Reveal' on certain CoT glowie hunts because everything else is ridiculously easy.

The frustrating part for me is Orenbaga maps where teams insist on clearing the mad room of multiple behemoth portals.

The one hero I was planning to move to the Rogue Isles suddenly became SG leader by default after some leader, who is also a defender of mine, was absent, too long. Would that be bad if the SG leader switched sides?

There really isn't a build that is more fitting for a planned respec than a Kin/? defender. This is purely because you get the huge game changing power of transference at level 28. Many kins don't feel the need for stamina after you get transference.

There are a number of features in a kinetic that I examine.

Travel
Accuracy
Stealth
Nuking
Epic archetype

Another thing to consider is not only recharge of powers capping what you can do, but the animation cap. You can only activate so many powers in a given time frame. Believe me, that's a concern for a kinetic with siphon speed stacking and hasten. Ice blast has quick animations.

Travel you address with superspeed. Because you are using hasten to cover any accuracy gaps in your siphon speed recharge, this is very viable. Superspeed also addresses the stealth aspect. Aim is also very useful, not just for ice blast, but also for those occasions that transfusion or transference just HAS to hit. There are nice accuracy bonuses you can build into Aim.

You selected a secondary with a nuke that is very conducive to kinetic nuking. Blizzard will wipe out most foes other than some bosses with a siphon power/fulcrum shift precursor. The good thing about Blizzard: it is a DoT. You should be able to get off a blue pez/transference combo before all the targets are gone. Another good thing about Blizzard is that it's a targetted AoE Nuke that you can cast from clear around a corner with NO line of site.

Most of the time on kinetic defenders, I highly advocate getting the psychic master epic pool for the mass hypnosis power to prepare for the siphon power/fuclrum ****/nuke combo. Because you are going Ice blast, you could go through this sequence at range and seriously reduce your aggro -- using Power Build Up to augment damage from fulcrum shift you would lose from casting at range.

Finally, if I were to respec at level 26 when achieving the ability to take transference, I would respec out of stamina and take 3 fun powers to help teaming like leadership, inertial reduction, or grant inviz (push teammates through the mission invisible-like with grant inviz/speed boost combo for quick stealthing.). And at last, I would never take conserve power on a kinetic. I think it would be a waste.

I think you have a reasonable point, and what do we do with the Rain of Arrows and Dual Pistol nukes with no endurance crash. My storm defender is making hay with the dual pistols nuke on a short recharge, living in the melee range.

I Usually save all my builds, but it seems my Cyclone Symon, I leveled up by the seat of my pants. I did level very fast. The powers are in the right order I am fairly certain, but the slots are a bit wonky except in total. I don't remember when I picked up the second slot in Gale, and my sixth slot in Assault Bot has a useless force feedback proc for -recharge. Ah, the good old days

Take the bots as available, that goes without saying. Take Freezing Rain ASAP, so take your stamina powers in relation to that. You can flip Stamina and Hurricane in order, but don't take Hurricane later than 22 IMHO.

This is a fast moving build, and on top of that, most of my levels my Bots/Storm teamed with a Necro/Storm. Good synergistic teammates will help your leveling. Don't overlook the value of the Soldiers of Arachnos - any flavor will do in keeping you moving along quickly.


Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.703
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Cyclone Symon: Level 50 Natural Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Robotics
Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Battle Drones -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(3), Empty(5), Empty(5), Empty(9)
Level 1: Gale -- Empty(A), Empty(33)
Level 2: O2 Boost -- Empty(A), Empty(7), Empty(9), Empty(33)
Level 4: Snow Storm -- Empty(A), Empty(7)
Level 6: Equip Robot -- Empty(A)
Level 8: Recall Friend -- Empty(A)
Level 10: Steamy Mist -- Empty(A), Empty(11), Empty(11), Empty(37), Empty(40), Empty(43)
Level 12: Protector Bots -- Empty(A), Empty(13), Empty(13), Empty(15), Empty(15), Empty(25)
Level 14: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Freezing Rain -- Empty(A), Empty(17), Empty(17), Empty(19), Empty(19), Empty(31)
Level 18: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Hurricane -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(21), Empty(25), Empty(34), Empty(43)
Level 22: Stamina -- Empty(A), Empty(23), Empty(23)
Level 24: Teleport -- Empty(A), Empty(34)
Level 26: Assault Bot -- Empty(A), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(29), Empty(29), Empty(50)
Level 28: Thunder Clap -- Empty(A), Empty(33), Empty(43), Empty(46), Empty(46), Empty(46)
Level 30: Hasten -- Empty(A), Empty(31), Empty(31)
Level 32: Upgrade Robot -- Empty(A), Empty(34)
Level 35: Tornado -- Empty(A), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(37), Empty(37)
Level 38: Lightning Storm -- Empty(A), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(40), Empty(40)
Level 41: Scorpion Shield -- Empty(A), Empty(42), Empty(42), Empty(42)
Level 44: Web Envelope -- Empty(A), Empty(45), Empty(45), Empty(45)
Level 47: Web Cocoon -- Empty(A), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(50), Empty(50)
Level 49: Super Speed -- Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 6: Ninja Run

I like defenders but there are some very effective controller sets, too. Fire/thermal or Ice/thermal would give you good shield buffs and various heals in your thermal secondary. Any more when someone says something to me about passing out heals I think of what a thermal could bring to the table because it has the good damage resist shields.

New powersets, little tweaks to old ones sure make things seems new, don't they? I wish they would have more map upgrades. It's getting repetitive to have the almost prescient knowledge of how a sewer, warehouse, office building, or cave is laid out and where each spawn will be just coming in the front door.

Kinetics stacks very well with the chem round aspect of DP. The -damage stacking plays right into the siphon power and fulcrum shift -damage. It's not exactly added defense, but there is definite synergy there, especially with the close range AoEs that Kins like.

I agree entirely with what PeaceMoon says. To augment that, I used to think psy blast was the superior pairing with FF since you got a sleep, a stun, and nice -recharge debuff, and it's still good for that. There are just some foes that are entirely resistant to psy blast .

Now I go with sonic blast on my FF defenders for the AoE sleep, the nice single target stun, and the -resistance debuff. Sonic blast debuff stacks and assists on teams, especially with howl on short recharge.

I like my Necro/thermal because the fire shields cover the big fire hole in the zombies defense. There are some good heals, buffs and debuffs in thermal, too. Dark won't cover the burst damage from fire, but thermal can get you through some hairy moments with the shields.

At lower levels, before the big upgrade at level 32, the robots have fewer attacks. When they run out of ranged attacks, they get the bright idea 'it's clobberin' time!' What I often do on lower level Robots/* mastermins is to issue the 'Attack my target' after the first salvos are fired to dogpile the closest target through the furthest. I don't do this when there are particularly nasty bosses like Damned or Consiglieres about, but it's effective on regular spawns even tough it isn't particularly 'tankerminding'.

Bots/Storm is my favorite character, ever. The kb doesn't bother the energy blast bots at all. I think a critical technique is to pickup teleport, for positioning in missions. Use your combat teleport while the bots are in defensive mode, most of the time they should be in 'stay' stance. During the TP animation queue up Gale on your pre-selected target to blow the spawn into the desired corner or wall. This also breaks up the AoE while your mastermind takes the alpha shot prompting your bots to defend. It may sound complicated, but it is fairly easy to pickup. Steamy mist will also help in your approach to the foes.

If I am not mistaken the regular/normal rounds also carry a defense debuff component in addition to KB.

Miserable day. Underperforming. Not enough damage or mitigation to outweigh the ability for AoE attacks debuffs to get the MM in trouble. So many longbow specops, so much debt.

If you do think about toe-bombing, think about picking up grant invisibility for your forcefield generator so your position isn't given away and you suck down a lot of AoE splash.

After today's experience, I recant my support for Bots/TA, ?/TA MMs are crap. They can play baby games, so just give them a rattle, tuck the covers under their chin, then smother the sh*t out of them with the pillow before they grow up and eat all your influence and wasted time.

One other little feature of O2 is that it gives +perception. I SEE you little miss night widow.

I beat this like a drum, but snowstorm has an interrupt feature for particular spawns with undesirable properties such as the kamikaze embalmed and CoT mages, the sky raider engineers, Rikti communications officers. I am leaving off something, but you can see snow storm is slow and MORE.

AoE damage and support are always good teammates for masterminds. Soldiers of Arachnos, Fire/dark corruptors especially, but for ranged masterminds like seebs' Bots/traps, a well-played dominator with a strong anti knockback AoE immobilize can be priceless. The dominator might not want that in a regular build. You might convince them to put that in a second build available at level 10.

I don't have a /pain MM but I know a little bit about demons. Crack the whip is as good as taunt I think since it is a decent sized cone that gets their attention. The resistance debuff is better than negligible, so spamming it is ok.

I, too, split my demons stances. I start with all in bodyguard. Often the first spawns and last spawns are hardest. After successfully negotiating the alpha strikes, I put my Demon Prince, and lieutenant demons on aggressive. This works fine especially when all three have their auras cooking.

Having the second build that is available at level 10 is very advantageous. Many of my characters use this feature to great benefit.

I like Aid Other and Repair on my non-heal Robot masterminds like traps, FF, Trick Arrow, etc. Save Repair for the protector bots and the assault bot. Patching up with Aid Other is useful.

I leveled a Bots/Poison to 50 without stamina prior to the change where all the pets are affected by a single equip/upgrade. I am sure with some endurance slotting in your Traps in well placed IO enhancements you will be fine.

I would skip Detonator, too. For detonator, you get more bang for your buck from your top tier robot self-destructing. That's also your biggest damage dealer.

Mu has the kb resistant immobilize, but I like the Scorpion shield for its stacking of defense on the mastermind in bodyguard mode at higher levels.

There are situations especially in warehouse and tech lab maps where I like group fly to position the bots for attack to avoid problematic pathing if they run up ramps and stairs under the gun. Group fly is also a god-send, even with the -acc, for fighting Knives of Artemis and their ungodly stacking of caltrops. Finally, you just have to love the robots using rocket boots when in group fly mode for the visual effect.

It's based on the AI and the priority of attacks. Naturally if the bots have all their attacks the AI prefers the ranged attacks while farther from the foes. If they run out of ranged attacks due to recharge time, then they bum rush the foe and try to whack. What is funny is when the bot recharges a ranged attack right when they arrive in melee and they 'put a cap in' the foe's head with a snipe shot. LOL