The rarely talked about benefits of Kinetics

[Voltak]

Kinetics is very popular because it is normally the most powerful means to buff dmg in a team, and because of Speed Boost. The rarely talked about benefits of Kinetics is the AoE and the ST damage debuff which stacks, and those debuffs are powerful indeed, even vs enemies +4 lvls above you. In the video I give a live example of the debuff vs +4 enemies and I talk about how that is combined with sonic attacks.

Let me provide additional information to clarify one of the issues I mention in the video.
Damage resistance debuffs make enemies WEAKER to damage debuffs. 

So, for example, 50% damage resistance debuff would multiply the strength of the damage debuff by 1.5.  That's a very significant jump. 

So hitting the targets with an AoE from Sonic, will make Fulcrum Shift significantly stronger when considering how much damage debuff is applied to the enemies. 

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Voltak

[Sovera]

Sonic debuffing resistances also reduces damage like Fulcrum Shift is doing? Is that correct or did I misunderstand?

[Voltak]

29 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Sonic debuffing resistances also reduces damage like Fulcrum Shift is doing? Is that correct or did I misunderstand?

 

That is correct.  For some reason, the way the game is working is --  when you debuff their resistances, there is also a dmg debuff applied to the enemies.  The numbers are NOT identical.  In some cases it is only about half but it does stack as well. 
This is not only with sonics, but it works even with something else, so for example, with Poison resistance debuffs. 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Voltak

[Sovera]

1 minute ago, Voltak said:

 

That is correct.  For some reason, the way the game is working is --  when you debuff their resistances, there is also a dmg debuff applied to the enemies.  The numbers are NOT identical.  In some cases it is only about half but it does stack as well. 
This is not only with sonics, but it works even with something else, so for example, with Poison resistance debuffs. 

 

What the heck. That's some spaghetti code there. Good find, Voltak, and maybe let the devs know about it.

 

Now that's twice the reason to go Sonic/Kin.

[Voltak]

6 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

What the heck. That's some spaghetti code there. Good find, Voltak, and maybe let the devs know about it.

 

Now that's twice the reason to go Sonic/Kin.

This is old info. They know about this.  
Kin/Sonic combo is indeed as good as any other or the best for debuffing enemy dmg in an AoE basis, as long as you are combining both.  
It is something rarely talked about and I am just referring mainly to the benefits of Fulcrum Shift. 

Very very few appreciate the high value of of having 32.5% reduced dmg at +4 content in an AoE situation from a SINGLE kinetics using only Fulcrum Shift. 
With two kinetics, those numbers stack. 

Single targets, one kin can go higher than 80% dmg debuff vs +4 targets using kinetics alone. 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Voltak

[Hjarki]

From my understanding, -damage debuffs are resisted by the same resist type.

 

So let's say I have 50% Smashing Resist and 0% Psionic Resist. If you hit me with a 40% -damage debuff, I would drop from 100% Psi damage (assuming no +damage) to 60% Psi damage, with a floor of 10%. This would be roughly equivalent to having 40% Psi Resist.

 

However, if it were Smashing damage, then my Smashing Resist would reduce the -damage debuff to 20% and I'd be doing 80% damage - about the equivalent of 20% Smashing Resist. This unfortunately means that -damage isn't a very reliable form of reducing incoming damage (except for Trick Arrow versions).

 

Since -resist can drive resists below zero, this means that you can actually amplify -damage to the point where even relatively minor amounts will floor an enemy's damage.

 

With that being said, using Sonic Attack for this purpose is normally not all that effective. While a Sonic Attack Defender can pile up 100% (or so) -resist, this is dependent on using all of their time on Sonic Blast. When you have a particularly busy primary (such as Kinetics), your ability to do so is severely hindered.

 

Not all Sonic powers are equally effective. You can think of the impact of the debuffs in terms of -resist/sec. For each Sonic power:

Shriek = -20% * 5 / 1.188 = -84%

Scream = -20% * 7 / 1.848 = -76%

Shout = -20% * 10 / 2.904 = -69%

Screech = -20% * 12 / 1.716 = -140%

 

So if you were able to chain-cast Screech, you would debuff by -140%. However, consider:

Piercing Beam = -20% * 10 / 2.508 = -80%

Piercing Rounds = -20% * 10 / 2.64 = -76%

 

Note: To clarify any possible confusion, those numbers are what you'd get if you could chain-activate those powers. Obviously, you're not getting anywhere near those values since you have to deal with recharge.

 

Now, Screech is obviously the big gun here. But Screech does virtually no damage of its own. It can't even be proc'd out like normal attacks. It also has a much longer recharge than any of the attacks I've listed. Indeed, Sonic attacks in general are terrible. Even with the additional debuffing, a Sonic Attack Defender can't keep pace with a Dual Pistols or Beam Rifle Defender (neither of which are particularly high damage themselves) in terms of single target damage.

 

This brings us to Kinetics. At perma-Hasten, using Siphon Speed, Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift as they recharge will consume 53% of your total activation time (there is some interference between them that I'm ignoring). Our Beam Rifle Defender would be using about 40% of their total activation time on Piercing Beam and our Sonic Attack Defender would be using 25% of their time on Screech. So basically, you end up in a situation where Sonic Attack just doesn't have the time to pile up large amounts of -resist - and no attacks that can exploit that debuffing. So our Kinetics/Sonic is going to end up doing a lot less damage than our Kinetics/Beam while not offering all that much more protection.

 

Our perma-Hasten Kineticist also doesn't necessarily need the help of -resist. They can stack -185% damage on a single target. Most targets - even AV - tend not to have enough resist in their damage-dealing types to raise them much over the floor. Even for those that do, you can often use procs like Achilles' Heel to cover small shortfalls and no amount of Sonic Attack will let you cover massive ones.

[Voltak]

13 hours ago, Hjarki said:

From my understanding, -damage debuffs are resisted by the same resist type.

 

So let's say I have 50% Smashing Resist and 0% Psionic Resist. If you hit me with a 40% -damage debuff, I would drop from 100% Psi damage (assuming no +damage) to 60% Psi damage, with a floor of 10%. This would be roughly equivalent to having 40% Psi Resist.

 

However, if it were Smashing damage, then my Smashing Resist would reduce the -damage debuff to 20% and I'd be doing 80% damage - about the equivalent of 20% Smashing Resist. This unfortunately means that -damage isn't a very reliable form of reducing incoming damage (except for Trick Arrow versions).

 

Since -resist can drive resists below zero, this means that you can actually amplify -damage to the point where even relatively minor amounts will floor an enemy's damage.

 

With that being said, using Sonic Attack for this purpose is normally not all that effective. While a Sonic Attack Defender can pile up 100% (or so) -resist, this is dependent on using all of their time on Sonic Blast. When you have a particularly busy primary (such as Kinetics), your ability to do so is severely hindered.

 

Not all Sonic powers are equally effective. You can think of the impact of the debuffs in terms of -resist/sec. For each Sonic power:

Shriek = -20% * 5 / 1.188 = -84%

Scream = -20% * 7 / 1.848 = -76%

Shout = -20% * 10 / 2.904 = -69%

Screech = -20% * 12 / 1.716 = -140%

 

So if you were able to chain-cast Screech, you would debuff by -140%. However, consider:

Piercing Beam = -20% * 10 / 2.508 = -80%

Piercing Rounds = -20% * 10 / 2.64 = -76%

 

Note: To clarify any possible confusion, those numbers are what you'd get if you could chain-activate those powers. Obviously, you're not getting anywhere near those values since you have to deal with recharge.

 

Now, Screech is obviously the big gun here. But Screech does virtually no damage of its own. It can't even be proc'd out like normal attacks. It also has a much longer recharge than any of the attacks I've listed. Indeed, Sonic attacks in general are terrible. Even with the additional debuffing, a Sonic Attack Defender can't keep pace with a Dual Pistols or Beam Rifle Defender (neither of which are particularly high damage themselves) in terms of single target damage.

 

This brings us to Kinetics. At perma-Hasten, using Siphon Speed, Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift as they recharge will consume 53% of your total activation time (there is some interference between them that I'm ignoring). Our Beam Rifle Defender would be using about 40% of their total activation time on Piercing Beam and our Sonic Attack Defender would be using 25% of their time on Screech. So basically, you end up in a situation where Sonic Attack just doesn't have the time to pile up large amounts of -resist - and no attacks that can exploit that debuffing. So our Kinetics/Sonic is going to end up doing a lot less damage than our Kinetics/Beam while not offering all that much more protection.

 

Our perma-Hasten Kineticist also doesn't necessarily need the help of -resist. They can stack -185% damage on a single target. Most targets - even AV - tend not to have enough resist in their damage-dealing types to raise them much over the floor. Even for those that do, you can often use procs like Achilles' Heel to cover small shortfalls and no amount of Sonic Attack will let you cover massive ones.

The evidence is on the video.  I presented the numbers using power analyzer.  
The numbers do not lie. 
Fulcrum Shift debuted the dmg of  +4 enemies, all enemies in the AoE   by 16.25%, TWO Fulcrum Shifts debuffed 32.5% of the dmg to all in the AoE. 
I furthermore added that doing damage resistance debuffs WILL MULTIPLY the STRENGTH of the Damage debuff done to the enemies. 

I don't know of any resistance in the game to neither  1) Damage resistance debuffs nor to 2) Damage debuffs. 

Also I added additional information to make things more clear on the matter of resistance debuffs combining with damage debuffs. 

Also, Kinetics is not a big deal when it comes to playing it, so it is not too busy that you can't do these significant things. I played tons of it, and I can tell you it's just a matter of getting a routing down, getting yourself in an almost auto-pilot, and you will be fine. 
FS is reapplied in a few seconds, and in between you can blast with sonics, and, like I mentioned above, the resistance debuffs multiply the strength of your dmg debuffs.  
It is a significant difference. 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Voltak

[Omega-202]

9 minutes ago, Voltak said:

I don't know of any resistance in the game to neither  1) Damage resistance debuffs nor to 2) Damage debuffs. 

Damage resistance acts as both of those. 

 

Like Hjarki was saying, Damage Resistance to Smashing will give you resistance to Damage Resistance debuffs to Smashing and Damage Debuffs to Smashing.  

 

To me, it's especially interesting how this interacts with AVs, especially ones with godmodes.  Marauder and Bobcat when she hits Unstoppable are highly resistant to damage debuffs because they have huge damage resistances to their main offensive typing.  I did some testing with Marauder with Darkest Night and Tar Patch a while ago, and the interactions are...interesting.

[Voltak]

AVs do not resists damage resistance debuffs nor damage debuffs.  
From Paragon WIki, I get the list of As of Issue 9, this resistance applies to -RunSpeed, -Recharge, -Endurance, -ToHit, -Defense, -Perception, -Regeneration, and -Recovery. Those only.  
So what's going on ?

Power analyzer is calculating the resists to the resists debuffs. 
You see Fulcrum Shift, when you read the power description, the debuff is NOT 16.25%, it is higher. 
But when you see power analyzer, the debuff is lower than the power description. 
So I provided on video what the debuff is to their dmg. 

Also, damage resistance debuffs make AVs even weaker to dmg debuffs. 

Like stated above, a 50% dmg resistance debuff will make dmg debuffs increase in strength by 1.5
 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Voltak

[Doomguide2005]

Obviously some confusion here.

 

    Voltak is correct in that as far as I can tell: Archvillains possess no special resistance to damage resistance debuffs.  They would however resist resistance debuffs just like any target normally does.  Which means, since AVs often have damage resistance they should be resisting getting resistance debuffed by some amount.  In turn this should reduce alter how effective damage debuffs are but also in relation to what their damage resistance to the type is.  Practically speaking it means the damage debuffs will have the greatest effect against the foe doing damage with types he is least resistant to.  Yes?  The other thing is the very subjective question of whether this is effective means of mitigation.  If you're taking 200 damage and it gets debuffed by 10%  you're taking 180.  If you're getting hit by 2000 or 20000 by an archvillain that becomes 1800 or 18000.  The value of the debuff isn't so much its relative amount but the absolute amount its mitigating.  My scrapper can take a lot of 180 damage blows ... 1800 not so much (nevermind 18000).  

 

Edit:  And holy #%&% keeping things straight about how damage resistance effects how damage resistance debuffs effect the resistance to damage debuff resistance ...   I'd be pleasantly surprised if any of us can follow each other 😜

Edited June 18, 2022 by Doomguide2005

[Voltak]

12 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Obviously some confusion here.

 

    Voltak is correct in that as far as I can tell: Archvillains possess no special resistance to damage resistance debuffs.  They would however resist resistance debuffs just like any target normally does.  Which means, since AVs often have damage resistance they should be resisting getting resistance debuffed by some amount.  In turn this should reduce how effective damage debuffs are but also in relation to what their damage resistance to the type is.  Practically speaking it means the damage debuffs will have the greatest effect against the foe doing damage with types he is least resistant to.  Yes?  The other thing is the very subjective question of whether this is effective means of mitigation.  If you're taking 200 damage and it gets debuffed by 10%  you're taking 180.  If you're getting hit by 2000 or 20000 by an archvillain that becomes 1800 or 18000.  The value of the debuff isn't so much its relative amount but the absolute amount its mitigating.  My scrapper can take a lot of 180 damage blows ... 1800 not so much (nevermind 18000).  

Every time you apply a damage resistance debuff, your dmg debuff strength is multiplied, not added, so the dmg debuff becomes stronger.   
So, if the damage resistance debuff gets higher, then the higher the multiplier to the dmg debuff strength. 
Then the combo of Kinetics and Sonic blasts looks even better. 

That's nice. 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Voltak

[Doomguide2005]

Its weird and convoluted to follow.  But against things like Linea's 801 arcs or the hardmode ASF I'll take anything I can get and let the number cruncher's figure out the amounts ... biggest take away for the rest of us is its those absolute values not the % losses and gains that ultimately matter.  

 

Bring on the Dark Miasma/Sonic Assault defender

[Hjarki]

On 6/18/2022 at 1:28 PM, Voltak said:

Then the combo of Kinetics and Sonic blasts looks even better. 

The point I'm trying to emphasize is that the costs of Sonic Blast normally don't justify the benefits.

 

For example, consider the common Kinetics/Dual Pistols pairing. You've got a fast-recharging that you walk into a mob with, dropping Fury of the Gladiator on them. Then you start in with your Pistols (Achilles Heel) and Piercing Rounds (Annihilation). Your total resist is similar to what you'd get from Sonic but you're doing significantly more damage. Even if you decide to maximize -damage, you're still dramatically out-damaging the Sonic version. The Sonic version only starts to look better if you're running a pure support build where your expectation is that someone else is already bringing those non-stacking procs. And, of course, Dual Pistols could switch to Toxic to really ensure you're flooring the enemies' damage.

 

[Voltak]

5 hours ago, Hjarki said:

The point I'm trying to emphasize is that the costs of Sonic Blast normally don't justify the benefits.

 

For example, consider the common Kinetics/Dual Pistols pairing. You've got a fast-recharging that you walk into a mob with, dropping Fury of the Gladiator on them. Then you start in with your Pistols (Achilles Heel) and Piercing Rounds (Annihilation). Your total resist is similar to what you'd get from Sonic but you're doing significantly more damage. Even if you decide to maximize -damage, you're still dramatically out-damaging the Sonic version. The Sonic version only starts to look better if you're running a pure support build where your expectation is that someone else is already bringing those non-stacking procs. And, of course, Dual Pistols could switch to Toxic to really ensure you're flooring the enemies' damage.

 

Sonic blasts takes Annihilation - resistant debuff proc as well 
Sonic blasts also takes fury of the gladiatior 

Sonic blasts each one does a minimum of -20 % resistance debuff and each one stacks upon the other. 
Making each additional attack do greater dmg, dmg which is already amplified by Kin.  
When I am hitting +4 Bosses for 520 dmg without procs with Shout from Sonic Blasts on my defender, it's a strong statement.  Shout is not even a snipe. Sonic has no snipe. 
I can't do that dmg on my fire corruptor (kinetics) with Blaze to the same bosses, even at cap dmg, unless I hit a critical (Scourge) 

Each sonic attack makes Fulcrum Shift MULTIPLY in STRENGTH , NOT add, but multiply in strength in terms of debuffing enemy dmg, same thing with siphon power. 

LIke I show in the video -- easily do 32.5% dmg debuff in the whole Area of Effect, just kinetics alone with FS alone. 
Each sonic attacks multiplies this strength of dmg debuff. 

With siphon power and FS , no sonic, you can reach over 80% dmg debuff on target. 

With sonic blasts you can multiply that but you can also speed up the dmg debuff rate. 
 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Voltak

[00Troy00]

On 6/17/2022 at 3:38 PM, Voltak said:

Kinetics is very popular because it is normally the most powerful means to buff dmg in a team, and because of Speed Boost. The rarely talked about benefits of Kinetics is the AoE and the ST damage debuff which stacks, and those debuffs are powerful indeed, even vs enemies +4 lvls above you. In the video I give a live example of the debuff vs +4 enemies and I talk about how that is combined with sonic attacks.

Let me provide additional information to clarify one of the issues I mention in the video.
Damage resistance debuffs make enemies WEAKER to damage debuffs. 

So, for example, 50% damage resistance debuff would multiply the strength of the damage debuff by 1.5.  That's a very significant jump. 

So hitting the targets with an AoE from Sonic, will make Fulcrum Shift significantly stronger when considering how much damage debuff is applied to the enemies. 

 

Thanks so much for this. I'm starting a Kin/Sonic defender this morning and would be grateful if you would share your build.

[Voltak]

2 hours ago, 00Troy00 said:

Thanks so much for this. I'm starting a Kin/Sonic defender this morning and would be grateful if you would share your build.

I think I did post the build in another thread.  I have to look to make sure. 
You are welcome

[00Troy00]

40 minutes ago, Voltak said:

I think I did post the build in another thread.  I have to look to make sure. 
You are welcome

Thank you I appreciate the help

[MistressOhm]

Back on Live, Kinetics and Radiation were two powersets that if you built an 8-man team where everyone had Kin or everyone had Rad, you could wipe the floor with pretty much whatever you ran across.   Two supergroups (Pinball Wizards for Kinetics, and Faithful Fans of Fallout for Radiation) demonstrated that the stack benefits were SO extreme that Positron contemplated nerfing both sets into the ground.   8-stack SB wasn't so much the boosted speed, but the boosted end recovery and recharge rates, that made things so crazy.  People were speed-running the Posi TF (easily one of the longest in the game before it got split into two), and on the Live forums Posi actually came out and said "these guys figured out how to break the game".   But at the same time, the gameplay tactics used were so damned fun that the devs let most of it stand (unlike the fire-farming, which nearly had the AE shut down when people started using it to PL their characters).  

[Psylenz0511]

Another topic I would add to the lesser known benefits of kinetics is that the siphon speed debuff is IRRESISTIBLE against hard targets, whether that is the -speed and/or the -recharge I will let other historians confirm. This used to be common knowledge on the live boards.

[archgemini24]

45 minutes ago, MistressOhm said:

Back on Live, Kinetics and Radiation were two powersets that if you built an 8-man team where everyone had Kin or everyone had Rad, you could wipe the floor with pretty much whatever you ran across.   Two supergroups (Pinball Wizards for Kinetics, and Faithful Fans of Fallout for Radiation) demonstrated that the stack benefits were SO extreme that Positron contemplated nerfing both sets into the ground.   8-stack SB wasn't so much the boosted speed, but the boosted end recovery and recharge rates, that made things so crazy.  People were speed-running the Posi TF (easily one of the longest in the game before it got split into two), and on the Live forums Posi actually came out and said "these guys figured out how to break the game".   But at the same time, the gameplay tactics used were so damned fun that the devs let most of it stand (unlike the fire-farming, which nearly had the AE shut down when people started using it to PL their characters).  

 

To this day I will never understand how the OG Devs didn't think the players would figure this out. What's that adage? "Put enough monkeys in a room with typewriters and eventually they'll type out Shakespeare?" The players had a better understanding of their powers and had more defined objectives. Even without knowing all the math details, a group of 8 was eventually going to say, "Hey! Let's try buffing us out to the gills, debuffing the enemies to oblivion, and see if that doesn't make life easy?"

 

Weren't the problems with potentially nerfing the two sets being one: that if they did it, they would have to look at nerfing every other buff/debuff set (since most of those had stacking effects, too) and two: it was only an issue if it was a full team, and at full teams, any well-planned group of Defenders/Controllers/Corruptors were going to steamroll stuff?

[Armaaz]

I am glad they did not nerf buff/debuff stacking. It helps incentivize people using support toons. Still regularly feel like I don't see enough support sets.

[Voltak]

21 hours ago, archgemini24 said:

 

To this day I will never understand how the OG Devs didn't think the players would figure this out. What's that adage? "Put enough monkeys in a room with typewriters and eventually they'll type out Shakespeare?" The players had a better understanding of their powers and had more defined objectives. Even without knowing all the math details, a group of 8 was eventually going to say, "Hey! Let's try buffing us out to the gills, debuffing the enemies to oblivion, and see if that doesn't make life easy?"

 

Weren't the problems with potentially nerfing the two sets being one: that if they did it, they would have to look at nerfing every other buff/debuff set (since most of those had stacking effects, too) and two: it was only an issue if it was a full team, and at full teams, any well-planned group of Defenders/Controllers/Corruptors were going to steamroll stuff?

I was part of the original groups, Repeat Offenders.  
We had full teams of Radiation Defenders
We had full teams of Empathy Defenders (extremely powerful and unkillable in the days of only SOs)

We had teams of Dark Miasma

One of the best days was mixing Half Empathy and Half Dark Defenders. 

Nothing had a chance and back then MAX difficulty settings were much more significant since we only had SO enhancements. 
We had rolling nukes that were incredibly nasty

The full team of Faithful Fans of Fallout, was 8 stacks of AM, 8 Stacks of enervating field, Venegeance , then we all hit Fallout.  
AVs you could see half their health gone in one shot, and back then we already figured out the Radiation/Sonic combo 
After fallout, we just nuked our T9s. It was ridiculous 

 

[MistressOhm]

On 7/30/2022 at 12:55 PM, archgemini24 said:

Even without knowing all the math details, a group of 8 was eventually going to say, "Hey! Let's try buffing us out to the gills, debuffing the enemies to oblivion, and see if that doesn't make life easy?"

 

Even though CoH was the game that broke the Holy Trinity of Tank/Deeps/Healer, the devs still thought along the lines that any 'difficult' content would need different roles fulfilled.   You still needed to grab aggro and hold it.  You still needed healing or status mitigation.  And you still needed damage (and lots of it).  

 

They didn't think about what would happen if a buff/debuff heavy team took on ALL of those roles simultaneously, healing each other, lowering target stats to the absolute floor, and raining out a ton of damage all at the same time.  You don't need a tank if the mobs can't hit you hard, you don't need a dedicated blaster if resistances are floored and to-hit is buffed to the cap, and you don't need healers when everyone on the team can heal.   And with the FFoF runs, using unlucky (or unwitting) characters as sacrificial lambs for Vengeance/Fallout was just icing on the cake.  "No, stay down, don't port off to the hospital, we'll just TP you around and use you as a bomb." has to be one of the silliest and yet most fun ways to get PL'd in the history of MMO's.  

Edited August 19, 2022 by MistressOhm

[Armaaz]

I loved playing my old FFoF toon on live. I would join a team, someone would recognize what kind of toon I'm playing and intentionally run into the middle of a group and die. Fallout is so satisfying.

[MistressOhm]

On 8/20/2022 at 9:29 AM, Armaaz said:

I would join a team, someone would recognize what kind of toon I'm playing and intentionally run into the middle of a group and die.

 

"No don't kick him!  He's fine, watch this." 

 

Pop Vengeance | find new spawn| Recall Friend | Fallout go BOOM | Mutate

 

And then you get the chorus of "WTF?" and a few "OHHH that's how that's supposed to work".