I finally got to ride Lightning Rod on the back seat. It was a night ride as well. I will need to ride a few more times to get a ranking of this coaster. It will be very high.

Positives: tremendous airtime. I loved the launch into first small drop. The laterals were really good too. For RMC, this also had a good length. I will say this will end up being in my top 3 if not at the top.

Negatives: seats are not very forgiving. Reliability has been an issue. I hope this improves in the future.

Better than The Beast?

Without having ridden Lightning Rod, I can guess that answering that is like answering, "Which is better, Raptor or Racer?" Very different rides, very different concepts, with very different goals and purposes.

Having ridden both, I would give The Beast the edge.  Most won't but I give The Beast the slight edge due to being more of a traditional wooden coaster and being four times as long (time-wise) as Lightning Rod.  Other than both using a wooden frame that is where the similarities end.  The closest comparison at Kings Island I can give to Lightning Rod is probably Diamondback.  

 

Lightning Rod has a crazy amount of airtime like Diamondback, although Lightning Rod's air time is more ejector air than DB's floater air.  I liked Lightning Rod more than Diamondback though.  If LR was at KI I would probably rank it third behind Beast and Banshee.  LR has air time like DB and intensity/smoothness like Banshee.  Overall it is a great coaster.  I can certainly see where many enthusiasts rank it so high but it being so short time-wise keeps it from being at the top in my opinion.  It is still in my personal top five though.