Maelwys

Let's try an explanation of sorts then... So you've got a high-Defense Permadom with a procced out ST attack chain? Great. But you've stated above that this toon is sourcing at least some of their defense via set bonuses from using Purple sets in your Control Powerset abilities... which means that those abilities could potentially be dealing more damage with the same level of Control Duration if you had frankenslotted them with procs and HOs instead of using those sets. Possibly even whilst maintaining Permadom; depending on the sets in question. So by definition your Dominator build has sacrificed additional damage in exchange for additional defence. I'm not saying that's not a worthwhile sacrifice (because I do exactly that sort of thing myself on many toons... and in many cases what I'm getting is far more valuable to me than whatever I'm giving up!) merely drawing attention to the fact that building an efficient powerful toon is a balancing act. Because to raise a toon's overall performance you will almost always have to give up some of its potential in more specific areas (and obviously the trick is to pick areas that you don't personally place much worth in - if you have a min/maxed ST attack chain already then more ST damage output will be mostly irrelevant to you!) Most of my own Doms end up with at least ~15% Defense; because stuff like Combat Jumping and Maneuvers and the two +3% Def Globals are low hanging fruit... but I rarely intentionally push it higher (unless I opt for a Defense based Epic rather than a Resistance one; which is almost never!) because achieving Permadom + Strong Controls + Strong Single Target Damage Output + Strong AOE Damage output simply doesn't leave me enough wiggle room on most builds.

Aye that looks about right. It says at the bottom "Make sure you add three numbers in the 0-255 range separated by commas" so it's definitely expecting 'maximum red' to be given as 255 not 100. Try using FF4557 as the Hex String in the bind instead of 641B22 and see if it looks more like what you're expecting.

The Hex code "641B22" is just the same as the original RGB codes "100"=64, "27"=1B, "34"=22. Generally to make a colour 'lighter' you want to increase all the numbers so there's "more white"... so I'd increase each number by ~10 in stages until it looks right. Or looky here if you'd rather eyeball it: https://htmlcolorcodes.com/color-chart/ EDIT: After rereading... one thing worth pointing out might be that "100 red" doesn't necessarily mean "100% red". Generally the code for "as much Red as you can get" would be 255 (FF in Hex!) so that may be why your numbers are off... maybe try multiplying each of them by 2.55? (I think that'd work out at a Hex code of FF4557...)

So a toon with 10% defense versus 10 incoming single target attacks in a row... can expect 22 of those 10 attacks to hit them? OK. If we'd picked a slightly more sane traditional method: HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) ) If the attacker is a +3 AV then their AccMods would be (1.0 [Attack base Accuracy] x 1.3 [Attacker is +3 to you] x 1.5 [Attacker is an AV]) = 1.95 And their BaseHitChance would be 50% [for a regular unbuffed PVE foe attacking a player] Without any Defense Buffs, ToHit buffs or Defense Debuffs in play at all then that'd work out at: Clamp (1.95 x Clamp (0.5 + 0 - 0)) = Clamp (0.975) = 0.95 = 95% chance to hit for each attack. If the player they're attacking had 10% Defense then that'd instead work out at: Clamp(1.95 x Clamp (0.5 - 0.1)) = Clamp(0.78) = 0.78 = 78% chance to hit for each attack. So with 10% Defense; against a stream of 10 identical such attacks the likelihood of being hit by at least one of them would be: 1-((1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)*(1-0.78)) = 0.999999734 = 99.999% And the likelihood of being hit by ALL of them would be: ((0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)*(0.78)) = 0.083357758 = 8.336% And the individual probability for each particular number of hits peaks at 8. And like most theoretical estimations of cumulative probability; in practice it's about as useful as a fart in a hurricane. But most people can understand that the attack has a 78% chance to hit them each time + they can be "lucky" or "unlucky".

I mean; the Devs outright told us exactly how it works twenty years ago. WeirdBeard (original Dev team) was the one who gave us the full breakdown of exactly how it functions: And these days you can even see this for yourself in the code (it's within entity/character_combat.c) The Streakbreaker does indeed allow up to 100 misses in a row if an attack has <20% hit chance. Sure; it's a bit wonky in practice because LOTS of things generate HitChecks and so sometimes it might actually make more sense to turn off your damage aura and queue up big splatty attacks. But most of the time it's not something the players need to be overly concerned about. Those first two numbers on the 6th line of code and the paragraph at the bottom of Weirdbeard's quote are the most important bits IMO.

Planning a build is almost always an exercise in compromising (A, B, or C... pick any two!). Pinpointing the level where adding "more recovery" or "more global recharge" becomes largely irrelevant is fairly straightforward. However the same isn't true for damage output or damage mitigation; as that'll depend on the content you're doing. If someone is choosing to chase Damage Resistance; then going over the hardcap for their AT (75%, 85% or 90%) largely won't matter unless they're up against resistance debuffs (in which case they'll want 100%). And if someone is choosing to chase Defense; then going over the softcap for the content they're doing (e.g. 45% or 59%) largely won't matter unless they're up against defense debuffs (in which case Debuff resistance and/or a sizable Defence buffer becomes useful). For most toons; running at 45% Defence and/or 90% Resistance constantly is going to be major overkill. The vast majority of my own characters don't bother with either; although most will have a means of situationally temporarily raising their survivability via short-duration clicky powers. IMO the only ones that actually need maximum survivability will be toons that know they'll be up against lots of incoming damage and unable to take other steps to avoid/mitigate it... such as AE Farmers or dedicated self-sufficient "I don't need no stinking teammate assistance" Tankers.

Sure... but in the defense of the believers, that's only because it's been true since June 6, 2006. There's certainly an argument to be made that aiming for 45% Defense is something of a trap for newbies who haven't yet learned about Defense Debuffs and whatnot; but as long as you end up with at least 45% Defence over and above after the enemies ToHit buffs are taken into account then adding extra defence is irrelevant. And that's why it's always referred to as a Softcap rather than a Hardcap. I'm really not... the formula and examples referenced above works for Single Target attack(s) just fine. In fact they work for ANY attack that isn't autohit. The only thing that'll really matter is that what flavour(s) of defense buff(s) the defender possesses - because it'll need to match whatever the incoming attack is flagged as for either Type (Smashing/Lethal/Fire/whatever) or Position (Melee/Ranged/AoE) to be counted for -DefMod. Also; the streakbreaker is largely irrelevant providing the final ToHitChance is 20% or below; as it'll only kick in after 100 misses as confirmed by Pohsyb and Castle years ago.

Soothing Wave is still useful for healing you and non-henchmen allies... but it's not like Shoal Rush is a bad power. If you're not taking anything else that can slot an Achilles' Heel proc (like Weaken Resolve)? Sure.

Woof, that's definitely an important point! That reduces the chances of that being the power choice I go with, substantially. His flight is a big part of the idea... Don't worry too much about getting knocked back whilst flying. I know in DnD when most flying creatures get knocked prone they plummet and take falling damage, but here they merely do a quick mid-air flip. Plus, you can start slotting global Knockback Protection IO enhancements from as low as level 7. Plenty of -KB IOs and Set Bonuses exist and realistically unless you're intending to Tank whole maps of Council you'll only ever need about 4-12 points of protection (so 1-4 IOs/Set Bonuses). I'd throw one more in: an Elec Blast/Elec Armor/Elec Mastery Sentinel. Aim to take the Fighting, Speed, Leaping and Flight pools for Tough, Hasten, Hover, Combat Jumping and Fly. When starting out prior to level 35; you'll have Electrical Blasts available plus Ball Lightning (which you could treat as a 'minor damage' breath attack) and the option of picking up Cross Punch from the Fighting Pool as a melee attack (and you could potentially reflavour Elec Blast's Short Circuit PBAoE as another one). At level 26, you'll gain access to Thunderous Blast (which you could treat as a 'high damage' Breath Attack). At level 35, you'll gain access to Havoc Punch which is a very hard hitting melee attack (Claws?). At level 41; you'll gain access to Shocking Field which is an Electrical damage aura. At level 44, you'll gain access to Rehabilitating Circuit which is an Allied AoE 'Chain' Heal. At level 50; you'll get access to incarnate abilities. Choose Reactive Interface (additional Fire damage on most of your attacks) and Mighty Judgement (a big stompy melee AoE- perhaps a Tail/Wing Swipe?) and whatever Lore Pets you like the look of - see here - Banished Pantheon might work. Whilst the effects of Electric Armor's "Grounded" ability is partially negated whilst in the air; that can be easily remedied. Combat Jumping provides decent Immobilise Protection (and also drastically increases your fine movement control whilst flying/jumping; reducing your "inertia" and stopping distance); and even a single IO (for example: a Blessing of the Zephyr in Fly) provides reasonable levels of Knockback Protection. Also; don't forget that the test server is there to let you build a character in minutes + try builds out.

Outside of custom AE critters Enemy ToHit buffs aren't that frequent (presumably intentionally!) and the main one will be Incarnate/Hardmode content which gains them an extra 13.75% base ToHit. So rather than aiming for 45% there you'll want 58.75%. Defense Debuffs however are very frequent; and "cascading defense failure" (when being hit with one attack drops your defense so results in you being hit by another attack which also drops your defense etc etc) can be absolutely crippling without Defense Debuff Resistance and/or a "buffer" of Defense over the softcap. Whilst things like Earthquake patches certainly exist, most of the Defense debuffs in regular PVE will be coming at you from Lethal typed Melee or Ranged attacks (hits from a bladed weapon or bullets) which tend to each inflict a 10% Base Debuff that rises to 13.33% if the attacker is 3 levels above you... so in order to ignore one copy of those debuffs you'd want to aim for 58.33% Defense against those attacks, which is effectively the same as you'd want for Incarnate/Hardmode content. Personally I only really bother doing that on a few of my frontline Tankers/Brutes that have zero/low Defense Debuff Resistance; on the rest merely preemptively popping a Big Purple Inspiration works wonders. Where this all falls apart is on 4 Star Hardmode Content runs. Whilst technically the enemies there have the extra 13.75% base ToHit plus lots of buffs/debuffs... in practice your team will be rotating Barrier Destiny Incarnate clickies which will completely cap out your damage resistance and defense without you needing to do anything else.

100% agree with you on this one. The OP here appears very keen to replicate a much beloved character concept, therefore recommending powersets or even ATs based on their mechanical performance isn't going to matter if it doesn't match that concept. I'm a card carrying powergamer, but my preferred method of playing RPGs (particularly tabletop ones) is to pick a fun concept first, often involving Class/Subclass/Race/Background/Feat options that are traditionally considered weak, and then seeing just how far I can push that character mechanically. In HC that translates to me occasionally even playing Brutes... 😜

For me, the all-round most mechanically effective MM has to be Bots/Marine. Marine works well with any MM Primary due to Shifting Tide procs and Power of the Depths... about the only thing it's lacking is noteworthy -Regen debuffs and ST healing. Bots/ provides -600% Regen and reliable henchmen ST spot healing. (Also Whitecap, Brine and Shifting Tides more than cover for Bot's Single Target DPS issues... plus Barrier Reef + Protector Bot Bubbles + the usual culprits will hit the softcap...)

🤦‍♂️ ... On the offchance that any impressionable newbies are reading this far into a thread about Defense mechanics; the Hit Chance Formula is: HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) ) And to give a worked example of it in action: imagine a Level 54 Archvillian taking a swipe at a level 50+1 Player. If the attacker is a +3 AV then their AccMods would be (1.0 [Attack base Accuracy] x 1.3 [Attacker is +3 to you] x 1.5 [Attacker is an AV]) = 1.95 And their BaseHitChance would be 50% [for a regular unbuffed PVE foe attacking a player] If the player they're attacking has 45% Defense then without any additional ToHit buffs or Defense Debuffs in play then that'd work out at: Clamp(1.95 x Clamp (0.5 - 0.45)) All "Clamp" does is stop the result from going below 0.05 or above 0.95; so that ends up as: Clamp(1.95 x 0.05) = 0.0975 = 9.75% chance to hit for each attack. If the player they're attacking instead had 50% Defense then that'd instead work out at: Clamp(1.95 x Clamp (0.5 - 0.5)) However as "Clamp" stops that (0.5 - 0.5) on the far right from going below 0.05; that STILL ends up as: Clamp(1.95 x 0.05) = 9.75% chance to hit for each attack. Therefore 45% Defense is the "soft cap" because adding more Defense than that is worthless providing no additional ToHit buffs or Defense Debuffs are in play. However if your Defense starts getting debuffed; or the attacker gains ToHit buffs (like in Hardmode and incarnate content or if they're more than 5 levels above you) then having more Raw Defense and/or Defense Debuff Resistance starts mattering. Calculating the likelihood of being hit across multiple attacks involves more involved binomial probability calculations; where you have to find out the chance for the each individual event to NOT occur and then multiply those together and take the result away from one. so... The likelihood of being hit at least once by 1 such attack = 9.75% The likelihood of being hit at least once by 2 such attacks = 18.55% [found by 1-((1-0.0975)*(1-0.0975))] The likelihood of being hit at least once by 3 such attacks = 26.491% [found by 1-((1-0.0975)*(1-0.0975)*(1-0.0975))] The likelihood of being hit at least once by 4 such attacks = 33.658% [found by 1-((1-0.0975)*(1-0.0975)*(1-0.0975)*(1-0.0975))] The likelihood of being hit at least once by 5 such attacks = 40.127% [etc. etc. etc.] The likelihood of being hit at least once by 6 such attacks = 45.964% The likelihood of being hit at least once by 7 such attacks = 51.233% The likelihood of being hit at least once by 8 such attacks = 55.988% However IMO ballparking the expected hit rate over time is only really relevant if you're trying to work out a rough estimate for average incoming damage over a very long period of time... like when pinning down Regeneration Rate requirements for AFK AE Farming builds. 🙈 Don't look too close or it'll look back.

Glancing it over; the regular attacks seem like Bite/Claws/Wings/TailSlap; which are all melee attacks? Sentinel is primarily a Ranged attack class; although it gets access to a few melee attacks via Pool powers and Epic/Patron Pools. If you typically don't bother with the racial attacks and lean more into your feat-based Lightning blasts and breath attack/spells then fair enough; but if you wanted a more feral melee attacker then a "Savage Melee" Tanker/Scrapper/Brute might be an option (with either Fiery Armor or Electric Armor). The bit about dragons being immune to Sleep and Paralysis and having Damage Reduction and Spell Resistance definitely sounds like you'd want an AT with a proper armor set rather than a Blaster (or even a "Permadom" Dominator). "Immunity to Lightning Damage" isn't really possible as in CoX that'll cap out at 90% on a Brute/Tanker and 75% on Scrappers/Stalkers/Sentinels... but you can push it fairly high. A typical IOed Fiery Armor Sentinel will have ~40% or higher Energy Resistance and 75% Fire Resistance; whereas an Electric Armor Sentinel will be the other way around + so may be better if shrugging off Energy Damage attacks is thematically important to you. A few people have mentioned Invulnerability. It's a good set with multiple layers of damage mitigation... and the FX of its active toggle powers can be minimized to the point of invisibility (so you can see your costume clearly!). However it focuses more on Defense (which to translate into DnD terms is effectively like having a very high Armor Class which applies to both incoming attack rolls and spells; but always has at least a 5% chance to fail - just like an enemy rolling a Nat20 on their attack roll!) and Smashing/Lethal Damage Resistance so it'll be difficult (but not impossible) to cap its Energy Damage Resistance.

Electricity Mastery (Sentinel Epic Pool) would give access to Shocking Field; which is an Electricity Aura (and unlike most damage auras it applies a non-stacking DoT; so you don't actually need to remain in melee range if you don't want to - merely brushing against your target once every 10 seconds is enough to deal maximum damage) In CoX having higher "Perception" than normal in-game allows you to see hidden stealthy/invisible enemies. At baseline perception (500ft) PVE enemies with Stealth abilities such as Circle of Thorns Nerva Demons and Tsoo Ancestral Spirits can often become fully invisible to you even standing 0ft away... but almost any perception buff above baseline will allow you to see them; and the more perception you have, the further away they'll become visible to you. Certain defensive powersets have abilities which grant +Perception; although Fiery Armor does not and neither does Invulnerability. Other common ways to increase Perception are to slot a Rectified Reticle IO (I'll often put one into Aim or Build Up) and/or to take Tactics from the Leadership Pool (which tends to make more sense for Support ATs like Defenders/Controllers/Corruptors/Masterminds). Some other ATs get additional toggle abilities that grant +Perception and ToHit; such as Targeting Drone or Focussed Accuracy... but the only one I'm aware that's available to Sentinels is Coordinated Targeting from Mace Mastery. IMO devoting a single slot to a Rectified Reticle IO is the easiest method here + will ensure that you're able to see anything worth seeing in PVE at close-ish range (~110ft). D&D Racial Blindsight ranges tend to be the region of 30-60ft anyway. Sentinels have additional resistance to Perception debuffs (10% IIRC?); as well as a Inherent (Opportunity) that builds up over time and allows you to apply a debuff onto a single enemy... this debuff is typically used for reducing their damage resistance but it also includes a -Stealth debuff. So if YOU can see enemies; then you can tag them and allow teammates to see them too. The thing you may need to compromise on is an "Electric Breath Attack" - the only elemental attacks with breath animations I'm aware of are Fire Breath (Fire Blast) and Frost Breath (Ice Blast). However the Electrical Blast powerset does have a very powerful ranged nuke in Thunderous Blast; which on a Sentinel recharges comparatively quickly! Once you get to 50; Incarnate abilities will open up some other methods of representing stuff... like a Reactive Interface Slot (adds Fire damage to your attacks) and an Ion Judgement slot (a big ranged AoE Electrical damage blast) and Rebirth Destiny (infrequent but fairly powerful AoE Allied Healing) so you won't actually need to be tied to a specific AT/powerset combo if you feel you can wait until the level cap for your character's powerset to become fully fleshed out. I guess a leading question here would be what class are they in Pathfinder? I don't see that listed anywhere... I'm more familiar with 5e but "Chosen by a deity" and "Order" suggests Paladin or Cleric; which might be better represented in CoX by Tanker or Defender/Corruptor than a Sentinel. You could make a decent Sword + Board Paladin or Cleric with a "Shield Defense" Tanker (plus Warmace, Battleaxe, Broadsword, whatever... or even Firey Melee) if you're prepared to wait until level 50 for Ion Judgement to represent your Electrical "Breath Blasts".

Sentinel is definitely a good shout, but I'd veer towards Electric Blast (which as a set is actually best performancewise on a Sentinel due to Tesla Cage dealing noteworthy damage) and Fiery Armor (for the self-healing and additional Fire Damage, plus Resistance based damage mitigation and +HP from consume) to best fit the theme. For Demon Summoning there are a few appropriate Lore Pet options, and both the Fire and Electric Epic pools contain limited allied healing options.

Both are true here. Psuedopets have their own inherent ATBE that needs taken into account; which is typically (always?) 0.5s for both basic "Entity Creations with Redirects" (e.g. Tar Patch) and fancier "Power Executions" (e.g. Tanker Lightning Rod). So you take the original ATBE of the parent Clicky power that is triggered by your own character and add another 0.5s to it from the ATBE of the Pseudopet's subpower(s) to get the final point that its abilities actually become active. Some pseudopets are coded as multiple power redirects (see Sleep Grenade) which mean that more than one of its "abilities" kicks in simultaneously... but there's always that 0.5s delay beyond the initial parent Clickypower. Checking the code it appears that right after a power's fInterruptTime has elapsed (if any) there is a single call performed to GetTargetEntities (which is what does the initial check to see what targets are in the power's area of effect). However there are subsequent additional checks performed to see if each target is actually "valid" (can you Find it? is it on the Ground? is it Dead? etc.) and to see if each target is still capable of being hit by the power (is it Intangible? is it Untouchable? was it Blocked? did it Miss? did it Fail?) which would all be reliant on the relevant ATBEs elapsing.

You have four attacks unslotted so if you're following a predefined build, then getting those completed would be a good idea. The lack of 45% S/L Defense will be what's hurting you most. I'm guessing one of the missing sets is a "4x Kinetic Combat". You could fill in the rest via "5x Superior Blistering Cold" or "5x Superior Gauntleted Fist + 6x Touch of Death". A quick attempt to fill it out + rejiggle the superflous slots from Boxing + Jump Kick is below which at least meets the bare minimums with all passive accolades enabled. It'll be very tight on recovery though; so it might be better to toggle on Hover + shift some slots to EndRed unless you're running Ageless constantly.

These are the current stats of that build (with all toggles running except for Focussed Accuracy; and all passive accolades enabled) You're a smidge below the HP/Sec requirement even with all accolades added; but more importantly you're a good 10% Resistance and 7.5% Defense under par for S/L.

+ Hybrid = Assault Radial Hybrid for Brutes or "Active" Tankers (you're there to pop red insps) and Assault Core Hybrid for "AFK" Tankers. + Destiny = Ageless grants +Recharge plus +Recovery; AFK builds generally only benefit from the +Rech to get their one autofire AoE up sooner. + Lore = Banished Pantheon Radial (Immortal pet that deals AoE damage); or Carnies Radial (grants you a constant +damage buff; largely worthless to Brutes) + Alpha = Musculature Core (best for damage) or Spiritual Core (for some AFK builds where more local +Rech aspect in their autofire AoE > more damage aspect) + Judgement = Whatever (personally I like Void for the -damage debuff) + Interface = Reactive Radial (any of the "chance for damage" ones work; but -res wins for secondary effect over anything else. Degen's -MaxHP is only useful vs AVs) Why are you chugging two Purples with the AFK build? That's for the ACTIVE build; and is intended to tide you over survivabilitywise for the first 60s of the farming run (until you've killed enough mooks that lots of inspirations are rolling in from drops + you've gotten all your buffs/heals up). The AFK build already has softcapped defense so adding more via insps won't help. From the OP: Subsequent versions of the various AFK builds may have enough +Regen by default without any +HP accolades... but it's worth noting that the "35 HP/Sec passive regeneration" requirement is an absolute minimum. You will still occasionally die to unlucky streaks of incoming damage getting past your defense. You really only need enough recovery to keep your Toggles running after Ageless drops off... but if you're already getting the three +HP accolades others then picking the +Endurance one up too is easy enough. Getting all four passive accolades takes a few hours maximum. In order to reduce (but not eliminate) the likelihood of coming back to a dead toon; you'll want as much +MaxHP and/or +Regen as you can get. Personally I always aim for >40 HP/Sec and >2200 MaxHP; which is easy enough to get on a Tanker whilst maintaining 45% Defense and 90% Resistance but trickier for a Brute. If you have a +MaxHP ability like Consume or Earth's Embrace or Dull Pain then popping it before you go AFK will also increase your survivability drastically. You can also choose to summon the intangible Banished Pantheon Radial Support Lore Pet to take some of the heat off you; and/or keep to the far edges of the map instead of the middle (to reduce the number of hostile mobs simultaneously firing at you).

You're unlikely to get a response from the OP as they've been gone for a while. However there's a slightly more updated list (June 2024) by the same author here: Note that this isn't a "universally accepted" ranking list - Ston tended to lean pretty hard into Procs, Epic Blasts and Cross Punch which is not everyone's cup of tea. That said; compared to before Battle Axe is HUGELY better and is firmly "S tier" now... Fiery Melee's new -Defense has given it access to two more Damage Procs and Achilles' Heel -Res; so I'd place it S Tier in Single Target damage but still a bit lacking in AoE... and Radiation Melee has had Irradiated Ground's proc rate nerfed so IMO drops a tier.

Fireball only has an ATBE of 0.6s - so its mechanical effect kicks in pretty quickly despite what the motion of its projectile "tracking and homing in on you" suggests. And to be clear: stuff like "Jousting" tends to work just fine as long as the power is uninterruptable. AFAIK whenever you activate a power the game engine looks at both your current position and the power's specified range + area of effect then selects an appropriate number of targets to affect with it - after which the game waits until the power's ATBE time elapses before attempting to "apply" the power's effects using the caster's and target's stats at that later point in time (e.g. Power Activation + ATBE) . So as long as those previously-selected targets are still capable of being affected by the power once the ATBE time has elapsed its effects will trigger just fine. But problems can occur if any/all of the targets get killed/teleported/phased/KB'ed/whatever in the interim. Pseudopet abilities like Damage Patches and Rains are particularly susceptible to this issue because of the additional delay caused by spawning a separate entity which in turn triggers the actual power effect (which is why Rise of the Phoenix never deals full damage unless you slot it for KB>KD!) ... but regular PBAoEs aren't immune. And Kinetic Melee is sloooo-ooooo-ow.

Kinetic Melee powers are notorious for having a long windup time; which is known as Animation Time Before Effect (ATBE) "under the hood". KM's Burst has a ATBE of 2.167 seconds and a Radius of 8ft. For comparison MA's Dragon's Tail is only 0.5s, Katana's The Lotus Drops is 0.833s, WM's Whirling Mace is 0.8s. Spine's Spine Burst also has a fairly long windup time (1.667s) but almost double the others' Radius (15ft). With those other powersets if you're activating their AoE power whenever you have a lot of enemies tightly packed around you, then chances are that those enemies will still be sufficiently tightly packed around you when the power effect actually triggers + so most of them will be affected by it and receive damage. But not so for Burst - by the time its effect actually kicks in many foes may well have since moved out of range (and/or be dead already) and so will end up being unaffected by it. Therefore unless you have a means to Immobilize or Taunt things, I suspect your best bet is probably to use Burst as an opener before the mobs "run away" AI routine kicks in (and potentially using Fold Space if the critters are too spread out and/or locked into ranged attack mode).

NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HAH-HAH-HAH!