Making Kinetic Melee Work

[Pbuckley818]

Theoretically speaking. if you where looking to make a toon using the prettiest melee set in the ga... I mean Kinetic Melee, What would you do to take advantage of it's strengths and downplay it's many weaknesses?

 

Note I am not asking what you'd change about the set, but what would you do to make a Toon using Kinetic Melee as it is in the game, right now.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Pbuckley818

[Snarky]

I made the weirdest toon i could to make it so the stupidest animations fit

 

if i could have my wish?  Please please please import basic energy blast animations as an option. Just stand straight and project force with left arm out then right arm out then both arms out. Who the F came up with the windmill on the last melee power?  Look with super strength you do a wind up and a punch with KO blow.  With kinetic melee you gesticulate madly and then sort of motion in the direction you are attacking. Really?  Seriously?  Someone thought this was a good enough idea to pit all that effort into it?  Or did they just import it from somewhere else and slap a done sticker on it?  Either way no thanks

 

simple direct forceful looking poses that show you are projecting energy like a hero or vilkain. Not a interpretive dancer on meth in the street directing traffic

[Shred Monkey]

I would make my toon bald with a blue arrow tattood on the top of my head and put on an orange robe.

 

 

[Sovera]

Maybe a Stalker, IMO. KM works well if you only use the T1, T2 and T3 attacks. It looks super pretty and the animations are decently fast. But it suffers from two things:

 

1 - All three attacks are low level, so they do low damage.

2 - The set is balanced around KM's Build-Up mechanic which makes it do a fantastic job when paired with the fast attacks. But the BU is slow-ish at 2 seconds animation (it can be made to have about 35 seconds recharge and 20 seconds uptime., so 15 seconds downtime) which can feel like a drag and does not offer burst (no popping KM's BU and pop a big attack) and outside of it the damage is not that amazing. There were times I felt like, do I pop BU to deal with this half HP boss and lieutenant and waste the rest traveling to the next spawn where it will not be up. Or so I whittle the boss with normal damage to have BU for the start of the next spawn?

 

 

Stalker helps because AS is a phenomenal upgrade, and the BU effect is replaced by a normal one. The problems with a Stalker are:

 

1 - Despite the BU being replaced by a normal one the damage of the set was not tuned (Scrapper actually does slightly more base damage on top of a better BU mechanic). But it's the traditional 80% damage boost for 10 seconds with about 25 seconds-ish recharge that allows for burst. They both have 15 seconds downtime, but a Stalker can be constantly fishing for BU procs with their ATO.

2 - AS has an awkwardly long recharge that does not allow to simply replace the T1 in the Scrapper's simple rotation (T3, T2, T1) or we get near one second gaps trying for AS, T3, T2, T3. This forces to take the T1 anyway (one second animation meshes with one second gaps).

 

So AS (fish for Hide), T3/Burst (use Hide proc, Burst also auto crits when in Hide), T2, T1, AS, repeat. Both AS and Burst recharge in about 4.5 seconds and the T3, T2, and T1 make for... 4.5 seconds. Ish. The low damage-ish of the low level attacks is compensated by the constant BU refreshes thanks to the Stalker procs and AS.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Sovera

[Pbuckley818]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

I made the weirdest toon i could to make it so the stupidest animations fit

 

if i could have my wish?  Please please please import basic energy blast animations as an option. Just stand straight and project force with left arm out then right arm out then both arms out. Who the F came up with the windmill on the last melee power?  Look with super strength you do a wind up and a punch with KO blow.  With kinetic melee you gesticulate madly and then sort of motion in the direction you are attacking. Really?  Seriously?  Someone thought this was a good enough idea to pit all that effort into it?  Or did they just import it from somewhere else and slap a done sticker on it?  Either way no thanks

 

simple direct forceful looking poses that show you are projecting energy like a hero or vilkain. Not a interpretive dancer on meth in the street directing traffic

Kinetic Melee is based on actual movements from Tai Chi, so take it up with ancient Chinese Martial Artists. Personally I really like the set, but to each their own.

44 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Maybe a Stalker, IMO. KM works well if you only use the T1, T2 and T3 attacks. It looks super pretty and the animations are decently fast. But it suffers from two things:

 

1 - All three attacks are low level, so they do low damage.

2 - The set is balanced around KM's Build-Up mechanic which makes it do a fantastic job when paired with the fast attacks. But the BU is slow-ish at 2 seconds animation (it can be made to have about 35 seconds recharge and 20 seconds uptime., so 15 seconds downtime) which can feel like a drag and does not offer burst (no popping KM's BU and pop a big attack) and outside of it the damage is not that amazing. There were times I felt like, do I pop BU to deal with this half HP boss and lieutenant and waste the rest traveling to the next spawn where it will not be up. Or so I whittle the boss with normal damage to have BU for the start of the next spawn?

 

 

Stalker helps because AS is a phenomenal upgrade, and the BU effect is replaced by a normal one. The problems with a Stalker are:

 

1 - Despite the BU being replaced by a normal one the damage of the set was not tuned (Scrapper actually does slightly more base damage on top of a better BU mechanic). But it's the traditional 80% damage boost for 10 seconds with about 25 seconds-ish recharge that allows for burst. They both have 15 seconds downtime, but a Stalker can be constantly fishing for BU procs with their ATO.

2 - AS has an awkwardly long recharge that does not allow to simply replace the T1 in the Scrapper's simple rotation (T3, T2, T1) or we get near one second gaps trying for AS, T3, T2, T3. This forces to take the T1 anyway (one second animation meshes with one second gaps).

 

So AS (fish for Hide), T3/Burst (use Hide proc, Burst also auto crits when in Hide), T2, T1, AS, repeat. Both AS and Burst recharge in about 4.5 seconds and the T3, T2, and T1 make for... 4.5 seconds. Ish. The low damage-ish of the low level attacks is compensated by the constant BU refreshes thanks to the Stalker procs and AS.

Hmm... interesting how well does this pair with electric armor? That does give some +Recharge. I'd rather run a Scrapper or Brute than a Stalker, but I suppose it doesn't bother me that much to make a stalker. But I still need a secondary, which will have a large effect on the gameplay. 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Pbuckley818

[Tiger Shadow]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Who the F came up with the windmill on the last melee power? 

[Sovera]

5 minutes ago, Pbuckley818 said:

Hmm... interesting how well does this pair with electric armor, which does give some +Recharge. I'd rather run a scrapper or brute than a Stalker, though I suppose it doesn't bother me that much to make a stalker. But I still need a secondary, which will have a large effect on the gameplay. 

It's not like you need huge amounts of recharge since you're forced to have so many attacks. Brutes and scrappers are fine, but it's like I said above. Personally I went /Bio as usual.

[Chris24601]

My KM/WP scrapper is my number two favorite toon after my current archery/tac arrow blaster. I themed them as a close combat spellcaster (and not-so close once the ranged attacks opened up) so their movements are them gathering mana and casting their spells. For your epic either go fire or mu mastery as both have some fairly quick recharging ranged attacks; enough to almost have a decent ranged attack chain if you include KM's two ranged attacks... this makes you a solid damage dealer who can pop trash mob runners and still have solid melee damage.

 

Leveraging the large amounts of knockback/down is also handy for damage mitigation and a little regarded element of their build-up power is that it also includes a damage debuff with each of your hits... using their AoEs with the build-up when swarmed not only knocks a lot down (reducing the attacks taken), but also reduces the damage dealt (meanwhile WP scales up its regen when surrounded so the two in concert can make you quite survivable; particularly in late-game with its large amounts of elemental damage that you have defense against and slot IO-sets to further improve).

 

As damage types go its not all that horrible. Smashing is broadly, but not heavily, resisted; meaning lots of enemies will reduce that component by 20% or so, but few will have the 50% reduction that say, lethal, gets in some situations). Conversely, many enemies that are resistant to smashing are vulnerable to the energy component of KM's damage (ghosts and undead for example reduce the kinetic damage, but take more from the energy part so it ends up either a wash or even slightly favoring kinetic melee).

 

It's big downside is long animation times. I ended up not keeping the tier-9 simply because the three second animation time caused my build-up cycle to do less damage over time than just pounding on the target with your t1-3 attacks to build and maintain stacks of extra damage.

 

Which I think is the important point to take when it comes to Kinetic Melee. It's forte is not burst damage like a lot of melee sets, but damage over time. It's build up is more akin to a blaster's defiance mechanic that ramps up after activation, sustains for a short time then ramps down after the effect ends (a stack added a fraction of a second before the effect ends lasts its full duration so often you're halfway to your next click of build up before they've all worn off). Its actually better at bigger spawns or tougher targets where you can get the full effect of the build-up, sustain and ramp down of a full cycle on targets instead of small weak spawns that are dead before the effect has even ended.

[siolfir]

2 hours ago, Pbuckley818 said:

Kinetic Melee is based on actual movements from Tai Chi, so take it up with ancient Chinese Martial Artists. Personally I really like the set, but to each their own.

Hmm... interesting how well does this pair with electric armor? That does give some +Recharge. I'd rather run a Scrapper or Brute than a Stalker, but I suppose it doesn't bother me that much to make a stalker. But I still need a secondary, which will have a large effect on the gameplay. 

Electric - like most resistance sets - is worse on Stalkers than it would be on a Brute or Tanker, just due to the lowered resistance cap. That said, you could cap resistances to most damage types all the time without Power Surge and still get some defense set bonuses if you want.

 

If it's about the recharge and endurance management tools, Energy Aura provides those in a defense set, and without doing any power customization the sets even look like they belong together. Super Reflexes can get you the recharge and movement speed, but it's a tight build because you have to take so much of it to cover all the vectors.

 

Edit to prevent double-post:

1 hour ago, Chris24601 said:

Which I think is the important point to take when it comes to Kinetic Melee. It's forte is not burst damage like a lot of melee sets, but damage over time.

It's burst and sustained damage for Stalkers. KM has the fastest "fast" Assassin's Strike at 0.67 seconds, and a regular Build Up that you can recharge and stack fairly often with the ATO proc; if you bother with Concentrated Strike you can guarantee double-Build Up for a few seconds (triple with a Gaussian's proc) even without the proc.

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by siolfir

[Pbuckley818]

2 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Electric - like most resistance sets - is worse on Stalkers than it would be on a Brute or Tanker, just due to the lowered resistance cap. That said, you could cap resistances to most damage types all the time without Power Surge and still get some defense set bonuses if you want.

 

If it's about the recharge and endurance management tools, Energy Aura provides those in a defense set, and without doing any power customization the sets even look like they belong together. Super Reflexes can get you the recharge and movement speed, but it's a tight build because you have to take so much of it to cover all the vectors.

Yeah, right now I am waffling between; Kin/WP Scrapper, Kin/EA Scrapper, or Kin/EA Stalker. Not a chance in Hades I'm touching Bio.

[Snarky]

Oooh. Tai chi. Thanks for the heads up. Want to avoid that for the rest of my life.  Can we get alternate animations that arent based in the worst martial art in history?

[siolfir]

2 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Oooh. Tai chi. Thanks for the heads up. Want to avoid that for the rest of my life.  Can we get alternate animations that arent based in the worst martial art in history?

You could try Energy Melee. Same damage types, mostly slower animations. And you get to look at your hands glow. Look! They're glowing!

[kelika2]

I have a Master Roshi ripoff that is kin/wp scrapper.

ATO crit chance proc makes Conc strike not that bad

And KB to KD in the cone attack just feels right

 

Also have a kin/fire stalker

ATO set in AS

Burst has a 50%+ chance to crit from hide/placate

Think Burn also has a 50% chance to crit from hide/placate

And the forced crit from Placate/ATO proc makes Conc Strike amazing to keep that buildup going

[Sovera]

6 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

Burst has a 50%+ chance to crit from hide/placate

*100%

[Pbuckley818]

What does everyone think of Kin/Rad?

[Haijinx]

The KM fast assassin strike is awesome.  Its nearly instant.  

[Sovera]

After all this talk I wrote above I decided to pause my Ice/Bio Stalker to try the KM/Bio Stalker. I have it at 27 atm, it starts slow, but funny enough Burst is when the set blossoms. BU, Burst, AS, Smashing Blow is a perfectly acceptable opening and Burst auto-crits out of Hide have made me *cocky*. Especially because of that thing I mentioned of AS and Burst having the same recharge, so it's super easy to be in Hide, Burst, AS, filler, filler, AS, Burst, as not only do they align well but a Force Feedback proc in Burst goes together like a house on fire.

 

Talk about ignoring the fact Stalkers are meant to have poor AoE.

[TraumaTrain]

I have a kin melee/regen brute named Luchador. He's got a fun luchador style costume and is a hoot to play. So far. He's only level 11 yet. 

[gameboy1234]

13 hours ago, Snarky said:

With kinetic melee you gesticulate madly and then sort of motion in the direction you are attacking. Really

The animations look very Tai Chi to me, which I think is OK.  I can see that some folks might want a little harder style, though, which is also OK.

 

 

[EmmySky]

I have a kin/bio brute named CoffeeBean.  How did @Snarky put it?  

 

interpretive dancer on meth in the street directing traffic

 

Yeah, that fits her perfectly what with all the coffee she mainlines, and the bio armour, properly colored, makes her look like a coffee bean (if you squint and look sideways while holding your tongue just so).

 

Both are fun sets 😁

[Coyote]

11 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

The animations look very Tai Chi to me, which I think is OK.  I can see that some folks might want a little harder style, though, which is also OK.

 

 

 

I really like the animations, especially since they're DIFFERENT. If you want straight hard power projection, there is Energy Melee, Energy Blast, and Energy Assault, as well as the Martial Art/Assault/Manipulation. There are enough other options for hard-hitting martial arts and power projection, that I like the option of having a softer "casting" style.

[Coyotedancer]

19 hours ago, Sovera said:

After all this talk I wrote above I decided to pause my Ice/Bio Stalker to try the KM/Bio Stalker. I have it at 27 atm, it starts slow, but funny enough Burst is when the set blossoms. BU, Burst, AS, Smashing Blow is a perfectly acceptable opening and Burst auto-crits out of Hide have made me *cocky*. Especially because of that thing I mentioned of AS and Burst having the same recharge, so it's super easy to be in Hide, Burst, AS, filler, filler, AS, Burst, as not only do they align well but a Force Feedback proc in Burst goes together like a house on fire.

 

Talk about ignoring the fact Stalkers are meant to have poor AoE.

If you want to see what a "grown up", fully-equipped and fully-Incarnated KM/Bio Stalker is like, ping me over on Everlasting. The character that's arguably still my "main" (Kaikara & White Thorn. I have two identical Red/Blue side versions of her-) *is* one.

 

She's the reason I can look at discussions about how OMGSlowAndAwfulAndAndAnd KM is and laugh out loud. XD

Put the Stalker's Guile Hide proc in AS for an EXTRA bit of silliness. 

 

(ETA: I also have a KM/Fire, but the Red Traveller hasn't gotten their set build or their iToys yet. Of the two? Kai will always be the more dangerous, I suspect. /Bio adds a lot.)

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Pbuckley818]

I ended up making a Rad/Kin Tanker. After learning that Kin is pretty comparable to Super Strength on Tankers, only without the crash.

[Sovera]

Now that I'm 36 I was comparing KM to Ice, the Stalker I was leveling.

 

Damage wise the two sets seem to sort of be balanced. Ice has Freezing Touch that, according to HD in my current build, does 500 damage. KM has the strongest attack outside of AS being Smashing Blow doing... 268. Eek.

 

But Ice's AS does 460 damage and KM's does 560 so the distance isn't that far apart and the fast pace of attacks of KM lends itself to the Stalker mechanic of building crit chance stacks. This is more of a DPS thing though. DPA it 'feels' better to throw big crits around with alternating CDs.

 

In AoE Ice has two which is always better than just one. One of them is a cone though but being part of the ST rotation it does add 'splash'.  KM only has one but it opens early and the auto crit in Hide is pretty potent when combined with BU + Gaussian since it does nasty things to everything in range. It also takes a FF proc which helps for all things recharge related especially in the low levels.

 

Overall both sets seem pretty balanced one against the other. Even in AoE the fact KM's AoE is circular, opens early, takes a FF, and can auto crit from Hide procs does a lot to catch up to the fact Ice has two. It still 'feels' better to spam two AoEs than to be completely surrounded and be forced to plink with ST attacks while the single AoE recharges.

[Lazarillo]

On 1/10/2020 at 10:02 AM, Sovera said:

Maybe a Stalker, IMO.

One other nice thing about Kinetic Melee on a Stalker (unless HC changed it; I haven't tried the set since the game came back) is that Burst always deals a Critical Hit when Hidden, unlike most Stalker AoEs.  This means you're packing a consistently usable area attack about on-par in terms of damage as a Corruptor nuke (albeit with a much smaller radius).  Not exactly to be sneezed at.