Trying to understand Kinetic Melee

[Frostweaver]

So, here's what I have been trying to piece together about kinetic Melee

 

In general, most of the attacks are like much weaker versions of Energy Melee.

 

But you have a buildup, which at first is more like an aim with no damage. but it lasts 20 seconds.

Then you have to build up that aim by firing off weakass single target attacks to get it up to buildup levels. Except that those cannot be ANY attacks, they HAVE to be kinetic attacks... and anything slow wrecks it.

 

And then you get to use your big built-up single target attack, which takes almost as much time as putting down a trip mine. Oh, and stalkers and scrappers cannot crit with it, they just get to restart the whole cycle a little quicker.

After that, you can fire off your slow-as hell pbaoe, and then your second aoe which knocks everything out of range for your final attack, which will probably be another weakass single target attack, because that wonderful build up power caps at just barely above an actual build-up damage, and there's no way on EARTH you are getting off a second big hitter attack with it's huge recharge and gigantic cast time. But that's okay, because if you keep flailing away for another minute or so you get to restart the cycle while your team moves 3 spawns down.

And anything that caps your damage caps it at the same weakass below-energy melee level. only now, stalkers and scrappers still cannot crit with the big attack, so their crappy build-up is useless.

And it's 'special' for all of this weirdness is a pathetically low level of -damage that is resisted by every AV and GM to the point of uselessness, a bit of knockdown, and a minion-level stun that makes things wander stupidly outside of your attack range on a regular basis. Oh, and a slow, low-damage ranged attack that never ever benefits from the weird build-up.

 

 

Did I get that right? Or am I missing something?

Because I am trying to figure out if this was supposed to be a powerset, or a way for the live devs to pretend to play street fighter 2 with the CoH engine. Without a flaming uppercut. or a spin kick.

[Psyonico]

I can't speak to it on Tanks (my highest is only level 8 ) but I can tell you that on Brutes it can destroy stuff.

[xl8]

Slow. Looks and sounds good. That is all.

[Pleonast]

It's not for everyone, but no set is. Here's what I like.

1. Quick Strike: light damage and knockback to give yourself some space.

2 & 3. Body Blow and Smashing Blow: medium damage and stuns to give yourself some time.

4. Taunt: hey you, it's a taunt!

5. Repulsing Torrent: cone knockback to push minions into corners and give yourself time and space.

6. Power Siphon: nice buff if you have room to take it.

7. Burst: fun all-around blast.

8. Focused Burst: great range attack for taking down flyers and runners.

9. Concentrated Strike: the POW! attack.

 

My attack pattern goes like this. First, target a boss. Run next to it and Burst. Then run to the angle that gives the most mobs or wherever you want to herd things and Rep Torrent. While two powers charge, hit the boss with Conc Strike, Smash Blow, and Body Blow (on a team, Taunt and/or Focus Burst). Then repeat with the AoE and Cone, and back again to popping the boss. The boss will be stunned.

 

There's a lot of running to the best position, hence the "Kinetic" part of the name. I love the back-and-forth, to-and-fro when using Kinetic Melee. It requires good situational awareness (Scrapper-lock is counter-indicated) and I get into the zone of being wherever I need to be.

 

It pairs well with Willpower, another powerset that has a nice variety.

[Sovera]

Works best on a Staker IMO.

 

Of course with IOs most of your worries do not happen. The knockback of Torrent is turned into a KD. 

Numbers wise it turns out the T9 is not meant to be used, which means the stacking damage of Power Siphon works very well with the three first fast attacks which is what is used.

Burst is indeed slow, but it's a mini Footstomp and having a FF proc in it is *great* for early game.

Power Siphon has a downtime of 15 seconds. BU has a downtime of 15 seconds. So sorta averages out.

 

 

Overall I prefer the Stalker since AS helps the weak damage of the first three attacks, but I have a Stalker version heavily procced that is satisfying to play. They also avoid the ramp up of Power Siphon by having regular BU.

[Frostweaver]

what do you mean by 'numbers wise the T9 is not meant to be used'?

[Sovera]

3 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

what do you mean by 'numbers wise the T9 is not meant to be used'?

In the time it takes to be used (3 seconds) we can use the first three attacks (3.8 seconds combined) and do the same damage (or more since procs on each attack x3 instead of procs just on CS) with less of a downtime if the lovely 5% chooses to happen after 3 seconds of animation time. Using the three attacks also works much better for the stacking mechanic of Power Siphon, but also for Stalker (the one AT I'd recommend playing KM on) since the AS stacks play well with the fast attacks.

 

I've made a KM/Bio Stalker that I'm going to post where I managed to reach 45% defenses but have triple (and quadruple) damage procs on each attacks which counter the low individual damage of using the early KM attacks. Having AS also helps with that in the same way. Plus on a Stalker Burst auto-crits from Hide and it's gooooood to start a fight with an explosion of carnage when it comes empowered with BU +Gaussian.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Sovera

[Frostweaver]

ahh, I was thinking about it from a Tanker's point of view, 3 seconds for 600+ damage +it's long recharge that almost guarantees a proc or two firing seemed like...numbers a tanker cannot afford to skip

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

In the time it takes to be used (3 seconds) we can use the first three attacks (3.8 seconds combined) and do the same damage (or more since procs on each attack x3 instead of procs just on CS) with less of a downtime if the lovely 5% chooses to happen after 3 seconds of animation time. Using the three attacks also works much better for the stacking mechanic of Power Siphon, but also for Stalker (the one AT I'd recommend playing KM on) since the AS stacks play well with the fast attacks.

There's a caveat to using procs instead of damage enhancement on Archetypes that have Critical Hits happening ... the damage procs do not get doubled by Critical Hits, while damage enhancement will get doubled by critical hits.  Just one other factor to consider.

[Myrmidon]

 

@Sir Myshkin has an excellent write up on using Kinetic Melee as a Proc Build on Page 6. Take a look and it may give you some ideas.

[Sovera]

10 hours ago, Redlynne said:

There's a caveat to using procs instead of damage enhancement on Archetypes that have Critical Hits happening ... the damage procs do not get doubled by Critical Hits, while damage enhancement will get doubled by critical hits.  Just one other factor to consider.

Of course, mein freund, but the build in question has damage (near) maxed so it takes the best of both worlds. I've posted it here.

[killigraphy]

I'm not a fan of the powerset when it comes to he moves, I get they were going for a tai chi quan aspect, but it just fall flat. Then there's the knockback.....you're tank, knockdown is your best friend, not knockback. Seems like they dropped the balls for tanks on this one. Would be nice they changed the KB into KD (Tank only).

[SableShrike]

Thing I haven’t seen you guys mention yet:  drop a KB to KD IO in Repulsing Torrent and replace Taunt with it.

 

Slotted well it does solid damage mitigation via KD, decent damage, and Gauntlets anything it hits.  You can sixslot it for damage, taunt, or a combo of both.

 

You’ll never wanna use Taunt again.  I do something similar on my SR/MA with Energy Torrent.  Difference is Kinetic Melee can slot taunt sets in Torrent and gets its Torrent far, far earlier.

Edited May 28, 2020 by SableShrike

[vysirez]

On 5/27/2020 at 10:50 PM, SableShrike said:

Thing I haven’t seen you guys mention yet:  drop a KB to KD IO in Repulsing Torrent and replace Taunt with it.

 

Slotted well it does solid damage mitigation via KD, decent damage, and Gauntlets anything it hits.  You can sixslot it for damage, taunt, or a combo of both.

 

You’ll never wanna use Taunt again.  I do something similar on my SR/MA with Energy Torrent.  Difference is Kinetic Melee can slot taunt sets in Torrent and gets its Torrent far, far earlier.

 

You do loose a couple things, Taunt has -range that is useful to get some of the ranged attacker to move closer, and taunt is 70 range, RT is only 40. However RT with KB to KD plus a FF is a nice power setup.