Kinetic Melee

[Thezanman]

Kinetic Melee's description claims it to be "a mix of fast light attacks and slow heavy attacks", however its mechanics heavily disincentivize the use of any of the slower attacks. Power Siphon's limited stack duration and max of 5 stacks means it's much more effective to use fast attacks to reliably maintain maximum damage. It's a shame because Focused Burst, Repulsing Torrent, and Concentrated Strike are really cool.

 

Firstly, I think Power Siphon's duration should be raised to 30 seconds. This would make Kinetic Melee similar to Claws, Dual Blades, Super Strength, and Dark Melee, where a large damage bonus can be maintained with a high investment in recharge and effort put into stacking the buff. It would be nice to have the unique mechanic of the set be active all the time, as it is currently weak enough that most people just play Kinetic Melee on a Stalker to replace it with Build Up.

 

Secondly, if the slower attacks (Burst, Focused Burst, Repulsing Torrent, Concentrated Strike) applied two stacks of Power Siphon per use instead of just one (Repulsing Torrent actually doesn't even apply a single stack currently), it wouldn't be practically required to use the faster attacks to actually stack the damage bonus. In addition, Concentrated Strike could have its chance to recharge Power Siphon removed in favor of applying a total of three Power Siphon stacks with each use, as Power Siphon would be perma-able anyway. You'd be able to choose between opening with a flurry of fast hits and then leading into a fully powered Concentrated Strike or Burst, or opening with Concentrated Strike to instantly get to near full power. Ideally, Concentrated Strike would also gain the ability to crit normally, as its lack of crit potential is another reason why it's often skipped on Scrappers and Stalkers. 

 

Those are the main changes I'd like to see, but there are a few more minor improvements that could be made. The duration of Power Siphon stacks could be increased from 10 to 15 seconds to make it easier to maintain full stacks, although I'm not sure it would be necessary with the slow powers granting multiple stacks. Focused Burst could also have its recharge raised in order to give it more damage, as it's currently a very weak attack compared to even the T1 Quick Strike. With these changes, I think Kinetic Melee would feel much smoother to play, as well as being made a fairly viable option for non-Stalkers while avoiding buffing it too much for the already strong Stalker variant.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Thezanman

[Heraclea]

I gather you took it on a Brute?  On a scrapper or tanker, attack speed is much less of an issue.  It does work best. I think, with armors like ninjitsu or radiation that have an inherent recharge buff. 

[Galaxy Brain]

 

22 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

I gather you took it on a Brute?  On a scrapper or tanker, attack speed is much less of an issue.  It does work best. I think, with armors like ninjitsu or radiation that have an inherent recharge buff. 

No no, kin needs buffs.

[Haijinx]

Seems like its only really good on Stalkers.

 

With the superfast version of AS. 

 

 

[Thezanman]

28 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

I gather you took it on a Brute?  On a scrapper or tanker, attack speed is much less of an issue.  It does work best. I think, with armors like ninjitsu or radiation that have an inherent recharge buff. 

These issues are more about how the set's powers interact among themselves, without taking archetype into account (aside from Stalker, which completely removes the unique mechanic and is mostly fine with the current version of KM).

[Haijinx]

Kind of like how Energy Melee is only good on Blasters 

[ShardWarrior]

On 8/22/2020 at 4:28 PM, Heraclea said:

I gather you took it on a Brute?  On a scrapper or tanker, attack speed is much less of an issue.  It does work best. I think, with armors like ninjitsu or radiation that have an inherent recharge buff. 

I can confirm Kinetic Melee works beautifully with Ninjitsu.  😁  One of my favorite scrappers to play.

[Myrmidon]

On 8/22/2020 at 3:53 PM, Haijinx said:

Seems like its only really good on Stalkers.

 

With the superfast version of AS. 

 

 

Its really good for aggro control on Tankers and works well with Proc damage.

 

That said, it comes in dead last by a wide margin in every melee test that @Galaxy Brainhas run, so I would definitely agree that the set needs some adjustments.

[ZacKing]

KM is not as bad as people make it out to be.  Power Siphon can use some work to make the effect last longer and some of the animations could be cut a hair, beyond that it's fine.  I like playing it.

[Galaxy Brain]

41 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

KM is not as bad as people make it out to be.  Power Siphon can use some work to make the effect last longer and some of the animations could be cut a hair, beyond that it's fine.  I like playing it.

It's not "bad", but it is very very slow for normal gameplay compared to other melee sets. 

 

Power Siphon is great, but you need to stack up 5 successful hits in a row, which at it's fastest takes about 5.5sec? And *then* you can toss out a big-hitter move which also takes about 2-3 seconds to animate, so even though you accrued a 150% damage bonus, it takes a long time to get there and use it.

 

Meanwhile, a set like  War Mace can just hit build up, and in the same amount of time (10ish seconds) toss out a ton of fast, hard hitting moves at 100% damage.

[ZacKing]

yeah that's why I said there are a couple of changes to power siphon and such make it better.  Not everything needs to be identical IMO.  it makes the game bland.

[Galaxy Brain]

32 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

yeah that's why I said there are a couple of changes to power siphon and such make it better.  Not everything needs to be identical IMO.  it makes the game bland.

Agreed! Its just a shame when unique things that require extra effort end up being outshone by "SMASH THEM WITH HAMMER"

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It's not "bad", but it is very very slow for normal gameplay compared to other melee sets. 

 

I would use that as the definition for "Bad" 

 

[ShardWarrior]

Personally, I do not find Kinetic Melee all that horrible.  I play it just as much, if not more than other melee characters I have.  I would agree Power Siphon needs a review and adjusting to allow for the effect to last much, much longer.  Some of the animations are a just bit too long, but workable and at least to me fits within the theme of the set.  People seem to be forgetting that not every player is a DPS chaser and is looking for the combo that does the most damage the fastest.

[Galaxy Brain]

8 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I would use that as the definition for "Bad" 

The set "works", its just slow. Its not like Fire Melee where you have *legit* problems.

 

Just now, ShardWarrior said:

Personally, I do not find Kinetic Melee all that horrible.  I play it just as much, if not more than other melee characters I have.  I would agree Power Siphon needs a review and adjusting to allow for the effect to last much, much longer.  Some of the animations are a just bit too long, but workable and at least to me fits within the theme of the set.  People seem to be forgetting that not every player is a DPS chaser and is looking for the combo that does the most damage the fastest.

While true, not everyone is a DPS chaser, you don't have to be. Play War Mace and KM back to back just casually and you'll see a difference.

[ShardWarrior]

5 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

While true, not everyone is a DPS chaser, you don't have to be. Play War Mace and KM back to back just casually and you'll see a difference.

I guess the question becomes why would not expect there to be any differences?  They are two different sets with completely different themes.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

I guess the question becomes why would not expect there to be any differences?  They are two different sets with completely different themes.

I don't think people would not expect differences, but rather there may be disappointment with how it feels given how much more work you have to put into it.

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I don't think people would not expect differences, but rather there may be disappointment with how it feels given how much more work you have to put into it.

Well sure but the same can be said for any power sets really.  Some people will have a preference from one set to the next based on how they feel.  Personally, I think that is a good thing. 

[Galaxy Brain]

Well, I won't go into it now as it is not completed....

 

That is generally true, as many sets fall within a sort of buffer zone where the performance is close enough to where picking them for theme/fun is awesome. Kinetic Melee tho falls short of that compared to it's peers, when in theory the amount of building up you do with it should have it be *incredible* once you master it.

[ShardWarrior]

I think that is mostly an issue with Power Siphon and how it works.  Beyond that, I would not call the set lackluster.

[Thezanman]

The point of these changes isn't to make Kinetic Melee top-tier DPS. It would still be far from it, as none of what I have suggested really improves its damage in an optimal setting. The aim is to make that optimal setting less annoying/restrictive to achieve, by allowing the use of different powers and for using powers in a different order without slowing down the generation of Power Siphon stacks.

[Greentea]

I always wondered if applying momentum mechanic to Kinetic Melee will fix super slow attacks and kinetic is about motion, right?

 

I'm not trying to make it strong DPS wise, I can't stand slow animations. Also I really dislike Power Siphon, It's not the same as build up or aim or whatever else it's called.

[0th Power]

On 8/22/2020 at 7:51 PM, Haijinx said:

Kind of like how Energy Melee is only good on Blasters 

Technically it’s energy manipulation 

[Galaxy Brain]

9 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I think that is mostly an issue with Power Siphon and how it works.  Beyond that, I would not call the set lackluster.

Its sort of both. You have some incredibly fast attacks, and incredibly slow ones, but they all give you  the same amount of Power Siphon when used + you lose Siphon during the animation of the "big hitters". Even something as simple as like, Burst gives you up to 3 stacks on use would be helpful.

[nihilii]

My biggest pet peeve with KM has to be Power Siphon's 2 second animation. This has a performance cost. You're supposed to want PS up as much as possible, but to get in PS mode you have to spend 2 seconds of no damage. Bumping the duration from 20 seconds to 30 seconds would help, but it might be even better to just have the activation time be ~0.5s. It's pretty common for PS to be more than perma as is anyway, at least if you're a Scrapper and use CS.

 

Also, can Quick Strike KB magnitude be lowered to 0.67 before anything else happens? It's the only knockdown melee attack with 0.70 KB instead of 0.67, which causes it to knockback blue con enemies. Meaning ALL level 50 enemies once you're levelshifted. Very annoying.

 

I don't know how to "fix" KM as a whole, though. Its heavy reliance on +DAM means in order to not be underpowered on Brutes it would need to be overpowered on Scrappers.