Kinetic Melee Build?

[That Ninja]

Hey gang, I've recently heard that before the game got shut down the devs did a complete rework of stalkers to make them a lot better than they were for years. I'm interested in trying one, pairing the AT I never cared to play with the melee set I never cared to try, I've been having a dickens trying to come up with a build for this. I grouped with a stalker running Kinetic Melee/Ninjitsu and got some idea from them, but I'm still pretty lost.

 

Has anyone tried experimenting or actually been playing a KM build? I'm leaning towards Nin or SR myself, but I don't know how they stack up as a stalker secondary.

[Zumberge]

Had a 50 Kinetic Melee/Super Reflexes Stalker.  The rest of you know the drill: You see me spout bullshit, you call it out.

 

As far as fluff goes KM has some nice sweeping strikes and animations that are kind of the midway point between the high-flying wire-fu of (original) Martial Arts and the very practical-looking, grounded Street Justice.  The energy auras around your punches look nice, too, if you want an "energy punch" kind of character without going into the glowing pom-pom territory of Energy Melee.

 

Crunch-wise, all the attacks are smashing/energy damage, cause -damage as a secondary effect, and either knock down or disorient.  Because of this there's a decent amount of potential damage mitigation, and while -damage synergizes better with healing and resistance-based sets (e.g. Regeneration, Electric Armor) you still benefit from it when running defense because the hits that do get through hurt less.  Plus if the team tank is drawing aggro from an AV they'd probably enjoy the -damage you're delivering to it as you punch it in the spine.  The main downside is that, while fast, the damage is a little on the low side.

 

There's nothing particularly noteworthy about KM's attacks in particular until you get to the last three: Firstly, Burst is a PBAoE with knockdown.  Now I've been out of the loop for a bit, but PBAoEs were fairly uncommon to see in Stalker primaries.  That said, Burst from Hide causes some pretty good damage to groups while knocking a bunch of guys flat on their asses which, again, damage mitigation.  I'd argue that having it means playing your Stalker more like a Scrapper; getting stuck in next to the tank and fighting alongside them throwing out AoEs.  Just make sure you stay in Hide until they have the aggro.

 

Secondly, Focused Burst.  Longish cast time (2.2 seconds), but it's a ranged attack with knockdown.  Again, Stalker primary with a ranged attack; kind of rare.  Good for catching runners.

 

Finally, Concentrated Strike.  3 second animation, long recharge (20 seconds), but high damage and if it crits Build Up automatically goes off cooldown.  I get the feeling that prior to the Stalker rework, this was a gentle nudge to get you to do things besides Assassin's Strike out of Hide.  Regardless, that's a fairly nice boon that helps up your overall damage a bit, and almost turns Placate into a second Build Up.

 

tl;dr: You won't be punching out gods but you look pretty and have some tricks up your sleeve that many other primaries don't.

 

With regards to synergistic secondaries, uh... maybe someone else can cover that better than I can.  Super Reflexes' +20% recharge doesn't hurt, though, considering Burst and Concentrated Strike.

[That Ninja]

I was only considering Ninjitsu for the utility, but the recharge on SR sounds like the way to go. Do you have any suggestions for epic power pools or is body mastery the go to?

[StrikerFox]

Before shutdown, I ran a KM/NrgA Stalker. It was a gimmick build to try to work newer game mechanics into a single hero.  Stalker Guile proc to get Concentrated Strike to recharge BU, which provides enough +tohit to incorporate Moonbeam into the chain as an insta-snipe. It works out great until AS misses, CS doesn't recharge BU and I'm left button mashing trying to get the chain going again. Checkout the vid. It's a pretty solid chain and put up some good dps numbers.

 

The yellow ring around the Moonbeam icon means it can be insta-sniped (1.5s cast time). No ring means it's the long, interruptible snipe (7.5s cast time).

 

 

 

[That Ninja]

This is the Kin/Nin build I tried making a bit ago and it's kind of a mess. I really don't know what powers to take in Kin and I think I just want to drop Nin for SR

 

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962

http://www.cohplanner.com/

 

Click this DataLink to open the build!

 

Autumn Ghost: Level 50 Natural Stalker

Primary Power Set: Kinetic Melee

Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu

Power Pool: Speed

Power Pool: Fighting

Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

 

Villain Profile:

Level 1: Body Blow

• (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (3) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance
  
• (3) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (5) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (5) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (50) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  

Level 1: Hide

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 2: Smashing Blow

• (A) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (7) Superior Assassin's Mark - Damage/RechargeTime
  
• (7) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime
  
• (9) Superior Assassin's Mark - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (9) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (11) Superior Assassin's Mark - RechargeTime/Rchg Build Up
  

Level 4: Ninja Reflexes

• (A) Kismet - Defense/Endurance
  
• (13) Kismet - Defense/Recharge
  
• (13) Kismet - Endurance/Recharge
  
• (15) Kismet - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (15) Kismet - Accuracy +6%
  
• (17) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 6: Assassin's Strike

• (A) Superior Stalker's Guile - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (17) Superior Stalker's Guile - Damage/Recharge
  
• (19) Superior Stalker's Guile - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (19) Superior Stalker's Guile - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (21) Superior Stalker's Guile - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (50) Superior Stalker's Guile - Recharge/Chance to Hide
  

Level 8: Quick Strike

• (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (21) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance
  
• (23) Crushing Impact - Damage/Recharge
  
• (23) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (25) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (50) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  

Level 10: Hasten

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
  

Level 12: Build Up

• (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff
  
• (25) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge
  
• (27) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance
  
• (27) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance
  
• (29) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance
  
• (29) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up
  

Level 14: Placate

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
  

Level 16: Kuji-In Rin

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO
  

Level 18: Burst

• (A) Obliteration - Damage
  
• (31) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (31) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
  
• (31) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (33) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (33) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage
  

Level 20: Kuji-In Sha

• (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)
  
• (33) Panacea - Heal/Endurance
  
• (34) Panacea - Endurance/Recharge
  
• (34) Panacea - Hea/Recharge
  
• (34) Panacea - Heal/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (36) Panacea - Heal
  

Level 22: Danger Sense

• (A) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance
  
• (36) Red Fortune - Defense/Recharge
  
• (36) Red Fortune - Endurance/Recharge
  
• (37) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (37) Red Fortune - Defense
  
• (37) Red Fortune - Endurance
  

Level 24: Caltrops

• (A) Slow IO
  

Level 26: Focused Burst

• (A) Entropic Chaos - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (39) Entropic Chaos - Damage/Endurance
  
• (39) Entropic Chaos - Damage/Recharge
  
• (39) Entropic Chaos - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (40) Entropic Chaos - Chance of Heal Self
  

Level 28: Smoke Flash

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
  

Level 30: Kick

• (A) Empty
  

Level 32: Concentrated Strike

• (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (40) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance
  
• (40) Crushing Impact - Damage/Recharge
  
• (42) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (42) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (42) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  

Level 35: Superior Conditioning

• (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
  
• (43) Performance Shifter - EndMod
  

Level 38: Blinding Powder

• (A) Cloud Senses - ToHit Debuff
  
• (43) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/ToHitDebuff
  
• (46) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (48) Cloud Senses - ToHit Debuff/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (48) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (48) Cloud Senses - Chance for Negative Energy Damage
  

Level 41: Physical Perfection

• (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
  
• (43) Performance Shifter - EndMod
  

Level 44: Tough

• (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%
  
• (46) Steadfast Protection - Knockback Protection
  
• (45) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (45) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance
  
• (45) Unbreakable Guard - Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (46) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP
  

Level 47: Weave

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 49: Kuji-In Retsu

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 1: Assassination

Level 1: Brawl

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Dash

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Slide

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Quick

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Rush

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Surge

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Sprint

• (A) Run Speed IO
  

Level 2: Rest

• (A) Empty
  

Level 4: Ninja Run

Level 2: Swift

• (A) Run Speed IO
  

Level 2: Health

• (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance
  

Level 2: Hurdle

• (A) Jumping IO
  

Level 2: Stamina

• (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
  
• (11) Performance Shifter - EndMod
  

Level 50: Agility Radial Paragon

Level 50: Vorpal Core Final Judgement

Level 50: Reactive Core Flawless Interface

Level 50: Ageless Core Epiphany

Level 50: Assault Radial Embodiment

------------

 

 

 

 

[Chance Jackson]

Crunch-wise, all the attacks are smashing/energy damage, cause -damage as a secondary effect, and either knock down or disorient.  Because of this there's a decent amount of potential damage mitigation, and while -damage synergies better with healing and resistance-based sets (e.g. Regeneration, Electric Armor) you still benefit from it when running defense because the hits that do get through hurt less.  Plus if the team tank is drawing aggro from an AV they'd probably enjoy the -damage you're delivering to it as you punch it in the spine.  The main downside is that, while fast, the damage is a little on the low side.

-dmg synergies much better with +def sets then with +res sets (basically 40% -dmg and 40%+ res works out to around 60% total dmg mitigation not 80%)

[Zumberge]

Crunch-wise, all the attacks are smashing/energy damage, cause -damage as a secondary effect, and either knock down or disorient.  Because of this there's a decent amount of potential damage mitigation, and while -damage synergies better with healing and resistance-based sets (e.g. Regeneration, Electric Armor) you still benefit from it when running defense because the hits that do get through hurt less.  Plus if the team tank is drawing aggro from an AV they'd probably enjoy the -damage you're delivering to it as you punch it in the spine.  The main downside is that, while fast, the damage is a little on the low side.

-dmg synergies much better with +def sets then with +res sets (basically 40% -dmg and 40%+ res works out to around 60% total dmg mitigation not 80%)

 

Huh.  You learn something new every day.

[StrikerFox]

Combine a couple of my builds together to make this KM/Nin. It's designed to have Concentrated Strike to insta-charge BU to integrate Moonbeam as an insta-snipe into the attack chain.

 

It worked out quite well. 7 of 8 attacks were boosted by BU including CS, MB and AS x2. Can see a video of it here:

 

There's several power picks acting as a mule for IO uniques. It's endurance heavy and has Ageless selected to mitigate that. There's a lot of +5 enhanced IO's to get stats to a decent number.

 

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[Chance Jackson]

Crunch-wise, all the attacks are smashing/energy damage, cause -damage as a secondary effect, and either knock down or disorient.  Because of this there's a decent amount of potential damage mitigation, and while -damage synergies better with healing and resistance-based sets (e.g. Regeneration, Electric Armor) you still benefit from it when running defense because the hits that do get through hurt less.  Plus if the team tank is drawing aggro from an AV they'd probably enjoy the -damage you're delivering to it as you punch it in the spine.  The main downside is that, while fast, the damage is a little on the low side.

-dmg synergies much better with +def sets then with +res sets (basically 40% -dmg and 40%+ res works out to around 60% total dmg mitigation not 80%)

 

Huh.  You learn something new every day.

also correct me if i'm wrong but I think stalkers are the only AT that don't get the -dmg effect from KM.

[minainverse]

On 5/30/2019 at 10:23 PM, StrikerFox said:

Combine a couple of my builds together to make this KM/Nin. It's designed to have Concentrated Strike to insta-charge BU to integrate Moonbeam as an insta-snipe into the attack chain.

 

It worked out quite well. 7 of 8 attacks were boosted by BU including CS, MB and AS x2. Can see a video of it here:

 

There's several power picks acting as a mule for IO uniques. It's endurance heavy and has Ageless selected to mitigate that. There's a lot of +5 enhanced IO's to get stats to a decent number.

 

 

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Strikerforce, could you take an SS out of your build? I tried to open the build with Mid's, but it only gives an error. Thanks ^^

 

 

[Seraph]

On 6/1/2019 at 5:24 PM, Chance Jackson said:

also correct me if i'm wrong but I think stalkers are the only AT that don't get the -dmg effect from KM.

I thought they still did, they just lost the stacking potential from the Power Siphon in favor of the tried and true BU + AS

 

Personally, from my Live character who was KM/Nin - I enjoyed the hell out of it. The fact it covers the bases for a Stalker (Ranged and PBAoE) was nice for a person like me who wasn't necessarily focused on minmaxing the hell out of every little thing. You can throw in every purple category into the Power Set and I felt like I dished out a lot. 

 

As for Ninjitsu? I always felt it was the discount SR so I'd much rather go with SR if I famred up enough influence to set up a build where endurance was no longer a problem and Perma Elude is achieved. Everything else just kind of pales in comparison to the Scrapper alternative, the holes in Willpower that other ATs not only exist for Stalkers but affect you even more. Bio kind of has this issue too but I've gotten comfortable with my SM/Bio lately. 

[Redlynne]

12 minutes ago, Seraph said:

Perma Elude is achieved.

Perma Elude is a white whale.  It is not possible to have enough recharge to perma Elude.

 

Recharge time is 1000s.

Duration is 180s.

 

1000 / 180 = 5.5556 = +455.56% Recharge

 

There is a +400% Recharge cap.

[Seraph]

18 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

Perma Elude is a white whale.  It is not possible to have enough recharge to perma Elude.

 

Recharge time is 1000s.

Duration is 180s.

 

1000 / 180 = 5.5556 = +455.56% Recharge

 

There is a +400% Recharge cap.

I use Perma in laymen terms but I always thought Incarnates made it that much closer to achieve. While not true perma-elude, the window was that much smaller and with your stats specced - SR alone was doing work. 

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, Seraph said:

I use Perma in laymen terms

Where "perma" does not mean perma ...?

 

Uh ...

[Panache]

On 6/1/2019 at 8:24 PM, Chance Jackson said:

also correct me if i'm wrong but I think stalkers are the only AT that don't get the -dmg effect from KM.

This is correct.

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Panache said:

This is correct.

The in-game tooltip appears to disagree:

 

[StrikerFox]

On 5/11/2020 at 12:52 PM, minainverse said:

Strikerforce, could you take an SS out of your build? I tried to open the build with Mid's, but it only gives an error. Thanks ^^

Took out SS and the newer IOs like Preventive Medicine, Reactive Defense, Unbreakable Guard and Superior Assassin's Mark. I think they may cause a problem if the Mids' versions are different.

 

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[Hjarki]

Both Kinetic Melee and Ninjitsu work well for Stalkers. I'm not sure I'd combine them, though.

 

Ninjitsu is one of the best positional defense sets. It manages to accomplish in relatively few powers - all acquired early - what other sets require all of their powers to manage. However, as with any positional set, there's a strong bias towards melee sets with defensive attacks like Night Blade or Staff. Typed defense sets like Energy tend to be easier to build towards due to the existence of Winter sets and the split ATO trick on melee sets without the defensive attacks. 

 

Kinetic Melee

• Quick Strike. You have to take one of the first two attacks and I prefer this one, despite the lower dpa, because it gives me a default attack with an exceptionally low activation that is always available to fill in the attack chain.
• Body Blow. As noted, it's either Quick Strike or this.
• Smashing Blow. I find this attack superfluous. It's not bad, but it doesn't provide much you can't already get elsewhere.
• Assassin's Strike. It's worth noting that this is the highest dpa single target melee attack in the game with its uniquely fast activation time. Almost universally, you slot Stalker's Guile: Chance to Hide in the Assassinate attack.
• Build Up. Mandatory for a Stalker. You'll almost universally slot Gaussian's chance for build up here. For Positional sets, taking 6-slot Gaussian's is often a wise idea.
• Placate. I rarely take Placate on a Stalker since the ATO does the same thing without having to waste time.
• Burst. This is a relatively small radius, so you can't alpha strike with it very effectively. However, it's a knockdown AE, which means you can Force Feedback it.
• Focused Burst. This isn't a particular strong attack and it occupies the slot you'd normally give to Moonbeam/Zapp.
• Coordinated Strike. This is a massive attack that can't crit. However, when it would crit, it refreshes Build Up. This tends to mean that you can be under near-constant Build Up if you choose.

 

Your basic rotations are:

ST: Build Up -> Assassin's Strike -> Coordinated Strike -> other stuff

AE: Build Up -> Assassin's Strike -> Burst -> other stuff

Remember the basic Stalker methodology of AE tends to be different than other ATs. Instead of piling up as many AE powers as they can, it's normally better to have one really good AE and use it from Hide to double its effect. This is especially true with Kinetic Melee, where Assassin's Strike deals about the same dpa as a power like Ball Lightning does on 4 targets.

 

Ninjitsu

Hide, Ninja Reflexes, Danger Sense, Kuji-In Rin and Kuji-in Sha are all mandatory powers. Of the rest:

• Caltrops. Stalkers are notoriously short on AE, so having another AE power can be handy. Unfortunately, this isn't that power. You need enemies clustered tightly, not running out of your ground effect field. Unlike a power such as Burn, Caltrops can't crit. While other ATs can make good use of Caltrops in some situations, it just doesn't gel very well with how a Stalker plays. Simply using Burst from Hide repeatedly is going to generate a lot more dps than Caltrops will.
• Smoke Flash. The ATOs make this power superfluous.
• Blinding Powder. You're already really, really invisible. The range is also sufficiently small that anything that sees through Hide will also see you when you're trying to use this power.
• Kuji-In Retsu. Crash powers like this are always a bit sketchy. This particular power is really sketchy because the only thing it really gives you is something you already have: massive amounts of defense.

Pools

Mu and Soul tend to be the best choice for epic/patron pools since they provide the sniper attacks. I'd go with Soul here for a few reasons:

• Cloud Senses is one of the best non-purple sets around, giving +3.75% Ranged and +6.25% Recharge. However, it is a 6-slot commitment to a power you'll probably never use.
• Shadow Meld is a great way to ensure that nothing can touch you when you engage.
• -hit is a better debuff than -end on a build that otherwise does nothing with -end.

Mu does add a bit more AE damage, though. With that in mind, you've already got Caltrops available for muling and Ball Lightning only tends to tickle in comparison to Hide/Burst. Note that on either pool, you'd probably want Sting of the Manticore 3-slot in the sniper attack.

 

For conventional pools:

• Teleportation. This is my go-to movement power on Stalkers (other than Sprint/Combat Jumping) because a lot of the value of Stalkers is they can simply run to the end. Teleport is how you end up being 'that guy'. Blessing of the Zephyr is also useful on a Positional set. However, these are 'dead' slots in the sense that they're not going to help you fight and you can easily find places to dump BotZ.
• Fighting. x/Tough/Weave is almost universal and I see no reason not to take it here. Cross Punch isn't completely unreasonable as the recharge/hit it provides can compensate for the relatively low damage.
• Leaping. Combat Jumping is a common way to get a bit of additional universal defense.
• Leadership. A bit more defense and Tactics to augment the damage on your sniper attack.
• Sorcery. If you're willing to burn some power picks on otherwise useless powers (Mystic Flight isn't completely useless, but it's not a power you'd actively seek), you can get Rune of Protection. While you've already got status resist, getting an additional burst of resist can be very useful.

I generally wouldn't take Hasten on this sort of build due to the fact that there aren't really the sort of long recharge powers than benefit from it. Instead, I'd probably go with Agility for the Defense/Recharge bonuses - just keep in mind you want to have about 100% internal recharge in Assassinate to hit the 90% proc chance point.

 

 

 

[Sovera]

Haven't we somewhat agreed that it's better to spam the first three attacks than Concentrated Strike? Better damage, more stack building for AS, etc?

 

Ninjutsu is great on the other ATs but loses their endurance clicky (lolwut?) on a Stalker. Imagine that with caltrops, smoke grenade, and blinding power it was the endurance clicky that was removed 🙂

 

 

Troll devs.

[blayzemaster]

On 5/17/2020 at 3:29 AM, Sovera said:

Haven't we somewhat agreed that it's better to spam the first three attacks than Concentrated Strike? Better damage, more stack building for AS, etc?

That's been my view from the forums. I can see CS being more useful solo though tbf.

 

I also really like the flow from using the first three attacks. Focused Burst is a nice thing to catch runners as even if it doesn't kill them outright if often knocks them. It also means you don't have to take a Villain pool to get a snipe. I'm liking Body Mastery as KM seems to use up a lot of end.

[snerp]

On 5/14/2020 at 7:15 AM, Seraph said:

 Perma Elude

 

Why even take Elude when you can just be at 45/59% def to all positions all the time thanks set bonuses + the high base values of SR's defense powers?

[StrikerFox]

17 hours ago, snerp said:

Why even take Elude when you can just be at 45/59% def to all positions all the time thanks set bonuses + the high base values of SR's defense powers?

As a mule for LotG 7.5%, Shield Wall/Reactive Defense unique. At times it's worth it to sacrifice a power pick to save a slot.

 

[liberty92]

Would someone mind taking a look at my KM/Nin scrapper build and give critiques? been messing around a bit on it but never really ran either sets

 

 

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1447&c=688&a=1376&f=HEX&dc=78DA65945B4F135110C7CFB6DB96B6507A01B91628485BDA5A5B2E468DC6A8082AD4909018A38965598EB8DAB44D5B13F5CD07BF0024E225F1EEABDFC15731FAA4D1C40FE00D25F192F85487FD8FD56437BBF9EDFEE7CC9C3933E76CEEF264F3D3E96B0784E23B5CD0AAD5FCBC5ED1CA655971E4B46543175B978B9EF05F3D9F930529D3334651D60C3D7FB056D3F48B5D0DEBA43C278B55993E61142F18B5EA25D13C572A15D2F3A58A2E2B573CF8284BB9D462BE4E19CBE76B467119A366A556A68FE091B2A1A70F15B4AB329FD3AA3572ECA414A2F49C0A08BEEA0E11B5099155852DC98C816A1CEC4D8023D741C708B929A6AF2AA6ECA6D6340D7A8E328F81BEEFA0937C14F8D89576053E21B0D9CF0C80ABC342D8919BB0BFC79C2EF277C0DFE6607F27FB39DBC041AAAF0B63145752985A84799AD6EBE6F5BAA56A6AFE05704003238B607489A9834D34B7D74CBE2EBC1CEF0CC56B413CB5E51172F4DD0707EE71BDEE321F705D29BF56F6699588E3D7C0EE25B077014C2D826E9A3BC0B508AC22CE59124258A723B49FE7DC0D0EED65EE03A3DCB3D81ED043F1DAB90EED1BE8CDB62FCC0F60E747B0EF13F33368A7FC3BB8BE1D5B2F611A3B0A9B4AB62EB675717FBAB92F79CAB787E7EC5923C45491B809A66E813B6E33EF30539C13C50D73DC30C7ED9B816D81E2F673DCFE57D0227170E825B8FD39739DF9025CA13D3688B862906BF4901A3A8C78F6E17736737DB1D7CCB760EA0D788306C6793FC6279057629C99011F53BC24F72EF98CFC42AA78425A9AF7407A17E6DD39CA1C638E83D909D04B3DCBF05C99DFC83FFB83F913EC551BE7996EBA44BFDA38A5F59944C35A4F5846662C4AD6A28C5994718B326B51E6544E8114C554DCFEC6D9AE6F781AFF04B67EFBA7D89493A862DB71C5DC116D11ACF4ABC56BD3F3DFBF658DFF5D2B60F017CE707013FC0302BCE210

[snerp]

On 5/27/2020 at 7:31 AM, StrikerFox said:

As a mule for LotG 7.5%, Shield Wall/Reactive Defense unique. At times it's worth it to sacrifice a power pick to save a slot.

 

Oh cool that's a great idea!

[Machariel]

Strengths of Kinetic Melee on Stalkers:

1) all the powers for your ST attack chain at level 8

2) fastest (highest DPA) assassin's strike in the game at 0.67 seconds

3) you get an AoE power relatively early (burst) which is the only AoE in the game that automatically crits from hide

4) utility ranged attack is useful and playing the stacking build up game with Concentrated Strike is fun [obv subjective]

 

drawbacks:

1) No big attack to crit with to leverage the stalker ATO proc

2) overall middle of the road damage

 

The first two points suggest that the strongest way to play KM is to not regularly use Concentrated Strike and focus on using your 1st 3 very fast attacks to build focus as fast as you can and then spend it on your nutty fast Assassin's Strike.  Since Concentrated Strike can't crit and you can build more assassin's focus in the same time with your other attacks (which can crit), and your other stalker ATO means that you're casting build up an awful lot anyway, I think it's usually not worth playing the stacking buildup game.  That said, I did take CS on my Kin/EA and it's a good place for damage procs and under most conditions it doesn't slow you down that much if at all, so take it if you want it.   But when you're working down an AV or a pylon definitely stick to T1+T2+T3+assassin's strike.

 

Overall I think KM is a strong middle of the road set with a lot of perks.  It exemplars well and at high levels you can use moonbeam or zapp after your AS to leverage the Chance for Hide proc.