Kinetic Melee: How have you made it work?

[One IV All]

Elephant in the room: I know Kinetic Melee is a low performer. It needs the Fiery Melee/Battle Axe treatment.

 

That being said, I dig the animations, the mix of ranged and melee it provides and the soft control through knockdowns.

 

In your experience, what AT’s/combos do you feel mesh well with KM?

 

A KM/Ice Armor Stalker seems promising. Both Ice Armor and KM do -dmg to enemies, so there is some synergy there. Icy Bastion seems really good, and burst is 100% AOE crit from hide. Any other secondaries that stick out to you?

 

My other thought is a Kinetic Melee tanker, to take advantage of those AOE increases. Repulsing Torrent can function as a taunt and you have some nice CC. Shield could be a good pairing (Shield Charge + Burst), and it does -dmg as well. Really torn on a primary though. Dark/KM/Soul could be pretty sweet. Maybe Fire Armor/Elec Armor or Rad Armor to help offensively?

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts and how you make Jazz Hands work. I dig it as kind of an “Air Bender/Doctor Strange” combo type of hero.

Edited May 23 by One IV All

[Triumphant]

The hand motions do actually kind of fit with the MCU Doctor Strange spell casting style.  I hadn't considered that before. 😎👍

[Lusiphur Malache]

My only experience with KM is with my KM/Regen scrapper.  It was a struggle at first because I thought it worked like my other scrappers.  It doesn't, I switched my attack chain around, start heavy and end light and keep siphon power up as much as you can.  I got a couple ranged attacks, a snipe for bosses and another for runners.

[AlwaysAPrice]

Honestly it comes down to aesthetics for me, I've never rolled Kin Melee because I had a build goal in mind, only because I had a concept where the animations were the most appropriate to how I envisioned the character fighting.

 

Of the 3 I have, one is a Tech Kin/Shield Brute who is the closest to the "intended" concept of the set, using power gauntlets to redirect the energy absorbed through her shield. One is a Natural (I think) Kin/Nin/Soul Scrapper for whom it represents a combination of psionic projection and space martial arts, whose combination of Focused Burst, Moonbeam, and Soul Storm makes her just as much fun to play lazily from range as when diving into the fray. The third is a Magic Kin/Dark/Psi Stalker who is a haunted puppet, where Kin was chosen because its hovering animations are just too perfect for herky-jerky marionette flailing and the FX recolor well to suggest ghostly/spiritual energies.

 

I enjoy all three but appreciate it most mechanically on the Stalker, where there's no Power Siphon BS and the combination of Stalker ATOs with crits from hide make Concentrated Strike worth taking (honestly it probably still isn't, I feel like I'd probably be better off sniping or using an AoE to fish for Assassin's Mark when I proc-Hide if I want to stack Build Ups, but look CS is by far the most puppetty power possible in hover).

[BrandX]

I use the first three attacks with power siphon.  Then when power siphon is about to end, I hit CS to try and crit it into instant recharge.  Power Siphon I slot with Gaussian's Proc and 2 Recharge IOs +5ed.

 

Sadly, CS does not crit that well in terms of bringing Power Siphon back up. 😞 

 

I personally hate CS with Shield, so I never play that combo.

 

CS should crit for damage for Scrappers and Stalkers as well as insta recharge PS.  Then give Brutes and Tankers PS insta crit with CS.

Focused Burst should also be turned into a Total Focus clone in terms of damage, but ranged instead of melee, to make it worth while.

[Erratic1]

40 minutes ago, BrandX said:

Sadly, CS does not crit that well in terms of bringing Power Siphon back up.

 

Not even attacking from Stealth the critical chance bonus (Ninjitsu)?

[kelika2]

Stalker.

km/fire

 

guess km/bio might work.

[TECHWON]

kinetic melee / shield def scrapper

[Erratic1]

3 hours ago, TECHWON said:

kinetic melee / shield def scrapper

 

Did it back on live. Was quite frustrating.

[BrandX]

6 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Not even attacking from Stealth the critical chance bonus (Ninjitsu)?

 

I don't know on that.  However, it won't crit for extra damage, and on the go, not sure how many times I'd be getting back into Stealth while trying to get Power Siphon to recharge.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

 

I don't know on that.  However, it won't crit for extra damage, and on the go, not sure how many times I'd be getting back into Stealth while trying to get Power Siphon to recharge.

 

No, it does not do extra damage, just resets Power Siphon and only for ATs which can crit.

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

No, it does not do extra damage, just resets Power Siphon and only for ATs which can crit.

 

I know that, but does it give automatic crit to CS, to reset Power Siphon?  Click PS.  Get back into stealth.  Hit someone with CS.  Do I get PS to reset on an autocrit?

[Erratic1]

54 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

I know that, but does it give automatic crit to CS, to reset Power Siphon?  Click PS.  Get back into stealth.  Hit someone with CS.  Do I get PS to reset on an autocrit?

Attaching from stealth with Ninjitsu gives a high chance of critting (70% I think).

[Frozen Burn]

My KM is an SR scrapper.  I love the animations and idea of KM, but in practice - it's painful compared to other attack sets.  I know numbers-wise, it supposedly on par with other sets.  But it's still much slower at killing things as the damage comes at the end of the animation and not part way through it like other sets - rightly so as that's the purpose of KM - build up your arm movements to emit the damaging power.  But this has been discussed ad nauseum in other threads so, no need to go into it here.  

 

I love Repulsing Torrent - it was highly useful leveling up to get overwhelming foes off me and allow my SR to breathe a bit and me to regen and heal some.  Still useful in end game for controlling mobs and putting them where I want or again, letting my SR breathe.

 

Focused Burst is great - love having a ranged attack on my scrapper.  (Along with Torrent.)

 

Burst never seems to hit anyone around me except maybe 1 or 2 foes even though I'm surrounded - no misses - i have plenty of Acc and To Hit.  It's like they just aren't in range when clearly they are as they try to hit me with their melee attacks.  

 

Power Siphon is highly disappointing as it never gets the stacks like it's supposed to, so my damage output isn't as great as it could be.  

 

Concentrated Strike still is way too long - Eagle's Claw from MA is shorter than it!  And the critical for bringing Power Siphon back instantly rarely procs, and so what if it does - PS barely works for me anyway.  I'd rather have the critical be normal scrapper damage critical and PS be a normal BU power.  

 

If I want any type of DPS, I just use the first 3 attacks - which is lame compared to other Scrapper attack sets.   

 

Despite all those short comings, I still like KM.  But I play it only for enjoyment of the toon and concept - not for any serious gameplay - which is disappointing, but "oh well."

[Ston]

KM/SD was one I quite enjoyed. Tons of +dmg between AAO and Power Siphon.

 

 

[One IV All]

44 minutes ago, Ston said:

KM/SD was one I quite enjoyed. Tons of +dmg between AAO and Power Siphon.

 

 

Nice man! Was this a Tanker?

[Ston]

3 minutes ago, One IV All said:

Nice man! Was this a Tanker?

 

Scrapper! Would probably work well on any AT besides Brutes.

[StriderIV]

2 hours ago, Ston said:

KM/SD was one I quite enjoyed. Tons of +dmg between AAO and Power Siphon.

 

 

This was a cool run Ston! What other sets do you feel pair well with Kinetic Melee other than Shield? I've ran quite a few Shield heroes myself haha.

On a Tanker, it seems quite procable. Maybe something that can hit resists fairly easily, like Elec Armor or Dark Armor.