Kinetic Melee Buff Idea

[BrandX]

On 11/23/2024 at 4:40 PM, Techhead said:

I've been playing a bit of a Dark/Kinetic Tanker recently and leveling it up (currently at 42), I honestly think the set is pretty fun, *including* power siphon b/c it gives such a sustained buff. The animation times are long but I don't know if animation tweaks are on the table or not, if not it might be more worth upping the juice of the slower powers. Also the animations are really really cool

Personal feel good rating for all the powers on tanker:
- Body Blow: Solid baseline strike
- Quick Strike: Feels amazingly snappy, esp with the 0.5s effect time

- Smashing Blow: Solid heavy strike

- Taunt: It's Taunt
- Repulsing Torrent: It's actually very fun, it has such a huge area with tanker inherent. W/o KBTKD it's a "shove 80% of a pack into the wall" power, useful but niche, with that enhancement you can use it way more often without feeling guilty

- Power Siphon: The sustained damage boost instead of a quick 10s one is a neat niche, yes it's a long animation but you can use it while advancing towards a pack or waiting for pulled mobs to approach, so it's workable. The damage debuff per attack (varies, but Body Blow is -7% per 5s) is a neat perk but not major

- Burst: A little slow, otherwise a solid PBAOE melee strike

- Focused Burst: Underwhelming damage, coinflip knockdown, and middling range for a single-target button

- Concentrated Strike: Cool when it lands, decent but not exceptional damage for the animation time, if in a team I've wasted that time because he's usually dead already

 

Recommendations? FBurst and CStrike could hit a little harder, maybe as a capstone the latter could have guaranteed mez like MA's Eagle Claw does. I wouldn't even object if it went to a higher cooldown in exchange. Power Siphon could maybe get a numbers buff too but I actually dunno if it really needs it

 

Coming back to this.  I think maybe this is really the way to go with the set.

 

I tried to think of an interesting thing to maybe add to the set, but really, it just needs a few tweaks.

 

Focused Burst...Total Focus Level Damage.  Simple.  The fact that this attack has any range really means very little.  You're a melee AT, it's going to be used in melee more than range and it's use as a runner pick off isn't that big of a deal.  I'd add a hold effect to the attack as well, but I like having a Hold in a set, so admittedly could be biased there.  For sure Total Focus level damage on this.

 

Concentrated Strike...Give it crit damage!  Preferably FULL crit damage!  That's all it needs.  I'm not sure it really needs more than that.  Doesn't help Tankers/Brutes as much as it will on Stalkers/Scrappers, but I don't think the animation needs tweaked.  The first three attacks are good enough for regular mission clearing.  Give Focused Burst the above mentioned tweak and you have another solid for that aspect.

 

After that, one can either skip CS...take it for those ST DPS moments (AVs/GMs/EBs)...or just use it for regular missions and accept it's longer animation.

 

Those two tweaks and it improves the sets DPS without making it the new top tier, just improved.

[Techhead]

The best actual comparison to Focused Burst is Hurl (SS) and Boulder Hurl (Stone), two other ranged attacks in melee sets. Focused Burst has the same damage, a slightly faster animation, same 50% KD chance, but half the range and no -Fly. But as all three are somewhat maligned, maybe they all need looked at. Impale (Spines) is similar too, just replace 50% KD with 100% immob.

 

Though funnily, I actually have heard decent things about Hurl Boulder (Stone Assault) and Hurl Boulder (Stone Mastery Epic).

[BrandX]

5 hours ago, Techhead said:

The best actual comparison to Focused Burst is Hurl (SS) and Boulder Hurl (Stone), two other ranged attacks in melee sets. Focused Burst has the same damage, a slightly faster animation, same 50% KD chance, but half the range and no -Fly. But as all three are somewhat maligned, maybe they all need looked at. Impale (Spines) is similar too, just replace 50% KD with 100% immob.

 

Though funnily, I actually have heard decent things about Hurl Boulder (Stone Assault) and Hurl Boulder (Stone Mastery Epic).

 

As someone with a SS and Spines user, yes, l'd like to see them improved as well.  Those attacks should be powers people don't want to skip!

[Kistulot]

On 12/10/2024 at 1:29 PM, BrandX said:

Focused Burst...Total Focus Level Damage.  Simple.  The fact that this attack has any range really means very little.  You're a melee AT, it's going to be used in melee more than range and it's use as a runner pick off isn't that big of a deal.  I'd add a hold effect to the attack as well, but I like having a Hold in a set, so admittedly could be biased there.  For sure Total Focus level damage on this.

 

This is such a good point.

 

Being able to hadoken is SO COOL, and imho, should be something everyone wants to take... but you aren't going to be using it to range your opponent.

 

Not how the game works.

[BrandX]

16 hours ago, Kistulot said:

 

This is such a good point.

 

Being able to hadoken is SO COOL, and imho, should be something everyone wants to take... but you aren't going to be using it to range your opponent.

 

Not how the game works.

 

Exactly!  And yes, cool attacks, should make them worth taking 🙂