Abject failure

[Lusiphur Malache]

I made a Kinetic Melee/Shield Defense brute awhile back.  I've never been good with Shield after multiple attempts add KM which might be the most broken powerset in the game.  I really don't know what I was thinking, but I somehow got to 50, was never comfortable at any point.  Burned through all 5 free respecs, a couple trial respecs, patron arc respec and a couple bought respec recipes.  Went on my first BAF sunday, damn near useless against war walkers, hit Nightstar 3 times, sequestered, hit her 2 more times, got 2 more rings, that's when i wandered off the tennis court over to the chokepoints.  I lost count of the number of defeated  prisoners I hit late.  Siege fight went worse than the Nightstar fight.  At this point I was checked out and just wanted that BAF to be over.  I didn't think it was possible to hit too hard, I was wrong.  Enough complaining, right now I'm undecided as to either strip this toon of everything and storing in my unbuilt base or shelving it until something is done with Kinetic Melee to make it more viable.  What do you think?

[jprewitt73]

How could not love this as a primary attack set? 

 

 

It may take me 5 minutes to wind up, but you'll regret it...eventually! 

 

[mistagoat]

If it were me, I'd park it (build in tact) and move on to the next toon. I don't expect KM will ever get revised but you never know.

 

However if you don't have resources piled up and those enhancers will help you build your next toon, don't hesitate to strip a toon you don't like. You can always replace those enhancers later should the need arise.

 

Also, I'm guessing this isn't your only lvl 50 but if it is it might be worthwhile to leave it set out at least until you make another 50. Just in case there is something fun going on for 50+ that you wanna join.

[Hew]

Stripping a toon is a one way street. You won't ever get it to fit the way it was should you choose to revisit it, and as implied above, you might take it back up months or years later and say hey, I _get_ this toon now, and its fun.

I only recommend incomplete toons that cant function in the state they are currently are in and are missing critical components. I have found I end up going back to old toons and playing them after looking at the enh screen and saying hey, why did i like this? only to find _why i liked it_ and decide to just market more.

[lemming]

I've had a parked KM/EA Brute parked for quite some time.  Was one of my first characters.  They're not great, but not terrible.  I rarely visit them though since a lot of other characters are more fun, so they have been tasked with holding a spot in a SG on Excel.

 

I've stripped and deleted a lot of characters.  I really should have tracked them, but it's over 200 and many of them were 50.  For the most part they've had Basic IO builds from back when I was "poor".   I still have a few dozen that may still be stripped and retired.   I just find it easier than having a bunch of non-used chars.

[Arc-Mage]

58 minutes ago, lemming said:

I've had a parked KM/EA Brute parked for quite some time.  Was one of my first characters.  They're not great, but not terrible.  I rarely visit them though since a lot of other characters are more fun, so they have been tasked with holding a spot in a SG on Excel.

 

I've stripped and deleted a lot of characters.  I really should have tracked them, but it's over 200 and many of them were 50.  For the most part they've had Basic IO builds from back when I was "poor".   I still have a few dozen that may still be stripped and retired.   I just find it easier than having a bunch of non-used chars.

KM is under baked. I've removed all IO sets from my KM toons and parked them in the back of my toon list. Maybe someday they will get an additional look at. Until then, It's not you @Lusiphur Malache

[MoonSheep]

poor kinetic melee

 

 

[Lusiphur Malache]

Today I looked at a KM/Regen scrapper I've retired.  It is great fun to play, but it is very different from my brute and I much prefer regen over shield.  I'll tuck my brute away and maybe KM will get fixed before I die.

[TalynDerre]

I love the aesthetic of Kinetic Melee, but the long windup times do make it tough to fully contribute in large groups.  I've found that I can make it work on Tankers, where I basically only target Bosses and AVs when in a full group anyways, so I can get my hits in before all the AoE takes out the minions.

[Octogoat]

KM/Regen sounds like the powers you'd get from drinking Crey Cola

[Championess]

Incidently I just made a KM/EA stalker.  Let me tell you I'm in love!  Funny enough KM has THE best and fastest AS in the game.  If Burst had a slightly larger area, say 10, I could see putting it up there with EM for how effective it is on stalkers.  I think KM may be saved on stalkers, the rest of the ATs though yeah those attacks just animate too long for the dpa they do.

Edited January 28 by Championess

[Championess]

If I were to take a swing at revamping KM while keeping as much of the aesthetic as I could this is what I'd do, specific to what I see from stalkers and translate it to the rest of the ATs I'd assume.

 

Concentrated Strike should get the Total Focus treatment.  Sped up to say 2s and keep everything else.

 

Smashing Blow you can keep the animation but the internal damage should go up to give KM a justifiably real high dpa attack. Or maybe it reverberates in the target for some unresistable -res.

 

Burst for starters should go from 8 to 10 area for all ATs (more for tanker).  The damage is fine on stalks but probably could be massaged on all ATs.

 

Focused Burst I skip, the dpa is so bad, its not worth taking even for a ranged attack.  It shouldnt be so easily outdone by Char from the epic pools.  Wholesale revamp on this one I could see.

Edited January 28 by Championess

[Uncle Shags]

I think they should include psi and toxic in the damage reduction effect. 

[BazookaTwo]

On 1/27/2025 at 8:12 PM, Lusiphur Malache said:

Enough complaining, right now I'm undecided as to either strip this toon of everything and storing in my unbuilt base or shelving it until something is done with Kinetic Melee to make it more viable.  What do you think?

 

Roll it as a tank

[BazookaTwo]

I have a Shield/Kin tank, and a Kin/bio stalker. The stalker is crazy fun tbh. 

 

The tank is packing the Force of Will pool too, so he is a tank with a load of ranged and cones. Who needs taunt when you can hit em with a cone? 

[Mjolnerd]

On 1/27/2025 at 6:29 AM, jprewitt73 said:

How could not love this as a primary attack set? 

 

 

It may take me 5 minutes to wind up, but you'll regret it...eventually! 

 

 

I prefer to think of it more like this.

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

3 hours ago, Mjolnerd said:

 

I prefer to think of it more like this.

 

 

That's a 4 sec animation time. 

 

Dr. Strange's DPA is a dumpster fire, even Kin Melee out does him.

[High_Beam]

7 hours ago, BazookaTwo said:

The tank is packing the Force of Will pool too, so he is a tank with a load of ranged and cones. Who needs taunt when you can hit em with a cone? 

He says he likes your cones.

[COH Radgen]

My IKM tank is a sometimes Hami taunter.  Who cares about a long windup when all you really want to do it keep the giant jelly's attention on you while the league defeats the mitos.

[PoptartsNinja]

Kinetic Melee is great...

 

on Stalkers. Seriously top-tier Stalker set, since Stalkers can skip concentrated strike and KM has the fastest-animating AS (it uses Energy Transfer's old animation, it's great).

 

Brutes will want to skip Concentrated Strike and just do the Smashing Blow -> Quick Strike -> Body Blow -> Quick Strike -> [repeat] attack chain. With a reasonable investment in global recharge, you can use that chain endlessly and it turns you into a pretty brutal single target DPS buzzsaw with fast animations that help keep Fury high, but you're dependant on either your secondary or your APP/PPP for AoE since everything in KM beyond the T4 is skippable (and should be skipped, since they'll tank your DPS). That can actually be a godsend if you've got a secondary that doesn't have many skippable powers (like Shield).

 

KM/Shield isn't totally unsynergistic, since you've got Shield Charge for AoE. I'm not sure it's a combo I'd use, but it does have some innate Defense Debuff Resistance so you could fish for defense soft caps and probably be pretty ok against most content.

 

 

Edit: If I were to do KM/Shield on a Brute, I'd probably do something like this:

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Defense totals, for fun:

 

Edited January 29 by PoptartsNinja

[Championess]

8 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

That's a 4 sec animation time. 

 

Dr. Strange's DPA is a dumpster fire, even Kin Melee out does him.

 

He uses that animation time to look into the future to see his target has already been ganked by the fire blaster.

Edited January 29 by Championess

[Riverdusk]

2 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Kinetic Melee is great...

 

on Stalkers. Seriously top-tier Stalker set, since Stalkers can skip concentrated strike and KM has the fastest-animating AS (it uses Energy Transfer's old animation, it's great).

 

Brutes will want to skip Concentrated Strike and just do the Smashing Blow -> Quick Strike -> Body Blow -> Quick Strike -> [repeat] attack chain. With a reasonable investment in global recharge, you can use that chain endlessly and it turns you into a pretty brutal single target DPS buzzsaw with fast animations that help keep Fury high, but you're dependant on either your secondary or your APP/PPP for AoE since everything in KM beyond the T4 is skippable (and should be skipped, since they'll tank your DPS). That can actually be a godsend if you've got a secondary that doesn't have many skippable powers (like Shield).

 

KM/Shield isn't totally unsynergistic, since you've got Shield Charge for AoE. I'm not sure it's a combo I'd use, but it does have some innate Defense Debuff Resistance so you could fish for defense soft caps and probably be pretty ok against most content.

 

 

Edit: If I were to do KM/Shield on a Brute, I'd probably do something like this:

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Defense totals, for fun:

 

Might want to turn off vengeance for those defense totals 😉

[PoptartsNinja]

Oh right, whoops.

 

I made that in a hurry on my lunch break and wasn't paying close attention.

[Lusiphur Malache]

13 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Brutes will want to skip Concentrated Strike

See I tried this, but kept Power Siphon which wasn't the best idea.  Shield Defense is not my thing normally, so I'm completely in the dark with it, but I wanted to see what it was like.  Now I know, won't be picking it again.

[Championess]

9 hours ago, Lusiphur Malache said:

See I tried this, but kept Power Siphon which wasn't the best idea.  Shield Defense is not my thing normally, so I'm completely in the dark with it, but I wanted to see what it was like.  Now I know, won't be picking it again.

 

Shield defense is a top tier armor.  A little more clicky with the mez shield and Shield Charge but they are both so good you'll want to get accustomed to them.  Shield can attain high resists/defense and DDR, only thing it really lacks is a heal.  Of the more offensive armors it feels like the tankiest without being overly OP like Bio.