Kinetic Melee - Am I Missing Something?

[High_Beam]

It just me or is KM really painful to play.  I mean slow as balls painful.  I have mostly been soloing at normal difficulty because of the slowness.  But I just came out of a TV respec and freaking defenders using Blackwands were doing a better job damaging enemies.  I've played energy melee and Illusion controllers before you get the good stuff so I know slow, but this . . . and I just picked up Concentrated Strike and wow, terrible.

 

I knew going in that this set was a lot of style over substance, but really.  I am Level 31, what am I missing?  Shoudl I just battle through or what?

 

[Spaghetti Betty]

Nope! It really is just that weak. The best DPA attacks are the first 3. Focused Burst is a fun attack, but not very great. You can squeeze some ok AoE if you proc bomb Burst, but I feel like Repulsing Torrent is just way too slow to be considered useful even chuck-full of procs.

 

I'd highly suggest looking outside the set for some options to raise your damage output!

[Sovera]

It's currently at the bottom of the barrel. If you're still enjoying for theme or animations then continue, but if expecting to get better, then, not really. I tried a bit of everything up to quadruple proccing each attack and the only way to squeeze a bit more out of it is by playing as a Stalker so Assassin's Strike alleviates the bad ST damage.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, High_Beam said:

It just me or is KM really painful to play.  I mean slow as balls painful. 

 

In my best Samuel L. Jackson voice, "You ain't missing a G@##*$~#! thing."

 

I am sure the thinking was that mostly (not always by any stretch) the hits doing sufficient damage would make up for how long they take to land. Problem being that while you are waving your hands in the air like you just don't care (about doing damage apparently), someone else has killed your target.

 

It is fine to solo with, but on a team...yeah...just not worth using.

[Troo]

You'd think there was some janky mechanic with a mysterious secret interaction. That's how it feels, like user error. "I must be doing something wrong".

 

It has such great potential and did it with as High Beam said, style. The animations are great. (could be a martial artist, an elemental, a wizard, lots of flavor)

 

I loved the idea of a set that didn't have Build Up.

 

The sound effects.. they get a little more mixed reactions. To me they are okay to sometimes leaning a little scratching on a chalkboard-ish. I do like the pop at the end of the attack.

 

Maybe the light attack controls are too inconsequential. 

The disorients are laughably low chance and short duration. A ground punch style Hand Clap would even be an improvement.

Smashing Blow 33.00% chance for 3.00 magnitude stun for 4.80s on target

compared to

Bone Smasher 60.00% chance for 3.00 magnitude stun for 6.40s on target

 

I've never been able to put a finger on one thing that is wrong. It's a mess.

 

Maybe tweaking it to where the concept is quick attacks that prioritized control aspects setting up slower heavy hitters/finishers would be straight forward and more effective. 

 

[kelika2]

yeah, the whole not being a Stalker part.

Burst from hide/placate/ato proc is a 100% crit chance.  this should be here to stay since it was taken out a few years ago and instantly put back in

their assassin strike is fast animating

and because of the way assassin's focus works you can easily cycle the first 3 attacks to quick build focus charges for assassin strike, you can skip the ranged ball attack if you want

Since you can force Concentrated Strike to crit you can control your buildups

[Kistulot]

Kin melee suffers from being bottom tier because it has a unique mechanic that the devs aren't confident for how to balance.

 

IMHO I would love if it just had a build up and decent numbers, but for the moment basically anyone will agree that, outside of maybe a stalker, the set is junk that looks cool.

[Erratic1]

 

Repulsing Torrent not building Power Siphon stacks is just silly.

[aethereal]

Y'know what's totally hilarious?  Repulsing Torrent also has a weak crit on top of everything else.

[High_Beam]

Well at least I am not alone.  I so want to like this set.  I am not looking for the easy button or teh ubar; if I am having fun then I am good, and that is the big problem.  Most of the time its painful.  Granted after making that post I went in and did a Citadel and a Yin, both short on melee and long on pyro, it went faster and bad ddues dropped but I am pretty sure it wasnt me doing it.  I thin a Defender had a Blackwand out.  But on the Yin, with a lot of pyro, I had fun, more fun than I normally do on Penelope Smash.

 

I just got to 33 with this character and the torrent doodle was never in the picture.  I treat focused burst like a melee attack and is faster than the wind up on Concentrated.  See I wouldn't mind the slow if there was a payoff.  You would think that there could be a way to pull off one of those gimmicky things like they do with other sets.  like its kinetic and you are building up energy and if you don't release it you might explode (or pee yourself).   Though not like one hit to charge and one release with Energy Melee.  maybe stacks so that say burst or concentrated burst then get the green light to go extra explody.

 

@Spaghetti Bettylooking outside the primary for damage options, as in procs or something else, like hiring a guy to follow me around.

[Spaghetti Betty]

7 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

@Spaghetti Bettylooking outside the primary for damage options, as in procs or something else, like hiring a guy to follow me around.

Procs, sure!

 

My first suggestion would be to grab an epic Hold and slot a Decimation: Chance for Build Up in there. With no recharge enhancement, it actually has a pretty good chance of firing, giving you a nice spike in damage output that won't interrupt your attack chain at all!

 

Another neat trick you can do if you team a lot is to drop the Gaussian's proc in Tactics. The chance for it fire on yourself will increase for every single ally entity affected by your Tactics, including Mastermind henchmen! It's a bit wobbly as far as consistency goes, but when it works often, you really feel it!

[ShardWarrior]

Personally, I found Kinetic Melee fun while soloing, but definitely not for a team setting.  The animations are far too slow for teaming to be of any use.  

[SomeGuy]

Not just you.

 

The set is pretty hard to get down for it's most optimal performance. If you do, even then, it won't exactly light your fires. It goes from bad to "this isn't horrible".

 

I won't lie. If the set doesn't click for you after Conc Strike...it just isn't going to. Can the set be super satisfying when things align? Oh yea. They can. But the steady prod of it...it's a lot of plink plink plink VAAAAAAAWOOOOOOOSSHHHHH plink plink plink and oh hey the really weird BU power is up again.

[Jacke]

I've run a Kinetic Melee/Ninjitsu Scrapper through Praetoria and found it to be fun.  The attacks only sound slow due to the long sound effects.  Power Siphon is more damage than Build Up, as it quickly builds to 5 stacks and thus on a Scrapper 5x +31.25% = +156.25% Damage.  And that's every 30s on the completed build.

 

The key is to take all Powers but Repulsing Torrent and Confront.  When Power Siphon is fired, quickly use the T1, T2, and T3 Powers to pump up the damage to 5 stacks and go with the T7, T8, and T9 Powers at full damage bonus.

 

It's been a while since I played the Toon.  I ran it as a Goldside Completist and I screwed that up in First Ward.  As I enjoyed the Toon, decided to reroll it as I know how to do that properly now.

 

The build is from i26p5 and needs a serious review, as it is still using the old Tier minimums for Powers.  Already rerolled the Toon and once I've caught up with a massive amount of other Toon admin, I'll be running it through Praetoria again.

Scrapper KineticM-EnA.20200427.WpnM [i26p5] @Jacke - Jacke Discreet.mxd

 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Jacke

[High_Beam]

Thanks for the positive information.  Will definitely be doing some tweaking and testing on Brainstorm.

 

@Jacke, I truly didn't know the deal relating to the "build up and stacking", definitely something I was missing (I Tom Glancey'd it) assuming it was like all others and was firing it just before Concentrated.  This alone may tip me into more fun than not zone if I am not spending seven minutes working over a +2 Boss 🙂

 

@Spaghetti Betty, thanks for the suggestions, especially the piece about the EPP hold.

 

[Jacke]

10 hours ago, High_Beam said:

Thanks for the positive information.  Will definitely be doing some tweaking and testing on Brainstorm.

 

@Jacke, I truly didn't know the deal relating to the "build up and stacking", definitely something I was missing (I Tom Glancey'd it) assuming it was like all others and was firing it just before Concentrated.  This alone may tip me into more fun than not zone if I am not spending seven minutes working over a +2 Boss 🙂

 

From the Combat Attributes window, I always monitor "Last Hit Chance" at the top, to let me know when it's dropped below 95%.  The next one is always "Damage Bonus".  That way on all my Toons with whatever sources of extra Global Damage Enhancement, I can see it.  Have that in the monitor window and can see pumping up the Damage Bonus after firing Power Siphon.

 

Putting in the Gaussian Chance for Build Up Proc in Power Siphon with a fairly high chance to proc helps to boost the damage of the initial attacks while getting stacks of hits to raise Power Siphon's own Damage Enhancement.

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Jacke

[Troo]

18 hours ago, Jacke said:

The key is to take all Powers but Repulsing Torrent and Confront.  When Power Siphon is fired, quickly use the T1, T2, and T3 Powers to pump up the damage to 5 stacks and go with the T7, T8, and T9 Powers at full damage bonus.

 

The descriptions and instructions just fail to make that super obvious.

 

Power siphon says it stacks but shows no +Dmg

 

[High_Beam]

Okay pass one in Brainstorm, with a respec and the suggestions posted in here.  So I slid in mental blast form the psionic Mastery set and put Decimation chance to BU.  That alone, due to the fast fire of the power actually enhanced my attack chain and the build up fires enough (I am shooting way more than the PPM rate).  But that made a speed difference that made me happier to say the least.

 

Now add that to the "duh" correction with regards to power Siphon and I am finally seeing the damage numbers i expected to see on the tier 9 (I am easy to please).

 

Now Pass 2 will add the Gaussian Proc to see @Jacke said.  I do monitor to hit and damage but not last chance.  I will giver a add for testing.  But I have a question.

 

I have the Critical Strikes AT IO Set in Concentrated, hoping for that Crit trike fire.  Is that the way to go?

 

But all in all, this character isn't going into the bit bucket now, I don't feel bad about myself when I play her.  But I would like to feel better 🙂