Kinetic Melee - Why so terrible?

[Troo]

Such cool animations. One of the best Assassin's Strike long animations (it's very smooth with a nice pop at the end)

 

But the rest is simply trash.

 

 

For years we got to hear how bad Regeneration was, even though some were able to pilot them just fine and even excel. 

Is there anyone out there who feels Kinetic Melee can excel that could provide some insight or tips?

 

Much appreciated.

 

Top questions:

• Which archetype has the best version?
• Skippable powers?
• Special slotting?

 

[SuperPlyx]

I wonder if it's possible to compare how often the most played powersets get some dev work/adjustments versus the least played.

[Troo]

@SuperPlyx interesting question.

[Go0gleplex]

I'm currently running an alt Brute with Kin Mel / Psy Arm which seems to be running pretty darn well together. Just SO slotting but having no issues dropping three or four mobs quickly and efficiently, especially after Consume Psyche comes into play. Add in KM's Syphons and it has only gotten that much more effective while it lasts. Not yet hit 20 but upper teens and going strong so far.  First two enhance slots to KM have been 1x Acc/ 1x Rechg and will be filling in with some DMG as time goes by.  

 

When I tried KM on a tank, it was much less worthwhile.

[Major_Decoy]

I've got a Dark Armour/Kinetic Melee tank that I quite enjoy playing, but then, I also enjoy playing my rageless super strength tank.

[Biff Pow]

One nice thing about Kinetic Melee if you're looking for Defense bonuses- there's lots of places to slot the Winter IO sets.

[Hedgefund2]

I'm revisiting KM now with a Stalker.  One thing I'm digging is 100% crits from hide with Burst.  

[Worm_Kalpa]

6 hours ago, Troo said:

• Which archetype has the best version?

 

 

The general consensus I found is that stalker gets the best version, and my experience confirms it to me.

 

I had a kinetic melee stalker on live and it was a good experience from what I remember.  The stalker version of kinetic melee keeps Build Up instead of getting Power Siphon.  I get what the devs were going for with the set and Power Siphon with ramping up instead of burst damage, but it falls flat.  Speaking of which, Burst is a PBAoE that 100% crits while hidden and stalkers keep it.  Also, a critical hit from Concentrated Strike instantly recharges Build Up.  The stalker ATOs help a lot with getting a chain with a lot of Build Up, Assassin's Strike, Concentrated Strike, and Burst links going.

 

When HC started up, I made a kinetic melee scrapper and got him up to around level 28 before abandoning him since I found kinetic melee on scrappers to be lacking. 

[Intermipants]

I’ve really enjoyed kinetic melee on my regen tanker.  The way I look at it to maximize the benefit of regen (huge health pool and eye popping regeneration) as well as the reactive regeneration power (increasing regen when you take damage) you want to get hit as often as you can but not very hard. To that end kinetic melee’s -damage effect on mobs is great, it’s like a surrogate for resistance that enhances your primary.  I’ve found that regen also benefits hugely from recharge and the two aoe powers in kinetic melee trigger the force feedback +recharge proc all the time so with hasten and various set bonuses I can be at +200% recharge all the time.  The key powers for this to work are repulsing torrent and burst. 
 

I’d also add that the turbine spooling up sound effect is ridiculously entertaining. 

 

[MonteCarla]

I'm playing it for the first time (Psi/KM Tank), and it's nice for a change and feels a bit less powerful than it could, like 80% of what Energy Melee feels like.

Looks and sounds great, and it's good enough to be enjoyable.

 

I think some bad design decisions were made though:

 

1) Many melee sets have three starter attacks with recharge of 4, 8 and 10 seconds.

Kinetic Melee gets 3, 5 and 7 seconds, with damage scaled accordingly.

Once you're in your 30s the recharge on these doesn't matter - you're rarely waiting around for them to come backm but using othert powers and getting limited by animation time. So you're left with three starter attacks that do less damage for similar animation time.

 

2) Siphon Power as a replacement to Build Up isn't great.
It takes 3-4 stacks to accumulate the same damage bonus as Build Up, so you fire off Siphon Power, then the first three attacks to build up stacks, then Concentrated Strike as the big payoff. And its got a longer recharge, just to be annoying. 

 

3) Concentrated Strike has a long animation that hits late. 

Animation time has often plagued CoH as not being factored into the  power balancing. And this compounds here with the weaker starter attacks to make the whole set underwhelming.

 

 

I'm going to try it on a Stalker next. Having Build Up and an extra big hitter should make it a lot better. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

I'm inexpert in melee but I have a Rad/Kin tanker that's a delight to play. It's slow but doesn't seem to be lacking in performance and is highly survivable.

 

My only suggestion to improve it would be maybe make a tiny bit more damaging per attack!

[electric_emu]

I am leveling a KM Brute right now and I am pleasantly surprised by how fun the set is.  It does lag in DPS, but it's got really good mitigation (which is especially noticeable since I'm using Psi Armor). 

 

I think somewhat lower DPS is probably a fair trade for how safe the set is, but Power Siphon could really stand to be less fiddly and Concentrated Strike is pretty underwhelming despite how... ostentatious it is.  Maybe if CS got the ultra-narrow-cone treatment a la Head Splitter/Golden Dragonfly it would feel better to use? 

[Lusiphur Malache]

I have a 50 KM/Willpower Scrapper that is very different from all my other melee builds. I front loaded my attacks heavy to light, nothing sucks more than hitting a corpse. A crit with Concentrated Strike instantly recharges Power Siphon making it easier to stack. I skipped T2 and Force Torrent.

[Octogoat]

 

[ZemX]

On 7/13/2025 at 11:32 AM, Troo said:

Such cool animations.

 

You answered your thread title with your first sentence. 🤪

 

The answer is: animation times.  This is also why being a Stalker helps.   You do lose a cone, but you gain a MUCH better DPA single target attack in Assassin Strike and an unusual 100% AoE stealth crit in Burst (that also helps that 3s animation time PBAoE do better).  So on a team with the Stalker ATO slotted in AS, you will very often be able to crit Burst after an AS.

 

Secondary answer to the thread title: The sound effects.   I once heard this set referred to as "NASCAR melee" and now I can't think of anything else whenever I team with someone who has it.

[Kaika]

Kin melee's animation times are both very long, and very back loaded which is not good. Long animation times are already bad due to how fast things tend to move in this game, its why alot of people really don't like TW despite it being almost objectively one of the best melee sets in the game. Not only is there a large chance that the target you are attacking died or takes enough damage to make the attacks overkill, but thats more time that you are locked in place committed to that one action, where faster sets could move or take a utility/surviability action. This isn't a death blow on its own, but  the sets "ok" to terrible DPA on most attacks seals the deal. The real nail in the coffin however is power siphon which is the sets main gimmick and takes the slot where build up would normally be, the intent with this power is to sorta make it a set that ramps up over time, like DB or claws. However unlike DB or claws, this often takes too long to build up, as you need to hit like 3-5 times before you actually start seeing values that would make it worth it, this, COULD work in a fast hitting set, but kin is not that, as stated before, it's the opposite of that. Oh and remember this is a game where a blaster can erase a small army from existence in about 3 seconds, burst damage is king here, something kin is horribly lacking in.

 

That's not even to mention such wonderful power choices as "Power that knocks a cone of enemies AWAY from a melee character", yes you can make this ok with a KB-KD but what kinda design is that? Sure claws has shockwave that kinda does that but that has a MUCH lower KB, does far better damage, and is also a day 1 set, kin is from much later in the games life, the should have known better. You also have "Burst" a AoE that takes 3 seconds to activate, has a tiny radius, and hit about as hard as a slight gust of wind, which might be the single worst PBAoE attack in a melee set. 

 

 

For the record this is only for tank/brute/scrapper, Stalker kin is a entirely different beast, I would go out on a limb and say it's one of the better choices. It' gets the best assassin's strike in the game and by alot, having a full lighting fast 0.6 second animation time in its quick form with no loss in damage, making it possibly the single best DPS melee attack in the game, and rounding out its rotation to let you entirely skip the non criting, 3 second activation time, concentrated strike. It trades the gimmicky power siphon for build up, making the set actually have burst damage now. Best of all, due to a glitch Burst on stalker has a 100% crit chance from hide, turning a extremely lack luster AoE, into a proper nuke when hidden, gving it a solid AoE presence. It's not perfect, the attacks are still back loaded in DPS and outside of AS and burst, are still only "OK" DPS at best but it's a far better set and honestly pretty fun.

Edited yesterday at 03:32 AM by Kaika

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Kaika said:

Best of all, due to a glitch Burst on stalker has a 100% crit chance from hide, turning a extremely lack luster AoE, into a proper nuke when hidden

 

Has anyone actually admitted this is a glitch?  Because it's sort of a nice compensation for losing the cone AoE.   I hate how most Stalker sets lose an AoE instead of replacing one of the usually very redundant ST attacks in the set with AS.   Ice Melee is a good example of one that did it right by replacing the lackluster DPA Greater Ice Sword for Assassin Strike and not losing either of the AoEs.

 

They've had plenty of opportunities to "fix the glitch" as well, in this case.  And haven't.

[Kaika]

3 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

Has anyone actually admitted this is a glitch?  Because it's sort of a nice compensation for losing the cone AoE.   I hate how most Stalker sets lose an AoE instead of replacing one of the usually very redundant ST attacks in the set with AS.   Ice Melee is a good example of one that did it right by replacing the lackluster DPA Greater Ice Sword for Assassin Strike and not losing either of the AoEs.

 

They've had plenty of opportunities to "fix the glitch" as well, in this case.  And haven't.

The HC devs fixed it on open beta a few years ago but decided not to due to backlash. While its honestly fairly balanced and even interesting as a game mechanic, nothing signpost that it should work like that, implying it is not intended.

Edited Thursday at 08:49 PM by Kaika

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 hours ago, Kaika said:

Kin melee's animation times are both very long, and very back loaded which is not good.

 

This is a part of it that doesn't get a lot of discussion, but it's dead on.  If you look through city of data, every kinetic melee power has an extended animation time before effect.  It's very annoying in a fast paced environment and you'll see a lot of anecdotes of people saying that their opponent is killed by someone else while they are still winding up.  Even solo, it's annoying in a psychological manner:  if you are locked down for three seconds for a power, it's much more satisfying damaging your opponent after half a second then waiting for 2.5 seconds than waiting 2.5 seconds before your damage hits and then only being locked down for a half second.

 

It was an odd stylistic choice by the original creators of the power set.

 

[Erratic1]

On 7/14/2025 at 5:17 AM, Scarlet Shocker said:

It's slow but....

 

That is the problem. On a team, when you're waving your hands around trying to hit, someone else will hit and finish your target.  That is extremely frustrating.

 

I do the Protean story arc on all my characters. I cannot even begin to imagine soloing Protean with Kinetic Melee because he will Power Siphon you while you are locked in one of KM's inanely long animations.

Edited yesterday at 12:29 AM by Erratic1

[DrRocket]

I have a scrapper with Kin melee, and I can tell you it felt and still does as a terrible mistake. The animations are so stupidly long, that other players get to my target after I started and kills it and I am still doing the buffon animation. Then after the so so so long animation and then results with a miss, so insulting. Then when you do get a hit, the damage is something to laugh at.

 

I feel the set is a piece of trash, very flashy but a piece of junk.

 

Would suggest to double the damage the attacks do to compensate for stupid animation length or do something to make the set effective.

 

Regards

[aethereal]

Interesting further difference between Stalker KM and Scrapper KM:

 

On stalkers, the "recharge build up" effect of Concentrated Strike works with one of the stalker crit mechanics: it is 100% from hide.  (It is not, however, affected by the crit chance bonus from being on a team).

 

On Scrappers, the chance to recharge Power Siphon is not a crit and does not interact with any Scrapper crit modifiers.