Warkupo

I rather disagree with the... direction, I suppose, of your message. Kinetic combat offers a minor HP boost, a minor resistance boost, and a good S/L defense bonus for 4 slots. Touch of Death offers the same minor HP boost, a better resistance boost, comparable Melee defense, and a minor damage bonus for 6 slots. I do not consider their set bonuses so astronomically different that you can make a declarative statement such as "completely worthless" for Kinetic Combat without making a similar statement in regards to Touch of Death. Compared to other IO's that have better set bonuses they are both comparatively inferior, but that's sort of besides the point when making a comparison between two things.

I would not value the 2.5% damage boost in Touch of Death so highly as you are describing, especially when you consider the two potential damage procs that you are trading for it by having to use six slots to acquire the melee defense bonus. Even if you manage to use 30 slots to stack the 2.5% damage bonus 5 times it will not catch up to the potential of two procs, and especially not if we consider that one or more of the procs can be from a purple set.

For the benefit of this conversation, I looked over some of the numbers in order to arrive at a more accurate conclusion concerning the Touch of Death and Kinetic Combat differences and arrived at this:

Generally speaking, Kinetic Combat is still superior when you want to maximize your DPS and S/L defense.

Generally speaking, Touch of Death is not a *horrible* sacrifice in power, and is preferable when you want to maximize your Melee defense (+ resistance?).

So, to use an example, I have taken the brute version of Ablating Strike. I've turned off all outside damage buffs (such as Rage), but enhanced all IO's to +5 of their normal levels.

I have Kinetic Combat paired with Mako's Bite: Lethal Damage, and Touch of Lady Grey: Negative Damage, which both have a 20% chance to fire and does 71.75 damage of their respective element, which mids has calculated out to be an average damage of 14.35 each, for a total of 28.70 damage. Ablative Strike slotted in this fashion has a 96.34% damage enhancement from slotting, which brings the damage of this power to 136.8 total (average) damage.

For Touch of Death I have... Well, Touch of Death: Negative damage, which has a 15% chance to fire and does 71.75 negative damage, which mids has calculated out to be an average damage of 10.76 damage. Ablative Strike slotted in this fashion has a 100.81% damage enhancement from slotting, plus 2.5% damage enhancement from the Touch of Death's Set Bonus, which brings the damage of this power to 122.7 total (average) damage.

However, let's say you do have 30 slots to spare for Touch of Death, and can acquire a nice 12.5% damage bonus. Mids has already calculated the lethal portion of the damage to be 55.96(x2) damage with the 2.5% damage enhancement from Touch of Death's Set Bonus, so I will enhance that by the remaining 10% to determine that 5 stacking Touch of Death IO Set Bonuses will increase the lethal portion of the damage from 55.96(x2) to 58.72(x2) damage. Add in the average proc damage, and multiply out the two hits in Ablating Strike, and you're at a new total of 128.2 damage, an increase of about 5.5 damage per attack.

So Kinetic Combat + Makos' Bite + Lady Grey has an average total damage of about 136.80 damage for Ablative Strike.

Touch of Death bolstered by some combination of 4 other sets of the powers which are also six slotted with Touch of Death results in an average total damage of about 128.2 damage for Ablative Strike.

This is a difference of 8.6 damage, which isn't (by my standards) a ridiculously grand difference, but it does demonstrate that Kinetic Combat has higher potential damage when rather modestly slotted vs Touch of Death when put in a very favorable position by allowing 5 stacks of its' set bonus.

I *could* have added Hecatomb: Negative Damage which would have *significantly* increased the damage Ablative Strike can do with Kinetic Combat to 157.8 averaged damage when paired with Mako's Bite or Lady Grey. You might argue that I can only put one purple proc in a power and thus adding in Hecatomb's proc is not necessarily a fair observation. However, I will point out that high end builds, especially melee builds, typically only wind up using 2-4 powers in their attack rotations when they've achieved the desired amount of recharge in their powers. As such, purple procs like Hecatomb see a great deal of use. Additionally, I *could* also have added in Achilles' Heel which, when utilized with a high recharge build, would further increase my damage significantly past what Mako's Bite or Lady Grey could offer me.

These are all things that six slotting Touch of Death in order to capitalize on its' melee defense will not be able to do, and even when you dedicate 30 slots to Touch of Death to capatlize on the 12.5% damage bonus you are still going to be doing less damage than Kinetic Combat with 2 superior damage procs. The damage potential Kinetic Combat offers over Touch of Death is not something that should be idly disregarded.

I didn't read closely enough to decipher whether they included Defenders or not, but it's been a widely discussed topic among forum regulars. I guess if you don't read the forums every day you might not know about it already though.

Anyway, yeah, defenders be gettin' awesome.

*EDIT: Just in the blast sets, mind you. Naturally, defenders don't share blasters "manipulation" secondary, just the blast primary (as the defender secondary). Anything specifically related to overhauling the manipulation sets is Blaster specific. Everything else, such as the "Fast Snipe", nuke changes, and new animation times should effect Blasters, Defenders, and Corruptors.

I was thinking more along the lines of a Mandragora.

I pointed this out in another thread, but:

Defenders (and Corruptors) blast sets are getting all the changes blasters blast sets are getting. Defenders (and Corruptors) are capable of very easily acquiring the necessary To-Hit required for the new "Fast-Snipe" function through Tactics + Kismet.

Among Blasters, only Devices is easier than that. Darkness Manipulation and Energy Manipulation can get the necessary To-Hit through a lot of recharge reduction enhancements, Tactics, Kismet, and wise use of powers. Every other Blaster secondary is pretty much dependent on Build Up/Aim/Outside buffs.

Defenders (and Corruptors) make out pretty well considering this was mostly aimed towards increasing the performance of Blasters, and that they weren't really suffering to begin with.

*EDIT*: It dawns on me that you could have been joking.

Get what you're saying, but you unfortunately cannot increase the proc chance using this method. Since you need all 6 to get the S/L bonus with Touch of Death, you have to settle with a less powerful proc in all your powers. Kinetic Combat is better in that it lets you maximize damage in this regard.

Devices is the most obvious and easy way, yes, but not everyone wants to be devices secondary.

Let's see... Aside from Devices:

Darkness Manipulation can get there with Tactics + Kismet + Perma Soul-Drain (300% recharge)

Energy Manipulation can get there with Tactics + Kismet + Perma Power Boost (300% recharge), OR it can cycle between some combination of Aim, Build Up, and Power Boost for less recharge (depending on your primary/secondary)

Other than that, everyone else is going to depend on cycling Aim/Build up, unless there's something obvious I am completely missing to finish off the last 5% To-Hit you would need. I guess you could always just strap a defender to your back as well.

Elaborating on this:

Defenders get a much greater benefit from Tactics than say, a Blaster, due to the way their arch-type modifiers favor buff effects. For a defender, tactics at a 60.2% enhancement value (3 slots) has a To-Hit bonus of about 20.02%, about 2% shy of what you need for fast-snipe goodness. That last 2% should be fairly easy to achieve with something like Combat Jumping + Kismet +6% To-Hit. (Protip: Buy kismet now)

*EDIT: I should like to note that Corruptors can do this as well. Defenders end up with a bit of To-Hit left over, but Corruptors juuuuust get the 22% they need for fast-snipe with Tactics + Combat Jumping: Kistmet +6%.

Blasters, unfortunately, need to be slightly more creative.

Sir, I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Hello Kitty was one of the most masculine things I could think of to serve as my avatar.

Now, if you don't mind, I have batons to play with~

I used to have one of those as a kid. Best moment of my childhood, and then my father told me it was time to be a man.

Probably. We're awesome.

I hear you. I *still* would have preferred Dual Pistol / Super Reflexes, but alas.

At very least, I know I can probably soft-cap S/L defense for Dual Pistol / Martial Whatever, which is good enough for me.