I'll SMASH you...from afar! (Kinetic Combat)

Just thought of something that would be good for Kinetic Melee...but I'm not sure if it is possible.

The further away, the less damage it does...the closer you get, the more damage you do.

I have watched the video several dozen times and finally took the time to time the attacks from start to back to ready position. Previously I just counted in my head and for some reason that was inaccurate, go figure. Times listed are still estimates of course and feel free to let me know if you came up with different numbers.

First attack - About 1 second: (thank you http://www.online-stopwatch.com) KD or low KB. Either way the mob fell down and did not go flying.

2nd attack shown. About 1.5 seconds: No target in sight. Could speculate that this would be a focus like ranged attack but too early to tell. Could just be they wanted that angle for the shot.

3rd attack shown - Just over 2 seconds: Only showed part of the mob so hard to say if it was KD or KB. To me it looked like KB . If it is I can only pray that this is a low damage attack so I can skip it.

4th attack shown - Just over 2 seconds: Seemed to be a slightly higher range (10' maybe) single target KD attack.

5th attack shown - About 2.3 seconds: Best guess would be soul drain type build up power.

6th attack shown - Maybe 3 seconds, did not show end of animation: Another KD attack. I would hope extreme damage due to the long animation time. No guess on the range since the start of the attack on the video showed only the Hero and the end showed only the mob.

7th attack shown - Just under 2 seconds: Similar to 6th with shorter animation.

8th attack shown - Just over 2 seconds: AOE (I hope) or could be cone KB. Would guess mag .67 as one of the mobs fell down and the other (guessing lower level mob) was tossed back.

Throw in Taunt and there are all the powers in the set.

It seems that several of the attacks are longer than the 7' range. Either that or I am not that good at judging distance. Could be either. Would this be bad for a melee type toon? I say no. For a brute or a tanker you are probably going to be face to face with a ton of mobs anyway so not a big deal. The extra range would be nice to get to a boss that is behind several other mobs instead of having to jump over them and reposition yourself. For scrappers and stalkers, you get the bonus of not having to be in the middle of the group to do decent damage. Looks like a win win win.

As far as the worry of mobs flying everywhere, there was only 1 that you can be pretty sure has knockback and maybe a 2nd but no way to know for sure at this point. If you are crying doom or just plain crying about this at this point, please go to your doctor and let them know you have crainialrectosis. Then come back to the forums when you are cured.

My new main concern is the animation time. The time of the video to show all 7 attacks and BU type power goes from 1:45 to 2:08. A small amount of that time showed the mobs falling but not much so Ill say 2 seconds to be nice. That is about 21 seconds for all those attacks. This is vastly higher than any other melee set. Even if you remove the extra second for the soul drain type BU vs. normal BU you get 20 seconds. At worst fire for tanks comes in at 16.37 to fire off all its attacks and BU. There are a couple scrapper sets below 12 seconds. (This is using Arcanatime not the time in Mids.)

Now at this point it is only a concern and not a complaint because we have no damage numbers. If slower attacks mean higher damage or the set has a lot of cone attacks but the devs only used one mob in the video then the slower attacks may be justified. If not, then this set may turn into a must have for PvP and meh for PvE. Still to early to say anything for sure though.

Can you elaborate on 'the set looks clunky?' I don't understand what that means since the set's animations look pretty fluid to me.

I've been following the thread pretty closely and I must say, I'd be good with Kinetic Melee not having the best DPA as long as its balanced enough so as not to leave us plinking away (Not that Brutes don't do that without enough Fury anyway ).

That being said, I think it's time for a bit more creative speculation. By that I mean discussion of what the actual powers will be. I drew up some ideas based on the video and the fuzzy concept the Devs have given us. They're in no particular order and go as follows:

1) The standard bit. Quick animation in exchange for minimal damage and some knockdown.

2) As per usual, a stronger version of the tier 1 with a longer animation but more damage. Comes with knockdown as seems to be the secondary effect of the set.

3) What appears to be a narrow cone attack. From what I can tell it looks like the knockdown rolls for each opponent individually. I'm deducing that from the fact that when this attack is used in the video the FX strike two foes but only one goes down.

4) Siphon something. In the video this power uses the same animation as the siphons from the current Kinetics set. I'd love Siphon Speed but I doubt it. Why? Because having it would offset one of the major balancing drawbacks for Stone Armor. We'll see.

5) An aura of some sort. What it does I obviously have no clue. Could be a damage aura or something like Repel (Please no). Might even be the coveted damage boost for enemies attacking you. Kinda like a second Fury perhaps?

6) PBAoE knockdown. The large variable here is how much damage it does. I figure we'll either get something like Foot Stomp from Super Strength or a simple crowd control tool like Hand Clap.

I'm probably not the first person to mention this (my eyes got all glassy after reading the first two pages), but a lot of Kinetic Combat's animations looked like pretty, scifi versions of the movements I perform every morning during my tai chi set. Pairing it with Super Reflexes or EA seems like a natural option, but I'm betting that a lot of those attacks will eat up endurance. Willpower looks like a good option to me, simply because of Quick Recovery.

...Also, you just can't go wrong with Willpower. It's nearly impossible.

Since I've been playing my SS/SR brute a lot, lately, I'll probably roll this set for a Stalker. Also, the extra knockback might make it more survivable.

I agree. I would WP or INVUL and just slap fiery aura on him once you hit 30. For fun you can even give him the cat tail and color it brown.

I think all the people assuming this is going to be KB heavy need to remember that KD always becomes KB when the mob is killed... And we never see any mob KB'd get back up again.

We see mobs on their feet afterward, but this is a demo video against non-functional enemies, so I'm guessing it's just a dev spawning new ones between camera shots.

Also, just from the speed of the mobs falling when knocked down, I think they might have done the video in a little bit of slow motion to emphasize the animations.

So quit whining already.

Two words - Kinetic Combat. How could it not be knockback heavy?

"The kinetic energy of an object is the extra energy which it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its current velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes."

Say it with me folks "Knockback"

Dude, that's not even an argument. Super strength isn't knockback heavy, and that's about having superhuman strength with which to punch people (Also known as imparting massive amounts of kinetic energy to the target through means of physical contact ). There's no evidence to say that it's knockback heavy right now. All we have is a video that probably wasn't even footage of gameplay (More like a demo created by hand, like the machinima we can make ourselves).

Your doomcrying is absurd.