Which is better Dark Melee or Kinetic Melee

I'm not sure if the damage buff stacks or how exactly it works with Kinetic Melee, but going by mids...

I had a friends DPS at 146 without Siphon Power and 212 with Siphon Power (this includes there being procs in the powers).

Doing a quick check Dark Melee seems to be around 166 without Soul Drain, and 211 with just one target in range of Soul Drain.

That's using the following DPS chains...

CS - SB - BB - QS - SB - BB

MG - SM - SL - SM

However, this just assume ST damage.

AOE wise...hmmm...I'm not sure which is better. Though I'd say KM's is better mitigation AOE wise. Knockdown AND additional -DMG.

However, DM has Soul Drain, Dark Consumption (if you take it), and Shadow Maul (which you need the mobs setup just right to leverage for a lot of people, and a lot of people don't have the patience to strafe to the side to use it either).

For AOE mitigation, I'd think KM was better, however, for single target, hmmm...KM is stacking that -DMG, however DM has that -tohit stacking, plus the heal from Siphon Life going off every 4.62 seconds.

This is all assuming a lot btw, as you would need the build with the AOE as well as the +RCH to obtain these chains.

I've gotten a Dark Melee to lvl 50. I'm having way more fun with Kinetic Melee (playing it on a stalker currently). So imo, KM is better, as it's jsut more fun for me, and has great DPS.

From a numbers standpoint, I don't think you'll go wrong with either. For fun, well that's subjective.

KM also has pretty significant single target mitigation with it's Stuns, and Knockdown in just the first three powers. There high enough percentage, and the powers are fast enough that I will often get at least one of these mitigations every MOB I fight. I have often gotten chain knockdown and stuns, which is great when you knockdown that MOB that is stumbling away. Of course these mitigations are based upon whether Murphy is looking your way or not. Siphon Life is also subject to Murphy's whims.

"Depends."

I have a DM/SR high level scrapper already, and am working on KM/SR now. It's pretty clear that both are very good. Which is 'best' will vary with the situation at hand and slotting.

You call KM's AoEs long recharge but don't consider DM's PBAoEs to be extremely long recharge? Really? Really?

12 seconds and 15 seconds compared to 120 seconds and 180 seconds? Woe is KM!

Don't listen to this guy, this comparison is so poor it's practically trolling.

The -damage isn't minor; for instance on tanks you can get a single target to -40% pretty easily and it's -15% to anything hit by burst, I believe.

The AoE KD isn't even remotely long recharge; 15 seconds. With hasten, decent slotting, and some IOs it goes down to ~5 second recharge.

He also missed the disorients and potential for ranged damage, which I think aren't particularly important but are there.

Lastly, for tankers, the ranged attack is basically a second taunt; it has a really really big gauntlet radius.

If your going to do a compare then how about doing a compare.

The Debuffs are of equal value in Scrappers and Stalkers (5.63), while Tanks and Brutes get I higher modifier from KM (7.0/6.3).

KMs and DMs Build Up in Stalkers are of equal recharge time, duration, and buff (1m30sec, 10sec, 20/80). Soul Drain and Power Siphon are also of equal time (2m), though Power Siphon has a different structure that can make it's buff last from 20-30 secs, instead of Soul Drain's straight 30 sec. Power Siphon also has a different buff that gives a straight 7.5 tohit, but a 25-125 dmg, compaired to SD's 2/8 per MOB hit, max of 10, for the entire 30 sec. This means that Soul Drain has to hit at least four MOBs to beat Power Siphon's tohit, and it's max damage buff will never beat Power Siphon's max damage buff. Something else nice is that I can get Power Siphon 20 levels before Soul Drain in Scrappers and Brutes, and 6 levels earlier in Tanks.

The damage that Soul Drain does is nice, but it does not beat Burst which has the normal PBAOE range of melee attacks (8ft compared to Soul Drain's 10ft), and a fairly average PBAOE recharge time of 15 secs (Not sure where you got the "small area long recharge" from.). Even if you were able to get Soul Drains recharge time down to under 30 secs, Burst can be done twice in that time frame with no recharge reduction (And three times with just a TO.). Burst also has a 50% Knockdown.

Cant beat a PBAOE endurance buff that does damage. To bad it's way late in the set, on a 3min recharge timer, and just fills your endurance.

The Devs have finally made Siphon Life a valuable attack/heal. There's no arguing that, but KM has a 25% KD at 3sec, 20% Stun at 5 sec, 33% Stun at 7sec, a 40ft ranged cone that is 80% KB at 12 sec (Admittedly of limited use to melee AT's, but at least the kb is pretty much guarantied, and it is ranged.), the already mentioned PBAOE 50% KD at 15 sec, another 40ft ranged attack that is 50% KD at 8 sec, and a hefty damage 60% Stun at 20sec that also has a 1.20 Acc.

There's a hells of a lot of mitigation built into the KM power set, and the damages are fairly equitable to DR's damages. I'm not saying that KM is better than DM. All I'm saying that I feel that it is at least equitable and that I'm having a lot more fun with this set than any DM I have tried.

Indeed

Dark Melee has a shadow maul on a 8 second recharge vs burst's 15 second. Shadow maul does a base damage nearly double burst. It also provides more mitigation on the targets it hits than burst.

Oh why not. At 100% recharge and 95% chance to hit for all comparisons and on scrappers

Dark Melee Soul Drain
Availiable 50% of the time
5 enemies hit out of 7
+20% to hit
+100% Damage
68 points of damage unenhanced

vs

Power Siphon
Available 1/3 of the time may randomly improve with crit from concentrated strik
+7.5% to hit,
Takes 5 consecutive hits to reach full damage buff

Siphon Life

10% regen every 7 seconds unenhanced for heal and can provide
135 damage

VS

Smashing blow ? Body blow ? Concentrated strike ?

Certain heal vs chance of stun.


Dark Consumption
4 enemies hit and it completely replenishes your endurance every 90 seconds

Does 55 damage.

VS
? Repulsing torrent ?

Shadow Maul
150 points damage AOE
Recharge 4 seconds

Vs

Burst
86 points AOE damage
Recharge 7.5 seconds.


Base mitigation single target attack chains
Dark Melee manages

(Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Siphon Life) ^ N
Stacks to ~ -30%+ to hit (unenhanced for -tohit)
+ 20% Regeneration (unenhanced for heal)

If you want more toss in touch of fear as an opener and repeat every 20 seconds

For -41% to hit. Toss in a steadfast and combat jumping and your capped.

VS
Kinetic melee
Throwing everything you can in the 10second window for -damage

Quick Strike -> Body Blow -> Smashing Blow ->Concentrated Strike -> body blow -> Smashing blow

Buys you ~-33% damage

Not considering the 95% chance to hit or the streak breaker, in either case.



Really I didn't list more because there just wasn't much need. Kinetic Melee is a one trick pony that does a really stupid trick. Dark Melee has a less resisted damage type, more ways to mitigate damage and as the recharge goes up DM just gets better and better, as you burn more end fighting a target you can recharge it more often and you have the option of self healing more often. Good luck trying to stack chance of stun or knockdown on an AV.

Someone has been paying attention I see ...

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Why are you afraid to list Burst's advantages over Shadow Maul? Are you afraid a reader might be able to decide on their own if given all the facts? Did you know that Burst's damage debuff is larger than the damage debuff in the other KM powers?

Shadow Maul has a much smaller AoE, a smaller target cap, and a much smaller likely number of targets affected. It also does not have a chance for KD.

Overall, Dark Melee has more utility, as it should, since that is what it is designed to do. But KM has its advantages over DM, just like DM has its advantages over KM.

Kind of hard to say at this point, since Kinetic Melee is only about a week old.

With the newness of the set, no one has really stress tested it yet to see what it can really do when you dump a lot of time and effort into building it.

Whereas Dark Melee has 6 years of stress testing behind it, most people can easily find out what it can do if they want to dig up the informantion.

Honestly, I'd say wait a couple months, until the number crunchers and build wizards really put Kinetic Melee through it's paces, and ask again.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

This has to be one of the worst powerset comparisons I've read in a long, long time. Its worthlessly skewed in its comparison between Soul Drain and Power Siphon (in ignoring the mandatory requirement to have the correct number of targets available at the moment of recharge, in not accounting for the actual duration of the damage buffs intrinsic in Power Siphon mechanics), comparing Shadow Maul and Burst as AoEs without any caveats (like the fact that Shadow Maul is only melee ranged, has a lower target cap, and is harder to get more than a couple targets in its effect), failing to account for tohit being resisted by rank, and mentioning AVs at all when they practically ignore tohit debuffs these days and usually can't be feared except outside the triangles, knocking out two of the the primary damage mitigation effects in Dark Melee no differently than stun or knockdown. They don't generally resist damage debuffs, although they can if they have specifically high resistances. Not all do.


Dark Melee is actually one of the best all around utility sets: I've said so myself for years. But to see it blindly swung around like a sack of potatoes is rather annoying. The bottom line is that consistently fully saturated Soul Drain is going to beat Power Siphon, but its far, far easier to saturate Power Siphon under nearly all conditions than Soul Drain. A drinking bird can achieve more than half the maximum possible benefit of Soul Drain. Soul Drain usually operates at or lower than that level.

Everyone knows Shadow Maul is broken. Its a single target attack that somehow managed to trade its soul into becoming an AoE that actually gets discounts for the trouble, rather than having to pay anything. But compared to any actual real AoE, Shadow Maul is going to come up short. Its the best AoE of all the single target attacks, but also the worst AoE of all the actual AoEs. Shadow Maul is best compared to single target attacks favorably. Trying to compare it to actual AoEs suggests the person making the comparison simply has no experience with Shadow Maul or actual AoEs.

And the rest of the comparison doesn't get any better. I'd say DM's strengths lie in its overall general purpose utility, with Siphon Life, Touch of Fear, and Dark Consumption. Kinetic Melee is a more straight forward offense and offensive mitigation set. I don't see a clear winner between the two in general, although they appeal to very different playstyles and so are likely to have adherents and detractors aplenty.