Thoughts on KM/Shield Scrapper?

I'm thinking about taking a low-level KM/Shield scrapper, getting him to 50 and making him my new main on my new server (Freedom) in preparation for the incarnate slot/content. I like the low-level play of this combo (and have fallen in love with the character's look). I'm fine if it's not "the best combo", but also don't want it to be one of the weaker ones.

I'd love to hear some thoughts: Pros/cons, "make sure you take this", "make sure you don't do this", damage output, survivability, etc.

I was originally rather cool on KM but have come around on it based on playing it and seeing it played at a pretty high level now. I would view it as a close rival to Super Strength in many ways and is fairly similar. It does very nice ST damage and has a fair amount of mixed typed mitigation elements that are valuable. It's AoE is limited although your main AoE power recharges faster than footstomp and does KD. The attacks have a secondary effect of damage reduction in hit foes, so this is a very nice secondary effect that helps quite a bit despite not being obvious to observers.

Builds will generally benefit from recharge as your performance will rely on how much uptime you can get from your to-hit and damage booster, Power Siphon. Take this power and slot it ASAP - it has the potential to be nearly as good as AAO in Shield. It cycles faster than Rage and is actually refreshed with a crit on your Tier 9 - folks may decry the loss of damage but they are much better off with more uptime on this significant booster.

Be sure to take Burst and Concentrated Strike as soon as they are available as they are your big hitter AoE and boss-killer ST attack respectively. Repulsing Torrent is a cone KB with medicore damage - largely considered skippable but certain playstyles can benefit from it greatly. I would be cautious about skipping too many powers as Power Siphon relies on stacking hits to reach its full potential.

If you go into the longer haul liking from the early build process chances are you will like the finished toon at 50. It is ST focused rather than AoE so think SS not Electric for comparison and you will want to consider an Epic pool that provides an AoE if you tend to team or run on enhanced difficulty levels.

In my opinion, it pairs very well with armors that offer additional AoE potential to help offset its limited AoE as well as ones with added recharge meaning Shield and Fire. The longer cycling damage booster would also tend to favor those with damage auras over ones with more burst using Build Up. As such, I would look at Fire, Electric and Shield so you have chosen wisely with your pairing with Shield. You are looking at potentially over 50% active uptime from Power Siphon combined with AAO alwya on and tasty scrapper Shield Charge. That sounds yummy.

Cheers

KM/SD is a very powerful and synergistic combo.

PS+AAO can give you massive damage buffs and Shield Charge helps out with additional AoE.

The -damage from AAO stacks nicely with the KM -damage and works well with a defense based secondary since the hits that get through won't hit nearly as hard.

Crit-recharge PS is really, really good. There is nothing quite like hitting PS, building up a 5-stack of the buff, hitting Concentrated Strike and having PS instantly recharge.

I was able to take out a Pylon with my KM/SD in 5 mins and 15 sec, which put him at about 249DPS. And my build still needs a lot of finetuning and tweaking

As for general build stuff: get softcapped first and foremost. You want to be able to stand in the middle of big spawns so you've got a big AAO buff. After that, recharge and recovery are the biggest priorities.

You want as much recharge as you can get for several reasons. Most importantly, to bring PS up as fast as possible. The better uptime you have on PS, the more damage you do. Straightforward and effective. Secondly, to bring your other key powers back up ASAP. Concentrated Strike, because of how hard it hits and the fact that it can crit-recharge PS. Burst and Shield Charge, because they're your AoEs.

While neither KM nor SD are particularly end heavy, +rec tends to come hand in hand with high recharge. If you've got high recharge, you're using your end-heavier attacks more, so you need more recovery to sustain it.

Skip the cone KB. It is butts.

I'm really enjoying my KM/SD, Ectenic. Idea is not so much kinetic melee as telekinetic melee The combo of high damage and good aggro control is making me actually enjoy a melee character for once, heh.

Here he is:

linky

Lord_Cyclones, much of what you posted mirrors my thinking in taking this powerset combo. Thanks for the extensive feedback, it's always good to have some confirmation/validation.

Silas, thank you for the specific build advice and play-experience. Again, much of my thinking, based on my understanding of the sets (and some beta playtime), is mirrored in your post. [Also like the look of the toon]

A few thoughts/questions:

1) Normally, I like to IO for some healthy +dam for my scrappers, but I'm guessing that is less important here compared to other scrappers.
2) With /shield providing some s/l resist and +HP, does it make sense to slot for that and regen (after def, rech, and rec)?
3) What APPs or PPPs would you recommend?
4)

PS can't stack due to how its coded, its limited to 5 stacks of the buff, at all times. So if it refreshes during PS's duration, just save it until it runs out or if its not worth using immediatly, save it for the next spawn.

For APPs or PPPs, I would go for one that has an AoE attack like Mu or Fire, to take advantage of the extra +dmg to combine with Brust for more AoE goodness.

Just remember that the APP or PPP attacks wont stack up the PS buff, so use them after you finish stacking it up.

Gotcha. So the boost from SP does affect all (non-temp-power) attacks, not just KM attacks. I thought that was the case, but wasn't sure.

I grabbed a KM/shield once I figured out Overtake was a sweet name and somehow not taken on Virtue. I went brute just because Overtake feels more like a brute name. The idea of the +dmg/-dmg works well with the theme of overtaking something.

Question: I've got a build I made for a KM/SD scrapper, I like it. It's softcapped, decent recharge, etc.
My question is one of aesthetics. How silly does this combo look in actual game? I know, odd one, but it's mine. I just imagine all the hand waving and whooshing mumbo jumbo has to look odd with the shield.

I just started up one after having so much fun with my now level 50 fire/fire Scrapper. This KM/SD will be my second Scrapper so far. As some have said in this post, I love the special effects of KM. I even incorporated the effects in my toons bio saying "with her unique kinetic ability to bend molecules to form matters of energy that can cause massive damage during her attacks."" Right now, I'm in Praetora sitting at level 6 as of this morning. The thing I liked about my fire/fire Scrapper was the ability to solo very well and in team play, she could sub as a Tank now and then and do a lot of damage.

I am anxious to see how my KM/SD turns out. BTW her name is Indominitra. I've got her bio on CIT for those that are on that. Bascially it says "she is one that cannot be subdued or overcome and is unconquerable and indomitable".