Returning player seeking Kinetic Melee/SR build advice

First of all, welcome back.

I don't have Mids available to me at the moment (I'm at work), but here are some basic guidelines to keep in mind.

As an /SR, the defense softcap (45%) is relatively easy to obtain to all positions. As such, this should be a goal of your build. Furthermore, /SR is able to cap its resistance to defense debuffs. Defense debuff resistance is distributed among the powers in the /SR set, so you will want to take all of them except (possibly) Elude, which I will get back to.

My usual approach is the four-slot the three /SR toggles (Focused Fighting, Focused Senses, Evasion). If you are short on influence/merits, you can start using the Red Fortune set, which is obtainable pretty cheaply. You want the Defense, Defense/Endurance, Defense/Recharge, and Defense/Endurance/Recharge pieces, if I am remembering my Red Fortune correctly. Eventually you will want to supplant this with Luck of the Gambler on at least some powers (Defense, Defense/Endurance, Defense/Endurance/Recharge, Defense/Increased Global Recharge)

You will want to at least two-slot the /SR passives (Dodge, Agile, Lucky). You can start with two level 50 IO defense and later upgrade this to Luck of the Gambler (Defense and Defense/Increased Global Recharge).

You can only get the set bonuses for LotG five times, so one of those powers will need to have something else in it, be it Red Fortune or Gift of the Ancients or whatever you like. One of the advantages of /SR is it's rather easy to slot five LotG +recharge in your build. /SR itself doesn't really need the recharge, but it's good for your offense. The 20% recharge bonus from Quickness goes in here nicely as well. Some people will tell you that you don't need to take Quickness; that's a matter of personal preference, but for myself I can't imagine skipping it.

Practiced Brawler generally needs two IO Recharge Reductions unless you have a really high recharge build. If you plan to exemp at all, I wouldn't put less than this in it even then.

From this point, you're looking at working your way to the defense softcap. You have two tools to help you get there: additional defense powers (Combat Jumping, Hover, Weave, Maneuvers) and defense set bonuses. You'll want to use a mixture of these two.

For defense powers, I usually take Combat Jumping and Weave. Weave requires the fighting pool, but a little damage resistance from Tough will certainly not hurt you; beyond its defense, /SR offers very little in the way of mitigation, and every bit you can get helps. Boxing is a wasted power pick, but sometimes having a power you don't have to spend any slots in is not a bad thing, either, especially in the era of Inherent Fitness. Also, you can slot the Steadfast Protection res/3% def IO in Tough, and the usefulness of 3% defense in a single IO slot cannot be overstated.

Hover is another power I'm fond of, especially with the recent fly-speed buffs (and you can run Hover and CJ at the same time for more defense), but obviously is only useful if you want to fly. It's great for avoiding caltrops, though, and Kinetic Melee has no problems with Hover at all.

I generally six-slot my attacks, as I find that having more end reduction in my attacks is generally more effective than having more end reduction in my toggles. /SR's toggles are somewhat end heavy, but not nearly so much as your attack chain.

The optimum attack chain in Kinetic Melee requires that you take Quick Strike, Body Blow, Smashing Blow, and Concentrated Strike. This attack chain requires, if I recall correctly, 204% recharge in Concentrated Strike. If you can't obtain this level of recharge in your build, you can cut down the requirement a bit by taking Focused Burst instead of Quick Strike, which lengthens the attack chain slightly. I recommend taking Burst as well, as AoE is good to have, and a great deal of the fun in Kinetic Melee is building up a massive Power Siphon buff and then hitting Burst and watching them all fall down.

Power Siphon should be slotted with IO recharges, two or three.

IO sets which can be slotted in your attacks to build defense...

Melee Damage Sets (Quick Strike, Body Blow, Smashing Blow, Concentrated Strike)
-Touch of Death (melee defense)
-Mako's Bite (ranged defense)

PBAoE Damage Sets (Burst)
-Multi-Strike (a little melee defense, a little AoE defense, and cheap!)
-Scirocco's Dervish (AoE defense)
-Obliteration (melee defense - expensive!)

Ranged Damage Sets (Focused Burst)
-Thunderstrike (ranged defense)

I am personally fond of the Body Mastery epic power pool on /SR's. The extra recovery and regeneration from Physical Perfection are both useful to an /SR (as /SR is somewhat end hungry, and additional regeneration is one of the best things you can add after you have softcapped your defense). Also, Focused Accuracy is very useful for a Kinetic Melee character, as Power Siphon has poor ToHit Buff (7.5%), making KM vulnerable to enemies with ToHit Debuff effects. Finally, Focused Accuracy makes a good mule for the Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control set and its powerful 2.5% defense to all positions 6-piece set bonus.

I mentioned earlier that the one skippable power in /SR is Elude. This is still true, but somewhat less so as new content introduces more enemies with ToHit Buff characteristics. ToHit Buff on enemies is /SR's greatest weakness as it allows enemies to get past your softcapped defenses, and /SR lacks the additional layers of mitigation that other sets such as Willpower, Invulnerability, and Dark Armor possess. As such, it is sometimes beneficial to take Elude even when you are softcapped, as a hedge against enemies with ToHit Buff powers. It still won't help you against autohit attacks, though.

While I've never played KM and SR together, they are two of my favorite powersets in the game, and it ought to be a really fun character to play. I wish you the best of luck with it.

Have fun!

EDIT: Two more things I should mention.

Hasten is nice to have, and if you want to have the best attack chain for KM is essentially mandatory. It's not needed for SR's defense at all, but it does go nicely with Quickness to provide high levels of recharge without having to slot excessively for it.

The Medicine pool can be useful for an /SR. I've run /SR's both with and without it; if you don't intend to solo AV's, you probably don't need it at all, especially if you took Physical Perfection and slotted it for healing. If you do take it, however, I find that an Interrupt Reduction in Aid Self is not strictly necessary, but can be useful in large mobs where you will be taking some hits even at the softcap. My current /SR has the Medicine Pool, but with only one slot as it was one of the powers I added after Inherent Fitness and I had no free slots for it. I really don't use it much.