#21

Wondering do you feel his legendary is worth to take as a gear choice?

#22

I was fortunate enough to not unlock mine until after the hotfix, so mine has no negative shield regen like I’ve seen on some versions. But…

I don’t really miss Chomp all that much. I may not always hit what I’m aiming at if I’m dealing with a crowd, but I usually hit something so the unique effect doesn’t hold a lot of weight for me.

Which means in the end, it’s an 1800 shard health bonus gear, which I don’t use that much these days and there are even cheaper health bonus gear that do around the same, or more health.

#23

also can now narrow it down between his and and 38.31 for the lower limit
going through my shield regen stuff between his and mine to try to find that lower limit
36.22 works
I dont currently have anything between 34 and 36.22 so yeah but the 36.22 is a gray so basically starting the game with shields up lol

#24

One thing I wanted to say is it is smart to remember that kelvin is based on survivability but he’s not necessarily a tank. people that play him as much as say, master oddjob here know that, but just reminding those who are looking here to get a better understanding of how to play Kelvin. He plays a lot like Shayne and aurox in terms of cthings like chasing and damage and, well, survivability.

That said, I play capture, so for that, I use three white items. shield regen, skill damage, and I want skill cooldown reduction but I haven’t gotten a no negative white one of those. I’m sure it’s obvious why you’d use shield regen, its stated lots of times. More absorbtion and it comes back faster than health regen.

However, the things I want to go into are the other two. Skill damage is great because one of the best ways to play kelvin is to base it off your chomp. With the second mutation, you can add 3% of your current health as damage. which is sweet. Additionally, chomp gives kelvin more maximum health for each kill. In story missions this means you’ll probably end the mission with over 8000 to 10000 health. In capture, it’s more like 2800. I’m sure in meltdown he’s a lot better since you can one hit chomp a lot of minions for some extra health.

With this health, as stated, it can increase your damage. Now I am not sure if chomp’s damage maxes at 500, or just the % of enemy maximum health does, but either way, it increase your damage on a lot of enemies, which make your health go up more if you chomp for the kill which increased the damage… you get the point.

Basically, skill damage and cooldown reduction are great ways to help abuse this aspect of kelvin. Well, not abuse, but just use that effect very well.

I agree though that health/ shield increases are good as well, it all depends on what you prefer for your build.

#25

I don’t know about 8000, but I’ve finished story missions like Algorithm over 5k and Archive over 4k.

#26

I finished saboteur with over 8000 and heliophage with something between 10000 and 11000. Make sure you chomp as many minions as you can. In story I run a blue cooldown reduction item so it makes it easier. I also use the green mutation for the first level that increases my health by like 300 or something.

Where's the Kelvin love?
#27

I just acquired a grey shield booster with I believe 34.33 recharge (I’m at work so I can’t check exact but I know it was 34.something). This does indeed charge Kelvins shield as I ran a pve map to test it. After this I tried a meltdown map with shield regen, max shields, and health regen and I noticed and nice boost in sustain. I will say though, even with this gear you still have to be playing, as another thread points out, a scary movie monster. Sneak up, strike and disrupt, and disappear. If I have a healer in the group I replace health regen with movement speed. Engaging and disengaging smartly are huge for Kelvin.

#28

Are you talking Solo or group? I get about 6500 on average in group play.

#29

I think they are talking solo.

#30

Just tried this new Kelvin build guys. It’s awesome, give it a go.

1 Like
#31

Attack speed really does make a big difference with Kelvin, more than I gave it credit for when I first started with him. I’ve also noticed that run speed can be excellent to help with the critical engage and disengage that defines Kelvin. I really like how you made chomp so devastating. If you think about it, making chomp more likely to kill actually helps increase Kelvins survivability by allowing him to gather more HP. His 10th lvl helix option allows your wall to slow enemies as well…not so useful given how far it is but hey…more damage! Going to give this build a whirl in both PVE and PVP tonight. Thanks!

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#32

No problem. Tell me what you think.
Kelvin is such an underplayed character and I feel like his true potential hasnt really been discovered given his advanced difficulty and his weird kit.

#33

Also here’s a small tip.
Incase you didn’t already know. The enemies have some weird looking lines swirling around the center of them to indicate when their slow. Chomp away!

Sorry if I’m giving you information you already knew.

#34

From a Meltdown perspective when playing with a healer.

  • I think Damage Reduction is a must take on him because of scaling health.
  • Max Shield is decent because it stacks with his passive but only take the Max Shield gear if you focus on his passive shield in his helix (2R and 5R).
  • I think Healing Received is better overall.
  • Attack Speed if you took 1R, because punching faster is good and good dps is always necessary on Meltdown

A health/healing received gear is excellent on him as well.

If I ever find a piece of gear that does damage reduction/healing received -_-

1 Like
#35

I go with healing + items and run speed with action item damage. As long as you are chomping, you are healing you hang in there a real long time.

#36

How many of you are running a legendary on Kelvin besides his lore item? I know Borrowed Timer is popular for him, but it feels a bit like a crutch.

I’ve finally got a 0 cost +shield and +shield regen loadout, so I find myself looking to get a solid legendary item for that third slot.

#37

I run with a Bola’s Target Finder and a Vow of Vengeance. I also have a blue +CD/+CD on melee hit as my third. For PvP, I replace the VoV with a 0 cost shard regenerator (-reload speed, so lol).

I don’t really feel the need to increase Kelvin’s survivability all that much, given how hard to kill he is by default (Chomp for shield and max hp; Sublimate for stun and “I take no damage and run away!”; Ice Wall for stun and “you can’t hit me!”). Instead I focus on getting those CDs back faster and making them nastier.

Bola’s Target Finder is amazing. Increased skill damage (in my experience, a majority of Kelvin’s ST damage is from Chomp so it turns out better than +attack damage) and, thanks to Chomp’s recharge speed, can keep the debuff on anything I can stay in melee with. It also works great with Sublimate since everything I stun also takes more damage.

#38

I’ve been using a Vidanium Root Tea but want to get a Pacifier as a replacement.

#39

I would be very interested in some hard numbers on just how +Skill Damage% gear works with Chomp.

Does it apply after Chomp’s full damage calculation (meaning, is it derived from the 15% of maxiumum health (maxing at 500) + 67 base damage) or is it applied only to the 67 base damage? What about other modifiers to Chomp like Diffusion?

#40

From everything I’ve been able to notice, it’s applied to the final total. I’m not 100% positive on this, but I know that, with the Bola’s and Diffusion, I regularly see Chomps in excess of 700 damage (on bosses, so max enemy hp contribution) even on the first boss (which means I rarely have more than 5k max hp, at that point). Napkin math suggests that I’d only see numbers like that if the Skill Damage applied to all of it (at max hp, I’d see close to 700 but not in excess).