Awesome info.

I assume you hold R1 to do the charge. Any indication of when it is fully charged? Can you hold the charge indefinitely? I assume you can move while charged, but not run.

first the proficiency gives you a max of 15% to nk damage but it keep the flat damage to both shield & armor. the damage on nk are what one of the two swings with do. so using a proto min scout with max proficiency using proto kn is 280 per swing however each swing also does melee damage so using that set up you do 400 per swing . as for the charge up it does up to 2.5 times damage. there is a headshot bonus of 150% but you don't get the headshot noise nor the headshot kill bonus of 10 wp. so the max damage (not headshot) that can be done is 1640 that is full charged on proto min scout with max proficiency. 1400 is from nova knife and 240 from melee. so your 700 min logi can be killed by my adv nk with a half charge and both swings hit. so for using them you get hit the button to swing and you can use them form no charge to a full charge and holding until you release it. if you want to learn tactics use youtube and look at moody nova knife video.

Melee in no way affects nova knife except that when you melee with nova knifes equiped the animation uses the knife but it does melee damge

I run knives on both MN and GA Scout, and I honestly can't tell you which one I prefer.

The MN hits much harder, but requires damps in 2 of its 3 lows (and still can't beat all scans unless proto cloaked). You can get better speed, dampening and scan precision out of GA, though these perks come with added risk when dealing with high-HP heavies. The odds of a fatty instaspinning and instasplatting you after being shanked are much higher with GA.

In a nutshell, Ganja NK builds are likely superior against non-Heavies, but when hunting big game you're better off with the Minja. Both builds are a blast; you're in for alot of fun either way.

One Eye pretty much summed it up nicely.

Anywho, on to the question of how to get good with the knives. Everyone has different techniques to them. Recently, knives got a tad bit easier to use thanks to the increased range and the unnoticeable adhesion.

I got better with the knives by running a knife only fit for around a month. I did this some time around the Shinobi Event (glorious event, by the way). This forced me to really choose my targets, know when to strike, and when to wait. It forced me to rely on speed and my tacnet. Multiple people did this, too.

A proto minja with proto knives and CPX damage mods can down a proto heavy with full armor (PC Level Heavy) with a full charge swing and two more swings or another charged swing.

Good luck.

A gal scout is good for knives and a sg and alot of situation s and you can fit suits with better gear.

With max proficiency i can knife on any suit but its just easier with a min, and having maxed myro mods and ohk suits with a punch is awesome and a minmatar thing, and super hacking is wicked.

But there is no room for error in a min, your ewar sucks your suit is weak and its very hard to fit, its hard mode, if you like that go minmatar if not dont.

Unless you have most of your core skills up, don't go scouts just yet. You want all your Ewar and some of your biotic skills up before you bother speccing into scouts. Until then, you won't be getting much out of them.

I'd recommend putting a little SP into advanced knives and trying them out on your logi suit. Just build it like a scout if you can, dampeners, kincats and the like. If you really enjoy the knives but find they're not doing enough damage for your tastes, go Minmatar. If you think you're ending up on passives too often, go Gallente, which is certainly the far superior scout and quite a bit more flexible.