Melee Needs Changes (And All For The Better)

[(PSN)CrazyDeadPerson]

Gunplay still overpowers melee even at high levels. Eventually the common thing happens where all that's needed is CC and damage can't even be done. With the many issues of infinite scaling and armor in Warframe currently, we have to propose ideas to deal with it the way it is right now because something like infinite scaling is a long term goal for DE.

 

Therefore, melee should be able to be on par with gunplay regardless of enemy levels. I am proposing buffs to melee damage, why exactly are you against this? However you play, because you claim melee is powerful, will be even more enjoyable, optional, viable, and fun way to play.

I feel as though making melee more powerful would make going hours in def and surv meaningless becuz u'd still insta kill everything. If it's not difficult then what makes it rewarding there's no rush if it's super easy

[SilverBones]

A friendly reminder to keep your replies limited to one post. You can use the 'MultiQuote' function in the bottom left of the post you want to reply to and keep doing it until you have addressed every one.

 

Please do not continue to add posts to the thread, but rather edit the ones you have posted or use the MultiQuote function.

 

Thanks,

[Carl_Bar]

Crazydeadperson: Either actually play the game above the lower tier planets before commenting, because it's blindingly obvious from your comments that you have no experience beyond level 20ish enemies as a common opponent.

 

Anyone who's used a fair variety of melee weapons knows full well that the majority are pure unmitigated crap as far as effectiveness goes because unless the weapon has a modest amount of reach, innate multi-hit on basic attacks and either a very high attack speed or a very high damage per swing it's simply useless in 99% of content.

 

The truth is there are whole classes of melee weapons, a examples from several other classes that lack the ability to engage multiple targets at a time. That makes them pure unmitigated garbage from the lowest to the highest levels because assassination missions aside the game is about multi-target engagements. Even if you OHK everything you aim them at they kill too slow to be effective.

 

It's the curse of melee that the short range makes accuracy on the enemies part irellevent, so unless you're running a frame like Chroma or Valkyr, (and eventually only valkyr's hysteria can keep up), your damage intake in melee range will reach the point where if you can't take out the entire group in the first few sec0nds you WILL find yourself on your back bleeding out.

 

So sure maybe melee seems fine to you in your mR2 runs on earth and mars and saturn and the like. But trust me once you get off those all your assumptions fall apart, if your melee weapon isn't one hit killing everything in sight and hitting multiple enemies per swing in a group it simply isn't viable outside of a couple of frames that have the innate damage reduction available to actually eat that kind of damage. Insane damage intakes are not limited to endless nonsense missions. They're present in the latter half a dozen planets on the star map too because the scaling curve is logarithmic. There's a very large difference between level 20 and level 30 enemies, never mind 30 and 40.

 

That's why excal's EB is so beloved by many, it's wave function lets melee work from far enough away, (and auto blocks 85% of damage received between strikes too), that you can actually avoid a good percentage of the income damage, you can even use it to cut down from behind cover due to punch through.

[(PSN)CrazyDeadPerson]

Crazydeadperson: Either actually play the game above the lower tier planets before commenting, because it's blindingly obvious from your comments that you have no experience beyond level 20ish enemies as a common opponent.

 

Anyone who's used a fair variety of melee weapons knows full well that the majority are pure unmitigated crap as far as effectiveness goes because unless the weapon has a modest amount of reach, innate multi-hit on basic attacks and either a very high attack speed or a very high damage per swing it's simply useless in 99% of content.

 

The truth is there are whole classes of melee weapons, a examples from several other classes that lack the ability to engage multiple targets at a time. That makes them pure unmitigated garbage from the lowest to the highest levels because assassination missions aside the game is about multi-target engagements. Even if you OHK everything you aim them at they kill too slow to be effective.

 

It's the curse of melee that the short range makes accuracy on the enemies part irellevent, so unless you're running a frame like Chroma or Valkyr, (and eventually only valkyr's hysteria can keep up), your damage intake in melee range will reach the point where if you can't take out the entire group in the first few sec0nds you WILL find yourself on your back bleeding out.

 

So sure maybe melee seems fine to you in your mR2 runs on earth and mars and saturn and the like. But trust me once you get off those all your assumptions fall apart, if your melee weapon isn't one hit killing everything in sight and hitting multiple enemies per swing in a group it simply isn't viable outside of a couple of frames that have the innate damage reduction available to actually eat that kind of damage. Insane damage intakes are not limited to endless nonsense missions. They're present in the latter half a dozen planets on the star map too because the scaling curve is logarithmic. There's a very large difference between level 20 and level 30 enemies, never mind 30 and 40.

 

That's why excal's EB is so beloved by many, it's wave function lets melee work from far enough away, (and auto blocks 85% of damage received between strikes too), that you can actually avoid a good percentage of the income damage, you can even use it to cut down from behind cover due to punch through.

I'm not saying I'm the most qualified person out there but I have 60 days played I'm mr 18 I've went hours in defense and survival I've fought lvl 200 and higher.

I honestly don't care to argue either way anymore I feel like melees are on the same lvl as guns if not even better

[Aeron216]

I run an Eternal War Valkyr and I just got Tempo Royale with Scindo Prime, lol it made stuff way easier to deal with by so much, finally being able to take lvl 110+ enemies ... but all this just possible thanks to with this weapon set up, so yeah melee does need an overhaul and some of the ideas here are not bad.

 

I don't really think that a straight up damage buff to everything would be the best, it would be such a cheap and lazy work to do so. 

IMO they should give an overhaul to the weapon stances, like their damage modifiers within each combo along with the other ideas said here. 

Edited September 1, 2015 by Aeron216

[(PSN)MonkeysUnkle1]

I agree about channeling and blocking but I disagree completely with general dmg and combo counter. There are alot of good melees. And saying let's not give credit to the scindo p is pretty stupid I mean ur comparing the worst of melees to the best of guns at tht point there are plenty of horrendous guns why don't we compare all melees to the mk1 Beaton

Not to mention if u dedicate yourelf to melee u quickly deal 2x dmg I think melee is in a very good state right now(I would like to see charging back aswell)

Melee is almost universally considered to be inferior to guns. Let's look at facts. Scindo P might be able to keep up with Soma, Boltor, or any other top tier gun, but just barely and even that's stretching it. With Scindo you have to run from enemy to enemy, killing them a few at a time. With any of the top tier primaries or secondaries you can sit at one spot and casually slaughter entire rooms. Couple this with the fact that with the exception of a few frames, melee is much riskier business than killing from a distance. With block taken out of the picture for anything but early game it's become even more risky.

 

Overall, melee should not match guns in damage, it should exceed them. That would give some incentive to use melee over guns. It would be a high risk, high reward deal rather than the current high risk, no reward state it is sitting in.

Edited September 7, 2015 by (PS4)MonkeysUnkle1

[Vasault]

melee is dying thanks to DE and their guns buffs and stuff, melee is being eclipse by guns

[Darthmufin]

Your channeling gripe was pretty much spot on, but you lose it a little when you start talking about melee being under-powered compared to guns. Well, duh, i mean do you expect a sword to be able to match a spray of corrosive dealing bullets? it scales decently up to a certain point, and i think that is perfectly fine. People would just complain about a melee being too op because you  can one shot people on mercury. That always happens with everything and its always said by T4 noobs who do nothing but play high level content. I think the problem is people take the "Ninja" vibe too seriously, and think melee should be more powerful even though guns are just flatly better. 

 

 

 

 

[blazinvire]

I pretty much agree with the OP, barring the damage section since that needs to be tended to in a broader category involving damage and mods in general.

 

I absolutely love running around with melee, and new parkour has given a variety of different ways to tackle old problems, but there still lies a few issues.

When I get fed up with hitting a bombard with my nikana several hundred times, I step back and whip out the Hikou Prime and mow it down in a second.

I feel like there's something wrong with that... when you're breathing down someone's neck, surely you can jam that sword somewhere more productive than 20 something Hikou with their shoddy accuracy.  I would've thought melee would be all about the armour-breaking and knocking people around.  And ground finishers are too flow-breaking to set up and awkward to really rely on.

 

Channeling feels a bit of a gimmick, as much as I use it on occasion to help speed up the killing process, it's overpriced for a damage boost and doesn't even increase the damage that much.  I get better mileage out of Contagion.

 

Blocking, I've always wondered about; I had an idea to make it a little more dynamic/balanced/customized for each weapon, that involved mini-cooldowns between each blocked attack and a sort of damage cap, which sort of sounded alright but again relied on damage/scaling being reworked.

 

Part of me feels like there should be an element of skill with blocking, and I saw a cool idea on this forum somewhere where you'd get 100% damage reduction for first second or so of blocking, and it'd quickly drain down -much like a blocking meter I suppose, like others have suggested.

But a meter seems somewhat arbitrary and limited, even if it'd probably work in the short run.

Perhaps you could spin the ideas together, using the current system but changing the channeled blocked into a slow, consistent drain that might speed up the longer its held.

Or the percentage-based block drain, perhaps the maximum block percentage starts above 100% so it reflects damage until it goes under 100.

Or change the current bullet-deflecting trick to delivering the equivalent of a melee strike from the weapon that reflects it, instead of the abysmal damage enemies shoot you with in comparison to their own health.

Something.

Blocking currents feels as much a gimmick as channeling, to be honest: something I do when I'm bored or want to look cool.

 

And that combo counter... my god it's abnormally useless O.O

I don't even know how to salvage it... it doesn't last long enough to get to the next enemy, and doesn't do anywhere near enough damage to be worth trying.

[Eftycchia]

Shattering Impact makes most fast-hitting non-heavyblade melee OP against armored targets by default when compared to heavy blades provided they have Impact damage.

Kogake and Obex murdering level 75 Corrupted Bombards with no bandaid abilities, Excal or Valkyr. Only Shattering Impact and the right elements.

 

Despite that, I understand fully what OP currently means. Melee in general are too much of a hassle to even use, yet they provide a greater excellence that guns doesn't have: Infinite ammo. This of course comes with drawbacks of needing you to get close to the enemies which also means needing to run the risk of you taking damage. But then again, enemy scaling shouldn't be a problem if melee damage scale alongside enemies as they go up, but alas.

 

Now, Channeling. It shouldn't be just energy drain per hit, just energy drain for as long as the Channeling button is held. Again, this change would be much appreciated, but most people are used to using Life Strike and conserving energy for most of their situational needs. Keep the energy cost, but change it to energy consumption per second while you hold the channeling button.

 

Blocking. Why can a warhammer or a katana able to hold back more damage than a longsword? Again. Most of this blocking values are quite nonsensical. And channeled blocking is rather... How should I say this... Useless. They pretty much just slapped Trinity's ubernerfed Link to the melee weapons and call it a day. They'll hopefully see this oversight and implement a damage reflection method better than the current system, or just make the channeled blocking system consume constant energy instead of it consuming energy per hit/per bullet reflected.

 

Melee combo counter. 5 x 3 (15) x 3 (45) x 3 (105). The amount of hits you need to multiply the damage is absurd when you compare the time you need to strike an enemy, and the fact that a few stances does hold you down in a single position for a bit too much time before you can move and makes your raked up combo counter go out in vain. I'm honestly fine with them if they reduce the initial combo number to 3 (3 x 3 x 3 x 3), make it actually drain by 1 for every melee hit you miss, and only apply to the melee weapon when you directly equip them.

[ToastyCosty]

i agree that melee damage should be revisited because right now feels not worth to run around with your sword instead of shooting people with your gun from safety and deal a lot more damage, yet the major issue i see with warframe right now is armor scaling, they should either lock enemy levels at 45 MAX or revamp all the armor system for mobs, i'm pretty tired of 1-hitting corpus units and bashing my galatine on a grineer's head 20 times before putting him down

[(PSN)MonkeysUnkle1]

Your channeling gripe was pretty much spot on, but you lose it a little when you start talking about melee being under-powered compared to guns. Well, duh, i mean do you expect a sword to be able to match a spray of corrosive dealing bullets? it scales decently up to a certain point, and i think that is perfectly fine. People would just complain about a melee being too op because you  can one shot people on mercury. That always happens with everything and its always said by T4 noobs who do nothing but play high level content. I think the problem is people take the "Ninja" vibe too seriously, and think melee should be more powerful even though guns are just flatly better. 

The problem with saying that people take the ninja aspect too seriously is that those people include DE.

 

Trying to say that firearms should be better than melee weapons because that's how it works in real life doesn't cut it. The whole thing about having different options in a game is having different options. At any level, melee loses to guns badly even though they should be equally viable. Melee needs to be able to do more damage than guns or have some other benefit, because running into a crowd of enemies is much riskier than standing in a doorway and gunning them down. Saying melee is fine how it is just makes it seem like you're worried they'll surpass guns in usefulness. What people want is for melee's usefulness to match that of guns.

Edited September 12, 2015 by (PS4)MonkeysUnkle1

[Eldnacpeek]

I think the problem is people take the "Ninja" vibe too seriously, and think melee should be more powerful even though guns are just flatly better.

Not even a little. If someone wants to use melee, then they should have the option to do so. Dont use this "ninja" nonsense, I am not interested in that term at all when involving Warframe.

I want to be able to use melee and have it be equal to gunplay damage wise so at this point I have many options. Gunplay will always be superior, melee requires movement between enemies, can't CC very well, can't handle tight situations very well, etc.

Edited September 12, 2015 by LazerSkink

[SekaiNoOwari]

Um, I use my melee alot and my galatine can one shot heavy gunners in T3 survival. It is a channel build. So shut up. It can one shot every single frame in the game except for maybe rhino with iron skin. Plus, blocking while channeling completely blocks all damage. 

 

Plus, melee is still viable in warframe. I sometimes go with only ballistica and galatine into a T2 or 3 survival and I do fine. I can oneshot all enemies up to like 25 minutes, then it takes 2-3 hits. This is of course with channeling. Channeling is not a waste of energy. Energy siphon, channeling efficiency, it takes little to no energy up.

Edited September 12, 2015 by SekaiNoOwari

[Eldnacpeek]

So shut up

Yep, that's all I got from that.

[blazinvire]

Eh... I've tweaked my galatine pretty hard, and I'm usually only insta-killing decent level enemies when I bust out the roflcopter due to the 800% damage increase, and the heavier guys need channeling on top of that.  And maybe some Contagion as well.

I think statistically it says it does about 500ish damage per swing, so 500 x8 from spin, x2 from killing blow channel, and x2 from Contagion, cranks up to about 16k damage only when I've stopped to cast Contagion, and have the energy to channel, with also the time and position for Cleaving.

 

Lot of work to get decent damage out of a melee weapon.

[VampirePirate]

Melee needs a major increase in damage along with many other changes.

1)Channeling:

2) General Damage

3) Blocking

4) Combo Counter

 

In the history of warframe from beginning to now, melee has always been a problem.  For some reason it just can't get right.  I can't say I agree with everything you said, and I tend to be able to handle melee well regardless of its flaws, but it does need to be managed better by the devs.  The return of charged attacks would be wonderful, but only if they apply it in the right way in addition to what we already have.  When the new melee system was presented to us, Scott assured us that the game is fun and playable as "sword alone".  I can't say that that is entirely true.  When up against higher leveled enemies, I find that I would always have to resort to guns.  Channeling probably should be stronger, but I rarely use it, and maybe that is why.  I definitely think that blocking should not have been messed with except for the removal of stamina, because as you say, we can only block from the front and are still vulnerable if we are not careful.  Overall I would like to be able to "sword alone" everything, just like other players will 'gun alone' everything.