Melee weapons underpowered at high level

[-Sentient-]

So a Skiajati,a zaw, and most of melee weapons deal mediocre damage without riven at high levels? 

The only weapons that work a little bit is the gram

[TARINunit9]

As stronger and stronger melee weapons get introduced, the definition fans have of "high level" gets higher and higher, until the older, previously top-tier melee weapons start under-preforming in the new definition of "high level"

[--RV--Dopekoke]

Get that melee combo counter up and go red.

[trst]

I'd say define "high levels" but melee is capable to doing worthwhile damage at any level with the right build, no Rivens required.

Even if we're talking excessively high levels there is always Covert Lethality; can't do better than guaranteed one-shots.

[(PSN)teacup775]

I dunno Paracesis kills 160 corrupted bombards in a few swipes. With Nidus even a build with status crushes them.

 

Zaw dagger cuts them up fine too.

[Voltage]

Try Maiming Strike, Blood Rush, and Condition Overload on like 65% of the melee weapons.

Sortie exterminate for example:

I am not even using Primed Pressure Point or Organ Shatter because those 2 stats are on the Riven Mod.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Voltage

[GPrime96]

Wow...just wow.

[ErinaAlda]

Making a melee weapon powerful can be done really early in the game a bloodrush build on a galatine prime for example or condition overload build on a lesion to name only a few, I have seen some melee weapons tear things to shreds in less then a second in high level areas, only today i saw that ambulas from sorties people have been having issues with today get killed faster then my prisma gorgon could even spool up its firerate, TL:DR no melee weapons are not underpowered at high level.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

Melee weapons underpowered?

Get serious.

[IceColdHawk]

19 minutes ago, Voltage said:

 

I am not even using Primed Pressure Point or Organ Shatter because those 2 stats are on the Riven Mod.

Weak sauce, pft.

Sorry but no, melees are all but underpowered.

Edited January 6, 2019 by IceColdHawk

[Legion-Shields]

20 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Try Maiming Strike, Blood Rush, and Condition Overload on like 65% of the melee weapons.

Sortie exterminate for example:

I am not even using Primed Pressure Point or Organ Shatter because those 2 stats are on the Riven Mod.

Hot 

[Dreddeth]

You might have had a point before Acolyte mods became a thing, but after that point melee was so oppressively powerful that DE had to patch away its ability to hit through terrain.

[ErinaAlda]

20 minutes ago, Voltage said:

 

 

 

 

My point exactly only in video form.

[(XBOX)DomTheKilleur]

Laughs in Plague Kripath

[HellVOps]

2 hours ago, -Sentient- said:

So a Skiajati,a zaw, and most of melee weapons deal mediocre damage without riven at high levels? 

The only weapons that work a little bit is the gram

Define your "High level" first, then we can start talking.

[Riger82]

I have a plague kripath polearm zaw, and it murders 150's in just a few seconds without a riven. What 'high level' are you talking about?

[Orcot]

There a lot of very powerful builds for melee weapons without Rivens that can go way past current endgame standards, you might want to consider looking into some of those builds to get a better understanding of what you might be missing.  But the good news is that melees weapons are getting a major balance pass soon™ to expand it's use and hopefully open up the current melee meta.

[SenorClipClop]

You honestly don't even need the rarer Acolyte mods (Blood Rush, Maiming Strike) to melt high-level enemies. (They make it easier, trust, but you don't them). A simple Slash/Viral Status combination on a weapon with decent Attack Speed will wreck basically anything if you have a bit of light CC while you attack.

[Maqabir]

I use Condition Overload Glaives to kill almost anything at any level as long as it's affected by status. 

[H.Katsura_999]

If ya try posting yer OP toys, DE's nerf hammer will break em.

But yeah, It all depends on your build, riven, and Warframe power synergies.

In my experience, when enemies start becoming bullet sponges, a good melee weapon will always shred them like paper.

Level 250 Bombard? EZ.

[Lakais]

What is "high level"? I mean, honestly. What is it? I've been playing for five years, am MR26 (missing only Mesa P and Akjagara P and two amps) and I have gone up and down the level ranges and the realization I have come to is that it's entirely arbitrary. Personally I hold that levels 30-50 can be considered "high" and anything above is "Excessive" for most players. But I'll concede that with the relative ease one can build up a powerful character, anything beyond 80 is excessive if you go "meta". 

Many of the systems and builds used to one-shot 150 enemies and such (enemies that most everyone will never encounter) rely on quite frankly broken systems or builds that basically abuse those systems. 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

the right mods make all the difference here, it's just that the best ones take a little time to acquire. if people said Melee was kind of underpowered a couple years ago, maybe, but since then we have mods that:

- make your combos last a ridiculous amount of time and thus never reduce your multiplier. with Body Count and/or Drifting Contact you can traverse 2 whole rooms and still keep your multiplier.

- Condition Overload. there's a reason it costs 15 points without a Polarity: it's goddamn stronk on any slash weapon, especially Status ones.

- Blood Rush, which when combined with Body Count, means easy orange/red crits.  an Atterax with the right build can reach red crits almost immediately, like 3 hits tops.

- Zaws are innately strong with many setups, but also have exclusive access to Exodias which make them even stronger and give them utility. Exodia Contagion had to be nerfed and given self damage, DE felt it was that strong.

- and then there's Maiming strike. I think the Tonfa/Whip Meta has started to die out now but for a while, it was all you'd ever see, because whop's gonna argue against an almost guaranteed crit on a slide attack.

- and on top of that, there's melee Rivens. I bought one for my Machete for 10p as a pet project to see if a Riven can make them good, and in truth, it didn't make it super strong but it was a major improvement with a 5/5 disposition. plus you can get + crit chance on slide and + Combo duration, so you may not even need the other mods that specialize in that.

melees are anything but weak, and they're also in the process of getting overhauled, to which DE said they'd likely make the base stats of a ton of weapons even higher than they are. you likely just need to obtain and start using the mods that help with scaling.

 

[stormy505]

If we're talking levels 300+ then yea I can understand since at some point you need to cheese it and melee weapons just don't let you do that. So you need to use corners and frames and weapons that work around corners.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

[Vohim]

the problem with melee currently is it relies on the combo counter  wich is useless because it only stays up for a whopping 3 seconds  without mods  

so raw crit damage weapons are mediocre compared to status unless you can force them to red crit 

 

any maiming strike and  slide attack macro  build  isnt a real build thats basically considered an exploit by DE  only reason they havent nerfed the thing is because melee 3.0  is coming 

 

think we should just get combo counter bumped to 10s baseline currently if melee 3.0 is not coming till like december or next year