I could use some guidance on how exactly melee modding works, since my knowledge of the systems are woefully outdated.

[bejuizb]

Hello,

As the title may imply, I've only recently come back to the game after a sizeable absence. As such I'm playing catch up, and hoping to tackle both Arbitrations and the Steel Path soon. I did give the first Steel Path mission a go but seemed to be taking a good chunk of time trying to kill the enemies, which I am assuming is only going to get worse as I do higher end missions. From digging around, I've seemed to gather that melee is the best option for doing damage in the game at the moment, but I genuinely am struggling to understand how the system works. 

It'd be very helpful if I could get some explanation(s) on how melee works and how the mods help with that, just so I can formulate and adapt builds as needed. For what it's worth, I've been considering using the Paracesis as my main melee weapon. It'd be great if folks could also not use too many acronyms or technical terms in the explanation since I'm not the brightest bulb in the shed, so to speak lol. 

Thanks again, hope folks stay safe. 

[Proscriptor]

57 minutes ago, bejuizb said:

Hello,

As the title may imply, I've only recently come back to the game after a sizeable absence. As such I'm playing catch up, and hoping to tackle both Arbitrations and the Steel Path soon. I did give the first Steel Path mission a go but seemed to be taking a good chunk of time trying to kill the enemies, which I am assuming is only going to get worse as I do higher end missions. From digging around, I've seemed to gather that melee is the best option for doing damage in the game at the moment, but I genuinely am struggling to understand how the system works. 

It'd be very helpful if I could get some explanation(s) on how melee works and how the mods help with that, just so I can formulate and adapt builds as needed. For what it's worth, I've been considering using the Paracesis as my main melee weapon. It'd be great if folks could also not use too many acronyms or technical terms in the explanation since I'm not the brightest bulb in the shed, so to speak lol. 

Thanks again, hope folks stay safe. 

With melee you can do light attacks and heavy attacks. 

When doing melee you want to do as much damage as possible while attacking as fast as possible at as long range as possible, be it light attacks or heavy attacks. 

All melee builds benefit from the Melee Combo mechanic in their unique way, because it's a powerful mechanic. Combo Multiplier multiplies heavy attack damage, but it does nothing independent of specific mods to light attack damage. 

There are three types of melee builds:

1. Light attack build - you only do light attacks
2. Heavy spam build - you only do heavy attacks
3. Combo efficiency build (Crossover build) - you do both light and heavy attacks (but mostly heavy attacks usually)

1.  Light attack build

Spoiler

A mod that is included in all melee builds, of any major type:

• Range - Primed Reach (without this mod melee sucks)

The light attack build is based on combo scaling bonuses of two Acolyte mods which are always included:

• Critical Chance - Blood Rush
• Status Chance - Weeping Wounds

Since you attack fast with this build, also always included are other types of scaling bonus mods (they stack up as you attack, but not based on the combo multiplier):

• Damage - Condition Overload
• Attack Speed - Berserker

There is also a scaling range mod (Spring-Loaded Blade), but it is worse than Primed Reach, and can only fit with a riven, or in weapons that have a specific innate element (generally Viral).

Another mod that is practically always included is a non-scaling mod:

• Critical Damage - Organ Shatter

These were six mods, leaving two slots open. If your melee is Slash-based, you should slot Toxin and Cold to get Viral, for best effect; if the melee has a non-Slash base make Corrosive; another good option is pure Toxin for Corpus (regardless of the physical damage base); if the weapon has innate Heat or Electricity, always go Viral

Don't use Primed Fever Strike when building Viral, because you will have too much Viral in relation to your Slash (or Heat or Electricity). This is not optional (it's very important).

This build simply shreds. So much so that people complain about it.

2. Heavy spam build

Spoiler

 

The mod included in all melee builds, of any major type:

• Range - Primed Reach

The heavy spam build is based on Initial Combo so that you can have a Combo Multiplier (the big number in the lower right corner, 2x for example) without actively increasing your Combo Counter (the small number below the big number); you can't actively increase the combo counter when doing heavy attacks only, because you reset it each time you do one. 

• Initial Combo - Corrupted Charge (this sets the Combo Multi to 2x, doubling your damage)

Specific to this build is the Sacrificial set:

• Critical Chance - Sacrificial Steel
• Damage - Sacrificial Pressure (you can substitute it with Primed Pressure Point)

Increasing speed comes in two forms: first is the Wind Up Speed increase, provided by the Amalgam version of Organ Shatter. But you also want to speed up the portion of the heavy attack animation that is affected by bonus Attack Speed (the part before and after the characteristic wind up sound):

• Critical Damage, Wind Up Speed - Amalgam Organ Shatter
• Attack Speed - Berserker (you don't attack very quickly doing heavy attacks, but still fast enough to fully benefit from this mod's scaling bonus; slotting Primed Fury instead is a mistake)

These have been six mods. To optimize this build type for each weapon, there are different options for the last two slots. The best option for a weapon with forced Slash is always Faction Damage:

• Faction Damage - Primed Smite (it more than doubles your damage, because of peculiarities of bonus Faction Damage)

Often, Viral doesn't fit, but that's okay. 

This build type is generally seen as being worse than the light attack build, while being harder to put together. What makes it a lot more appealing is a riven with +Initial Combo and +Damage, to deal a lot more damage multiplied more times (makes sense, no?).

 

2. Combo efficiency build

Spoiler

The mod included in all melee builds, of any major type:

• Range - Primed Reach

This is the most advanced build, because it more or less necessitates a riven:

• Combo Efficiency - Riven (at least above 70%); other Riven stats: Attack Speed, Range, Damage

The bonus provided by a riven can be much bigger than the bonus provided by the standard mods (Focus Energy and Reflex Coil); this part is complicated for a beginner as it involves Focus schools; my opinion in this matter is: keep this build as similar to the light attack build by using Combo Eff on riven and Naramon.

The Combo eff build is a crossover between Light attack and Heavy attack build, mostly based on the light attack build despite being used to do mostly heavy attacks, so it's also based on combo scaling bonuses of the Acolyte mods:

• Critical Chance - Blood Rush
• Status Chance - Weeping Wounds

The remaining scaling bonus mods are the same:

• Damage - Condition Overload
• Attack Speed - Berserker

Something taken from the Heavy attack build comes in the form of bonus Wind Up Speed:

• Critical Damage, Wind Up Speed - Amalgam Organ Shatter

These were seven mods. For any Slash-based melee (forced Slash or not), the best fit in the last slot is Faction Damage (it tends to be better than trying to shoehorn Viral in):

• Faction Damage - Primed Smite

If the Riven is +Combo Eff +Attack Speed, you can remove Berserker and Primed Smite, to open up two slots to fit Viral or Corrosive. This is an excellent situation for pretty much any weapon, but this build excels with weapons with an innate element because there is more room to fit everything. The only problem in it is that it's overkill and hardly worth it compared to the already overpowered light attack build.

 

[DemonDaemion]

General catchup since builds are basically the same just following some different rules.

Status has been changed. Physical damage no longer has a 4x weight to status chance so whatever has the biggest number has the highest chance. You can now go past 100% status (it works like crit does) and you can proc status multiple times (cap of 10 stacks of any 1 status effect, number of effects still 'infinite' (10 heat procs, 10 slash procs, etc)). This means Weeping Wounds is quite good now. The notable status changes being slash is slightly different but not noticeably, gas procs gas rather than toxin and is no longer very good outside of corpus builds, heat procs strip armor up to 50% while active (once the proc is gone so is the armor strip) which is very good, and on the topic of armor strip, it is gone, 4 Corrosive Projections cap at 72% and corrosive procs cap at 80%. The biggest change is viral. Instead of halving health it now doubles the effect of other procs. Now weapon builds with slash and status want heat and viral. Minor status changes are electric procs arc across enemies and impact procs stagger enemies and are a bit annoying.

Combo counter and heavy attack are the other big change. Combo counter builds faster (they also buffed the base damage of all melee alongside this so melee is kinda even more busted now). Heavy attack is now equipped melee alt fire (hold F then press middle mouse for PC). Damage scales with combo multiplier. I'd suggest looking at Fragor Prime and Scythe heavy attack builds. Melee also has 100% block chance and blocking builds combo (per bullet) and you can only manual block in equipped melee (same as old, just aim). Heavy attack ground slams (with combo at least) now Lift enemies. Basically a mini Rhino Stomp. Also you can attack mid air Devil May Cry style by just not aiming (down at least).

Also a final note, Covert Lethality is dead and Hammers are the new Daggers. Hammers have high heavy attack damage and the highest finisher multiplier (16x).

[Lutesque]

10 hours ago, bejuizb said:

For what it's worth, I've been considering using the Paracesis as my main melee weapon.

Well... There's the most of your Problem right there.... 

The Best Melee Weapons will have a lot of both Crital Chance and Status Chance.... naturally you'l want a weapon with Slash as it's Main Form of Damage. And The Paracesis's Stats are lacking in the Status Department.... Which isn't a problem in any other Situation but for the Steal Path you definitely want more Status Chance. Hence if you like Big Anime Swords then you can Grime Prime 

 

Anyway that's not the complicated part.

11 hours ago, bejuizb said:

I've seemed to gather that melee is the best option for doing damage in the game at the moment, but I genuinely am struggling to understand how the system works. 

Indeed Melee is the most Damaging Weapon Class and large part of that is because of The Mods....

That's it really... You just need to Collect the OP Melee Mods and slap them on one of the Meta Weapons.

Bloodrush

Primed Pressure Point

Condition Overload

The Sacrificial Set (Sacrificial Steel & Sacrificial Pressure)

Organ Shatter (or the Amalgam Variant... What was it called again ? 

The 60/60 Dual Stat Mods (Keep your Eyes Peeled for Voltaic Strike)

Primed Reach

Drifting Contact

Berserker (or Primed Fury as a log in Reward)

Weeping Wounds (I heard it's now available some where in the new content that was released recently)

Buzz Kill (as well as the new Dual Stat Mod that increases Slash and Status Chance... Forgot it's name... It's new)

Aaaaaaand Quickening ? Maybe ? 

 

In any case the only mods you should be focusing on.... Are the ones that effect your Crit and Status....

Things like Combo duration And Attack Range, Attack Speed And even Slash Weighting are things you will have to decide for yourself if it's better for your Weapon and Play Style...

For Example I if your Weapon has a High Base Attack Speed then you don't have to use Berserker/Fury.

If you are using Using Heavy Attacks then you may or may not have to use specific Combo Duration Mods (it's an Awkward build).

 

In Any Case you get the Idea... These mods a very important....

11 hours ago, bejuizb said:

It'd be great if folks could also not use too many acronyms or technical terms in the explanation since I'm not the brightest bulb in the shed, so to speak lol. 

Simply ask about how a Specific Mod works and il try to explain.

 

 

Trying to explain how they all interact together at the same time would be too difficult for me...

Meanwhile... You can check out this video by Sapmatic Sensei. :)

 

 

[taiiat]

if you've been around for a while, the only changes are that the Hit Counter doesn't do anything unless you have Blood Rush or Weeping Wounds Equipped - unless you do a 'Heavy' Attack. which is like a mixture of what Channeling and Charge Attacks were previously.

and, Blood Rush is no longer exponential with other sources of Crit Chance. it uses normal math now. thusly reducing the value of other Crit Chance Bonuses.
lastly, Maiming Strike is now literally useless.

Stance Animations are different now. you can Roll cancel out of Melee Animations.

Range Mods give a fixed value now rather than Multiply the base value of the Weapon, and Melee Weapons are overall more homogenized in Range (low and high moved closer to the middle).

 

other than that it's basically the same, really. that's the quick summary of the changes to specifically Melee that will actually have an impact on your Gameplay.