Regarding Infested Ancients And Melee Combat

[Sunder]

I've recently taken up going pure melee from time to time and with each faction comes a different sort of strategy while fighting.

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THE PROBLEM

• Grineer - Hitscan weapons, blocking and cover plus maneuvering is essential to survival
• Corpus - Projectile weapons, dodge and weave, close distance, be weary of shields
• Infested - Not prepared for melee 2.0?

Lower class infested swarm us, granted we have a multi-hit weapon or something strong enough to one-hit them we're solid. The games becomes hack-n-slash but while still fun, doesn't offer any tactics or strategy other than how to get away when our stamina is down.. Infested Ancients while fine on normal missions, become a hassle during Defense or Survival. Unless you beat them to their sucker punch, they're gonna floor you.

This becomes unfair and quite a hassle, very quickly.

 

How? Why?

 

Being able to block only from the front opens up our sides and rear to that instantaneous suck-punch they so love to deliver. While it can be blocked and therefore introduces a bit of tactics to the slaughtering of infested...Disruptors and Toxic Ancients become a huge problem that ruins the flow of gameplay and all around seems broken.

• Disurptors energy steal can effect you THROUGH your block.
• As a melee fighter touching a Toxic Ancient is a death sentence.
• Ancients Punch attacks even when blocked, leaves a Tenno stunned, open for more sucker-punches

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THE SOLUTION

 

I don't have a suggestion/idea to deal with the smaller hack-n-slash aspect of the infested but the Ancients need some sort of adjustment...

 

My proposal for the meantime...

• Blocking prevents the Disruption effect
• Ancients initial sucker punch reaction time reduced a second
• Toxic Ancients can be touched without poison being applied
• Toxic Ancients need to attack in order to deliver poison payload
• Upon death, 1-2 delay before Toxic Ancients body releases noxious fumes

NOTE: Remember this is proposed and suggested based on playing a pure melee build.

(Anyone can easily say, "Just shoot them from afar" or "use X power or Y weapon instead but again....melee should be a viable option against all enemies as intended. Regardless what you wield.)

Edited June 5, 2014 by Smac

[(PSN)jockeyfish]

Seems legit

[(PSN)SwagSmasha]

Oh yeah I forgot poison ancients used to be that way I miss the poison cloud traps

[Sunder]

Oh yeah I forgot poison ancients used to be that way I miss the poison cloud traps

 

The problem was it was instant and did so much damage that scaled WITH the ancient that anyone even close to it when it died was instantly downed and trying to revive them was a gamble unless they could crawl away from it.

 

It just seems silly we can't even bump into them without being poisoned. The toxic poison should be INSIDE the ancient. Let us fight them sword to arm...tentacle...thing. That arm should be what is used to deliver the poison, not their over-sized pores just exhausting the fumes.

[(PSN)SwagSmasha]

Yeah it was way deadly now that I think about and the antitoxin mod didnt help but I digress being posioned on contact sucks

[zebar1313]

Meanwhile, on other side of the board there's valkyr warcry to slow enemies down... 

Frost bubble to slow enemies down

Saryn molt to distract and miasma to stun then contagion to buff your melee if using corrosive or heat/lightning dmg 

Ember accelerant to stun and increase fire melee dmg

Banshee to sonar and knockdown

ash to cloak and cut

rhino to stomp

nyx to absorb and chaos.

hydroid to puddle or knockdown

Trinity link+vampire+well build 

Add any of these+galatine whirlwind+channel and you can get up to lvl 100 infested like it's nothing without making it to much of a hack nd slash, but honestly, who fights infested without expecting it to be a hack nd slash i mean c'monnnnn 

i was also just playing with the serro and it's also pretty capable of reaching at least lvl 80's 

with infested i typically prefer the melee weapons with reach so that i don't get zapped or poison proc'd

using stuff like dakra/nami/nikana will just get you killed in style. 

[Sunder]

Meanwhile, on other side of the board there's valkyr warcry to slow enemies down... 

Frost bubble to slow enemies down

Saryn molt to distract and miasma to stun then contagion to buff your melee if using corrosive or heat/lightning dmg 

Ember accelerant to stun and increase fire melee dmg

Banshee to sonar and knockdown

ash to cloak and cut

rhino to stomp

nyx to absorb and chaos.

hydroid to puddle or knockdown

Trinity link+vampire+well build 

Add any of these+galatine whirlwind+channel and you can get up to lvl 100 infested like it's nothing without making it to much of a hack nd slash, but honestly, who fights infested without expecting it to be a hack nd slash i mean c'monnnnn 

i was also just playing with the serro and it's also pretty capable of reaching at least lvl 80's 

with infested i typically prefer the melee weapons with reach so that i don't get zapped or poison proc'd

using stuff like dakra/nami/nikana will just get you killed in style. 

 

Your claims infer we have to be a specific frame to deal with these problems when in turn, the Devs stated melee was to be a viable option against all enemies/factions. How is this so if we have to use a crutch to make it happen?

 

But for fun (Assuming you're playing JUST melee, no primary/secondary)

 

Valkry - Warcry will slow them down but again, high levels? Touching a toxic = Death

Frost - Same thing, slow, but still have to touch them to kill them

Saryn - Effective , but fighting them hand-to-hand shouldn't rely on being a specific frame or frame specific powers

Ember - Even when stunned you still gotta get close to the Toxics...

Banshee - Even on the ground...yeah you see where I'm going with this

Ash - Unless cloaking deters poison damage...yeah...now you're just invisible and down. Even harder to revive

Rhino - Stomp, Enemy floating in air, get close to melee, blargh

Hydroid - Like Saryn, effective, but frame specific. plus higher levels is mostly ancients. Gonna be lots of puddles...

Trinity - Frame specific but a damn good method.

 

As for using a specific weapon? That's lame man...not everyone wants to use the Galatine or something. Hell maybe someone wants to play like Hayden from Dark Sector and go full on melee with the Glaive! Should they be restricted of playing how they wish cause of enemies that have a clear unfair advantage?

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My point here is that regardless of your frame

Your melee weapon...

Should you have modded it right and ranked it up

Perhaps Forma'd it and such...

Melee SHOULD be a possible solution.

That was the purpose of Melee 2.0

Edited June 5, 2014 by Smac

[ShardsSuperior]

Regular infested die so easily to Tenno, though. Any frame with a decently modded multi-hit melee weapon could go through hours of light Infested fighting unscathed.

 

That's the point of the Ancients. They make fighting Infested at least a bit of challenge. They give a bit of incentive to play with a gun. They provide a tiny bit of balance to the weakest (IMO) faction.

[xJiX]

I'd like another 1 or 2 melee attack (and/or utility) buttons.

I love melee, but only blocking & mashing 1 button, gets boring.

[DoomFruit]

Blocking prevents the Disruption effect

This is actually how things were right after melee 2.0 came out. DE removed it and I have no idea why.

[(PSN)billy-d-squid]

===============================

THE SOLUTION

 

I don't have a suggestion/idea to deal with the smaller hack-n-slash aspect of the infested but the Ancients need some sort of adjustment...

 

My proposal for the meantime...

• Blocking prevents the Disruption effect
• Ancients initial sucker punch reaction time reduced a second
• Toxic Ancients can be touched without poison being applied
• Toxic Ancients need to attack in order to deliver poison payload
• Upon death, 1-2 delay before Toxic Ancients body releases noxious fumes

NOTE: Remember this is proposed and suggested based on playing a pure melee build.

(Anyone can easily say, "Just shoot them from afar" or "use X power or Y weapon instead but again....melee should be a viable option against all enemies as intended. Regardless what you wield.)

 

 

No, Infested are already so much cannon fodder it's unbelievable. Might change when the enemy of the Tenno thing comes in, but no. If anything they should be made harder by generating better options for them to use not simply bum rushing you every, single, time. 

 

After watching Aliens and the Thing last weekend I wouldn't mind Chargers climbing the walls to get the drop on you. Ancients, need resistance to CC not nerfs. 

[Sunder]

No, Infested are already so much cannon fodder it's unbelievable. Might change when the enemy of the Tenno thing comes in, but no. If anything they should be made harder by generating better options for them to use not simply bum rushing you every, single, time. 

 

After watching Aliens and the Thing last weekend I wouldn't mind Chargers climbing the walls to get the drop on you. Ancients, need resistance to CC not nerfs. 

 

Smaller infested yes. I agree they're but cannon fodder. Ancients however are a huge problem if trying to do melee only.

If you bring guns into the mix, then yeah, ancients are easily dealt with and need behavioral changes and possibly some new attacks to buff them However as it stands, DE claimed melee would be a viable option. A "path" you could take if you so choose. With ancients as they are? That just isn't so...

The changes I proposed are but small ones. Something simple to make melee possible against them.

Ideally? I'd love to see more attacks other than their two punches.

 

Attack 1: Normal punch, instead of flooring the Tenno, just stagger them back a second and do the same damage.

Attack 2: Using the tentacle arm they raise it up high and sweep it across, sending any Tenno that doesn't hop over it or block onto the ground

Attack 3: A charging attack with a nice wind up strike of that tentacle arm. Would be spotted by the movement and wind up but deliver lots of damage if it lands.

 

Smaller infested?

I've love to see them on walls and ceilings.

Add in a basic slash while wall running, and some way to keep our wall-dash-slash and combat could be more on the move rather than sitting in a single place just pulling off combos and button mashing.

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However these ideas would take time and effort. In the meantime things like Disruption taking place regardless of blocking or not should be fixed. And of course...we currently have no way to melee Toxic Ancients safely at this point which needs a solution. Any melee weapon should be available to combat them.

Edited June 5, 2014 by Smac

[Liminal]

I like those. I'd just add that the death toxic cloud shouldn't damage defense objectives.

[DoomFruit]

I actually like it that the ancients don't pull their punches. They charge right at you and BAM, fist to the face. They mean business.

 

All that needs doing is letting us block their hits (procs and all). Gun players can shoot them before they get too close. Melee players can counter them and stab them in the face.