Thoughts And Advice On My Volt Build (My New Favorite Melee.)

[Valkyr-Umbra]

First of all, this is not an unchangeable build, it can be changed a lot to suit personal preferences and I've went through several incarnations.

 

The build is called "Swordsman Volt" (supersonic swordsman volt was to long-winded lol.) It is supposed to be a Melee build, and the incarnation I'm posting is heavily weighted towards that, obviously more moderate builds may work better for some.

 

I can confirm that not only is it effective, but it can carry on t4 survival for 40 minutes. I played a match with this build early on, before it was perfected (no forma, rank 24.) Also, I played with mastery rank 5, 6, and 7 players (i'm 10.) their frames were nekros, ash and trinity. We lasted 40 minutes, and this build was able to carry (and it was unfinished at the time.) At the time I used an energy shield so I could res my teammates, if that weren't a concern it could have lasted longer.

 

Here's the build: http://goo.gl/zycE97

 

The description:

 

This build is loads of fun and great for leveling melee. Speed makes the slowest melee weapon as fast as the fastest, and you can imagine what it does to the fastest. Also, in a large open room, you move so fast the enemies can't shoot you accurately (if they hit you, they got lucky.) For this you will sacrifice some control (the amount of which varies based off of your reaction time.) There are also a ton of ways to vary this build, less speed, more duration, more speed (with rush), more range, you can add on energy shield for you guns and to res teammates, its also great for LS (you cut up enemies into little tiny pieces for Necros to desecrate.) I personally think it works best with long range melee weapons (orthos prime, dragon nikana, etc.) You just run straight at a crowd of enemies and they're dead before you reach them (reach and fury on your melee help a lot.)

[Kthal]

My updated Volt melee build as of today:

 

Viable in T4 ftw, if only they fixed Vor's hitbox detection with melee...

 

 

 

Edit - Forgot feedback.

Looks fine, although I would lose the efficiency mods as you can easily get ~50 energy in one Speed burst. I use Rage/Quick Thinking as a massive health buffer, as health is replenishable with Life Strike.

Qucik Rest is debatable, if you rely on lots of stamina then it might help, but I constantly run near 0, just coptering to my targets.

Redirection is better if not running rage probably.

 

Your build is good. Most of the mods come down to taste. I recommend at least losing Fleeting Expertise though for something more useful, along with freeing up a couple of the duration mods if you don't need them.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Kthal

[Valkyr-Umbra]

Viable in T4 ftw, if only they fixed Vor's hitbox detection with melee...

lol when Vor showed up for us, that was annoying as crap. I just took out my boltor prime and shot him lol

[Justgotpwnedmate]

Wait, why did you put on intensify? How does Intensify affect Speed? Does it make you faster?

[Kthal]

Speed is affected by power strength.

 

Do it right, anything less than 88mph and you are doing it wrong.

[Valkyr-Umbra]

In terms of numbers, adding Intensify onto the build makes me 15% faster, and improves my melee attack speed by 15% also. With the build I'm running, both stats are improved by 115% (50% default, another 50% from blind rage, and 15% from intensify.)    lol

Edited July 9, 2014 by Snowman486

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

The only change I can suggest is to drop Streamline entirely and use a different mod for whatever you feel is lacking.  With Streamline, Speed costs 16.25 energy; without Streamline, Speed costs 23.75 energy.  Both require a single energy orb to refill so as long as you are comfortable with the 21s duration you can replace Streamline entirely.  An alternative would be to reduce Fleeting to rank 3 and keep Streamline but that only gains you 3s duration (not worth it to me).  Also, make sure you place Fleeting in the polarity slot, not Streamline; this saves you another point (could be useful depending on if you replace Streamline).

 

EDIT:  Possible replacements for Streamline could include (in no particular order):  Vigor (more shields), Vitality (health buffer), Reflection (damage while blocking), Rush (pure overkill), Fortitude (less downtime between fights), or Enemy Sense (spatial awareness).  Marathon could also work if you find yourself out of stamina but typically Quick Rest has you covered.  I'm personally not a fan of Flow, especially since your 150 energy will give you 2 minutes of Speed.

Edited July 9, 2014 by (PS4)Hiero_Glyph

[Valkyr-Umbra]

The only change I can suggest is to drop Streamline entirely and use a different mod for whatever you feel is lacking.  With Streamline, Speed costs 16.25 energy; without Streamline, Speed costs 23.75 energy.  Both require a single energy orb to refill so as long as you are comfortable with the 21s duration you can replace Streamline entirely.  An alternative would be to reduce Fleeting to rank 3 and keep Streamline but that only gains you 3s duration (not worth it to me).  Also, make sure you place Fleeting in the polarity slot, not Streamline; this saves you another point (could be useful depending on if you replace Streamline).

 

EDIT:  Possible replacements for Streamline could include (in no particular order):  Vigor (more shields), Vitality (health buffer), Reflection (damage while blocking), Rush (pure overkill), Fortitude (less downtime between fights), or Enemy Sense (spatial awareness).  Marathon could also work if you find yourself out of stamina but typically Quick Rest has you covered.  I'm personally not a fan of Flow, especially since your 150 energy will give you 2 minutes of Speed.

Great advice, I'm going to try that out and see how it works. (I'm going to try out rush i think, although that may be to fast to control lol.) If rush doesn't work, I'll probably try stretch so more teammates get speedbuffed.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Snowman486

[Darzk]

Or slot in Blind Rage, maybe instead of Rush. Rush makes you run 30% faster - BR adds ~14% movement speed (when not running too) but also melee attack speed.

 

Edit: I like the Rage/QT setup, but its really tough to ditch Redirection, it adds a TON of effective health. 

 

Edit2: Consider using Reflex Guard. It messes with your ability to sprint but endless blocking is a little OP.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Darzk

[Valkyr-Umbra]

Or slot in Blind Rage, maybe instead of Rush. Rush makes you run 30% faster - BR adds ~14% movement speed (when not running too) but also melee attack speed.

I've got blind rage slotted, actually. Also, doesn't it add 50% move speed and attack speed?

Edited July 9, 2014 by Snowman486

[Darzk]

I've got blind rage slotted, actually. Also, doesn't it add 50% move speed and attack speed?

 

Yeah, sorry, no idea what I was talking about >.>. Guess I was thinking traditional 75% eff setup with only a BR R2 :S

 

The speed added with a max BR might be overkill - coptering for example would be hard to control. I would consider dropping it to Rank 5 and using Streamline instead of FE, giving you a big chunk of extra duration and keeping the cost @ 25 energy. You'd lose ~10.5% attack speed but gain another 6 seconds on speed. 

 

I'd probably also prefer the strength helmet over the duration one - especially for a build using Redirection, where it takes off 56 shields.

 

Dunno, tiny tweaks. The duration is probably long enough, maybe even too long - the build looks like a great way to get around a map quickly but feels sorta... plain. I think I'd get bored pretty quick but I'll try it out >.>

Edited July 9, 2014 by Darzk

[Valkyr-Umbra]

Dunno, tiny tweaks. The duration is probably long enough, maybe even too long - the build looks like a great way to get around a map quickly but feels sorta... plain. I think I'd get bored pretty quick but I'll try it out >.>

I thought it was pretty fun, you run around a large room like the Flash, and cut everything in front of you (or if you use orthos prime, to the sides of you as well.) Also, it helps out nekros's desecrate a bunch but creating extra bodies. I like the extra speed provided by a maxed blind rage because of the melee (i agree the extra movement is prbly unnecessary,) with an orthos prime and shimmering you're just running around meleeing. Its so fast that as soon as an enemy enters your reach, it dies, even the airborne ones.