Effective Melee build: tips and tricks to having fun with melee.

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

so ive been testing it for a while now and it seems that this particular loadout is an all perpose melee loadout. meaning, you can bring your favorite melee weapon, and regaurdless of its status, it will be as effective as any other lazy loadout.

lazy loadouts are from anything like an Excalibur exaulted blade build or a valkyrs hysteria build. i consider these loadouts to be less engaging and less fun to use after a while. its just gets really boring, take it from a guy who has seen One-Punch Man.

what i wanted was a challenge and to be more active through the mission while being as effective as any exalted blade or hysteria build.

here is the build.

Warframe

Spoiler

Weapon

Spoiler

I'm currently using the Nikana prime with the warframe Excalibur. you may use any weapon with any warframe, for they all will be effective so long as they have this build.

some weapons may need to be personalized depending on their effectiveness to the enemy

you may wonder why some of these mod slots are empty? that's because they are reserved for the specific enemies you will be facing. one warframe slot will be reserved for "mobility mods "such as firewalker or mobolize.

grineer

Spoiler

warframe

add Corrosive Projection as your aura and add flame repellent, and firewalker.

so why flame repellent? well, it seems that the grineer usually spawn enemies such as scorches and napalms. these enemies will tear up any defenses you have. plus you will be using close range combat.

weapon

add rending strike, auger strike and virulent scourge

these mods will increase your damage towards the enemy armor. however, some enemies are resistant. those are the enemies that you may want to use a charge attack on.

Corpus

Spoiler

Warframe

add Shield Disruption as your aura. then, add diamond skin and lightning dash as you mobility.

replace Sure Footed with any mod you like, for the corpus barely knock you down.

Weapon

add Rending Strike, Collision Force and Vicious Frost

again, if some enemies are resistant, use heavy attacks.

Infestation

Spoiler

Warframe

add Steel Charge as your aura. then add Rending Turn as your mobility and antitoxin.

Weapon

add Rending Strike, Buzz Kill and Virulent Scourge.

 

How to use this Build

first off, make sure you have the best set for the specified enemy.(options are above)

Next, take the hit. if you are focusing on survivalbility, try to defend yourself before channeling.

however, if the enemy manages to breach your shields, then you must instantly become a berserker and go to a "channeling stage". while in this stage DO NOT BLOCK AT ALL, for when you do block while channeling, you can kiss that energy goodbye. 

with the Rage mod equipped, any damage you take from your health will be converted to energy. it is also the reason why you have no shield buffs. that energy is for your channeling damage on the enemy, which will convert back to your health because of Life Strike. SO MAKE SURE YOU FIND SOMETHING TO HIT!

MAKE SURE YOUR LIFE STRIKE MOD IS RANK 1! you do not want to spend too much energy.

 

Bonus: how to be any anime character ever. (optional)

Spoiler

first use Excalibur and the load out mentioned above

you will have up to four stages of power

the first stage is your regular combat ability. using no powers and no channeling. do not worry, for even without channeling, you can still do a considerable amount of damage.

but that isn't even your final form! unleash your second form by toggling channel. in this state, you will be able to receive energy by taking damage, and receiving health by giving even more damage per hit!

but that isn't even your final form! Yell "BAN-KAI!!" from the top of your lungs and release your Exalted Blade. it wont last as long as the real build, but the damage output is far more superior.

But that isn't even your final form! GO ON AN ENERGY RAMPAGE! channel while in using your exalted blade give out even more damage to your enemies, but suffer the cost of using said energy and power down completely to your first form.

yet, you have not achieved godhood....

UNLEASH YOUR TRUE POWER!!!!! use your focus ability to wipe out the rest of your enemies!

 

I really like to use this build out of any other simply because its "fun" to use and requires even more of your attention.

basically, I acknowledged the Stalker's advice stating that "my Tenno powers are useless".above all honesty, a Warframe without the focus of ability buffs is not bad at all. with this build, you tend to appreciate the value of your powers for their effects and not their damage.

I really hope you try out this build concept and try it out!

Fight on, Tenno!!

[RagingGrizzly]

I like the Bleach reference :P

[Kunavi]

Effective, I do not know about. Viable? Perhaps, never tried it. But if this is primarily intended for fun then there's not much to add... Except perhaps that I never understood what other players found fun in reducing their effectiveness. Each to their own I suppose. About appreciating an ability for what it does, that's something the last part of a sortie may teach a player. If DE would let WF abilities somehow affect the environment, or if we could use them to approach an obstacle(A mission objective? A puzzle in a mission? A platform section? No idea...) differently, that'd be great I imagine. Right now 80% of WF is a matter of what visuals you want your Dmg to use and what kind of &#! you want to be looking at while dishing that Dmg... For lack of better words on my part.

[WindigoTG]

I'm just using my Mirage with Prism build and Destreza or Nikana Prime with Crit+Status build with acolite's mods, and make enemies bleed for 20k per second.

[EtherealShigure]

Melee needs buff -_-

Or at least 2 more mod slots per weapon :(

[Grayfigure]

I tend to do something similar on my wukong (.......im just saiyan..... XD).  The channel energy cards you have there definitely help, but I find that getting into the thick of it with just Lifestrike+Rage will often be more than enough.  The synergy between those two can really be pushed a long way.  Liberal use of Radial Blind for you when youre in danger will keep you alive and those dangerous moments, but you might want to look into Quick Thinking for that extra bit of insurance.  Its not as good as it used to be, but can still save your butt in most situations where you would just die.  And if the enemy starts hitting you too hard? .....um, thats what you have other forms for. :P

(My monkeyframe has both a Hadoken and a Kamehameha to play around with, along side crazy monkey taijutsu and a pole of the Gods.)

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

8 hours ago, WindigoTP said:

I'm just using my Mirage with Prism build and Destreza or Nikana Prime with Crit+Status build with acolite's mods, and make enemies bleed for 20k per second.

basically, the ultimate slash build. cool! i'd imagine it is really effective on infested.

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

9 hours ago, Kunavi said:

Effective, I do not know about. Viable? Perhaps, never tried it. But if this is primarily intended for fun then there's not much to add... Except perhaps that I never understood what other players found fun in reducing their effectiveness. Each to their own I suppose. About appreciating an ability for what it does, that's something the last part of a sortie may teach a player. If DE would let WF abilities somehow affect the environment, or if we could use them to approach an obstacle(A mission objective? A puzzle in a mission? A platform section? No idea...) differently, that'd be great I imagine. Right now 80% of WF is a matter of what visuals you want your Dmg to use and what kind of &#! you want to be looking at while dishing that Dmg... For lack of better words on my part.

the build is not technically reduceing the players effectiveness. however, they will not be effective if they do not pay attention. this makes the build more engaging than other passive ability builds. you mostly need to just check your health and energy use for Passive builds. but with this build, players must check their precision, timing, health loss, energy use, and approach.

[CCamp88]

Would be nice if sure footed would actually be obtainable. Myself and others i know, have killed literally countless bombards with nada.

[Fluff-E-Kitty]

with the advent of blood rush, maming stike, and body count, litterly any mellea is a crit build and is awsome with it.

I prefer the crit build on the saber thing. is fun.

[Yaerion]

10 hours ago, (PS4)L-B-H-100 said:

-

Nice tips!

Switch Teleported from General Discussion to Players helping Players.

And Thread Featured! As a thanking for helping your siblings.

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

3 hours ago, CCamp88 said:

Would be nice if sure footed would actually be obtainable. Myself and others i know, have killed literally countless bombards with nada.

well you just gotta keep trying.

i'm surprised your worried about Sure Footed. the other mods included are much more harder to get.

[Dreadwire]

But I don't like the fact that I have to take damage for energy. For low lvl enemies it's fine. But for higher lvl enemies is a death wish. 

But tbh.

With the new mod and focus system.  Melee is easy now. Too easy

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

12 hours ago, Dreadwire said:

But I don't like the fact that I have to take damage for energy. For low lvl enemies it's fine. But for higher lvl enemies is a death wish. 

But tbh.

With the new mod and focus system.  Melee is easy now. Too easy

you don't need to take damage to gain energy. i'm not telling you to go in and use yourself as a target. try to do the best you can without channeling at first. then, when the enemy breaches your shields multiple times, that's when you would know when to channel, and take all the health back.

also notice that this particular build is not focused on abilities. so what else are you going to use that energy for?

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

13 hours ago, Yaer said:

Nice tips!

Switch Teleported from General Discussion to Players helping Players.

And Thread Featured! As a thanking for helping your siblings.

Glad to help!

i just often hear that melee is not as effective as other options yet. so this build will haft to do for the time being.

so for that, i will give you one last tip.

there was one thing i had not mentioned within the thread however. since i was only focusing on melee combat and not any warframe abilities.

as i said before, i used Excalibur, but realized the day i posted this thread that some of his abilities damage output are not only focused on the melee weapons damage. the damage of his abilities are also influenced by the combo multiplier!

so as soon as i reached a 2x damage combo, i was able to do a massive amount of damage on my next ability without the influence of ability damage mods.

during a combo multiplier, I took out an entire armor buffed squad of enemies with one slash dash on Ceres Survival! that was just with a 2x multiplier!

im still testing it, but i will keep you guys updated!

thanks again!

[Epsik-kun]

One of the main reasons people think current melee isn't very effective is that they don't know how to properly mod their melee and are using builds like the OP's one.

Right now there are more than four fundamentally different melee builds and several tweaks to each and every of them. Melee has plenty to offer.

 

On the topic of the build being "universal":

Steel Fiber is a waste of the mod space on a vast majority of frames;

Rending strike is a weak, underperforming and non universal mod;

120% IPS mods are not weapon-universal.

39 minutes ago, (PS4)L-B-H-100 said:

also notice that this particular build is not focused on abilities. so what else are you going to use that energy for?

In other words, Primed Flow is a waste of the mod space.

 

Also, you actually want to block when you are using Rage and your shields are down. It is the most effective way of using it.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Epsik-kun

[(XBOX)freakytiki3]

If you prioritize primary damage mods over elemental combos/banes. . .

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

3 hours ago, Epsik-kun said:

One of the main reasons people think current melee isn't very effective is that they don't know how to properly mod their melee and are using builds like the OP's one.

Right now there are more than four fundamentally different melee builds and several tweaks to each and every of them. Melee has plenty to offer.

 

On the topic of the build being "universal":

Steel Fiber is a waste of the mod space on a vast majority of frames;

Rending strike is a weak, underperforming and non universal mod;

120% IPS mods are not weapon-universal.

In other words, Primed Flow is a waste of the mod space.

 

Also, you actually want to block when you are using Rage and your shields are down. It is the most effective way of using it.

primed flow acts as an extra efficiency mod for your channeling cost. since there are only two mods that effect less power cost per swing, i decided to use an energy max mod to reserve some to the energy I've gained with Rage.

you also want as much survivalbility as possible focused on your health. so steel fiber is essential. you want to keep your warframe from reaching at least 50% health.

rending strike actually adds more base damage than any other status effect mod such as buzz kill. buzz kill, collision force, and Auger Strike all have 120% damage added, when rending strike has 140% damage added. remember what i said before that some different mods may be required depending on the weapon of choice. rather than explaining each weapon build, i used my Nikana Prime as a reference. so if you are using a different weapon, rending strike may not be an option. its the reason why i didnt include the mod in the two images presented.

i specifically said not to block while channeling.

please read and observe carefully.

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

3 hours ago, (XB1)freakytiki3 said:

If you prioritize primary damage mods over elemental combos/banes. . .

 

than why am i having so much fun!? :D

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

21 hours ago, Kogashi said:

Melee needs buff -_-

Or at least 2 more mod slots per weapon :(

yes, that is something i wish will happen soon as well. its the reason why i had to go through so much to get this build right.

[Kunavi]

You replied that "The build is not technically reducing the player's effectiveness. However, they will not be effective if they do not pay attention. This is a contradiction. Furthermore; "This makes the build more engaging than other passive ability builds. With this build, players must check their precision, timing, health loss, energy use, and approach", you say, but I think it is creating artificial challenge. Hence difficulty. Hence, what I replied initially.

Let me look at your first post too... 

"It will be as effective as any other lazy load out - Excalibur exalted blade build or a Valkyr hysteria build. I consider these to be less engaging and less fun to use after a while. It just gets really boring, take it from a guy who has seen One-Punch Man". Then why prefer yours? Because you believe artificial hindering is fun? For some it is, but warranting a pinning of the post? :S And what's wrong with being lazy(Which is really rather using what's there to the fullest extent, some would argue)? I mean, let's pin every post that says a Hysteria build is fun, because it is according to those people too. Weird thinking TBH. Also, I happened to enjoy OPM, what's with the hate?

Here's a different reasoning ; I am not sure why or how(As according to your logic I am missing on a lot) but my very typical, full of base damage and Life Strike, melee weapon builds are quite enjoyable and give good results. It's pressure point, spoiled strike, prime reach, an 120, an 90, then it depends on critical rating and damage. Sometimes there's not enough space for the 90s, still fine. I've moved away from elemental damage on some weapons and I feel it's fine, but I'll probably get told here that I am doing it wrong. Doesn't feel like I am, despite not even having fury on. So the point is that as I said your stuff sounds like fun and may be viable but you have to acknowledge there are more ways. So stop stomping on other builds to elevate yours :/ And the moderator who pinned your post should now go pin ALL posts presenting information on how to make lazy builds, exotic builds, any kind of builds, because those too hold as much merit as yours.

In short, this does not deserve to be pinned and what you're suggesting is little more than artificial challenge(AKA difficulty), shunning those who do not share your views or just want to play merrily without having to have their brain on full steam.

That's all I had to say so I rest my case. Selective moderators piss me off enough to not come back to a discussion.

[Dreadwire]

6 hours ago, (PS4)L-B-H-100 said:

you don't need to take damage to gain energy. i'm not telling you to go in and use yourself as a target. try to do the best you can without channeling at first. then, when the enemy breaches your shields multiple times, that's when you would know when to channel, and take all the health back.

also notice that this particular build is not focused on abilities. so what else are you going to use that energy for?

If it's for fun built sure why not.

I do a lot of melee myself. And trust me at end game you don't want any of those thug touch you. 

Don't get me wrong its fine as it is. Since its only for fun.

 

[Epsik-kun]

10 hours ago, (PS4)L-B-H-100 said:

please read and observe carefully.

Oh boy.

Let me start on the point, that you don't need any kind of Flow for sustaining purely melee channel if you have Rage equipped. You can achieve much better results by installing almost any other mod in the game.

Next, Steel Fiber is a waste of mod space on vast majority of frames, I repeat that. No matter how "essential" it is, increasing your EHP by 5% doesn't advocate a whole lost mod slot. On many frames even Vigor would be better under those conditions, and Vigor is terrible.

Rending Strike actually does not, as you have no idea how do these mods work. IPS damage mods provide a separate increase of damage for their respective damage type. Meaning, unlike elemental mods they don't take full weapon damage into an account. Theoretical maximum Rending Strike can provide is a 80% damage increase on a weapon that deals exclusively Puncture damage. On Nikana Prime, for instance, Rending Strike provides only 58% damage increase compared to 90% of elemental mod or 60% damage/60% status of dual-stat mod. 120% mods on the other hand can outperform elemental mods and be actually viable when majority (more than 75%) of weapon damage consists of a single type. You yourself stated that you use Nikana Prime for these builds and said explicitly that you can use any melee for it. Meanwhile, the only mod among ones in the question that's good on Nikana Prime is Buzz Kill. Rending Strike is bad on Nikana Prime, Auger Strike and Collision Force are worthless.

You said "you go to channeling stage and in this stage you don't block at all". If holding down a button makes a "less fun" combat into "so much fun" combat for you, while releasing it being too much of a hassle to even consider(and to type it in your, ahem, build) during "channeling stage" then all the power to you. I would preffer to have a more interactive approach though. However, I have to say, that if you'll run around as EBlading Excalibur in your "channeling stage" you'll run out of energy in no time, as you can't stop blocking with him. Gotta release that button. Gotta do the hard work.

10 hours ago, (PS4)L-B-H-100 said:

than why am i having so much fun!? :D

Because some people consider "fun" fighting against level 10 enemies using end-game equipment.

 

And the main problem is, I don't even critique the build on the point of it being "bad" in general. I am telling you, it fails to be decent even for the sole purpose you've made it for.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Epsik-kun

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

8 hours ago, Epsik-kun said:

And the main problem is, I don't even critique the build on the point of it being "bad" in general. I am telling you, it fails to be decent even for the sole purpose you've made it for.

seems pretty decent to me.

it does the job, what else is there to say?

im really sorry you feel that way.

Edited March 5, 2016 by (PS4)L-B-H-100

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

15 hours ago, Kunavi said:

You replied that "The build is not technically reducing the player's effectiveness. However, they will not be effective if they do not pay attention. This is a contradiction. Furthermore; "This makes the build more engaging than other passive ability builds. With this build, players must check their precision, timing, health loss, energy use, and approach", you say, but I think it is creating artificial challenge. Hence difficulty. Hence, what I replied initially.

Let me look at your first post too... 

"It will be as effective as any other lazy load out - Excalibur exalted blade build or a Valkyr hysteria build. I consider these to be less engaging and less fun to use after a while. It just gets really boring, take it from a guy who has seen One-Punch Man". Then why prefer yours? Because you believe artificial hindering is fun? For some it is, but warranting a pinning of the post? :S And what's wrong with being lazy(Which is really rather using what's there to the fullest extent, some would argue)? I mean, let's pin every post that says a Hysteria build is fun, because it is according to those people too. Weird thinking TBH. Also, I happened to enjoy OPM, what's with the hate?

Here's a different reasoning ; I am not sure why or how(As according to your logic I am missing on a lot) but my very typical, full of base damage and Life Strike, melee weapon builds are quite enjoyable and give good results. It's pressure point, spoiled strike, prime reach, an 120, an 90, then it depends on critical rating and damage. Sometimes there's not enough space for the 90s, still fine. I've moved away from elemental damage on some weapons and I feel it's fine, but I'll probably get told here that I am doing it wrong. Doesn't feel like I am, despite not even having fury on. So the point is that as I said your stuff sounds like fun and may be viable but you have to acknowledge there are more ways. So stop stomping on other builds to elevate yours :/ And the moderator who pinned your post should now go pin ALL posts presenting information on how to make lazy builds, exotic builds, any kind of builds, because those too hold as much merit as yours.

In short, this does not deserve to be pinned and what you're suggesting is little more than artificial challenge(AKA difficulty), shunning those who do not share your views or just want to play merrily without having to have their brain on full steam.

That's all I had to say so I rest my case. Selective moderators piss me off enough to not come back to a discussion.

all you haft to know is that its my own opinion.

i'm very sorry you feel that way or if the thread itself insults you.

[(PSN)L-B-H-100]

On 3/5/2016 at 5:16 AM, Epsik-kun said:

 

You said "you go to channeling stage and in this stage you don't block at all". If holding down a button makes a "less fun" combat into "so much fun" combat for you, while releasing it being too much of a hassle to even consider(and to type it in your, ahem, build) during "channeling stage" then all the power to you. I would preffer to have a more interactive approach though. However, I have to say, that if you'll run around as EBlading Excalibur in your "channeling stage" you'll run out of energy in no time, as you can't stop blocking with him. Gotta release that button. Gotta do the hard work.

well, i don't hold down a button to channel. I've set it to R3 toggle then set melee attack to one of my triggers and set the secondary fire to my circle button.