The Issue with Melee

[(PSN)SuperShadic445]

All right. Before I begin I´d just like to state that this is my opinion. Hate me if you want to, but at least try to be civilized in the discussions.

Anyway, let´s move on.

For the longest time I´ve noticed that there are a lot of defunct crap weapons, and even more weapon types that are even worse. The more and more this game goes on, the more I´m noticing a trend. Only certain weapon types are receiving love.

Before you say ¨We just received X weapon though!¨ 

Remember this. There´s a difference between receiving love and just getting something.

The only consistantly Viable classes seem to be;
Single Swords, Dual Swords, Heavy Weapons, Hammers and Nikana´s

Every other weapon class has a huge amount of issues, or it doesn´t have enough viable weapons in them.
I´m not saying straight out raw damage needs to be a factor here, but let´s take some examples from each class, shall we?

Swords:
The most abundant weapon type, so it has its pros. and cons. Not to mention the abundance of stances.

Sword and Shields:
Let´s be honest with our selves. These things suck. They look so cool, but the suck so hard it isn´t even funny. The Final Harbinger mod helps a bit, but the class is overall just lacking horribly.

Dual Swords:
A well balanced class that has enough weapons to cover the spectrum of needs. Just like the single counterpart, you´re going to find something for your needs in this class

Nikanas:
For the longest time the Dragon Nikana was the top tier pick of the trade. Even with this new generation of Melees, it still holds its own with the best of them. On top of that, the Nikana Prime is straight up better and one of the most powerful melees in game. 

Fists:
Another crappy weapon type. They suffer from low damage and horrid range. The only way to do something useful with these, is to knock over your opponent, look down, and finisher them. Too much effort in late game.

Sparring:
Same as fists only with knee guards.

Daggers:
Without CL suck. Even then, this is an extremely limited mod, needing finisher or stealth damage to activate. At least buff the base damage to compensate for people who don´t have the mod.

Dual Daggers:
Why do these still exist. They´re completely crap. Everything about them suck. How many times have you seen someone use these seriously in say, a sortie or raid. Never. These things need a lot of fixing

Hammers:
This class suffers from TOO much love. I main these and Jesus H. Christ, these things are like the pinnacle of weapons. Nearly every single weapon here is a great weapon besides the standard Fragor and Magistar (even then these things are still decent to use.) Not only have you shown a hell of a lot of love to these things (you reworked them, and then on top of that, you give the Jat Kittag an augment to make it even more of a slaughter fest) but each one has been more powerful than the last! I fear for the other factions when the Kittag Wraith finally drops.

Heavy Blades:
Just like hammers. So much friggin' love. Literally, only TWO bad apples in the bunch. High damage coupled with the stances that cut down multiple foes at a time more than makes up for the lower DPS than the smaller counterparts. 

Polearms:
Let´s be honest here. These are all reskins of each other with slight adjustments to the base stats and occasional elements thrown in.

Claws:
All the cool looks of death with almost none of the killing potential. They´re okay, but they could be better.

Scythes:
These things need lots of love. The stances are great but....subpar DPS can´t really make the stances valid. The only DECENT Scythe is the Anku and even then you won´t be in sorties with it without some sort of frame build to help augment it.

Glaives:
I almost forgot these things exist. They do have a range advantage, but that´s about it. You´ll probably be chewed apart waiting for the thing to finally come back to you. They´re average everywhere else really.

Whips:
Arguably one of the worst classes in game. Seriously, you´ve ruined lots of Female Warframe players dream of becoming a kinky space dominatrix, whipping the Grineer into submission while in an all black Nyx constantly shouting ¨Tora! Tora! Tora!" as the cloned men and women fall at your feet. 
....Too much? Sorry, couldn´t help myself.

Tonfas:
Great....if you like vomiting from motion sickness because you spun more than Sonic The Hedgehog just to clear a room. I´m honestly okay with this though.

Nunchucks:
These things are...weird...to say the least. The range is so weird. I can see the hit numbers but it doesn´t feel like I´m actually hitting something. A class that needs work indeed.

Gunblades:
Fun to use but not exactly the best of classes. Another average class at best.

Bladewhip:
It´s a fun sort of class but it´s too early to judge it.

Rapier:
Same as above

This isn´t a nerf thread. Instead show some other classes love by giving them buffs and better weapons to compensate. They don´t have to be top crowd churners like the Galatine, Broken War, Jat Kittag and Nikana Prime.
Buff the other crappy ones and start releasing USEFUL primes for these classes. Each one of these weapon classes needs at least one top tier class in order to spread the balance of power. At least in my opinion.

Do you agree, disagree? What are you´re thoughts?

Also, please don´t come at me with the, X weapon is great with X build on a Warframe argument. I feel as though the weapon should be good on its own before the Warframe factors in. Building your frame just for one weapon makes the frame feel a lot more limited than it could be (at least to me it would be). These are just my thoughts. Probably stupid ones but eh, what do I care?



 

[(PSN)Elctrcstel]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)SuperShadic445 said:

Swords:
agree completely

Sword and Shields:
personally, i think the sword and shields are pretty cool. Ack& Brunt > Silva & Aigis but both are pretty decent

Dual Swords:
agree completely

Nikanas:
waiting for dual Nikana like Teshin had in WW Trailer

Fists:
if base damage was increased and addition in some other stats, i think they would be pretty decent

Sparring:
Same as fists only with knee guards.

Daggers:
i think that's how the daggers should be designed really. Rewards stealth play. maybe some stat increases, but other wise they're fine

Dual Daggers:
allow use of CL and then the same as above applies

Hammers:
agree

Heavy Blades:
agree

Polearms:
most of them are pretty decent late game. Orthos Prime Meta is real

Claws:
They´re okay, but they could be better.

Scythes:
These things need lots of love. 

Glaives:
I really wish these AWESOME weapons were better in terms damage

Whips:
I gotta disagree with you on this one. Atterax is a really good once you put the time into it

Tonfas:
Great. when the Kronen came out i was instantly drawn to it

Nunchucks:
haven't really played with them too much to have an opinion

Gunblades:
same as Nunchucks

Bladewhip:
It´s a fun sort of class but it´s too early to judge it.

Rapier:
Same as above

^see inside quote for my opinion on these^

[[DE]Taylor]

The feedback you present doesn't seem to be console-specific, so I've moved this to the Weapons Feedback subforum. Thanks!

[GinKenshin]

you do know scythes got buffed like 3 months ago right? imo all of their weapons (exclusing ether reaper) are now good 

some great weapons have good stances, some great stances have not-so-good weapons. and by good stance I mean a stance that has more than 2 combos and not hold you in a single place. that's the problem with melee for me 

but, these are just your opinions, so I don't really care :P 

[Cray]

The Atterax is an amazing whip. I've heard good things about the Lecta with a status build, but I haven't tried it for myself yet.

 

For Gunblades, the Redeemer's ranged attacks are great when combined with stealth/invisibility bonuses. Blade attacks are decent, and the ranged attacks' knockdown is good for emergency close-range CC. The Sarpa is subpar compared to the Redeemer though: The stealth/invisibility bonuses don't behave as expected, because you frequently lose said bonus after the first pellet, and the accuracy is, well, sh#t.

 

Beyond that, I'm basically in agreement.

Edited September 12, 2016 by DeltaPhantom

[AcceptYourDeath]

I don`t see much reason to add stronger weapons in lacking weapon categorys by now. Variety is somewhat exhausted with the current system as long they won`t tap into new aspects like channeling mods and channeling stats to add new flavour. Or solve status vs crit in a better way. 

It is there but ignored by players. So awesome Crit-Dual Daggers wouldn`t excite me very much.

I would prefer melee categorys serve a more pronounced purpose to use them as few of them are trying at the moment. Shields are great with absorbing damage on a block, something which doesn`t have much use at the end how Warframe plays out in reality.

Glaives have many mods to make them "glaivy" which in return is collapsing any sensible built even it they would have good stats. "Bounce stuff, flight speed stuff.....Pressure Pooo.....oh I have two slots left"

Any advantage in speed which you could tie to Dual Daggers for example is immediately overwritten by the current Berserker-Meta on heavy weapons.

 

etc. etc. etc.....

Make melee categorys distinguish themself in usage and features rather than always trying to catch up in a damge race!

 

[(PSN)joe03827]

Brah , sword n shields are OP , I can become a blender killing 120+ lvl enemies easily with the right build , They need some love tho 

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

A lot of our problems get fixed by better stances.  The consistent thing across all the weapons that you list as top tier (hammers, swords, heavy blades) is that they have GREAT stances.

 

[ItsJustAScratch]

You forgot the Machetes ... but those are so bad there is no wonder you forgot them :D

Also you didnt mention the Staffs, but I guess those are kinda polearm-ish

[mrecentric]

I disagree about whips and dual daggers. Whips have amazing range and do good aoe damage if properly equipped. Dual daggers are speedy death by a million tiny cuts.

Edited September 12, 2016 by mrecentric

[TotallyLagging]

2 hours ago, (PS4)SuperShadic445 said:

Sword and Shields:
Ack & Brunt is good. Silva & Aegis is an insult to its original creator. And worse is that they have promised to buff it only to do absolutely nothing.

Dual Swords:
Honestly Dual Swords share the same problem with polearms - they all feel the same and their stance are bland. It's just crit duals left and right. Slap Swirling Tiger because Crossing Snakes is terrible. Done.

Fists:
Agree. Fists are pretty garbage. Tekko's decent enough though.

Sparring:
Kogake/Obex are good my man. Oh, and they're really cheap to build for new players that want some easy dps. We just need more weapons for this category.

Daggers:
Did you know that Pointed Wind has 400% + 150% + 200% multiplier on its EEEE attack?

Did you know that Karyst with a generic Blood Rush + Body Count + Pointed Wind build deal one of the highest melee dps in the game? It's up there with monsters like heavy blades.

Granted, their range is still sh!t and you'd better off running another melee but still, give their damage some credit.

Dual Daggers:
Agree.

I hate how DE likes throwing 5% crit chance on these things. Oh, and 0.8 attack speed on the Fang Prime with, what, 30 base damage? That's just plain insulting. What a shame. The new stance is actually pretty good too for multihits.

Hammers:
Agree. Also Synoid Heliocor/Sancti Magistar was dumb. 2 syndicate hammers? Really?

Polearms:
Agree. All we need is another stance. Well, 2 stances, actually, for more variations. Bleeding Willow is just a straight upgrade from Shimmering Blight. Wouldn't mind if the stance were a bit more stab-ier too.

Claws:
Agree. 3 ultra-rare stances, so rare that some people legitimately have never heard that Four Riders or Vermillion Storm exists. Venka is terrible and Ripkas are wayyy top pricey for what it does.

Scythes:
Where have you been lad, scythes were buffed a long time ago. Hate, Reaper Prime and Anku are on the same level now. And I'd argue that the stance sucks. Reaping Spiral is... Reaping Spiral tier. Stalking Fan is clunky to use due to the short pause after the first swing.

Glaives:
New charge attack ruined this weapon category.

They used to be so good ;-;

Whips:
lolno

Atterax is straight up one of the best melees in the game. Maiming Strike is your god. Lecta is also a perfectly viable status option.

Tonfas:
Range is way too short for my taste. I mean come on, I'm using a dinosaur ribcage and I have to jam my fist on people's face to actually hit them?

Damage potential with Maiming Strike is pretty good though.

Nunchucks:
Ninkondi is a decent status weapon and fairly cheap to make. Shaku is complete garbage. Overall an ok weapon, would definitely like a crit one.

Gunblades:
Literally the best gun(s) in the game if you can force blind/stealth multipliers.
 
Bladewhip:
Mios is really good. Lacera is also pretty good.

Rapier:
Guaranteed bleed proc on every first hit of the EEEE combo makes this weapon great against armored targets. Also range is surprisingly good for a rapier. 

 

[Epsik-kun]

3 hours ago, (PS4)SuperShadic445 said:

Swords:
The most abundant weapon type, so it has its pros. and cons. Not to mention the abundance of stances.

Swords are an absolutely non-viable weapon category in the current game. The apex of the whole category - Broken War - not only makes every single other long sword in the game redundant, it fails to fit the "sword only" play style itself, due to its horrible crit and status stats.

Not to mention, long swords only have one stance - Crimson Dervish. Iron Phoenix is complete garbage and so is Vengeful Revenant. The latter could've seen some use, if we had at least one viable status long sword, but we don't.

 

 

To be honest, the OP misses the point a lot.

Whips have one of two best melee weapons for the 95% of the game's content. Tonfas are terrible for spin builds. Dual Swords aren't "balanced" - they are absurdly strong against the high level content. Counting out armor stripping - they might be even the strongest. Hammers are "meh" at best. Even with highly inflated stats, they use slow and weak stances.

 

7 minutes ago, TotallyLagging said:

Did you know that Karyst with a generic Blood Rush + Body Count + Pointed Wind build deal one of the highest melee dps in the game? It's up there with monsters like heavy blades.

It isn't. Calculations you are misinterpreting assume you would have constant Arcane Avenger on you, which you won't, because when you'll need Blood Rush damage, you can't allow yourself to be hit.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Epsik-kun

[Racter]

The irony of your whip and polearm comments when the two top melee weapons right now are a whip and a polearm lol. The guy talking about the Karyst is also forgetting that's only single target, and it would need to reliably do millions to a single target to keep up with other weapon classes. That's the other main problem with daggers in this game, without something like Flicker Strike they will always be bad outside of niche/cheesy uses like Covert Lethality because this is a hoard game. Killing 1 mob at a time is irrelevant. Other weapons suffer the same issues, Rapiers, for example. The Destraza does great single target, but you need to kill 1000s, 1 at a time does not work. Fists, sparring, both single and dual daggers, claws, etc all have this issue.

 

I do agree it was odd to see two syndicate hammers, I would have much preferred they spread the love around categorically.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Racter0325

[Basqui]

I would love to see a new claw weapon that's end game viable. 
inb4 every weapon is end game viable as long as you feed it enough potatoes. No, not all of them. seriously. XD

[(PSN)DBR87]

Atterax and Orthos Prime are two of the best melee weapons in the game. what are you talking about?

[Slaviar]

On 12.09.2016 at 8:17 PM, Epsik-kun said:

Swords are an absolutely non-viable weapon category in the current game. The apex of the whole category - Broken War - not only makes every single other long sword in the game redundant, it fails to fit the "sword only" play style itself, due to its horrible crit and status stats.

Not to mention, long swords only have one stance - Crimson Dervish. Iron Phoenix is complete garbage and so is Vengeful Revenant. The latter could've seen some use, if we had at least one viable status long sword, but we don't.

Actually, Broken War isn't best sword. Too weak crit stats. And Vengeful Revenant makes up for lower damage multipliers with better speed.

Swords are waaaay behind top melees but are definitely viable

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

I'm gonna post about what I know and have tested. Whips lack in damage, but make up for it in range. Atterax is great, I think Scoliac is bad, and Lecta is OK. (Secura Lecta coming soon.) Fists seems good. I love Furax Wraith, and have heard great things about Tekko. Sparring weapons only have 2 weapons, and I know one is amazing, which is Kogake. I don't think thrown melee weapons can really be judged right now. Most seem good on paper, but have always glitched into walls when I used them, and I never figured out how to do the channeled explosion thing. That may have also been bugged. If those have been fixed, I'll test them, but they may not be working as intended. For gunblades, the Redeemer is excellent, and I've not gotten my hands o  Sarpa, but Sarpa is quite new, so upcoming changes should be expected, if needed. Polearms are amazing. All of the ones I tried, especially Serro and Orthos Prime, have been good. Whipblades, Lacera is amazing, and I've heard good things about Mios. Claws are amazing, at least Ripkas is, as a pretty direct upgrade to Venka. I wish Venka had more reason to use, but claws are good. As long as you can get ground finishers, you shouldn't be disappointed with the damage. (I really wanted a Rakta Venka.) We all know about the power of dual swords. That's all I really have experience with.

[TaylorsContraction]

Keep in mind some weapon categories have been around longer than others.

Gunblades are pretty good imo, I take my redeemer to sorties and it does great.

The ultimate issue is heavy blades have a huge aoe range, with whips and maybe staves having longer. Their damage is insane, speed a non factor thanks to berserker, and they have a ton of cc with tempo royale. You really don't need anything else with that kind of weapon. They need to rethink melee weapon attack speed mods because that's the main distinction between heavy and light weapons, but as long as it can be ignored people will prefer the obvious choice.

[Larred]

On 9/12/2016 at 0:11 PM, (PS4)Agent_CHAR said:

A lot of our problems get fixed by better stances.  The consistent thing across all the weapons that you list as top tier (hammers, swords, heavy blades) is that they have GREAT stances.

 

this is the number one issue stances for heavy blades and hammers is they have AMAZING stances while dual swords (bleh)  then some categories only have one stance 

[Insizer]

[zehne]

4 hours ago, Slaviar said:

Actually, Broken War isn't best sword. Too weak crit stats.

 

Crimson Dervish is the best sword...

Everytime I simulacrum G prime vs broken-war, broken war goes 1:1 with it.  Typically I prefer broken-war if only for the fact that it has faster attack speeds in crimson dervish than G prime has in tempo royale.  That faster attack speed lets me cancel combo's and move more freely.

EDIT: also crimson dervish has a built in finisher into the combo's that is incredibly fast.  This pretty much beats all other weapons in the 'burst' damage department (especially if you time your combo's so that you hit the heavy unit in enemy groups with it).

Edited September 15, 2016 by zehne

[TheVeiledScion]

I think that there are too many classes of weapons, stances are just animations without real meaning, and melee mechanics are too basic to take advantage of both classes and stances. I think they need to simplify and revisit classes and stances:

1) These are the classes they should have:

Swords

Dual Weapons

Daggers

Heavy Swords/Hammers

Sword/Shield

Polearms

Scythes/Axes

Throwing Weapons

Melee (fist, claw, etc.)

Whips

Blade/Whips

Nun-chuck

Gunblades

2) Since one of the stances for each class is categorically better than the other, they should nix half the stances and group them together.

3) They should work on actually introducing swordplay mechanics (actual parrying/counterattacking) so that stances can actually determine how you fight.

[Epsik-kun]

11 hours ago, Slaviar said:

Broken War isn't best sword

It is.

11 hours ago, Slaviar said:

Vengeful Revenant makes up for lower damage multipliers with better speed

It doesn't.

[Slaviar]

9 hours ago, Epsik-kun said:

It is.

It isn't.

9 hours ago, Epsik-kun said:

It doesn't.

It does.

Now, I can do it all day but I guess neither of us wants warning point for spamming

Edited September 16, 2016 by Slaviar

[Epsik-kun]

1 hour ago, Slaviar said:

I can

You can, but that won't make you correct. Broken War is factually the strongest long sword in the game. If you think that Prisma Skana can outperform it due to slightly better crit stats - you are wrong. The difference won't compensate for almost x3 base damage difference. If you think that Bright Purity can do that - you are wrong yet again, as it is a bad mod for damage purposes most of the time, and all of the time for a Blood Rush build.

I have to admit, I was wrong about dps of Vengeful Revenant, as on one of its combos indeed has roughly the same dps as Crimson Dervish. However the combo itself is essentially solo-target with close to zero reach, which makes it vastly inferior to the Dervish. I'd already said it "could've seen some use, if we had at least one viable status long sword, but we don't".