Melee Weapon Tier List

[Dipstick]

I think that this could be a handy list to have. I just wanted to throw this up to get some opinions on the lot of melee weapons before I actually construct a list. I have all of them except the jaw sword. I come back and edit this post later.

 

First thought; I actually think that the ether daggers are some of the better weapons in the game. They are incredible against light infected, have great base damage and hold there own against the other factions as well.

 

Post thoughts below :)

[xxx7]

Orthos is the best heavy melee weapon (besides looking way cool when swinging) while dual Ether swords - not daggers in my opinion - are the best light melee weapons. If I had to chose one I would go for the dual Ether. Not only is their charged attack great, but they're not too bad with the regular swing (Orthos is a bit "meh" when it comes to regular swings).

[CheeseHasLeafs]

Hate! muahaha Hate... I'm probably biased. By all accounts the Orthos is better, but I never got used to them. 
Single sword would be the Dark Sword.
Dual Swords would be dual Ether or dual Heats.

Heavy would be Hate for me.

Single Dagger would be the Dark Dagger.

Dual daggers would be... I have no opinion. Only ever used the Fang.

What did I miss?

[Tatersail]

no mastery rank entry level - Duel heat swords - highest base charge for a light.

 

 

Charge attacks - Orthis - fastest charge, 200 aoe armor ignore damage base, huge range, lacks knockdown

 

Auto attack - Fragor with Brok hammer skin - 50 aoe armor ignore damage base, passive aoe effect, biggest AOE knockdown, Stagger immune when swinging.

 

Stagger - Hate - staggers ancients, has a knockdown, shorter range, no armor ignore, no stagger immune.

 

Crit fun - Duel Zoran, stupidly fast, staggers, crits alot, poor damage.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Tatersail

[Kickboxing_Banana]

Hate! muahaha Hate... I'm probably biased. By all accounts the Orthos is better, but I never got used to them. 

Single sword would be the Dark Sword.

Dual Swords would be dual Ether or dual Heats.

Heavy would be Hate for me.

Single Dagger would be the Dark Dagger.

Dual daggers would be... I have no opinion. Only ever used the Fang.

What did I miss?

 

Prova beats Dark Sword against all factions except Infested.

[Phoenix86]

A tier list... ok i'll make one:

 

Best: Gram - Scindo - Hate - Orthos - Dual Zoren

 

Awesome: Dual Ether - Furax - Kogake - Fragor - Dual Heat Swords - Prova

 

Medriocre/Situational: Reaper Prime - Kestrel - Fang - Plasma Sword - Amphis - Dark Sword - Ether Dagger

 

Bad: The rest. (actually they are not that bad but they just cant compete with weapons mentioned above)

 

Sidenote: Dual Ether and Kogake could become best as soon as normal attacks get buffed

Edited July 1, 2013 by Phoenix86

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Hmm...  Well, let's see..  I haven't used all of them by any means, so I'll have to base it on what others have said for some...

 

Tier 1: Orthos, Dual Zoren, Fragor

Tier 2: Dual Ether*, Scindo, Gram, Hate, Furax

Tier 3: Dual Heat Swords*, Kogake*, Plasma Sword, Amphis, Fang

Tier 4: Reaper Prime, Kestrel, Ether Dagger, Dark Sword*, Prova

Tier 5: Mire*, Glaive, Ether Daggers

Tier 6: All else

Tier 7: Skana

 

Tier 1: best in class, these weapons are stupendous for what they do.  Notably, all do AoE damage.

Tier 2: fantastic weapons, these are going to be a great addition to any arsenal

Tier 3: good weapons that can be used to great effect

Tier 4: weapons that are often quite decent but outshone heavily by others

Tier 5: weapons that are only mediocre

Tier 6: weapons that one should really not bother buying unless trying to gain mastery

Tier 7: junk

 

* I expect these weapons to move up the most when standard melee is buffed. 

Edited July 1, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Kickboxing_Banana]

Hmm...  Well, let's see..  I haven't used all of them by any means, so I'll have to base it on what others have said for some...

 

Tier 1: Orthos, Dual Zoren, Fragor

Tier 2: Dual Ether*, Scindo, Gram, Hate, Furax

Tier 3: Dual Heat Swords*, Kogake*, Plasma Sword, Amphis, Fang

Tier 4: Reaper Prime, Kestrel, Ether Dagger, Dark Sword*

Tier 5: Mire*, Glaive, Ether Daggers

Tier 6: All else

Tier 7: Prova, Skana

 

Tier 1: best in class, these weapons are stupendous for what they do.  Notably, all do AoE damage.

Tier 2: fantastic weapons, these are going to be a great addition to any arsenal

Tier 3: good weapons that can be used to great effect

Tier 4: weapons that are often quite decent but outshone heavily by others

Tier 5: weapons that are only mediocre

Tier 6: weapons that one should really not bother buying unless trying to gain mastery

Tier 7: junk

 

* I expect these weapons to move up the most when standard melee is buffed. 

 

Prova is junk? Are you high?

[Phoenix86]

A tier list... ok i'll make one:

 

Best: Gram - Scindo - Hate - Orthos - Dual Zoren

 

Awesome: Dual Ether - Furax - Kogake - Fragor - Dual Heat Swords - Prova

 

Medriocre/Situational: Reaper Prime - Kestrel - Fang - Plasma Sword - Amphis - Dark Sword - Ether Dagger

 

Bad: The rest. (actually they are not that bad but they just cant compete with weapons mentioned above)

 

Sidenote: Dual Ether and Kogake could become best as soon as normal attacks get buffed

 

I self quote myself to put in some explainations:

 

Best tier:

 

These weapons share the same 200 armor ignore dmg cap (except Zoren that makes 55, but considering the 25% crit chance for 200% dmg and that they make MORE THAN 2 charge attacks/second, they deserve the best tier for sure).

Beside pure dmg these weapons are also multi-target, are hard to interrupt because of their speed & range and they wont gimp our mobility too much (once again Zoren are great at this, best mobility tool ever)

Every single one of them take the edge for a single aspect but, in the end, they can be considered equal.

 

Awesome tier:

 

These weapons have great DPS, but they always lack something...

Let it be multi-target, range, armor ignore, momentum, staggering... they miss something so they fall behind.

 

Mediocre/situational tier:

 

These weapons are almost equal to the "awesome tier" but they further miss more features or either are specialized against only 1 faction

(Fang vs Grineer for example)

 

Bad tier:

 

Nothing much to say... all these weapons can be fun, good looking or whatever you want but when it comes down to Damage and Crowd Control they are lacking, nothing more nothing less.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Prova is junk? Are you high?

It's incredibly situational, being complete junk unless against Corpus.

[Kickboxing_Banana]

It's incredibly situational, being complete junk unless against Corpus.

 

No, just no. Electrical damage is better than ''normal'' melee damage even against Grineer. Check the damage resistances of Grineer from WF wiki. I currently use Prova, I have Charge damage of 600+ against Ancients with only AP and 150% charge damage mod. Not to mention that the 1-second charge time is pretty damn good. You mister, are terribly wrong.

Edited July 1, 2013 by GalliumGD

[Kickboxing_Banana]

lol you need to check the wiki again then. Electrical damage is worse against Grineer. Here's the link: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Enemy_Vulnerabilities

The only time it's better is when against medium body shots. Admittedly, those are pretty frequent, but you ought to be aiming for their head anyways.

Why would I aim for the head when I can kill them with one hit to the body? Aiming to the head with melee weapons is just waste of time.

Edited July 1, 2013 by GalliumGD

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Why would I aim for the head when I can kill them with one hit to the body? Aiming to the head with melee weapons is just waste of time.

Sorry, the aiming for the head comment was in general, not specific to melee.

 

I guess it wouldn't be so bad then.  I've never personally used it (as per the disclaimer at the top of my post).  I'll update my previous post the.

[Kickboxing_Banana]

Sorry, the aiming for the head comment was in general, not specific to melee.

 

I guess it wouldn't be so bad then.  I've never personally used it (as per the disclaimer at the top of my post).  I'll update my previous post the.

 

It's totally worth testing out. The only two major downsides that I can currently think are that it can only target one enemy at a time, and it lacks the 3x damage against light infested. The pros are that it is extremely powerful against Corpus, and it has the highest charge DPS against single enemy.

Edited July 1, 2013 by GalliumGD

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Lol well when I get up the desire to go farm for more control modules from Hyena, I'll look into this :P  So many for what I've already got: Ignis, Dera, Supra, Ogris, Acrid..  That's what, 19 of them?

Edited July 1, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Kickboxing_Banana]

Lol well when I get up the desire to go farm for more control modules from Hyena, I'll look into this :P  So many for what I've already got: Ignis, Dera, Supra, Ogris, Acrid..  That's what, 19 of them?

 

Impressive :o

Prova only requires one Fieldron, so that isn't too much farming.

[Thaumatos]

You can't "aim" your melee weapons like guns. If the target's head is in the swing path, it will be a headshot. Outside of timing specific animations or getting up on higher ground, you have no control over melee headshots.

[Rompido]

only 2 you need at this point in time

 

 

 

 Dual Zoren

 Fragor

 

 

Dual Zoren = speed clearing missions. sprint + jump + slide + melee =  WEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee accross the map.

 

Fragor = for aoe CC

 

you want to deal damage? get a ranged weapon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Really at this point, If I'm going for mastery (which I am, because why not go ahead and hit mastery 8? :P), I go with whatever weapon I'm ranking up.  If I'm going just for fun though, I'll probably use Orthos or Fragor depending on faction.  If speed-running, of course I use Zoren.  The best term I've heard for that bug was "roflcoptering."

[Mhak]

Orthos is the best heavy melee weapon (besides looking way cool when swinging) while dual Ether swords - not daggers in my opinion - are the best light melee weapons. If I had to chose one I would go for the dual Ether. Not only is their charged attack great, but they're not too bad with the regular swing (Orthos is a bit "meh" when it comes to regular swings).

I'm not sure what logic you're using to say Orthos is the best heavy weapon. It's only real advantage is it's larger-than-normal hit radius, but in exchange for that is doesn't have a knockdown on its jump attack. A KD jump attack is very powerful CC that most other heavy weapons have that the Orthos doesn't. It also doesn't crit more often or do more charge attacks than weapons like Gram or Hate.

 

I would put Orthos a tier below Hate, Gram, Fragor, and Scindo. The only reason to take it is for the slightly-better melee AoE, but against high level enemies not being able to knock them down and then charge attack makes it much less effective against heavies and strong single targets than other heavy weapons.

[ZWarhammer]

Top tier ? Hate, Orthos, Fragor, Scindo, dual ether, dual zoren.

 

Hate is on of the best heavy hitters in game, personally for me it's the best because of the knockdown on slam attack.

 

Orthos would probably be the best if it had the knockdown on slam attack but since it's not 100% mandatory in PVE i would say it's probably the best for pve.

rest is old and tested stuff nothing new there.

[Kickboxing_Banana]

You can't "aim" your melee weapons like guns. If the target's head is in the swing path, it will be a headshot. Outside of timing specific animations or getting up on higher ground, you have no control over melee headshots.

 

It depends on what weapon you're using. Some weapons' swing diagonally, not horizontally nor vertically. For example, if your melee weapon swings from top-left to bottom-right, you can increase your change of hitting  the head of the enemy by moving your crosshair a little bit to the right from the enemy. As a result, you will hit your enemy little bit higher, and probably score a headshot.

[Dasmir]

It depends on what weapon you're using. Some weapons' swing diagonally, not horizontally nor vertically. For example, if your melee weapon swings from top-left to bottom-right, you can increase your change of hitting  the head of the enemy by moving your crosshair a little bit to the right from the enemy. As a result, you will hit your enemy little bit higher, and probably score a headshot.

 

Too complicated for something easy to kill if people wants a melee with a controled way to get headshots theres the glaive and kestrel

[Phoenix86]

Top tier ? Hate, Orthos, Fragor, Scindo, dual ether, dual zoren.

 

Hate is on of the best heavy hitters in game, personally for me it's the best because of the knockdown on slam attack.

 

Orthos would probably be the best if it had the knockdown on slam attack but since it's not 100% mandatory in PVE i would say it's probably the best for pve.

rest is old and tested stuff nothing new there.

 

Did you know that gram has the same slam attack but swings 20% faster and has more reach, making it way more powerful than hate?

[Tulzscha]

Top tier:

 

Gram - wide swing arc, good normal attack damage, awesome charge attack damage, fast swing speed, wide AoE knockdown on jump attack, long reach... it simply has it all

 

Hate

Orthos

Dual Ether

 

These are the ones that jump out as being a cut above the rest (excuse the terrible pun).