Melee Weapon Tier List

[Dipstick]

OK so after playing a ton i would have to say that the dual heat swords and the orthos are boss sauce, with a bunch of other weapons being perfectly fine killing machines, usually good or great at one type of damage, for example; the plasma sword with charge speed, charge damage, crit damage, and ofc ap and fire damage.

 

I was waiting for the live stream and this round of patches to see if they were going to make any changes. Since it seems like they are soon, I see no point on making a list that is only going to change in the future. melee weapons suck compared to guns and powers anyway lol

[Azure98]

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.

Example of Aiming the SKANA Prime's Vertical charge hit(enemy was not leaping either)

My personal preference for all around weapon would be HATE though.

+High base damage

+High Charge Damage

+Fast Swing Speeds

+Charge attack can hit twice

+Triple damage against Small Infested

+Double Damage against ALL Corrupted(Tower) Enemies

+AoE Attacks

+100% Stagger against some enemies

Hell some of the stuff I have noticed about this weapon isnt even on the Wiki.

and dont even get me started on FRAGOR...

and IMO Orthos is very Over Rated

[semigod22]

always have to laugh at people who only play weapons that seems to be stronger.. typical CoD/mmorpg kids.

 

if u dont do wave 100+ ALL (yes i said all) weapons will do there job (ok maybe except ignis) its only a MOD and forma thing. nothing more.

 

so i play what i like to play.. and not cause it does 10 more dmg per bullet or something.

 

same for the snipetron whiners "oh lord only 4 shots,oh ma gawd long reload speed" guesssssssss what.. its a freakin sniper. and i used snipetron alot cause i think i know how to use it. and so i never had problems with the 4 shot clip or reload speed

 

at games like mmorpgs on a hardcore guild.. i actually understand this "need best weapon ingame to be good" mentality but not in coop games like this...

 

just my 2 cents. to crap like Tier lists..    even tho i might be the only one who is thinkin like that

[Mhak]

That is an awesome shot. Makes me want to bust out my Ether longsword for some badass headshots...but I'm having way too much fun ground-and-pounding with my Kogake   :p

 

Kogake could be near the top tier purely because of its CC potential. It can both ragdoll and knockdown enemies, two different forms of CC, and with a stun mod and Fury can perma-stun with regular attacks. Combined with really good damage from jump attacking and then ground-and-pounding knocked down enemies, I'd say the only reason it won't be top tier is because it lacks decent AoE potential. But for single target heavies, there's no other melee weapon I'd rather use.

[winterau]

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.

 

Orthos is the fastest heavy weapon that still does 200 charge damage, it also can hit up to 5 enemies with its charge attack while all other weapons are limited to 3 or 1.

 

Knockdown on the jump attack which is good, but it is hardly a necessity. You don't want to spend any time close to an Infested Ancient and you can't knock down bosses so it is only of situational use.

 

Gram has the 200 charge damage, is only a bit slower than the Orthos and has a knockdown on jump attack, so I would put Orthos and Gram at the top of the heavy weapon list.

 

Scindo, Fragor and Hate are at the next level because they are all so damned slow (with Hate being the slowest). 

 

After that, they are mostly trash (Amphis, Reaper Prime).

[__Kanade__]

Against Infested, Scindo's charged attack beats all, after comparing my mod setups with both weapons, my Scindo kills lvl50+ ancients in 2 charged attack ( one shot if it lands a crit ) vs the Orthos some 5-6 charged attacks ( depending on crit ), and Scindo hits alittle harder on regular attacks than the Orthos can, so my preferred weapon against Infested is the Scindo. But again, this with my own builds.

Edited July 8, 2013 by __Kanade__

[winterau]

Against Infested, Scindo's charged attack beats all, after comparing my mod setups with both weapons, my Scindo kills lvl50+ ancients in 2 charged attack ( one shot if it lands a crit ) vs the Orthos some 5-6 charged attacks ( depending on crit ), and Scindo hits alittle harder on regular attacks than the Orthos can, so my preferred weapon against Infested is the Scindo. But again, this with my own builds.

 

I'm sorry, but regarding the charge damage, this is simply incorrect. Both the Scindo and the Orthos have the exact same charge damage so with the same mods they will do the exact same damage. Orthos will however do it faster than the Scindo (making it generally better).

 

For normal attack, yes, Scindo has 5 extra normal attack damage. 

[__Kanade__]

I'm sorry, but regarding the charge damage, this is simply incorrect. Both the Scindo and the Orthos have the exact same charge damage so with the same mods they will do the exact same damage. Orthos will however do it faster than the Scindo (making it generally better).

 

For normal attack, yes, Scindo has 5 extra normal attack damage. 

Scindo's charge is much stronger than Orthos regardless of what their stats say, I've used the Scindo ever since it was released, and the Orthos since it was released. I used them both exclusively against Infested on Xini, and waves 10+, the Orthos just can't keep up with the Scindo's charge power, but Orthos charge can hit more than 2 enemies which means more stagger against largers hordes of enemies. And with Ash's Smoke Screen, the Scindo cuts those lvl50+ ancients in one hit while the Orthos still takes 3-4 even on the crit.

[Mhak]

Scindo, Fragor and Hate are at the next level because they are all so damned slow (with Hate being the slowest). 

 

After that, they are mostly trash (Amphis, Reaper Prime).

Hate is actually one of the fastest heavy weapons because the recovery animation is faster than most, making it swing faster than other 1.0 speed heavy weapons. Noticeably faster than Scindo and Fragor for sure. Since charge attacks are affected by both regular attack speed and a recovery animation speed, Hate also has one of the faster charge attacks, although not as fast as Orthos or Gram.

 

I dusted off my old Orthos and took it on a few runs. My opinion of it went up, spamming quick charge attacks is pretty fun, especially on my Ash while stealthed. Would still take Fragor or Hate over it for high level endless defense; you discount the knockdown but with a reach mod and cold mod the ability easily CC so many enemies followed by charge attacks while they're slowly getting up is too good to pass up.