Melee for beginner-to-intermediate?

[Rieaz]

 

Hi guys,
I need help with melee.
Doing great and having fun with primary and secondaries, but for melee... meh...
Different from primary and secondary, I struggle to raise damage or having good gameplay or even understanding what is the purpose of melee (other than backup if you out of all ammunition).

I'm at MR7. Can solo enemies lvl 20, but struggle to lvl 30 (Not failed, just struggle).

My current melees (please disregard MK1-Bo. I use it for the sake of MR):

Spoiler

My current melee blueprint:

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What should I get? What should I sell?
What mod should I install (at current condition)?

Edited June 17, 2017 by Rieaz

[SenorClipClop]

I really loved the Dual Zorens around MR7, easy to mod for crit and very reliable for mostly everything until high Armor becomes an issue. Dual Razas are great too (especially if you have Berserker). 

[NinthAria]

The Tekko is a pretty amazing crit weapon; if you have the materials (and it looks like you do, minus the Ankyros which are relatively easy to make), I'd give it a shot and see if you like it. If you have some decent melee mods and a stance for it, it's a lot of fun. Also it does predominantly slash damage, which means you can literally punch people in half.

I also found the Obex to be a cheap, effective early weapon. Good attack speed, good crit/status, an excellent jump slam attack, and all the materials are available pretty early on. Only real problem is finding a stance for it.

[bowiespoon]

Well, I LOVE the reaper prime (which isn't the best weapon in the game, but still a solid choice). The only problem is that you can't really get the parts anymore, unless you're willing to brave trade chat.

[redeyedtreefrog]

my recommendation is to get lesion. It's a bit of a grind; making it requires tipedo, which in turn requires the normal versions (not mk-1) of kunai and bo. However, it makes a very powerful status weapon, with fairly fast attacks. The lesion also benefits from a passive that temporarily increases its attack speed whenever it procs status (something that will happen very often on lesion). It boasts fairly good damage, and again, high status chance, with slash as the primary damage type (this is good because on status weapons, slash is considered the best physical damage, because slash procs deal a DoT which bypasses both shields and armor). 

As for modding help; melees are one of the most expensive weapons to mod for. For me, life strike is pretty much a must on all of my weapons, but you may not have that mod. An alternative (especially on lesion) is healing return, but again, a relatively rare mod, and it's a 10-rank mod, so there's a fairly high endo cost attached as well. I also consider either body count or drifting contact to be an important mod (this increases the combo duration allowing you to easily stack up a high combo multiplier). body count is an event-specific mod, so without trading getting that could take you a long time. Drifting contact is a mod from nightmare missions if I recall correctly. More reliable to get, but still possibly difficult for a beginner. If you're looking for trades, pretty sure drifting contact is a cheap mod.

Anyways, on to the mods you're more likely to have. the dual status chance/elemental damage mods are a must on the weapon; these are gained from various sources. I believe the electric one is event/baro only, but may also drop from spies. The toxin one (the most important) is a drop from corrupted vor; he spawns in high-level orokin tower missions. It was also a drop from the razorback event just a month or so ago, so you could probably find someone giving it away(or close enough to that). As for the cold and heat ones; I'm not sure where those drop.

I'd recommend modding a lesion (or any status melee, really) for gas damage versus corpus, or corrosive damage versus grineer. I'd probably use gas damage versus infested, too, but I don't think that's the "best" element versus infested.

Of course, you should have a pressure point mod, and you should put it on any/every melee weapon you have. After that, I usually use attack speed or reach.

 

Oh. And don't sell your dual skana. It's a crafting component for the dark split-sword (which isn't particularly good. or so I hear, but hey, it's mastery.)

[flameblastguardian]

Make sure you get the mod life strike and rage. You gonna feel like you are invincible around level 30. 

[elitetrollz]

lesion. slash status. op. can cheese lvl 150+ while invisible. still decent in lvl 30-40

[(PSN)Onder6099]

Heat Dagger + Pointed Wind stance (decent Dmg boost) + Covert Lethality (High Tier Spy missions reward)

Jaw Sword + Crimson Dervish + Blade of Thruth (AoH Syndicate mod,  +100% Dmg, Healing and 1000 Gas Dmg

Heat sword, Plasma sword + Iron Phoenix (gives u 100% Status Chance on their Elemental Dmg)

All these + Taxon Sentinel Cold Proc works well with Healing Return as @redeyedtreefrogrecommended. 

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by (PS4)Onder6099

[polarity]

Don't underestimate the Dual Zoren.  With good mods and a crit build it can go a long way.  I just tried Void: Aten, which is a 40-45 mission, and this build had no trouble tearing through crowds, other than having to slide or slam gunners and bombards to avoid knockdowns.

Don't forget, the combo counter is built up from consecutive hits, so a fast weapon like the Dual Zoren can very quickly get a huge benefit from Blood Rush and either Body Count or Drifting Contact.  It isn't hard to get to a 3x combo multiplier, which results in 238% crit chance.  Guaranteed red crits on every hit.

Edited June 17, 2017 by polarity

[AlphaPHENIX]

I would have said Nikana but well you are gona need a clan for that. Was gona say the Mios too but again, clan is needed.

Personally I really liked the Kronen when I started out (and still do), it's a nice weapon both for style and damage. Used to be second best in slide attack and base damage, but then Dual Kamas Prime happened and now it's third, it's still good though.

[(PSN)TONI__RIBEIRO]

Go with the galatine easy to make great damage see if you like it. 

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Melee, got the highes damage in the game on the correct circumstances. Not all too recent mods and builds made them weapons with the highest Red Crit and Status chance when your combo rating winds up.

 

Weapons require but a basic crit and ideally status chance. Works best with slash focused weapons (Nikana prime or Varriants, Atterax, Galatine (prime), Prisma Dual Cleavers (!!) ) what effectively disables the games scaling over the extra status damage, which scales very well with crit (red crit) and Stealth (8x multiplier, use appropiate frames or naramon focus) bypassing enemys armor and shields.

 

Required/Complimenting mods are:

Body Count (trading, unavaiable at the moment)

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Body_Count

or Drifting Contact* (Nightmare and Alerts. Better choice)

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Drifting_Contact

Blood Rush* (Orokin moon Spy reward)

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Blood_Rush

Weeping Wounds for the Extra status (Trading, unavaiable at the moment)

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Blood_Rush

Maiming Strike (Trading, Unavaiable at the moment. Was VERY expensive the last time i checked. You might wanna skip that one.)

 

Getting Driftig Contact and Blood rush and combining it with Viral Elements gives you similar results for now untill the Stalker Accolytes emerge again.

 

Happy farming and enjoy :)

Edited June 17, 2017 by (PS4)CoolD2108