Can't figure out what frame I want to play.

[Kyriss]

What I already have: Ash Prime, Atlas, Banshee, Harrow, Ivara, Loki Prime, Mesa, Nova, Oberon Prime, Rhino Prime and Saryn prime.

What i'm looking for: I'd really like to play a frame that can do well in melee and is ability heavy. Something that can go solo or in groups and has a very active playstyle. I thought about Nidus but from what I hear, he's really only for very long games. None of the frames I've listed have really tickled my fancy. If it's not ability heavy, I'd like it to allow me to use my melee abilities better and augment my damage. I'll be building with a Hirudo in mind.

[Hecro]

I do like Volt as I focus on melee

[(PSN)jFresh215]

Melee+Ability heavy= Excalibur 

There's also Inaros and Wukong, neither is really power heavy but both can be near immortal and face tank a ton of damage while running melee. 

Then you have chroma who is pretty power reliant, and can be made to be a good melee frame.

Edited August 10, 2017 by (PS4)jFresh215

[babywrath]

Excalibur needs to constantly worry about blinding enemies. Should not use hirudo though.

Wukong invulnerability requires focus to not die.

Valkyr pure adrenaline to ensure no bubble boy sneaks up on you and to ensure nobody is around you when you run out of energy. As melee intensive as it gets. 

Volt for control/melee/commando style gameplay.

Ice Chroma for insane dps buff and armor. Pretty good for melee.

Inaros perfect with hirudo. Spam 1 to win. 

Nekros very nice tank/distraction. +resources, +control, Needs slash weapons though. 

Nehza - rhino and volts baby. has control, armor, speed, heals, 

Lol hydroid got an armor buff so you can go with that. 

Edited August 10, 2017 by babywrath
Hydroid rework is up and it is amazingly the same really.

[Wrum]

nidus, valkyr, rhino, chroma.

[RunningFox]

Two frames that I always enjoy going Sword Alone with are Saryn/Prime and Valkyr/Prime. Both are rather focused on using abilities, and are very active. Valkyr is a great with either a Warcry or Hysteria build. If you have Eternal War, you almost never have to worry about re-upping the it given the right build. Even if you don't build her for Hysteria, it's a great "panic button" ability for when you need to get of a situation. You said you wanted to use Hirudo, so a Hysteria build probably isn't what you had in mind.

Saryn is a lot of fun with Spores and Toxic Lash, you can get some really good damage ticking off on every enemy in a large range. Overall, I'd say these are two of the more egnaging/active frames for melee that I can think of.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

1 hour ago, Kyriss said:

What I already have: Ash Prime, Atlas, Banshee, Harrow, Ivara, Loki Prime, Mesa, Nova, Oberon Prime, Rhino Prime and Saryn prime.

What i'm looking for: I'd really like to play a frame that can do well in melee and is ability heavy. Something that can go solo or in groups and has a very active playstyle. I thought about Nidus but from what I hear, he's really only for very long games. None of the frames I've listed have really tickled my fancy. If it's not ability heavy, I'd like it to allow me to use my melee abilities better and augment my damage. I'll be building with a Hirudo in mind.

Volt Prime.

[DatDarkOne]

2 hours ago, Kyriss said:

What I already have: Ash Prime, Atlas, Banshee, Harrow, Ivara, Loki Prime, Mesa, Nova, Oberon Prime, Rhino Prime and Saryn prime.

What i'm looking for: I'd really like to play a frame that can do well in melee and is ability heavy. Something that can go solo or in groups and has a very active playstyle. I thought about Nidus but from what I hear, he's really only for very long games. None of the frames I've listed have really tickled my fancy. If it's not ability heavy, I'd like it to allow me to use my melee abilities better and augment my damage. I'll be building with a Hirudo in mind.

Out of the frames you listed, I do all of that with Ivara.  Sleep Arrow for CC and a healing melee (Healing Return my healing mod of choice) or Hirudo.  Prowl for the extra damage while melee'ing.  

Other frames that can fit that playstyle much better are Ash, Saryn, Rhino, Savage Silence Banshee, and Valkyr in all her builds.  Oh yeah and Volt.  

Honestly IMO if you can pull it off with Ivara and Banshee, then it should be cake walk with the others.  You might like Valkyr since you already tried the others.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

Volt Prime.

So let me expand a bit.

Volt's 1 is a shock-stunlock that is a one-handed action-meaning you can "stealth" reload weapons as you cast.

2.  Volt's speed power also affects melee weapon speed and reload.

3.  His passive is a static electricity buildup based on movement that can add up to 1,000 dmg to melee first strike.

4.  Firing weapons through his shields adds a crit bonus and electrical damage.

5.  He has great augments like Capacitance which turns his Discharge power into team-wide over shields.  His new Augment, transistor shield has squad-wide benefits.

6.  Discharge is a "happy accident" power; higher-armored targets mitigate it's damage, resulting in a longer stunlock.  This allows you to make full use of your kit, especially vs Grineer, who are really fun to fight.

7.  Riot shield is an "alt 3" that gives yet ANOTHER playstyle choice with secondaries.

In conclusion, he's really a weapon AUGMENT frame with powers that offer multiple squad benefits, and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities.

[(PSN)vamp6x6x6x]

For Melee I like Valkyr. I also find myself using Inaros a lot melee. Volt with his 'Shocking Speed' augment is fun melee also.

[Avynire]

Valkyr maybe more suited to your play style if u like close and personal approach. Excal more like slashing from distance or blind finisher combo.

[Vlada91]

7 hours ago, Kyriss said:

What I already have: Ash Prime, Atlas, Banshee, Harrow, Ivara, Loki Prime, Mesa, Nova, Oberon Prime, Rhino Prime and Saryn prime.

What i'm looking for: I'd really like to play a frame that can do well in melee and is ability heavy. Something that can go solo or in groups and has a very active playstyle. I thought about Nidus but from what I hear, he's really only for very long games. None of the frames I've listed have really tickled my fancy. If it's not ability heavy, I'd like it to allow me to use my melee abilities better and augment my damage. I'll be building with a Hirudo in mind.

Did you know that Excalibur is the best in melee???

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

Shocking Speed Volt:  sprint up to enemies, mash melee button while they are stunned.  Kind of one dimensional but there aren't a lot of ability heavy frames that are also melee specialists.  It works great with Hirudo because with all the attack speed you'll be gaining health back faster than most enemies can drain it.  Just put a Blood Rush/Beserker build on Hirudo and a max duration build on Volt.

[ranks21]

if you want a really good frame for melee heavy and ability usage then mirage  is the only frame that fits. keep her 1 and 3 up (with augment) and go shredding.

[NinjaZeku]

Volt is definitely a fun choice, whether you go Melee, shootie bang bang or even just fry everything with abilities.

Frost (do the free Prime with free Prime with free Prime thing) also works nicely as a Melee-capable caster.

[Zyneris]

I do this with Octavia. Roller ball with aoe, follow the ball, use my glaive to clean up. Boom, everybody dead :D

[senorbushy]

My choice for going around mele depends heavily on the type of enemy, for general use i use equinox with the slow build, taking hits hinders you a little bit but with the right mods you can almost stop enemies from hitting you all together. IF im fighting corpus i do a regen build on oberon as his heal doesnt get shut off by nullifiers when you step in so there is no need to recast, then you have the option to use hollowed ground to boost armor if there is a large group comming at you.  Then for general $&*^ing around wukong with his augment so you never really run out of energy and can just go ham, its a bit of a cheese fest if you have a good mele but in the end it can be fun

[Motitoti992]

Melee based and ability heavy?

Maybe try Valkyr. She is very tanky and can go nuts with her claws.

Her claws ,just like any other melee based skills (for example Excal), react on the mods you equip on your melee.

[moose2142]

Excalibur is a fantastic melee. Exalted blade is a large part of his damage, but he can play fine without as well. 

Lifestrike on melee works with exalted when channeling, and exalted activates naramon as well. Radial javelin augment to boost damage by a lot, he scales very well into level 100s. Valkyr warcry and volt speed added in and mesa starts to get jealous of how killy he can be.

Valkyr is a solid choice also. Eternal war makes it a forever buff basically. Dual ichor on a valkyr is pretty fun.

Another cool tip, if you grow tired of pressing melee so much, switch it to mouse wheel for crazy fast swinging.

[Eggzodiya]

Saryn is great with melee, I think. Her 2 (with augment), and 3 are good tools if you just wanna run in there and cut/smash things to unrecognizable bits. She has the armor and the healing to keep you going and the melee buffs to satiate your need for blood.

[Autongnosis]

Chroma goes incredibly well with Hirudo. He's tanky as S#&$, he gives a ton of extra damage, and the Hirudo's extra hp and healing on crit make Chroma a VERY happy dragon. 

He needs a lot of formas tho. 

 

Hgdroid works well too. Corroding Barrage is great for stripping since hirudo have non existent status, and most of his kit can be geared towards bringing enemies tigeter at your feet... Great for ground finishers and abusing the unalerted knockdown trick :) 

[-Temp0-]

Quote

What i'm looking for: I'd really like to play a frame that can do well in melee and is ability heavy

Idk what counts as "ability heavy". It can be taken as both relies on it's abilities or something that has variety of abilities to use. The frames that come to mind are Valkyr, Inaros, Excalibur and Chroma. You can also tyr shiled of shadows Nekros if you're not going against anything that has nullifiers I guess. Wukong can fight in melee and use his 4 but it's damage just flat out sucks and even the animation itself isn't that great, but on the plus side he's literally immortal. But with naramon you can turn any warframe into melee frame.

Idk what people that suggest Volt thinking but some like weird things so there's that I guess (because nothing in Volt says "melee" no matter if he has stunning speed augment/using his speed or not, he has nothing but his shields to really save him up close and it's a pispoor protection in melee range against procs especially)

[.Tabris]

I am a sucker for melee combat too.

As others have pointes out, Excalibur is a very ability-heavy, melee oriented frame. Even without using his Exalted Blade (which is one of the strongest abilities in WF), he's excellent with a Surging Dash, Body Count, Blood Rush build. I like him because you can/have to use all of his kit and all of his abilities complement one another. (suffice to say he's my most played)

Volt is really nice too ! His abilities are all useful too, in a different manner, of course, but, if well played can be a potent and competent choice for melee (currently refining my Volt build, having tons of fun so far!)

Inaros is a beast too, high survivability, life gain, tons of armor, one-hit kill with Desiccation and Covert Lethality dagger.

I now there are other very competent choices out there (Valkyr for sure!), but these 3 are my favorites, mainly because I played them a lot so I have more insight on them.

If you need any help, please, do ask !

Edited September 27, 2017 by .Zefir
typo