State of Melee without Naramon?

[Lion]

Aside from spin2win (cheese), invis frames (swiss), invincibility frames (gouda), melee really has never had survivability like what Naramon's shadowstep (cheddar) gives.

Blocking is crap, life strike isnt enough to survive oneshot stray bullets (nullifier sniper op)

 

I can't see many reasons to use melee in endgame with PoE. It looks like the melee meta might be transitioning into the sniper meta

 

*Edit. This is purely written based on a perspective of high levels where this question actually matters, like going an hour into a void survival. Obviously melee will be fine in star chart and/or sorties.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Aveu

[TheGrimCorsair]

2 minutes ago, Aveu said:

Aside from spin2win (cheese), invis frames (swiss), invincibility frames (gouda), melee really has never had survivability like what Naramon's shadowstep (cheddar) gives.

Blocking is crap, life strike isnt enough to survive oneshot stray bullets (nullifier sniper op)

 

I can't see many reasons to use melee in endgame with PoE. It looks like the melee meta might be transitioning into the sniper meta

 

*Edit. This is purely written based on a perspective of high levels where this question actually matters, like going an hour into a void survival. Obviously melee will be fine in star chart and/or sorties.

Any thing past level 100 sortie/raid enemies falls outside DE's design. Ergo, melee is fine without Naramon.

[artemisfortune]

I've been using Excalibur Prime melee only for years without Naramon, I often forget to activate any of my focus abilities and I do just fine at all levels. Maybe just stop standing in front of bullets.

[Lion]

1 minute ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

Any thing past level 100 sortie/raid enemies falls outside DE's design. Ergo, melee is fine without Naramon.

That's a bad way to look at it then. Anything in the game is in DE's design because they allow it, in my opinion.

 

1 minute ago, JSharpie said:

I've been using Excalibur Prime melee only for years without Naramon, I often forget to activate any of my focus abilities and I do just fine at all levels. Maybe just stop standing in front of bullets.

Good for you! I actually don't run naramon, I run a madurai excal w/ blind, so please refrain from assuming I stand in front of bullets :)

Judging from overall focus popularity it's hard to say that naramon hasn't become a staple of melee. You can go into just about any mission and find someone using it.

[Gravitus123]

Thanks to all the mods and the combo counter system melee is still one of if not the strongest weapon types in the game its not like naramon was the only thing that made melee viable.You could still use a tankier warframe or a stealth warframe and just kill everything without too much trouble especially since there a huge amounts of great melee weapons

[DrBorris]

People have been using melee without Naramon, now Melee will actually have a balanced risk vs. reward for everybody.

 

Like... Melee was the safest and most damaging form of combat, it was broken. Now melee is a ton of damage at a risk. Using your sword SHOULD be more risky than using a rifle.

 

Melee could still use some work, especially in the channeling department, but Melee will still be very viable at nearly all levels. 

 

[Lion]

2 minutes ago, Gravitus123 said:

Thanks to all the mods and the combo counter system melee is still one of if not the strongest weapon types in the game its not like naramon was the only thing that made melee viable.You could still use a tankier warframe or a stealth warframe and just kill everything without too much trouble especially since there a huge amounts of great melee weapons

Without contest, melee is very strong. That being said, it is also very weak by simple virtue of needing to get close and personal, making it harder to both dodge and pick enemies off cleanly like guns do.

 

2 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

People have been using melee without Naramon, now Melee will actually have a balanced risk vs. reward for everybody.

 

Like... Melee was the safest and most damaging form of combat, it was broken. Now melee is a ton of damage at a risk. Using your sword SHOULD be more risky than using a rifle.

 

Melee could still use some work, especially in the channeling department, but Melee will still be very viable at nearly all levels. 

 

Agreed, but the risk should not outweigh the reward. Guns like the Lenz or Zarr, or even Tigris offer comparable amounts of damage with the added benefit of being able to take targets out at a range. Guns have added mitigation in that they allow you to stay out of melee range and more effectively dodge. Getting into melee range prompts both a knockdown from certain enemies and a swift bullet hell from groups of enemies. It doesn't matter if melee does more damage than guns if it leaves you bleeding out.

[Gravitus123]

4 minutes ago, Aveu said:

Without contest, melee is very strong. That being said, it is also very weak by simple virtue of needing to get close and personal, making it harder to both dodge and pick enemies off cleanly like guns do.

 

Agreed, but the risk should not outweigh the reward. Guns like the Lenz or Zarr, or even Tigris offer comparable amounts of damage with the added benefit of being able to take targets out at a range. Guns have added mitigation in that they allow you to stay out of melee range and more effectively dodge. Getting into melee range prompts both a knockdown from certain enemies and a swift bullet hell from groups of enemies. It doesn't matter if melee does more damage than guns if it leaves you bleeding out.

But that is melee in general across all games you have to get closer to deal the damage but theres even alternatives to that a high range weapon like the orthos or guandao,a gunblade like the redeemer or sarpa,or even a glaive are still decent options at range.The only thing now is you will have to choose a particular warframe that synergizes with melee combat instead of using any frame and just cheesing missions with permanent invisiblity

[phoenix1992]

A quick TL:DR how to play Melee without naramon :

1. Evaluate the positives and negatives of your build. Playing on a slow frame with a slow weapon is just asking for trouble.  Playing melee with frames that have low defensive and 0 sustain/recovery - same deal. You will get hit, you have to be able to shake it off and keep going.
2. Consider if every enemy is eligible for Smorc town. You can melee down a Bursa unit - but is it worth it? Good luck with the jugger as well.
3. If you are used to "spin to win cheese", unlearn this habit, unless you are runing Loki or something with high defensive potential. Those bombards don't care how graceful is your Ember Prime's er... assets, they will blow you up.
4. Use your bloody CC abilities. Nova can out melee a lot of other frames, not because she has hidden +50% melee modifier, but due to the fact that she has a lot higher up time.
5. Forget about "the good old days" of doing solo Mot for a hour with only your Ortos Prime. 

[AuroraSonicBoom]

If all the value you see in melee is based on a broken passive of another system then it never had any value to you.

[Lion]

1 minute ago, AuroraSonicBoom said:

If all the value you see in melee is based on a broken passive of another system then it never had any value to you.

Read above. I don't use naramon.

3 minutes ago, phoenix1992 said:

A quick TL:DR how to play Melee without naramon :

1. Evaluate the positives and negatives of your build. Playing on a slow frame with a slow weapon is just asking for trouble.  Playing melee with frames that have low defensive and 0 sustain/recovery - same deal. You will get hit, you have to be able to shake it off and keep going.
2. Consider if every enemy is eligible for Smorc town. You can melee down a Bursa unit - but is it worth it? Good luck with the jugger as well.
3. If you are used to "spin to win cheese", unlearn this habit, unless you are runing Loki or something with high defensive potential. Those bombards don't care how graceful is your Ember Prime's er... assets, they will blow you up.
4. Use your bloody CC abilities. Nova can out melee a lot of other frames, not because she has hidden +50% melee modifier, but due to the fact that she has a lot higher up time.
5. Forget about "the good old days" of doing solo Mot for a hour with only your Ortos Prime. 

All good points, agree with all.

 

7 minutes ago, Gravitus123 said:

But that is melee in general across all games you have to get closer to deal the damage but theres even alternatives to that a high range weapon like the orthos or guandao,a gunblade like the redeemer or sarpa,or even a glaive are still decent options at range.The only thing now is you will have to choose a particular warframe that synergizes with melee combat instead of using any frame and just cheesing missions with permanent invisiblity

The difference is melee in most games have better damage mitigation (armor that actually works, blocking that actually works, DODGING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS.)

 

Lastly I want to restate- I don't use naramon, therefore I do not rely on it. I PERSONALLY have no trouble running melee at higher levels, but I know many do, and I am able to recognize that melee has a serious deficit beyond what it should in terms of survivability at higher levels compared to ranged gameplay.

[Carnage2K4]

State of Melee without Naramon?

Unchanged?

I almost never use Naramon, it's not required 99% of the time.

[fatpig84]

Played when Naramon never existed so no issue. People just have to get used with no out of jail card.
 

[FashionFrame]

Playing with my amphis + Ash melee build without naramon just fine against level 150s. I don't see the problem.

[Deraios]

A blade needs no reloading, never runs out of ammo and paints in broad strokes. Yes, a gun has range but it's very clear that making a few extra steps and pressing E often yields better results than either reloading or swapping guns. Shadow step was very clearly a brokenly overpowered ability and I'm glad at least that meta will be gone (next thing I hope for is the Memeing Strike/slide attack/Atterax). It emphasized a extremely specific gameplay style and weapon use like no other school did.

Weapons should complement each other, not trump each other.

Also, people that don't use Naramo can play the game just fine with melee being one of the more powerful options anyways thanks to combo counter, scaling mods and exalted weapons.

[(PSN)watt4hem]

It's fine. I can do melee only sortie 3s with saryn,  nezha, mag, nekrosjust fine. And that's without those cheese mods nor naramon.And an hour in the void isn't much different in my experience. 

[Rakosta_Kai]

8 minutes ago, fatpig84 said:

Played when Naramon never existed so no issue. People just have to get used with no out of jail card.
 

Very true...But it's not even like there isn't a get out of jail free card.

3 separate frames use invis

3 or 4 more blind

2 can sleep mobs

That's not counting the frames that can outright incapacitate them altogether.

If you are a meleer, PoE's changes are awesome.

All in all, melee is arguably more survivable than ranged is.

 

[CrazyValkyr]

Melee will be fine, as long as you don't plan to run anything 'harder' longer than say, one hour & a bit. It's the truly incredible long runs, that will only be doable with 'invis frames' once again, once the update hits... Which people apparently don't see as a problem, and that's fine, it's really not game-breaking overall. However - Personally, I'm gonna miss my 'chill & kill' 3 hours of solo Mot runs with my favorite frame & will have to cut down to one hour of it. /shrug

[ranks21]

they say they play without naramon to make it seem like they are that good but what they wont say is that they are also using the cheesiest of frames like loki, ivara, nova or excal  even valkyr or chroma to compensate and dying horrible deaths...

 I agree that naramon isn't the problem, its the enemy scaling damage and the incessant weak weapons<> sees big talkers runs to the exit faster than a mouse to hide when the light turns on lmao what a bunch..

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

I haven't used naramon for months, so it changes nothing for me.

Melee is overpowered enough.

[xXDeadsinxX]

Melee is perfectly fine on it’s own without Naramon. Shadowstep makes weapons just insanely broken. Melee is already in a good spot so I don’t see a new for a change at all.

[TheGrimCorsair]

13 minutes ago, Deraios said:

A blade needs no reloading, never runs out of ammo and paints in broad strokes. Yes, a gun has range but it's very clear that making a few extra steps and pressing E often yields better results than either reloading or swapping guns. Shadow step was very clearly a brokenly overpowered ability and I'm glad at least that meta will be gone (next thing I hope for is the Memeing Strike/slide attack/Atterax). It emphasized a extremely specific gameplay style and weapon use like no other school did.

Weapons should complement each other, not trump each other.

Also, people that don't use Naramo can play the game just fine with melee being one of the more powerful options anyways thanks to combo counter, scaling mods and exalted weapons.

I <3 my Banshee's Sarpa+Bullet Dance. Never stop shooting. Would kill to be able to off-hand it with Scisco or Zakti.

[Gravitus123]

2 hours ago, Aveu said:

Read above. I don't use naramon.

All good points, agree with all.

 

The difference is melee in most games have better damage mitigation (armor that actually works, blocking that actually works, DODGING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS.)

 

Lastly I want to restate- I don't use naramon, therefore I do not rely on it. I PERSONALLY have no trouble running melee at higher levels, but I know many do, and I am able to recognize that melee has a serious deficit beyond what it should in terms of survivability at higher levels compared to ranged gameplay.

I hate to sound rude but those people obviously just run in without a thought there are so many things you can do to prevent death and many of them are quite easy.Use any cc,use tankier warframes,pick a weapon with longer range or just mod a weapon for longer range.Everything has a serious deficit at higher levels including guns try and fight a lvl 150 heavy gunner face to face without any protection,mobility or cc he will drop you faster then you can kill him which is a product of the broken enemy scaling,melee actually has more to offer in those situations thanks to ground slams and certain combo attacks that knockdown,stun or trigger finishers on enemies and with the blocking system plus the restriction on how many enemies can shoot at you at once even when youre facing a crowd of enemies you wont be taking fire from more then like 6-7 at once which can be easily handled in a ton of ways.

Now the things that melee can fix is give us better blocking by lowering the energy cost it takes to completely deflect bullets,release better stances for weapons like polearms,daggers,dual daggers that have useful effects such as the above knockdowns,stuns or finishers and maybe improve wall and air attacks.The core problem of Warframe is the scaling system which pretty much needs to be torn down and built up from scratch no bandaids are gonna fix this issue.Enemies need to have a scaling cap in both armor,hp and damage,our warframes need to be able to survive longer and some of our overpowered weapons need to be taken down a notch,also fixing status/sec,shotgun status,shield gating should be added as well,the hitboxes also need to be polished 

[Legion-Shields]

"State of Melee without Naramon?"

 

Balanced?

[Volinus7]

Reconstruct the overall gameplay to actually accomodate melee? Oh well nvm if you don't feel that melee is just an appendix to WF gameplay let it be then.

Melee is always escorted by CC or invisibility otherwise you get OHKO. It's not a standalone feature. 

Edited September 30, 2017 by Volinus7