State of Melee without Naramon?

[Tricky5hift]

Melee 100% is viable since Body Count, Blood Rush and Condition Overload are things...

In fact I haven't seen anyone use Shadow Strike in ages.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Tricky5hift

[Marvelous_A]

Pretty much unchanged to me coz I never use Naramon. But overall using melee will be more situational,  just that. 

[Naftal]

Even without naramon, melee is overbuffed with the broken as hell acolyte mods.

It was fine before all that was released.

[RX-3DR]

4 hours ago, Aveu said:

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.

It is impossible to balance the game in accordance to something beyond the intended sensible scope of the game. If you want to balance things against level 200 content, something that is beyond the intended design, you would have to come up with an extremely convoluted way to scale your defenses to the damage of the enemy. You're not supposed to be able to run up to a level 200 Heavy Gunner and get away with slapping him around for 10 seconds at no consequence.

As long as melee is still functioning to a fair degree of risk/reward in Sorties, we should not mess with the system just because a small handful of players like to sit in for hour long games. Endurance runs beyond a certain point is a test for players who want to push for it, you cannot use it as a consensus for where "high level" is. 

Edited September 30, 2017 by Flandyrll

[SurrealEdge]

How could I admire my own fashion when I'm invisible?

[Kjahla81]

I only used Naramon for the Affinity boost passive.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

I don't think anybody really understands the amount of damage melee is able to output. It's all about how you play, and what you use.

Let me give you a rundown.
Back in 2015, before Blood Rush and Body Count, Melee was thought to be only useful for coptering, which was our way of slinging ourselves crossmaps. What people didn't know, was that they were horribly wrong. Stealth back then was so much easier, and getting stealth damage especially with a DoT status was just magic. 1 million damage per tick easy. Now, without this, melee was still viable. People don't understand what DE has been telling you this whole time; Stances change everything. With a cheap 1 energy per strike channeling build, you were able to get close to 10k dps with a Scindo Prime with corrosive against a ferrite armored enemy (biggest threat of the time). With a pure damage build, maybe half. This may not seem like much to you, but remember, stances have damage multipliers. Broken Bull combo of Cleaving Whirlwind buffed this damage by roughly 500%. There's a video about this by DunkenMaster about how stances affect melee dps. He didn't get everything right, but the idea was still good. Considering this, Scindo prime with Cleaving Whirlwind would be achieving easily 50k dps in a radial attack. Not to mention, combo counters still existed back then, though you were only able to get 2.5x damage max with it because of the timer. Still, this is 125k dps without stealth. Soma Prime and Boltor Prime DPS back then was around maybe 25k sustained. Enter Blood Rush and Body Count. Weapons were getting around 30k sustained, so a huge buff for all weapons, but melee started getting crazy stupid damage levels, like 50k without stances. Then even MORE powerful melee weapons came out, like Galatine Prime, War (Heavily Debatable), Jat Kittag with Vulcan Blitz, Fragor Prime, Sibear, etc. And also, enter maiming strike. RIP combos.
Now, Condition Overload has become the new rave of warframe, and with this mod, melee is getting 100k dps easy with huge status effects, WITHOUT stances.

Please stop the idea that melee needs anything else. It is fine, it has always been fine, and it will always be fine. Leave it alone, we have too many mods as is.

[Emolition]

I use melee on oberon to refill my energy with rage and my focus is vazarin so up to sortie level it never been a problem to melee.

[Lakais]

8 hours ago, Aveu said:

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.

A line has to be drawn somewhere. Due to the rather questionable way enemy scaling works and the purpose of many abilities it is simply impossible to maintain viability and purpose beyond certain points. The entire CC need package is proof of that. 

No, weapons and abilities can only be balanced up to a point. Remember that DE also has the low end to think about when they put something in, and mods can only do so much. I personally hold that it's DE job to make sure that with a reasonable build, any weapon and frame is viable up to lvl 50 mook enemies. Beyond that is up to the player to figure out how something works and how to get that little extra out of it.

I say lvl 50 because that is the general ballpark of the main mission map high end. I don't count Sorties and other special mission types because they are special snowflakes. Their very existence is based on players taking their gear and ramping it up just a bit higher then DE expected and then crying foul that there isn't a challenge. Which is funny when people get salty over their crutch being taken away. You can imagine I see the entire "Focus nerf killed my game!" debacle as funny. 

Edited September 30, 2017 by Lakais

[LordNero86]

Nothing will change tbh. Back then it was ok. Now, with or without naramon, everything is and will be fine. To me, focus is just a crutch. People should learn not to always depend on it

[Gurpgork]

13 hours ago, Naftal said:

Even without naramon, melee is overbuffed with the broken as hell acolyte mods.

It was fine before all that was released.

It wasn't "fine." It was a high-risk, low reward playstyle full of broken and half-baked mechanics. It only became good when they introduced Acolyte mods and Condition Overload, which inflated the DPS of these weapons to preposterous heights without actually fixing any of the problems with the melee system. If it weren't for Body Count and Blood Rush, melee would be a distant second to gunplay. A very, very distant second. 

[Naftal]

1 minute ago, Gurpgork said:

It wasn't "fine." It was a high-risk, low reward playstyle full of broken and half-baked mechanics. It only became good when they introduced Acolyte mods and Condition Overload, which inflated the DPS of these weapons to preposterous heights without actually fixing any of the problems with the melee system. If it weren't for Body Count and Blood Rush, melee would be a distant second to gunplay. A very, very distant second. 

Damage was fine without acolyte mods or condition overload.

I think the other "problems" with the melee system is a play style issue rather than an actual problem.

[Gurpgork]

6 minutes ago, Naftal said:

Damage was fine without acolyte mods or condition overload.

It was flat-out lower than gun damage by a wide margin, and guns don't require you to get within sniffing distance of your target. It was not fine at all. I'll concede that Blood Rush and Condition Overload are overkill, but melee DPS was not fine before those mods existed. 

7 minutes ago, Naftal said:

I think the other "problems" with the melee system is a play style issue rather than an actual problem.

Channeling is basically useless beyond Life Strike, since it costs far too much energy that would be better spent on casting abilities. The combo counter is practically unusable without Body Count or Drifting Contact, because it completely resets to zero after 3 seconds. Stances are cool in principle, but their implementation more often than not turns them into boring DPS boosts and one-dimensional clickfests.

I can't fix any of those things by changing my playstyle. 

[Naftal]

Just now, Gurpgork said:

It was flat-out lower than gun damage by a wide margin, and guns don't require you to get within sniffing distance of your target. It was not fine at all. I'll concede that Blood Rush and Condition Overload are overkill, but melee DPS was not fine before those mods existed. 

Channeling is basically useless beyond Life Strike, since it costs far too much energy that would be better spent on casting abilities. The combo counter is practically unusable without Body Count or Drifting Contact, because it completely resets to zero after 3 seconds. Stances are cool in principle, but their implementation more often than not turns them into boring DPS boosts and one-dimensional clickfests.

I can't fix any of those things by changing my playstyle. 

Well, I always had enough damage to do anything in the game.

Channeling has always sucked and bringing that up doesn't mean that melee otherwise would be bad.

[CantIHaveAShow]

I run a Unairu Valk (Eternal War, not hysteria) with a Jat Kittag.

I have no issues with Melee, I very often get the most kills on my team because I'm basically playing dynasty warriors (even on sorties).

And ill be honest I forget to pop my Unairu buff all the time, Because I'm too busy emulating a hammer based helicopter thanks to the "crushing ruin" stance.
 

[R34LM]

Try an Inaros with arcane grace and any sword and board. The 85% damage reduction makes it so you can heal mid battle by blocking.

[el_chanis]

On 29/9/2017 at 8:58 PM, Aveu said:

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

This is the best case scenario. Given how absurdly strong melee is (either with crit, slide, or status), and how weak snipers used to be, making a change in the game mechanics that shifts this a bit is really good.

[blackheartstar_pc]

I'm going to say it's fine as I go full melee in every mission at some point and have never had an issue. Having never used Naramon that is.

[Mattoropael]

Melee could use the upcoming sniper combo decay mechanic instead of losing it all in one go. That's pretty much everything it needs.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Mattoropael

[(PSN)Crixus044]

On 9/30/2017 at 1:17 PM, Gurpgork said:

It wasn't "fine." It was a high-risk, low reward playstyle full of broken and half-baked mechanics. It only became good when they introduced Acolyte mods and Condition Overload, which inflated the DPS of these weapons to preposterous heights without actually fixing any of the problems with the melee system. If it weren't for Body Count and Blood Rush, melee would be a distant second to gunplay. A very, very distant second. 

 

On 9/30/2017 at 1:34 PM, Gurpgork said:

It was flat-out lower than gun damage by a wide margin, and guns don't require you to get within sniffing distance of your target. It was not fine at all. I'll concede that Blood Rush and Condition Overload are overkill, but melee DPS was not fine before those mods existed. 

Channeling is basically useless beyond Life Strike, since it costs far too much energy that would be better spent on casting abilities. The combo counter is practically unusable without Body Count or Drifting Contact, because it completely resets to zero after 3 seconds. Stances are cool in principle, but their implementation more often than not turns them into boring DPS boosts and one-dimensional clickfests.

I can't fix any of those things by changing my playstyle. 

Both these statements are false. Go back to my statement and look at how it changes things dramatically. Combo coutners may not have been a big deal but 2x damage was very very common. With this stated, most melee weapons would easily be getting 30-40k dps SUSTAINED without channeling. High tier melee would be getting around 50-60k sustained, which is double that of a well built soma prime. Enter a channeling build and that number goes even higher. This is due to stances boosting damage. Also remember that melee is more versatile in that it can be used for stuns, survival, and other options. In addition, this is all without stealth multipliers, which even without a stealth frame or naramon is pretty easy to get. Also, finishers are a thing, as well as ground finishers. It's really about learning HOW to play melee than melee adapting to you. Many people just don't know how to play melee. thus they run up to a dude and start smacking him, playing like you would with a primary or secondary, and they don't do well. There's things like moonwalking to avoid enemy melee without interrupting your combo, slams to knockdown enemies thus preventing them from hitting you which give you stealth multiplier windows, as well as ground finishers, parrying at the moment of an enemy meleeing you, thus allowing for a stealth finisher. Using Aerial Melees to dodge and catch up to enemies like coptering use to do. There are so many things that melee is able to do that you just have to learn

Channeling was always "OK" to me, but at this point in the game, it needs some changing. Removing the 75% efficiency cap would be a nice start. I won't disagree that channeling is not the cream of the crop, but it was at one time the best option we had.

Stances in this game are probably the best aspect of it. There are some stances that need work, but for the most part, warframe has some of the best melee mechanics of any game I've seen thus far. The only stances that need work are Dual Swords (arguably), staves, and maybe polearms (also arguably). Other than that, they are very effective, mobile, look cool, and help capacity.