Melee's Major Flaw: Why Quick Melee/Spin Attack is "Meta"

[Raspberry]

The answer is quite simple: there is usually too much risk and not enough reward when we equip the melee manually and temporarily throw away our ability to shoot our guns.

The Factions

Against Grineer, melee weapons usually lack the ability to overcome their immense armor fast enough before our Warframes become barbecued by Hyekka Masters, Scorches, and Napalms. Although this can be greatly remedied with most CC abilities and/or extreme damage-resist abilities, it's just so much easier to headshot the Grineer instead, especially Noxes which have incredible damage resist on non-headshots; equipping melee prevents us from being able to shoot, which is why spin attacking and quick melee are most often used: it's the closest we have to "dual wielding" guns and melee.

Against Corpus and Corrupted, our melee weapons must be able to overcome the ever-frustrating nullifiers. 99% of the time, the best way to deal with nullifier bubbles is to shoot them. No melee weapon except the Redeemer and Sarpa can shoot, and even then, Sarpa is the only one capable of dealing with the damage gates of nullifier bubbles. IMO the damage gate is one of the most unwelcome features of nullifiers because it makes nearly every slow-firing weapon unviable for Corpus. Why take the time to shoot the drone holding the bubble when a high-damaging full-auto or burst rifle can quickly destroy the bubble directly? As for melee, it is basically impossible to hit the drone reliably because it's notorious for getting stuck on ceilings, especially on uneven tiles. It's hard to say if Melee 3.0's general base range buff will be enough, but as of now, Primed Reach is the only "solution", and even then, it only applies to weapons that already have good base range like polearms and whips. No point in trying to use fists or swords against nullifiers, the risk of accidentally entering the bubble while trying to destroy it is too high.

Finally, when it comes to Infested, the universal golden rule is to always stay far away. The reason why Infested are one of the most hated in endless killing runs is because of their extreme numbers of Parasitic Eximus and Ancient Disruptors. Choosing to use melee against Infested often means sacrificing the ability to use 90%+ of our abilities because of the inevitable energy drain. Only a small handful of frames like Harrow, Limbo, Trinity, and Valkyr can still use abilities and melee against swarms of energy draining Infested.

Melee's Current Endgame Advantages

Currently, most of melee only takes a backseat to other damaging methods such as shooting or using abilities. The only times the Warframe endgame is actually friendly to dedicated melee are certain bosses (like Ambulas or Kela) or arena modes (mostly the Index; Rathuum is friendly to melee as well, but it's hardly endgame). Outside of endgame or endless, melee shines a lot brighter because our builds don't have to be designed to sustain health or energy for a long time, but because DE believes room-nuking melee tactics shouldn't be a thing anymore, Melee 3.0 really must bring something to make up for the losses. While they are at it, I do hope that they don't forget exalted melee weapons as well (mostly for Valkyr, Titania, and Wukong; luckily for Excalibur, his Exalted blade can already send ranged energy waves, which allows him to stay at range instead of being forced to close into all those hazards).

Edited May 19, 2018 by Raspberry

[KennBone]

like near all mmorpg,, u can hit multiple times a highi lvl enemies till they die while they make big dmg on u ok.. diference is.. in Warframe there´s no any kind of " hp leech " and no i dont mean life strike,. i think we just need any new extra equiment like " reliqs, rings, amulets; wich those give that hp leech need or more def or any new effect to survive"just a idea but it will work i think

[Koldraxon-732]

Might I mention before I reply in earnest that Melee 3.0 is allowing essentially 'all' one-handed melee weapons to be paired with 1-handed sidearms.

The drawback of dual-wielding though is that you can't just use your sidearm, you're forced to have your melee with you, and that's a serious problem for Survival missions due to the bonus drain when melee is equipped or used atop the drain for parkour, aiming, and so on.

On my end, since my 'frame arsenal mostly consists of more durable frames, if not frames kitted with a lot of extra health/shields, melee VS enemies is an approach I can risk.
My recommendations regarding melee are in spoilers.

Spoiler

 

Against Grineer:

Spoiler

-Slam attacks to knock them over, then go berserk on them until they are dead (scorches, hyekka masters).
-Everything else can die.
-Forgo if against Noxes unless you can pull enough finishers fast enough to kill it, or your melee has attacks or attack stance movesets that aim for the head.
-Blocking with melee will deny being knocked over by Eximus or dragged by Scorpions.

Against Corpus:

Spoiler

-Everything but Bursas and Nullifiers can be killed directly.
-Forgo use on Bursas unless you can stun and flank them.
-Forgo use on Nullifiers if your Warframe's abilities are keeping you alive or the risk is too great.
Important: Nullifier drones often become desynched and lean forward in the direction the Nullifier is moving, making it nearly impossible to properly shoot down the drone. Equip a fast firing weapon or bring a Warframe who's powers can affect bubbles, such as Hydroid's first ability.

Against Infested:

Spoiler

-Everything but Juggernaut can die.
-Focus on Ancient Healers first, then Disruptors, then leechers.
-Ensure your Warframe either can get back energy (Nidus, Inaros, Atlas, Oberon, or Gara, and so on... with Rage + HP builds), or you bring a means of energy restoration with you (Zenurik or energy 'pizzas').
-Blocking with melee will avoid being dragged by Ancients.

Against Corrupted:

Spoiler

-See comment about Ancient Healers.
-See comment about Corpus Nullifiers.
-Everything can be killed quickly afterwards.

Against Sentients:

Spoiler

-Use Transference frequently and reset Hunhow-Fighter resistances.
-Forgo using on Vomvalysts.
-Only use on Teralyst if you configured it to rip armour (i.e: exploitative Sarpa, or the never-used War equivalent) and can survive the damage dished out by it just standing still.
-Watch out for Battalyst lasers and Conculyst whirlwinds.

That aside, a solution is to run a dual-wielding setup (status sidearm + throwable melee or equivalent with high damage mods and Condition Overload installed is but one example, others may have derivative preferences when melee 3.0 enters the field).

[Raspberry]

@Koldraxon-732 Dual wield or not, the lack of range of most melee weapons is still not fixed. Glaives don't have this problem because they are throwable, gunblades can shoot, and polearms and whips have good innate range. But what about swords, daggers, hammers, fists, etc.? They're trash now, and they'll remain so without some sort of significant range boost. Or alternatively, more frames should have better energy/ability economy to deal with nullifiers and Energy Leech/Parasitic Eximus enemies.

There are few frames in the game, probably about 10 out of 35, that can use low-range melee weapons in endgame (just Limbo, Rhino, Harrow, Trinity, Atlas, and Valkyr, maybe also Ash, Inaros, Equinox, and Ivara if only for Covert daggers). Most frames are either too squishy or too energy hungry, and melee-buffing abilities such as Volt's Speed or Saryn's Toxic Lash aren't good enough to encourage me to use something other than a glaive or polearm/whip.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

1 hour ago, Raspberry said:

Finally, when it comes to Infested, the universal golden rule is to always stay far away. The reason why Infested are one of the most hated in endless killing runs is because of their extreme numbers of Parasitic Eximus and Ancient Disruptors. Choosing to use melee against Infested often means sacrificing the ability to use 90%+ of our abilities because of the inevitable energy drain. Only a small handful of frames like Harrow, Limbo, Trinity, and Valkyr can still use abilities and melee against swarms of energy draining Infested.

much more those frames... Gara, Atlas, Inaros, Nekros... really any frame with a defensive nature, or just a good melee weapon like my favorite staff Zaw (an Oothla) can out damage that brainless faction.

Wukong, Nezha, to name a few more.

 

honestly the Poison gets to be a issue faster than the energy drain enemies.. at the hour mark those poison ticks can be lethal.

[Raspberry]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

much more those frames... Gara, Atlas, Inaros, Nekros... really any frame with a defensive nature, or just a good melee weapon like my favorite staff Zaw (an Oothla) can out damage that brainless faction.

Wukong, Nezha, to name a few more.

 

honestly the Poison gets to be a issue faster than the energy drain enemies.. at the hour mark those poison ticks can be lethal.

"Just a good melee weapon" and you proceed to name a staff. A Zaw, even, which always has high base range on staves and polearms. But we never remotely consider swords or machetes to be meta, do we? Sure, they can be used to kill most enemies efficiently, but the amount of distance we must close just increases risk too much for most frames because of the enemies that can't be killed as efficiently (i.e. Ancients, Eximus, Nullifiers, Corrupted Crewmen, Grineer with Ignis).

I do agree with your frame additions, though.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

no... its annoying too.. meta for weapons is directly due to the nature of how combat in this game happens.. even if weapons like dual swords have better DPS, and often they dont... the fact that we fight so many enemies at once, often spread out make hitting the entire group more time effective than going target to target... particularly since most targets die in one hit anyways...

yeah, you can murder a Nox and then go to another target nearby, or murder the nox slower while everything nearby dies to the AOE...

its kind of why people dont like Valkyr... she is amazingly powerful but overkill at times with minimal AOE ability. take her to kill a boss (like the hyena pack) and she outclasses so much else its not funny... but try and use Hysteria to take out enemies in common survival, and its just a hassle.

[Buttaface]

Disagree with the entire OP, who obviously hasn't played much melee. Melee in WF, as a matter of fact and not opinion, is far stronger than ranged in terms of damage in the higher levels, and not maiming strike spin builds any more, but fast exodia zaws using hybrid builds and regular stance combos. Of course, the melee advantage doesn't emerge on the star chart, but starts to become apparent in sorties, highest bounties, onslaught. Buffed up by warframe abilities, spin whips are still king of WF killing power up to 120, maybe beyond. Past that, the custom zaws I mention take over, and ranged other than snipers and a few high disposition rivens on Strun, Opticor or a very short etc. list is nowhere close.

[RealPandemonium]

Spin attacks and jump attacks have always been great, and stances have always been mostly a gimmick, at least IMO.

The reason spin2win is the meta now is because memeing strike is a silly mod and its interaction with bloodrush allows quick access to inordinately high damage.  Acolyte mods were poorly thought-out and have left a poor mark on the game since.  

Edited May 20, 2018 by RealPandemonium

[Ext3h]

vor 10 Stunden schrieb RealPandemonium:

The reason spin2win is the meta now is because memeing strike is a silly mod and its interaction with bloodrush allows quick access to inordinately high damage.

"inordinately high damage"? The risk when going melee is significantly higher. Stand still for a second, and you are done for with most factions. Against Grineer all it needs is a Bombard or some other stupid fire AoE, to break Melee unless you can instant hit. And it's not like all the other weapon classes couldn't be built for instant-kill either.

Yes, spin-to-win is a broken design in terms of damage scaling. But only since Melee is otherwise missing builds which would solve the need-for-instant-hit issue. (Except for a few not-so-close-combat Zaw builds.)

What was (and is) working great about spin-to-win, is mobility.

The mobility on these slide attacks is just so much better than all the stances, which reduces enemy hit chance significantly and allows you to actually get from enemy to enemy in an acceptable time. Something which the existing stances completely fail to provide. Plus this nice "glide" effect, which helps a lot traversing the chasm filled design of most maps, without stopping the attack.

[RealPandemonium]

8 hours ago, Ext3h said:

"inordinately high damage"? The risk when going melee is significantly higher. Stand still for a second, and you are done for with most factions. Against Grineer all it needs is a Bombard or some other stupid fire AoE, to break Melee unless you can instant hit. And it's not like all the other weapon classes couldn't be built for instant-kill either.

Yes, spin-to-win is a broken design in terms of damage scaling. But only since Melee is otherwise missing builds which would solve the need-for-instant-hit issue. (Except for a few not-so-close-combat Zaw builds.)

What was (and is) working great about spin-to-win, is mobility.

The mobility on these slide attacks is just so much better than all the stances, which reduces enemy hit chance significantly and allows you to actually get from enemy to enemy in an acceptable time. Something which the existing stances completely fail to provide. Plus this nice "glide" effect, which helps a lot traversing the chasm filled design of most maps, without stopping the attack.

Your whole post basically agreed with my post, but in a sassy way.

Also, "inordinate" is not a poor choice of words, here.  Going from 6000 -> 22,800 damage with memeing strike, and then to 40k, and then beyond, is pretty over-the-top IMO.  And that's before combo multiplier.

Edited May 21, 2018 by RealPandemonium

[DreamsmithJane]

I think a lot of this is the reasoning behind directional slams (gap closers) and increased base range.

On 2018-05-19 at 1:38 PM, Koldraxon-732 said:

The drawback of dual-wielding though is that you can't just use your sidearm, you're forced to have your melee with you, and that's a serious problem for Survival missions due to the bonus drain when melee is equipped or used atop the drain for parkour, aiming, and so on.

That's...not a thing. Life support drain in survival is constant.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

On 2018-05-19 at 1:14 PM, Raspberry said:

. No point in trying to use fists or swords against nullifiers, the risk of accidentally entering the bubble while trying to destroy it is too high.

I frequently run Furax Wraith or Tekko with Banshee on Corpus - Fissure Axi Survival. Entering the bubble is preferred rather than staying outside and trying to shrink it with melee attacks. (That also plays into Silence being dispelled allows for it to recast for the stun, so it is not cumbersome to be dispelled.)

I was surprised to not see Banshee on your list of melee apporved Frames - she is pretty decent for gap closing, striping armor, and just outright giving a large enough damage buff that simply touching the enemy will suffice.

Very easy to run Okina (yes dual Dagger) with Banshee on solo run in MoT or lesser Axi Survivals. They don't have great AoE coverage but the stance combos work with hit'n'run tactics.

Agreeing with your marks about Survivability:

I am all for a change where weilding Melee actually protected the Warframes from lethal Damage at all enemy levels: 

To differentiate Warframe from normal Shooters, I personally would prefer a larger push to Melee having better Survivability than Ranged shooting for the Space Ninja game.

- Also allowing Melee combat to be Warframe independent in terms of weilding melee Survivability.

 

On the flip-side I would like that the enemies that pose the largest threat be Melee Enemy units and not ranged Toxic/Heat spewers.

 

Edit:

Also it does not help to have enemies be immune to melee attack attributes: I used to love doing the Sparta sparring Slide-attack kick to no-man's-land. Especially on old Tyl Regor.

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by (PS4)MrNishi
Melee immune ragdolll

[Koldraxon-732]

15 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

 

It is a thing. Have you ever tried melee (or dual-wield)-only survival? Have you noticed how much faster life support drains because of it? I wrote 'bonus' on it too, which should have implied this.

It's there.

[RealPandemonium]

10 minutes ago, Koldraxon-732 said:

It is a thing. Have you ever tried melee (or dual-wield)-only survival? Have you noticed how much faster life support drains because of it? I wrote 'bonus' on it too, which should have implied this.

It's there.

That's all in your mind.

[SlashBurn]

      SPIN TO WIN needs to die hard and fast.  It is over played and ruins almost 80% of the missions I get in to and I understand you want to bring the best damage you can to a mission but come on now you aren't even playing the game at that point.  It would be better to just have bots farming your resources for you (which I think most of time it is).  I have started to just leave missions or just stay active enough to not get afked out of the loot I am there for.   I would like Melee 3.0 to add in blade edge so that whips with a blade on them only deal damage at the end of the whip not the line holding on the blade at the end slicing thought everything it's not a 9 mile long lightsaber.  Make a dead zone for them normalize range for other weapons to instead of the gundo having a longer range then other polearms.  Uniform it to weapon types.  You could even turn spin attack into a stagger/knock down instead of thermonuclear warheads attached to strings.  I would love to see being able to wield a dagger and a pistol I think it would bring a lot to the table for reasons people have stated above.  Melee isn't as weak as people keep making it out to be there is just a time and a place and knowing the tricks to it.  If you want to take out a high level Bombard but can't have him shooting you use a slam attack to knock him over or just jump kick his face these are the skills that people had to use before spin to win came about to but since it's introduction the old more skill based way of doing it has been forgotten or just casted aside.  I love the shorter weapons and I do use spin attack not going to lie I use it for it's mobility to get me closer to the heavy unit or just bothersome unit that I am going to melee not to cleave down the whole map.  Now don't get me wrong I love that DE makes all of these new weapons ( Silva & Aegis and Nami Skyla much love) and everything for us but I think they kind a jumped off the deep end with whips/maiming strike and it is ruining the game at least for me anyway.  

[Raspberry]

@(PS4)MrNishiI understand how that can be viable for star chart, but that playstyle is laughably unusable in endless. Banshee has weak defense, so if any enemy is immune to her CC at  any time, she's vulnerable to being one-shot killed. Before you even enter that bubble, that Nullifier Crewman or any enemy taking shelter in it can easily kill you because Silence doesn't work through it.

Needless to say, Banshee is one of the best endless frames as a support thanks to her Sonar, but she shouldn't be the one drawing aggro. Even in star chart, I notice that random Banshees tend to be downed first and most often.

[o.0-]

On 2018-05-19 at 3:14 PM, Raspberry said:

The answer is quite simple: there is usually too much risk and not enough reward when we equip the melee manually and temporarily throw away our ability to shoot our guns.

Spoiler

The Factions

Against Grineer, melee weapons usually lack the ability to overcome their immense armor fast enough before our Warframes become barbecued by Hyekka Masters, Scorches, and Napalms. Although this can be greatly remedied with most CC abilities and/or extreme damage-resist abilities, it's just so much easier to headshot the Grineer instead, especially Noxes which have incredible damage resist on non-headshots; equipping melee prevents us from being able to shoot, which is why spin attacking and quick melee are most often used: it's the closest we have to "dual wielding" guns and melee.

Against Corpus and Corrupted, our melee weapons must be able to overcome the ever-frustrating nullifiers. 99% of the time, the best way to deal with nullifier bubbles is to shoot them. No melee weapon except the Redeemer and Sarpa can shoot, and even then, Sarpa is the only one capable of dealing with the damage gates of nullifier bubbles. IMO the damage gate is one of the most unwelcome features of nullifiers because it makes nearly every slow-firing weapon unviable for Corpus. Why take the time to shoot the drone holding the bubble when a high-damaging full-auto or burst rifle can quickly destroy the bubble directly? As for melee, it is basically impossible to hit the drone reliably because it's notorious for getting stuck on ceilings, especially on uneven tiles. It's hard to say if Melee 3.0's general base range buff will be enough, but as of now, Primed Reach is the only "solution", and even then, it only applies to weapons that already have good base range like polearms and whips. No point in trying to use fists or swords against nullifiers, the risk of accidentally entering the bubble while trying to destroy it is too high.

Finally, when it comes to Infested, the universal golden rule is to always stay far away. The reason why Infested are one of the most hated in endless killing runs is because of their extreme numbers of Parasitic Eximus and Ancient Disruptors. Choosing to use melee against Infested often means sacrificing the ability to use 90%+ of our abilities because of the inevitable energy drain. Only a small handful of frames like Harrow, Limbo, Trinity, and Valkyr can still use abilities and melee against swarms of energy draining Infested.

Melee's Current Endgame Advantages

Currently, most of melee only takes a backseat to other damaging methods such as shooting or using abilities. The only times the Warframe endgame is actually friendly to dedicated melee are certain bosses (like Ambulas or Kela) or arena modes (mostly the Index; Rathuum is friendly to melee as well, but it's hardly endgame). Outside of endgame or endless, melee shines a lot brighter because our builds don't have to be designed to sustain health or energy for a long time, but because DE believes room-nuking melee tactics shouldn't be a thing anymore, Melee 3.0 really must bring something to make up for the losses. While they are at it, I do hope that they don't forget exalted melee weapons as well (mostly for Valkyr, Titania, and Wukong; luckily for Excalibur, his Exalted blade can already send ranged energy waves, which allows him to stay at range instead of being forced to close into all those hazards).

No, the problem is when you have a ranged weapon out, one of the few combos we can execute is a slide attack with quick melee. I do it all the time with my Nunchucks to sweep into a group of enemies, if I need to reload and/or need to enter a Nully Bubble with multiple enemies inside.

The most annoying thing I run into is a stun/stagger animation that essentially stun locks the Warframe for a brief enough moment. That is the death sentence at higher levels and melee with uninterruptible momentum are able to charge past that issue entirely, so as long as you can manage to avoid that stun/stagger animation, Melee does scale reasonable well.

So what needs to happen is integrate our keybinds so that more combos can be possible when using a Ranged Weapon, which means evolving Quick Melee/Combos and Ranged attacks. Oherwise getting rid of that one animation and/or allowing something like Rolling to always activate (so can interrupt and cut any other animation short) would do more than other changes in addressing risk management with movement and Melee in general.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

7 hours ago, Raspberry said:

@(PS4)MrNishiI understand how that can be viable for star chart, but that playstyle is laughably unusable in endless. Banshee has weak defense, so if any enemy is immune to her CC at  any time, she's vulnerable to being one-shot killed. Before you even enter that bubble, that Nullifier Crewman or any enemy taking shelter in it can easily kill you because Silence doesn't work through it.

Needless to say, Banshee is one of the best endless frames as a support thanks to her Sonar, but she shouldn't be the one drawing aggro. Even in star chart, I notice that random Banshees tend to be downed first and most often.

All flying Drones are immune to Silence (regardless of Faction) but Sonic Boom works to keep them at Bay.

Solo Banshee endless is a situantional rotation of Silence(Savage), Resonating Sonar, Sonic Fracture (If Armor removal is beneficial other wise normal Sonic Boom), and occasionally Transference...I've not a found a reason to use Sound Quake/Resonating Quake in Solo endless play.

90minute solo MoT Axi Survivals with only Okina, not real endless but definitely Sortie viable.

 

Edited May 24, 2018 by (PS4)MrNishi

[Hammahness808]

The spin attack by itself is pretty obvious why it's meta. It deals 2-3x (much more) normal damage, hits more enemies with a single button combo, and propels you further. It's much better than using standard quick attacks, except maybe in condition overload builds, rapiers, or builds designed to apply slash status. As in the OP, it's also because it takes longer to equip your melee to use the stance for the damage bonuses or movement. Some/most stances also offer hardly any movement in their combos. Spin attacks, at the moment, are just much better in comparison.

 

Some of the other stuff you listed adds to it, but this is the major reason.