can fencer be pure melee?

[Yogi]

trying it now and im struggling but the melee stuff seems cool

[-Tr¡Ρ-]

depends on the mission but sure (you'll get softlocked on certain missions if you don't have range) -- I like rocking double Final Hammers sometimes for example, 90% damage reduction on swings and they propel you forward, actually works amazingly well against tadpoles

[Velmoria]

Limiting yourself only with CC Strikers, CC Piercers & Shield certainly possible, you will end up using Dynamo Blade for long range.

If you want idea which setup to use, Blasthole Spear + Shield + Deflect Cell is already a solid setup that can get you through many situations and of course, Dash Cell for mobility.

[Honorable_D]

Possible? Yes.

Viable? Not even close.

[FDR'sThinkTank]

It's possible, but because of how the meta of Fencer works, you're gonna get flak for it unless you are playing with friends. Unless, of course, it's good for the mission... or you are a total wargod at doing it.

I believe all the Melee weapons and CC Strikers have Dash Boosting. This creates a problem to make pure melee effective (At least in the missions where you don't absolutely have to have ranged) because Fencer Meta is to play a Mobile Fencer. This means you need to take either an Autocannon, A Mortar, or something else with a Jump Boost... because even if you only take the Dash boosting mod, that jump is very very handy for getting around. Multichargers give you both dashing and jumping if you want to economize your investment in Mobility.

Some of the Melee weapons have ranged attacks of sorts... and shields can reflect enemy shots with the reflect skill... but few people who play fencer bother to get good at this. Reflection also has the issue that because it requires you to be shot at, calculate an angle, and react... it's alot of work for little pay off.

It would be NICE if timed reaction Reflection (or parry) damage did critical/boosted damage to enemies. That might make the tactic viable. It would also be interesting if there were shield Variants that would automatically reflect specific damage types when blocking, but fail to block all other ranged damage types (Energy, Acid, Web, etc). There could also be Shields with small firearms build into them... the can shoot while blocking. Or Shields with powerful cannons with tricky firing angles that basically make the player immobile when deployed, like a bunker. Finally, they could make Shields that don't do reflection at all, but have a jump boost. This would repair the gameplay variety in some ways, and even reward players for taking two shields (Mixing shields could cover for weaknesses in one shield and let the players really enjoy reflecting in the game.)

People just love playing the mobile fencer and there are currently no built in benefits to playing the fencer as it was "Intended" so to speak. For EDF 5, the Mobile Fencer is the strongest playstyle. Of course, you can put your mobility for one set of weapons... and choose whatever you like for the second set... so there are many hybrid options even if you limit yourself always having to the effective meta.

Pure Melee is more effective against bug hordes and underground missions... but you can hide between buildings to make it work. Of course, Melee can be great for ambushing lone trooper aliens, but you'll want to be very careful about getting bogged down or surrounded by enemy laser fire. I wish there was Melee weapons that did extra damage to armor, actually. Then it would encourage players to boldly wreck armor, then run away. In my mind, this makes sense as a Fencer Role too, since they have the increased strength from exosuits.

Another way they could change Fencer play is with a mod that rewards Fencers who don't boost or jump. The longer they stay grounded, the more benefits the mod would give. Could be Defense, could be Attack, could be recharging weapons that normally can't be reloaded. Or... even other support abilities would be worth considering. Lots of options.

Perhaps one day.

[Vℓα∂y]

After 3 and half EDF games with Fencer having extreme speeds, I don't buy the whole that isn't his intended style. Without that speed he would absolutely have no way to be fast while other characters do. Its why Wing Diver and him are allowed to be fast because there not vehicle users and all classes needs a way to traverse and reliably be able to collect boxes in THESE HUGE MAPS. The producer has even shown himself dash boosting. In EDF6 he has same speed method as EDF5 but they double down on making his thruster and booster having even higher number than what 5 allows.

Defense is a strategy will work well in some maps but it is not universal strategy for every map. What is universal is speed. The balance is pretty wild around it from character to character but it is what it is just because of layout of missions and there big maps that requires movement and no real defend objectives besides some npc vehicles in some missions, the major objective is to kill everything in most maps with very little just being survive until missions ends. When you have enemies like gold ants(Eats Barga extremely high armored vehicle in less than 10secs) and green ants or bees and tadpoles not having speed can be pretty brutal.

What I imagine devs say to each other

EDF4 - Let's make new classes, one of them should be really technical with little explaining from us and it'll be called fencer. He'll have fastest grounded speed when using certain weapons and techniques with cancels.

EDF4.1- Players didn't like getting stuck on fences as Fencer while moving around, so we gave him ability to destroy objects he collides with.

EDF5- Okay too many players didn't like having attack to move around with Fencer in EDF4, it just felt too janky to them. We'll change it by removing dash cancels & allowing him to combine his dash and boost through cancels and being allowed to boost multiple times being a new thing.

EDF6- Our changes in EDF5 where well received, we think we'll just add small QoL to fencer with very little new weapons & support equipment and rearrange the stats and mechanics on his weapons abit. Let's also buff his speed bit more since we created some more intense missions in this sequel.

Now I get that you may look at Fencer NPC and see them do shield + dashing only and think huh this looks intentional way to play. Well in the end you can't use them as an example because with other NPC like Ranger they don't ever sprint or roll, and Wing Diver NPC they don't air dash and economically save energy and Air Raider well he don't have NPC version but vehicles are pilot by NPC, so NPC are for sure not good way to gauge on how to properly play classes. In fact there probably intentionally made that way to keep them from being too useful to the player and player has to come up with there own ideas to win.

So yeah, I believe Fencer was meant to have fast speed in EDF4 but it wasn't balanced because he had access to it way too fast early game because if devs didn't feel that way they could easily have him keep dash cancels along with dash boosting. EDF5, they balanced his speed, he no longer starts out super fast early game because he lacks dash cancels he has to work his way up those fast speeds but now with his new method he has much greater speed and flexibility than he did in EDF4. So goal from devs is high speed on fencer is goal he should have it but is it balanced from start to finish on a playthrough?

[phenir]

Spear and shield fencer is practically invincible. Solo it's not that great and enemies don't do enough damage anyway to really need a shield thanks to fencer's naturally high armor. In a party though, having a fencer with a shield get as close as possible and draw all the attention makes it extremely easy for the rest of the party to just shoot everything without having to worry about getting hit. Even explosions are fine. All shields have 360 degree coverage against explosions so air raider can use phobos and the shield fencer can draw everything into the blast zone and come out nearly unscathed. Of course this also goes for the melee weapons that give damage reduction while attacking. Dual wielding lets you constantly keep that protection up if you want to try that.
Generally, strikers are only useful against bugs or unarmored frogs. But they are really good against them, especially double hammers. The armor though on aliens makes it really hard to do effective damage to them as your damage keeps being directed at their armor instead of any fleshy bits that get exposed. Spears on the other hand are really good against armor. On level blasthole spear should one shot armor so it's usually a two hit at the legs to knock down an alien and then you get in close use his body as cover while you spear him to death.
Luckily, fencer has two sets of weapons so there is nothing stopping you from using melee in one set and dash+jump weapons in the other set to get around.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by 🌼Vℓα∂y🌻:

EDF5- Okay too many players didn't like having attack to move around with Fencer in EDF4, it just felt too janky to them. We'll change it by removing dash cancels & allowing him to combine his dash and boost through cancels and being allowed to boost multiple times being a new thing.

Its still a terrible mechanic. Dash and Jump being loaded onto his weapons is fine, but weapons having an innate dash as part of the attack animation just elevates Fencer to "wtf" levels of mobility.
Twin Spear offers so much additional mobility to the Fencer that playing with any other melee weapon feels like gimping yourself. And half the other weapons like Blades have some stupid dash before they attack, why? It just makes them annoying to use for actual attacking.
Fencer weapons should not grant movement by attacking. Full stop. If that makes him too exposed, then his base kit sucks and needs reworking.

But that's unlikely to happen. Anyone can see that the balancing of classes in EDF is not equal and there are clearly favourites.
Ranger is laughably immobile with the most ridiculous 'sprint' of any game I've ever played, and needs the top-tier armours just to not feel awful to play. Fencer meanwhile gets to dash around the map using only his Twin Spear attack, never mind his actual movement abilities.
Wing Diver is quick but they also have to manage their energy. There comes a point where you can move quickly or attack, not both. The greatest 'resource' a Fencer has to account for is not using your boost charge before you have to reload your Twin Spear.

[Vℓα∂y]

Originally posted by Evilsod:

Its still a terrible mechanic. Dash and Jump being loaded onto his weapons is fine, but weapons having an innate dash as part of the attack animation just elevates Fencer to "wtf" levels of mobility.
Twin Spear offers so much additional mobility to the Fencer that playing with any other melee weapon feels like gimping yourself. And half the other weapons like Blades have some stupid dash before they attack, why? It just makes them annoying to use for actual attacking.
Fencer weapons should not grant movement by attacking. Full stop. If that makes him too exposed, then his base kit sucks and needs reworking.

What's wrong with gimping yourself in EDF its PvE not a PvP? If you feel is too strong then don't use it Fencer is plenty viable with other dash boost setups. Personally I see limits off lobbies I do my best to actively avoid those there just boring as squads don't struggle to clear those at all. Also EDF has very low clear on 100% in these games already idk if most people who buyed the game are bots or most just quit after playing the game in one playthrough but its not like devs need to go hardcore and make each of classes super hard to play, I'm fine with these some of these OP options being in the game, especially when something like the Blazer exists which is ultimate easy to use weapon.

I tried playing the game all way through with just one other friend. When it was there turn to use Fencer, I tried hard to convince them use blast twins if they had it but in end they sticked with Jackhammer and Dexter and well I had no complaints with that, because well it seems to me like not every Fencer user can adapt to using blast twins.

[Plumber]

i am a little amused at the claim of fencer not having much resources to juggle in the same post that's griping about blast twinspears, which are the most difficult to optimize and resource intensive cc piercer if you're playing for efficiency and not just safe clears. You have to spend your dashes and boosts just to keep yourself at the correct distance. They'd still be great on defense even with literally 0 damage though

there are ways for WD to stay mobile and completely circumvent the vulnerability during overheats
ranger needed both mechanical and numerical buffs and he's getting them in edf6

[Vℓα∂y]

Yeah despite what some people write in some of past boards, Wing Diver isn't even that much weaker than Fencer, in fact I think she's even better than him on certain stages like on the mission Despair, while he's better than her on some others like maybe Bloody Battle. She's especially better than him at taking out drones, drones at least saucer type are not easiest thing for fencer to kill that fast. Both classes when played at there best potential can solo every mission in this game. With wing diver getting that 3rd slot in EDF6 she's going to be even better but who knows if extra slot will be better than Fencer gaining more speed.

[redeyes]

you can, try the spear+shield hakan+hammer blasttwin+hammer double rollers

[FDR'sThinkTank]

I don't believe the argument is that the fencer doesn't have enough resources, it's just that Fencer choices are poorly balanced between each other.

It would be one thing if the choices each had a playstyle/meta that wouldn't frustrate teammates or fail to contribute in missions...

Yet that's the point: Pure Melee or Melee/Shield isn't potent enough on it's own. One of your weapon sets has to be mobility based, with your support kit at least having a multicharger if available, if not pure dash and jump boosting.

You can't even use Melee or Melee/Shield in effective combination with pure ranged because escaping a horde is more effective than tanking a horde. I would like to see the fencer be able to sacrifice high mobility for the ability to bunker down and act as a deadly turret.

As it stands the Non-mobility Fencer is usually too slow to get into combat and too slow to get himself out of trouble. They put the shields in there, but Reflecting damage back at enemies is only effective if you are really good at it. The Learning curve on that is steep and the learning curve on dash-boosting is low.

Dash Boosting is clearly not unintended the way the game is played now, but the game designers won't let us forget it's a player style, you never see the NPC Fencers flying all over the place the way you will see players do it.

Wing Diver used to be better at attacking and moving, but I think now the trick with Wing Divers is taking advantage of flying to a spot enemies have a hard time getting at you... or cannot get to you at all. Then use Armor Penetrating weapons to deal damage. Only fly out to rescue friends and bulk up your health again.

[ifyucantbeatmexd]

ive cleared the entire game and from my experience i can say that honestly ive never used CC Striker or the usual Spear weapons bc i just found them awkward to use and not really worth it. but maybe that's just me, bc im terrible gamer in general, which means that whatever worked for me will 1000% work for anyone else. what worked best for me was Jackhammer+Shotgun as main weapons, with double Rapid Hound or double Heavy Cannon type weapons as secondary. Jackhammer+Shotgun is murder up close, and Fencer is safe most of the time bc you can dash in and out as you need