Are swords and glaives not melee?

[Paragon]

Title. I recently got an exotic called the Winters Guile, which increases the damage of melee attacks after a melee kill. So naturally I slipped them on and grabbed my nearest glaive and sword and went to try it out.

Attacks from both do not seem to activate its ability, but smacking an enemy with your default melee while using other weapons does. Is this intended? I feel like its kinda weird how a literal sword and swordstaff you use to hit people with isn't considered 'melee'.

[N33MA]

Swords specifically do not count as melee. Glaives are technically melee but they don't trigger most melee related exotics at this point in time. Though recently they added functionality for exotics like karenstein armlets and they said that more exotics would be usable with glaive melee in the future.

[tanksin]

they work pretty well with necrotic grips lol

[Nibbie]

I think the idea is that there are some powerful perks that boost melee, and having them boost something like a sword which already has very powerful attacks could get pretty crazy. Your Winter's Guile stacks up to 650%, Titans have the exact same thing in Wormgod's Caress, and hunters have Liar's Handshake, a 200% damage increase that heals. There are various other mods, exotics, and other effects that you can apply to melee too. Even with glaives, which have much lower damage than swords, they have 'infinite ammo' for their melee instead and can swing much faster than normal melee, so it is still quite powerful.

[Kashra Fall]

You do realize how powerful the glaive would be if winter's guile proceed with it, right? Void warlock, devour, 650% damage increase. Much as I'd LIKE it to work, you'd be hitting enemies for like 150k.

[Lano-17]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

You do realize how powerful the glaive would be if winter's guile proceed with it, right? Void warlock, devour, 650% damage increase. Much as I'd LIKE it to work, you'd be hitting enemies for like 150k.

Guile is only 4s, requires kills, to keep up, but yeah that multi sounds too good on paper. The important thing is that glaives replace your melee (and all its synergies, eg: no wellmaker, no ios, no radiant, or whatever you use in your build that melee would help with). In a dps rotation it has to make up some loss.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by N33MA:

Swords specifically do not count as melee. Glaives are technically melee but they don't trigger most melee related exotics at this point in time. Though recently they added functionality for exotics like karenstein armlets and they said that more exotics would be usable with glaive melee in the future.

Interesting, I suppose its a conscious balance decision to have this exotic not proc on glaives at this time. I can see how it would quickly get bonkers with swords though, given those use heavy ammo and slap pretty hard.

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

You do realize how powerful the glaive would be if winter's guile proceed with it, right? Void warlock, devour, 650% damage increase. Much as I'd LIKE it to work, you'd be hitting enemies for like 150k.

I am literally a noob asking why smacking something with a stick is not considered melee in this case while it is in others. So no, I did not have an innate understanding of the balance and synergy of an item I just got.

[Emurinus]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

You do realize how powerful the glaive would be if winter's guile proceed with it, right? Void warlock, devour, 650% damage increase. Much as I'd LIKE it to work, you'd be hitting enemies for like 150k.

Stabbing Rhulk to death with his own glaive would be hilariously ironic though...

[ralphtobybob]

Glaives probably don't count because the game seems to define melee hits as those done with a hand. Gauntlets seem to be the only armor that gives melee buffs, for instance. Unpowered sword hits used to count as melee hits though. I noticed that once when I ran out of heavy ammo, but that was a probably a year or two ago. Hits with unpowered glaives though don't seem to count as melee attacks which is a bit annoying if you need to keep using the glaive for a bounty or something but also have a melee bounty.
You could test the sword with a bounty and see if it increments.

[Bnn1]

Originally posted by N33MA:

Swords specifically do not count as melee. Glaives are technically melee but they don't trigger most melee related exotics at this point in time. Though recently they added functionality for exotics like karenstein armlets and they said that more exotics would be usable with glaive melee in the future.

This is actually only partially true.

Some bounties that count "melee kills" accept a Glaive kill as being "melee". Melee on Glaives also triggers melee perks. The melee on Glaives does NOT trigger other perks that require a primary hit.

Killing Wind for example is only triggered by the leftclick shot. Graverobber though, can be triggered by a melee.

This is why you use a graverobber perk on your Glaive. Shoot all your "bullets", then melee kill a target = instantly rearmed glaive.

[IblisFlare]

Swords are their own thing and won't trigger melee based exotics. From what I understand, glaive melee attacks won't trigger powered melee things, but they should trigger unpowered melee things, with a few exceptions I would imagine. Basically, the glaive melee is treated as your own unpowered melee attack, but again, I would imagine there are/will be exceptions to what this will actually proc.

[Amereth]

Originally posted by IblisFlare:

Swords are their own thing and won't trigger melee based exotics. From what I understand, glaive melee attacks won't trigger powered melee things, but they should trigger unpowered melee things, with a few exceptions I would imagine. Basically, the glaive melee is treated as your own unpowered melee attack, but again, I would imagine there are/will be exceptions to what this will actually proc.

Yup i use glaives a lot and this is it.

If it says Melee attack, then it should work.

If it says Powered melee attack, then it shouldn't.

So some fragments will work and others won't.

3 exotic work for now with the glaives, but the dev said they are looking to include more.
Karnstein armlet, Necrotic Grip and ACD/0 Feedback Fence should work with the glaives.

Edit : I want to add that high energy fire boost the dmg of the melee hit and i still need to test One two punch, but i assume it would work.

[Paragon]

So basically what i'm getting out of all this is to figure out if a melee will work with glaives or not: roll the dice lmao.

Guess the balance decisions of this game are just as confusing as its format for new players. Thanks for all the answers.

[ralphtobybob]

Originally posted by Ben1:

Originally posted by N33MA:

Swords specifically do not count as melee. Glaives are technically melee but they don't trigger most melee related exotics at this point in time. Though recently they added functionality for exotics like karenstein armlets and they said that more exotics would be usable with glaive melee in the future.

This is actually only partially true.

Some bounties that count "melee kills" accept a Glaive kill as being "melee". Melee on Glaives also triggers melee perks. The melee on Glaives does NOT trigger other perks that require a primary hit.

Killing Wind for example is only triggered by the leftclick shot. Graverobber though, can be triggered by a melee.

This is why you use a graverobber perk on your Glaive. Shoot all your "bullets", then melee kill a target = instantly rearmed glaive.

None of my melee attacks with an unpowered glaive counted as melee attacks on my ketchcrash bounty. On the other hand, the game is buggy. i abandoned a solar melee bounty after 5 runs only gave me a 20% completion.