melee vs. guns

[Traveler]

Sure this has been trashed to death since that game released but anyway.

What do you think of the balance between melee and projectile weapons.

Both can be plenty powerful, but melee just seems a lot easier if for no other reason than cost. Melee weapons just need occasional maintenance, guns on the other hand need repairs (and the good ones seem to need more and slightly rarer scrap) plus you need to make and carry ammo.

Then there are perks. Everyone's bulds are different, but I spend way more points making guns effective than I spend on my melee weapons

I'm not saying that guns are bad (I use them a lot) just that that they made bringing a knife to a gunfight a little to easy,

[cougarshamn]

At events, melee tends to suck imho. You have to chase things down only for someone across the area to kill it right before you reach it.

[Dr. Rockso]

Originally posted by cougarshamn:

At events, melee tends to suck imho. You have to chase things down only for someone across the area to kill it right before you reach it.

Nothing to do with balance though, that's just the nature of melee vs ranged.

I'd be curious to hear from non-bloodied players as I have only used melee after I started using Unyielding armor so most weapons in general tend to fair pretty well.

[Bow Fox]

Melee weapons are supremely powerful in close quarters (as they ought to) but definitely show their failings in many events. While the power of a melee weapon (especially the chainsaw) gets so nuts it's hard to use much else the health & armor costs do somewhat start to balance it.

If you're wanting to use some ranged weapons but are having trouble getting the standard rifles & shotguns working well, just go straight to the Heavy guns (.50 Cal, Light Machine Gun, Plasma & Laser Gatlings)
They can allow ya to keep that chunky melee for actually killing but some genuinely enjoyable ranged weapons to support folks for if needs demand it.

Also, perks for melee are needed due to Strength being the primary catalyst increasing their damage; and for a game with so little carry weight, why would you NOT just increase Strength quite heavily?

[cougarshamn]

Originally posted by Dr. Rockso:

Originally posted by cougarshamn:

At events, melee tends to suck imho. You have to chase things down only for someone across the area to kill it right before you reach it.

Nothing to do with balance though, that's just the nature of melee vs ranged.

I'd be curious to hear from non-bloodied players as I have only used melee after I started using Unyielding armor so most weapons in general tend to fair pretty well.

I would say that it IS part of the balance though. Melee has some advantages, but is balanced by having to get up close and personal. Before they did the changes with legendary looting, it was a SEVERE disadvantage to melee. Even though they have mostly fixed that issue, it's still part of the balance that needs to be considered.

[Dr. Dro ඞ]

Get yourself an anti-armor + power damage or standing still + durability chainsaw and that is literally all you need to grind at endgame raid bosses

[Traveler]

Getting close is pretty easy if you have decent stealth, the only enemy I can think of where guns are better is the Scorchbeast (hard to melee something flying).

I'm sure guns are way better pvp, but I don't do that.

[Mooman]

To play melee at events you have to play 'smart', that is you have to spawn camp. All events have fixed spawn points and knowing where they are is key if you care about kills and not just event completion. Most events also have bugged spawn points that you can go to for kills away from the group. Or just don't care and team with the heavy hitters for shared XP if that's your thing.

As for flying enemies melee is best believe it or not. Scorchbeast use a players location to plot a landing site. If a melee player has aggro and is standing in the open the SBs will land fairly regularly. The key to getting aggro is to be the first one to damage the enemy or be the first player they see. At SBQ with my melee character I can get her to land within moments of spawning ~90% of the time by being the first to shoot her as she spawns and running into open space, she'll land right at my feet.

The only real issue with melee is you pay your 'ammo' in gear repairs. Of all my characters the melee is the one running out of repair kits...

[Dr. Dro ඞ]

Originally posted by Mooman:

To play melee at events you have to play 'smart', that is you have to spawn camp. All events have fixed spawn points and knowing where they are is key if you care about kills and not just event completion. Most events also have bugged spawn points that you can go to for kills away from the group. Or just don't care and team with the heavy hitters for shared XP if that's your thing.

As for flying enemies melee is best believe it or not. Scorchbeast use a players location to plot a landing site. If a melee player has aggro and is standing in the open the SBs will land fairly regularly. The key to getting aggro is to be the first one to damage the enemy or be the first player they see. At SBQ with my melee character I can get her to land within moments of spawning ~90% of the time by being the first to shoot her as she spawns and running into open space, she'll land right at my feet.

The only real issue with melee is you pay your 'ammo' in gear repairs. Of all my characters the melee is the one running out of repair kits...

I chew through two of those every time I do ultracite titan with my 2-star antiarmor chainsaw... I'm literally willing to pay 40k caps for an AA/SS/Dur chainsaw

[OranTruk]

All good points, faster swing speed is breaking faster. I carry 3, then repair, and try to use the bench with "fix it good". Chainsaw, Fixer, Pistol (10mm 2x exp). Each weapon uses perk cards from different categories, so they all can have +30% damage, plus other effects like ignore armor. I usually only switch cards if I can't fast travel or crafting something.

[Traveler]

To be fair, I exclusively use the chainsaw for melee since I found it so swing speed isn't the issue.

[Scar]

Originally posted by cougarshamn:

At events, melee tends to suck imho. You have to chase things down only for someone across the area to kill it right before you reach it.

This also melee generally sucks unless you decide to go full melee with all the perks, although chainsaw, ripper and buzzblade is better than any other non-saw weapon pretty much makes the rest useless.

For the guns well there's a perk card that makes them break 50% slow along with another perk card that increases durability after repairing, both of them together and you can use your gun for the longest time

[3rd Charger]

Line in the Sand requires both melee and ranged. I use a Plasma cutter disguised as a samurai sword for the scorched but have to switch to a fixer or handmade for the Scorchbeast(s) that spawn. It is easy to solo if you have a melee and ranged weapon. Thorn armor allows a melee weapon to become a 'swing and forget' weapon.

[jerrypocalypse]

I run a hybrid heavy weapons (flamer) and shotgun (Cold Shoulder or gauss shotgun) build and it's really effective and fun. Non-bloodied. The flamer has fire rate and anti-armor and wrecks enemies, even if I remove my one and only +10% heavy weapons damage card I use in the build. Only downside is how quickly it guzzles fuel, but with ammo cards you can craft a ton of it pretty easily

[Donut]

In my opinion its better to just use ranged, Although that is the entire point of melee (as the first post stated) it takes too long to get there only for someone to do the job for you, in the previous solo games sure melee can be a viable and fun option but in 76 its just not needed (besides that one perk that lets you mark them for more damage)

If you wanna get up close instead of being a sniper like 90% of the users then as above try shotguns and flamers, they got the gauss shotgun which is pretty fun

But honestly its better to use just ranged, your able to do consistent damage without worrying about if you can catch up to them, if they can teleport, if they can burrow and if you fight something like the scorch beast and it bugs out and it never lands then your kinda screwed :P

[RMPyro]

Melee had a problem to register hits sometimes, not sure if its fixed.