Melee Builds not worth it? Spears issue?

[Sir Valmont]

Initially I geared my soldier companions to be melee combatants by upgrading solely their Health, Defense and Melee with the thought of getting them a sarissa spear weapon for some reach capability.

I understand that shooting an enemy when they are tile-adjacent seems to initiate a reaction attack - but this also happens with melee attacks. My general impression is that almost all combat is either completely ranged (such as with human opponents) or in the case of Crashers it's not a problem to mow them down as they approach and, if any do get up close, just have a given npc walk away on a given turn. There's no "opportunity attack" like in D&D 5e whereby such a maneuver has risks and so no repercussion on the few occasions such is needed.

In the case of the sarissa, and it may just be my luck, but I seem to miss with those attacks a lot. Perhaps the attack code is linked to ranged stat by mistake?

But as of the current build, I definitely think that the shotgun ranged weapon granting the point blank skill is a far better fit for soldiers rather than melee weapons. However, some melee weapons like the sarissa still grant a bonus to evasion for your characters if worn so you'll want to toss any evasion based character a sarissa for that bonus.

[manlymousedan]

Thanks for the comment! Combat right now is a bit unbalanced, but I think melee is pretty practical. I usually run at least one melee-based Soldier in my parties. Melee-range skills generally scale better than ranged ones for damage, and since Soldiers have a lot of defensive abilities, they make for hard-hitting tanks (as the AI generally focuses on the closest enemy).

But yes, I will be adding/re-vamping weapons soon to give players more options to combat. I will also be taking a deeper look at making skills more useful (beyond just damage numbers) later on too.

[Sir Valmont]

Originally posted by manlymousedan:

Thanks for the comment! Combat right now is a bit unbalanced, but I think melee is pretty practical. I usually run at least one melee-based Soldier in my parties. Melee-range skills generally scale better than ranged ones for damage, and since Soldiers have a lot of defensive abilities, they make for hard-hitting tanks (as the AI generally focuses on the closest enemy).

But yes, I will be adding/re-vamping weapons soon to give players more options to combat. I will also be taking a deeper look at making skills more useful (beyond just damage numbers) later on too.

I mirrored your sentiment when preparing my own team, but I found that a big problem is that combat's current pacing rewards acting quickly at range since by the time your melee combatant closes the gap a lot will have happened in combat. However, I hadn't realized that the AI would prioritize the most forward unit, so that can certainly help me in later fights.

Still concerned about the hit rates for the sarissa, I think melee weapons should have a much higher chance of landing a blow than ranged weapons due to the trouble of getting close to the enemy.

[Vexov]

I haven't giving the game a lot of play.

From what i seen Zafra? (pink hair) soldier. Soldier is a very solid melee front line, the other more like hybrid. All i did is focus on HP, Str, and Def (basically if not 100%). She becomes a tank, even with a self heal.

Everyone else is kind of actually weakish compared to Soldier. Sort of like a Paladin, cause it has a self heal or perhaps more. You got charge (straight line attack into enemy) and even dash (a free movement ability). Mobility, defence/self sustain abilities, good damage. Now consider all that (and experience it) with support.



Combat certainly does need polish and balancing done to make it better then smash contest. Part of that is the skills, skill trees, level cap, stats caps. Hopefully the game actually have caps and use that for some very nice fights with rewards.