Am I just bad or is the game badly balanced for melee?

[EarlSkrubb]

Some enemies in melee almost one shot you near the end of the game even with armor from the next biome, the boss from the sunken see 2 shots you with his tornados, so if you are melee, they spawn so close to one another that you get one shot, it feels very unbalanced. Maybe if you had a bit more tankiness and the dash, dashed you a longer distance.

Am I just bad at the game or is range really the way to go?

[Kona❤Kona]

I have fun with melee in this game and used it on everything except than the Sea Titan. That one is pretty rough.

[EarlSkrubb]

Originally posted by Kona❤Kona:

I have fun with melee in this game and used it on everything except than the Sea Titan. That one is pretty rough.

I have the galaxite armor and in the sunken sea, in those kind of "fortresses" the automatons one shot me if I'm too close when they do their big attacks since you get hit by the 3 projectile at once. it's pretty annoying

[Martimus Prime]

Melee is awful. It's not just you and you aren't bad.

It's terribly balanced. Ranged is just a freakin' cakewalk compared to melee.

Melee needs to have more damage reduction added to its tree.

[Michaelz]

That's true. The only use in melee is fighting azeos.

[Shakon_Krogen]

melee has a use besides killing hordes of Mold Cavelings?

[May]

Melee weapons aren't bad, but it certainly feels underwhelming compared to the other more superior option(ranged weapons).

Most melee weapons have better dps than ranged weapons on paper(aoe damage + faster attack speed), but since most bosses and enemies hit like trucks when you are on the same level as them(1/7~1/5 of your health), you are somewhat forced to retreat and lose precious deal time.

Of course, you can minigate this deal time loss by going a shield build with damage reduction buffs...but even then you are forced to hold up your shield during enemy attacks. (And getting hit even a single tick will decrease your armor durability)

All ranged builds need to do is dodge and spam. Since you can spot enemies projectiles/attack patterns from a MILE away, you are usually always moving into safer spots...which means there's nearly no damage loss whatsoever.

So it is pretty easy to say that ranged weapons overwhelms melee.

[May]

However, melee shines when doing a hybrid build.

Why is this great?
Wall Peaking and charge up attacks.

Unless you are in totally open areas like the Ocean or Desert(or fighting bosses), you will always be surrounded by walls that helps you avoid enemy projectiles comepletely.

This let you prepare and lure in enemies towards you, which comes to the next step, charge up attacks.

Some weapons such as the Iron axe and Scholars staff lets your charge up a power attack that deals more damage on a larger area or do multiple hits at once.

What i'd do is prepare a charge-up with a weapon of my liking(usually melee against groups or squishy targets and ranged for larger and tanky ones), hit whatever'coming around the corner with the other weapon type and repeat.

You can also combine dashing diagonally with a feather accessory after a melee attack/charged range attack in close range. This has a really high chance of messing the aim of enemies that use projectiles to attack you.

Both melee and range skill provides a unique skill that if hit with a melee/ranged weapon, you get a chance of dealing more damage with the other weapon type for a few seconds.

[Jaxom Renard]

I capped ranged while melee was in the 30's. My go-to was the musket, which I've leveled all the way up to 17. I'm working on melee now and it's just... annoying, many of the higher ranged enemies have multiple shots, or directional shields, and enemies with knockback are annoying. Melee is lacking something with that one hit murder option, unless you get lucky with crits. (personal best is about 60% with a owlux that buffs by 12%) But hey, at least it isn't fishing !!!

[Cryten]

From a balance perspective melee either needs some kind of stagger mechanic or well telegraphed attacks with invulnerability frames (think wow boss raids kind of projecting attacks). Otherwise ranged is just melee with more time to react and a slightly longer perfect dodge time to kill.

[stealthXG]

Nope, melee is pretty bad. There's even a materializer platform arena where you have to use range because there's a hole separating you from the enemies. I don't know what the devs were thinking.

[Ucpteddy]

If you build defensively and not going for glasscannon, Melee is absolutely broken (in a good way), You wont need to move unless whatever you are hitting is moving, 100% hp at all times with lifesteal. Facetanked every boss past the wall so far.

[May]

I just found Shields are pretty amazing.
Perfect block lets you "Parry" and ignore all damage whatsoever.(although it will still reduce your armor durability)

[May]

Ima start a shield+melee dedicated playthrough and see how it goes

[Lahgtah]

I remember doing a lifesteal build centered around attack speed and the legendary sword. Worked pretty well; while it wasn't a "one hit nuke" sort of thing, it was rather durable. The problem is getting that legendary sword; it can take a long while to find that last piece.
The build worked best with any lifesteal and attack speed items, as long as you don't sacrifice too much durability. Shield will be necessary to parry certain attacks you can't dodge.

It was definitely more effort than ranged, but ranged is boring. Point and click ain't fun, chief.