Melee vs ranged

[trendy11one]

It feels like melee weapons are inferior to ranged in every way. I admit, that unlocked only few, but crossbow feels like no-brainer choice vs heavy blade, spear, knife, daggers, shield.

Furthermore, secondary fire staff is also becomes the best option to use for secondary attack boosts, safe and quite damaging.

[SirGoog]

heavy blade has a really good stunning alter attack aswell even if it is quite slow, i got a pretty good echo build going with it, sure the fire staff is quite good but the fire effect is quite weak in comparison to effects such as curse which allow for extra damage caused by tlhe kunai, this can also be paired with heavy blade, knife is pretty bad in general, as for the others havent used them much

[trendy11one]

Originally posted by SirGoog:

heavy blade has a really good stunning alter attack aswell even if it is quite slow, i got a pretty good echo build going with it, sure the fire staff is quite good but the fire effect is quite weak in comparison to effects such as curse which allow for extra damage caused by tlhe kunai, this can also be paired with heavy blade, knife is pretty bad in general, as for the others havent used them much

Alter attack does not build up second weapon boost attack, so it practically reduce your overall damage.

I havent tried kunai, but if you pair your staff with extra stacks of fire talent, they are burning quite nicely. I once had run with 2 of talents (everything applies burn + extra stacks and damage) - was fun.

[SirGoog]

Idk maybe it’s just me I can’t play fire builds, they seem kinda boring to me

[fireheart126]

I actually find that mixed range/melee works best for me. I love the Heavy Blade, but I also love Sirocco, and I often use the two together, using Sirocco to blast from afar when I need to keep my distance, and then Heavy Blade to close in when I have an opening.

[Cadaver]

Very conufisng take, the melee weapons are some of the best weapons in the game, especially butcher and raven are insane early, tho generally i go with butcher and beatbolt for the single target damage

[Dragonfly_Jones]

I'm a fish knife or kunai + anchor guy myself.

[Valithin Drathyr]

Charge blade 1 - 2 shotting everything disagrees with you

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by Valithin Drathyr:

Charge blade 1 - 2 shotting everything disagrees with you

Charge blade is the most hillarious weapon tbh

[Kate]

Melee is really strong, but it definitely feels worse than ranged since it just gets you hit way more often thanks to animation locks. In coop it's great since your buddies can help set up your combos with stuff like goo bomb and freeze.

Having one good melee weapon is worth it even in ranged builds so you can pop their alterattack - i.e. the melee weapon that stuns on its alterattack is fantastic when paired with a fast ranged weapon like the kunai.

I'd like to see them adjust the animation lock or something so that it feels more reasonable to pick melee at high difficulties. Maybe I'm using the wrong melee weapons though...

[Jacobin Laden]

Originally posted by Kate:

Melee is really strong, but it definitely feels worse than ranged since it just gets you hit way more often thanks to animation locks. In coop it's great since your buddies can help set up your combos with stuff like goo bomb and freeze.

Having one good melee weapon is worth it even in ranged builds so you can pop their alterattack - i.e. the melee weapon that stuns on its alterattack is fantastic when paired with a fast ranged weapon like the kunai.

I'd like to see them adjust the animation lock or something so that it feels more reasonable to pick melee at high difficulties. Maybe I'm using the wrong melee weapons though...

💯

[Jack Blastem]

Gimme the Ninja Stars or staff and anything with a good alter attack and I am golden. My issue with melee is how snappy the dash feels normally. Except when in melee. Feels like it just all the sudden lags really bad and isnt dodging when I'm pressing it.

[Rena Ichigawa]

Any slow, heavy hitting weapon + shield is a easy carry against all but a very very small handful of enemies.

[Moturnach]

After beating the second biome boss almost entirely with Telepike and later again with Katars, i can say that using melee overall is totally fine.

With most damaging build to squeeze the most from Katars, the Blast + Goo Blast + Cruel Backstabs one, it becomes quite monstrous because of effectively double damage whenever you backstab, and its quite easy to kite around boss or enemy if you know what to do, plus its actually pretty flexible to play around. Its still fast enough for alterattack spam, can apply dots reliably, plus you can reliably dodge explosive/pylon waves purely via Katars hold attack, plus this specific attack suitable for Echo/Mark builds as well, just because it deals a decent single target damage in 1-2 hits.

Telepike essentially same thing, but you can use it as ranged weapon because hold attack is quite good and have nearly infinite range as long as you see target on screen. Due to that, its a bit easier to use than Katars, just because its less reliant on proper timings and due to faster and shorter attack sequence than Katars, you can spam alterattacks with it much easier, plus its also offers some extra protection just because you can hit some enemies while they cant hit you due to the longer reach.

As been said by me a lot of times, I got to 4th biome effortlessly nearly entirely via spamming Ravenblade alterattacks. Even after nerf its still possible to do the same thing, although you need more attack speed just because of invincibility period become shorter, but its still quite good for skipping entire attacks.

Still want to try at least to beat the 2nd biome boss with Charged Blade and Anchor Boom. Its good, just very reliant on proper hold attack execution just because if you aren't charged attack enough, you end up being severely punished for botched hold attack especially if you wanted to dodge boss attack with it. Other than that, a solid weapon, plus hits pretty hard with Echo or Blast build.

Fish Blade is basically all about proper timings of alterattacks to avoid being hit just because while all weapons above have a way to avoid being damaged by itself, this weapon lacks protection, but due to quick alterattack combo sequence, its not a big deal overall.

Only 3 melee weapons im having issues with atm is Heavy Blade, Goo Brush and Shield, but i already described my thoughts on why they are performing so bad for me in another topic with tier list.

Im not tested Anchor Boom and didn't get Eyeblade and Boomerang yet, but many other players thinks they are fine.

Among Trinkets, Flame Aura probably have the best synergy with Melee just because unlike other trinkets its aoe DOT plus infusion, which having insane value on fast attacking melee weapons even without supporting gifts, plus on top of that it works for allies as well and have small extra utility when used on apples, which is quite nice if you know about it.

Slower hitting weapons probably will enjoy Freeze Bomb just because its usually interrupt attacks plus it also provides enough room for alterattack combo with nearly any melee weapon, trick is to let the target being frozen as long as possible and save the bonus damage effect for alterattack.

Another good ways to make using melee weapons easier is either Necromancy gift or one of two healing Hexed Gifts (i like the one that sacrifice health rather than dodge, but they both rather good) or getting weapons with heal below 50% HP, and overall having at least 200+ HP. Protection Fish is also quite good for making melee builds less demanding.

Ive tried flask perks, and imo they ain't as good as Necromancy/Hexed Gifts just because they are providing quite limited advantage and you can buy only 1 flask back, so overall its very low value per slot. Rechargeable one is a bit more interesting yet still worse than healing gifts.

[trendy11one]

Well, after finishing game on 3rd (out of 5) difficulty I can safely confirm, that indeed it require so much effort to build up strong combination, but if you get cross-bow plus anything that set ups alt attack fast (such as returning blade from last boss), its absolute no-brainer. Cross-bow alt-attack is by far best damaging attack. You do not need gifts, passives. All things are just to build up your damage even further.

[Orzeker]

Originally posted by trendy11one:

Well, after finishing game on 3rd (out of 5) difficulty I can safely confirm, that indeed it require so much effort to build up strong combination, but if you get cross-bow plus anything that set ups alt attack fast (such as returning blade from last boss), its absolute no-brainer. Cross-bow alt-attack is by far best damaging attack. You do not need gifts, passives. All things are just to build up your damage even further.

You kinda need echo at least on later difficulties though in order to effectively double it's damage. other than that it pairs well with a bunch of alter activator and is super safe to use.

Used it on every single of my difficulties clear attempt, usually like it more with the sirocco to activate though, but boomerang, kunai, knife or eye blade can do pretty well too.