Melee

[soulpelt]

So are melee weapons basically entirely useless? Additionally does scaling actually do much? I've not really *felt* it be actually impactful.

[Dollop of Mayo]

Depending on the melee weapon, many may as well be ranged. But the short-ranged melee weapons are a special way of putting the game on hard mode. They're rarely strong enough to make up for the extreme risk you take getting in range.

[Code:Ao Vivia Cxv009]

Melee is good but the issue is more the short range ones as it puts you to much in harms way to reliably dodge things so you eat way more damage than you should. I've tried short range builds and their just a pain and often lead to short runs against floors or bosses that sprew garbage all over the screen.
Perhaps a solution could be Weapons with Short range Gain like armor or a heart or something by default to compensate some? Medium range is fine; tho can be iffy in cases where the attack animation is a tad wonky.

[Doombringer]

True Excaliber and the final evolutions of hero swords are good.
They basically wipe the screen if you hold down attack...
Starfury does a lot of damage (because a lot of shots/attack)
Most melee weapons are less interesting though.

[GaviJa]

I feel melee is still underwhelming. I got leviatan axe at floor 7 and was still doing absolute 0 damage. It has S scaling on strength and dex but I was hiting at 1.5k on crits with 10/25.
That's basically 30-40 hits for the laser guys. Still ♥♥♥♥.

[Eriktion]

Give melee a shield that is blocking all projectiles in one direction or something

[RindFisch]

Originally posted by Code:Ao Vivia Cxv009:

Melee is good but the issue is more the short range ones as it puts you to much in harms way to reliably dodge things so you eat way more damage than you should.

I agree with this. It's not specifically melee that's bad, it's short ranged weapons. They don't really get compensated enough for the additional problems of having to get so close to the enemies. Add to that that the vast majority of boss patterns are much easier to dodge at range or have them charge through the screen where you need a longer-ranged weapon to hit them at all, and short range is too much of a liability.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by GaviJa:

I feel melee is still underwhelming. I got leviatan axe at floor 7 and was still doing absolute 0 damage. It has S scaling on strength and dex but I was hiting at 1.5k on crits with 10/25.
That's basically 30-40 hits for the laser guys. Still ♥♥♥♥.

Leviathan Axe is not primarily meant as a weapon. It has other effects outside combat that are what make it a legendary.

[Godlyvexx]

Disagree. Short ranged weapons do require getting closer, but usually they have high damage and are worth it. Just had a dagger run where I was doing 50k damage up close, and my first time fighting the first hell boss, beat him without getting hit. Just play smart and only get close when they're not emitting bullets.

[rtyu]

Doesn't feel like there's any incentive to ever use melee, beyond for achievements. Way too punishing as it is, compared to ranged weapons.

[Toosoft]

i disagree a lot, i feel melee run are easier to broke the game you are just missing something, and i don't spam one weapon, flail, sword, dagger, hammer and axe you can break the game with just epic weapons.
spears have more range than most ranged weapon the same goes with flail and you don't even bother to aim.
strenght perks are way better and stronger than agility and magic one.
If i don't end up doing 10 to 50 k damage then i did something wrong with the build, resulting to 2 or 3 sec every boss.

[KellyR]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

True Excaliber and the final evolutions of hero swords are good.
They basically wipe the screen if you hold down attack...
Starfury does a lot of damage (because a lot of shots/attack)
Most melee weapons are less interesting though.

Don't forget Zenith. Zenith is amazing, and a contender for best weapon in the game IMO.

[goobie snoobert]

all of the broken hero sword upgrades essentially make the game play itself

[GaviJa]

Originally posted by Exide:

i disagree a lot, i feel melee run are easier to broke the game you are just missing something, and i don't spam one weapon, flail, sword, dagger, hammer and axe you can break the game with just epic weapons.
spears have more range than most ranged weapon the same goes with flail and you don't even bother to aim.
strenght perks are way better and stronger than agility and magic one.
If i don't end up doing 10 to 50 k damage then i did something wrong with the build, resulting to 2 or 3 sec every boss.

In cinder 16 you hit for 10 to 50k every single game?

[Penguwren]

"Melee" is fantastic....when they don't even act like melee weapons and can attack things across the screen
Actual Melee weapons, that have short range are nigh unusable.

[geepope]

Originally posted by Penguwren:

"Melee" is fantastic....when they don't even act like melee weapons and can attack things across the screen
Actual Melee weapons, that have short range are nigh unusable.

There are some shorter range weapons that are okayish. A big part of the problem isn't just the range, it's the number of hits: a lot of ranged weapons fire multiple shots at once, giving them deceptively high DPS. Those short range melees that just send out a single slash or shockwave don't just have reach issues, they also only ever hit once. There are a few weapons like Mjolnir that has the standard mace range issues but pummels everything inside its range with a bunch of lightning strikes and it's stronger than most legendaries despite its range.

But those are the exceptions, a lot of melees are one hit and that's it. There are some good traits in the strength pool and Barbarian breaks the game over his knee with them, but then he's not strictly limited to melee weapons either (finding a bow with strength + dex scaling and then taking the trait that adds strength to dexterity for ranged weapon scaling will blow melee out of the water, for example.)