Melee is weak

[Jim Of True Sight]

I just played the Dragoon character, if you dont know he starts with 1 suppression, turns every enemy into a dragon type, and all his damage counts as close and far damage. I had what was seemingly the absolute perfect build, I had the True Excalbier, the dragonstone ring and shield, a charm that does 25% bonus damage to dragons, relevant perks and good stats, and i was barely doing any damage. In total i had nearly +100% damage to bosses just from equipment and charms and it was taking 5 minutes to kill bosses from floor 6 on.

Where as, if u just go for a little bit of fire damage with the fire and blood perk, everything in the game just freaking melts with any equipment and weapons.

I also feel that there are some broken mechanics whether it be with items or talents, Ex. i had 100% crushing hit chance from close range attacks, and i had a legendary glove that make ruthless and crushing hits proc the other, this seemingly did not work. I had the bone talent that shoots bones on crushing hits and not one procced so i re rolled it with an obsidian dice. Its a bit annoying because id really like to go for a straight melee build but they just take so long and generally feel unrewarding even with the perfect items you were hoping for, which makes me feel like theyre just completely outclasses by ranged and magic.

[Amphidex]

A lot of stat effects or damage over time is completely overshadowed by fire/bleed/poison. The "Do 25% extra damage to dragons" never felt like it was actually working for me. A lot of rares or uncommons were much better even though the dragoon lance does more damage, and is faster (supposedly, it feels like the damage isn't actually translating at all for dragon stats)

[Blazerafe]

Melee needs a complete overhall, i'm on WT7 and theres never any situation where i want to pick a melee weapon. Ive found some insane arcane scrolls, staff's, guns, bibles but every legendary melee weapon i find is MEH at best. It doesnt pay for the trade off of having to get up close and tank more damage than any other class or excel in any way. The range of swords and axes is tiny most of the time and i find myself running any melee class with other weapons and paying the scaling price. Not good.

[Jack Sidharth]

The Perk you took specifies Ranged Close Damage, while you were using a Melee weapon lol.

I'm not sure how you are having issues, you can easily kill floor 12 bosses before they even move with melee. 5 minutes on floor 6? You are either lying or missing 99% of your attacks.

[Dlanor]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Jack Sidharth:

The Perk you took specifies Ranged Close Damage, while you were using a Melee weapon lol.

I'm not sure how you are having issues, you can easily kill floor 12 bosses before they even move with melee. 5 minutes on floor 6? You are either lying or missing 99% of your attacks.

You just said why they're having issues, they aren't understanding everything they're reading. Of course the runs feel weak when you take perks that do nothing because you don't use the stuff they work with. I agree 5 minutes sounds like an absurd exaggeration though, I'm pretty sure the base gear with no other equipment or perks could manage a kill in under 5 minutes on floor 6.

It's understandable to misread stuff sometimes, this game does have a lot of text for a new player to read through as they play. Honestly though when your thought is "It's not doing what I think it should be doing", the rest of that thought should be "let me read it again carefully in case I misread it", not "It is broken".

[Seerix]

Just had one of my most overpowered runs with the Nunchaku, an uncommon (blue) melee weapon. Primordial Death died in sub 1 second. Other key traits were crushing hits, rage, debuff effect. Also got a set ring which made orbitals orbit 100% faster while standing still, which was perfect to kill the bosses before they start their first attack.

[Lady_Nightshade]

Well whenever I melee, I either build hard for it so that it has so much damage you murder everything before it can even hit you to begin with, or just crutch it out with spears.

I argue that STR builds seem a little weak in general, I always have to cross into another stat to survive. Melee weps themselves are not weak, but I won't use them unless they have a unique effect. iirc, Amazon Spear was wonderful to use, the rework for that weapon was very fun. But most times I will take a magic / range weapon over a melee just for the safety.

Flails seem kinda mid, but at least they changed flails / bibles to sorta target the enemy if they're within range. helps a lot with positioning flexibility.

I will say, Certain traits are very helpful for maxing out damage, in general, and you don't necessarily have to fish for them either. Alacrity can boost your dps a lot if you get a melee that has high dex scaling, regardless of what your dex actually is, because its based off the weapon's dex scaling. Pairing it with Lucky Hit builds have been the most consistent thing for me so far in melee, especially with Radiant Hammer and Lightning Conductor, those lucky hits give a bunch of extra damage up close. Lightning bounces if there's another enemy in range, and Hammer pierces through as many enemies as there are before it reaches max range. Trigger Mania pairs well with these to give a lot of extra bonus damage. if you have high attack speed it doesn't matter if your weapon damage is good, as long as your lucky hit is going off at a high rate.

Dex isn't the only option though. STR / INT is also a very strong pairing especially if you use more INT than STR and get Dominance. Go for alchemy stashes and taverns, stack up potions and and booze and benefit from +Buff Strength that it gives you. Take soul rooms and stack up HP from the campfire to take more booze. This will give you a bunch of up-close damage.

[Jamjars]

melee is the worst of the three strats in this game by a good margin.