Is Melee viable?

[HotSoup]

I've got 4 points in Melee and finding it less useful than my 2 points in pistols. I was hoping for knockbacks and stuns or something but really I'm finding it hard to kill anything and just opening myself up to no cover.

I'm still early on but thinking of re-rolliing. Anyone have anything positive to say about Melee?

[Electronic Adrenaline]

I did elf adept just fine focused on STR to 9 than sword/close combat max and getting to the x3 strike in the CHA line becomes beast mode. 1 shot 1 kill

[Dessabelle]

Just run wired reflex if you want to dodge guys. Then you don't have to invest in quickness and focus completely on strength and body. Melee is actually stronger in my experience than rifles at that point.

[Gutsman]

Just finished a playthrough on very hard with a melee troll street sammy, no adept powers. Put all my points in strength, close combat, melee and body. Ended up with 15 strength including cyberware buffs. Overall it was pretty easy, especially toward the end.

You just have to be a little cautious and not run straight into a room full of enemies. I usual stack up on the entrance and take a pot shot then hide with a ranged hireling. Then, after they all rush up to you, you can run in and slaughter them. Cleave is crazy if you can get them to stack up.

[talt]

ranged is better. Quickness + Dodge massively increases survivability. Damage is bought via guns, which outpace melee except at the highest end. You won't earn enough KP to max out strength. Plus, you actually hit enemies at range.

[Emil]

TT a écrit :

ranged is better. Quickness + Dodge massively increases survivability. Damage is bought via guns, which outpace melee except at the highest end. You won't earn enough KP to max out strength. Plus, you actually hit enemies at range.

You should check the date on the thread :P

And Yes melee is perfectly fine, just played through the campagin with highest difficulty as a melee.

[talt]

Slappiz a écrit :

TT a écrit :

ranged is better. Quickness + Dodge massively increases survivability. Damage is bought via guns, which outpace melee except at the highest end. You won't earn enough KP to max out strength. Plus, you actually hit enemies at range.

You should check the date on the thread :P

And Yes melee is perfectly fine, just played through the campagin with highest difficulty as a melee.

I didn't say its impossible to play as melee, I said its inferior to ranged.

[Emil]

Not necessarily. An adept with melee weapon is the best single target dmg dealer in the game but I guess it's all goes down to how you want to play the game and how you setup your team.

[talt]

Slappiz a écrit :

Not necessarily. An adept with melee weapon is the best single target dmg dealer in the game but I guess it's all goes down to how you want to play the game and how you setup your team.

Except this is not true.

If you focus on it, by the end of the campaign you will deal less damage than if you had equipped a top tier gun. And with the gun you also get free dodging bonus (Even if you don't buy a single point of dodge, quickness itself confers a bonus to dodging).

In terms of damage output: Mage > Gun samurai > Melee Samurai.
In terms of survivability and damage soaking
Gun samurai > Mage > Melee samurai

Adept bonuses are equally useful for all 3 of those choices. But you only have so many KP to spend.

Also, the only melee only adept power that doesn't apply to guns as well killing hands. Which passively give a +4 to unarmed damage (still worse than a weapon), when activated it goes up to +10 damage but prevents you from using combat maneuvers for the duration.

[iamaneviltaco]

TT a écrit :

Also, the only melee only adept power that doesn't apply to guns as well killing hands. Which passively give a +4 to unarmed damage (still worse than a weapon), when activated it goes up to +10 damage but prevents you from using combat maneuvers for the duration.

You sure about that? I'm playing a troll adept right now and I don't seem to be having any trouble at all using my combat maneuvers while I've got killing hands active.

[talt]

Now... no matter what you choose, by mid campaign, if you specialized, you would have 99% hit chance.
So what is your damage?

Gun samurai should be using SMG which maxes out at 12 damage per bullet and shoots 2 bullets per AP (SMG is the only weapon that shoots 2 bullets per AP). That is an effective damage of 24 per shot. You can choose to spray and hit adjacent targets as well at no penalty.

Mage is shooting can spend 2AP for an AoE like
fireball 2 - 20 damage and 10 DOT for 2 rounds. And the enemy take the DOT at the begining of their turn before they take an action.
Ball Lightning 1 - 15 damage, 5DOT and -1AP DOT for 2 rounds, DOES stack with fireball DOT

For the single target he has the following 1AP spells:
Flamethrower 3 - deal 25 damage
Lightning Bolt 3 - deal 18 damage and -1 to enemy AP (-2 on a crit)
Acid stream 2 - 12 damage and -6 DOT for 2 rounds

Melee samurai is using the best sword, giving him a damage of 6+STR, if he has focused significantly on it and neglected other things he is even squishier than the mage... but likely has a strength score of 9. So he deals 15 damage per hit.

Unarmed samurai is doing STR + 4 from killer hands passive. so, 2 less than melee. Unless he activates the ability in which case its 10+str, so a whopping 19... maybe +1 from clothes (other classes only get +accuracy from their clothes)

But what if you are a crazy troll who has cheated and got 15 strength even though there is no way you should be able to in the main campaign? Well, you dish out a whopping 21 damage. 25 while killer hands is active (during which you can't use any special maneuvers), to a single target...
And you are the most squishy of characters, even worse the mage.

PS. this is all assuming an ideal build. A gun samurai could be stupid and use a sub par weapon like a pistol or a rifle. etc.

Also, maxed out rigger should be the highest of them all... problem is that in the official campaign the enemies ALWAYS get a surprise round against you and you around allowed to activate the drones and send them ahead on your own volition... plus other bugs like the drones losing out all bonuses randomly on level transition.

[talt]

iamaneviltaco a écrit :

TT a écrit :

Also, the only melee only adept power that doesn't apply to guns as well killing hands. Which passively give a +4 to unarmed damage (still worse than a weapon), when activated it goes up to +10 damage but prevents you from using combat maneuvers for the duration.

You sure about that? I'm playing a troll adept right now and I don't seem to be having any trouble at all using my combat maneuvers while I've got killing hands active.

Ah, it seems the latest beta removed this restriction.

To clarify, the description was originally:
The adept's hands become lethal weapons for 4 rounds, increasing damage by 10 HP.
No unarmed combat manoeuvres can be used with this spell.

With v1.1.0 beta it has been modified to be:
Passive: Unarmed DMG increased by 4.
Active: Unarmed DMG increased by a further 6 for 4 RNDS.

Quite a boost.
I have tested it on v1.1 and I can confirm that the bonus is ONLY to unarmed and does NOT apply to weapons.

Also, the basic melee weapon attack gives +1 to damage.

[Stymie Jackson]

Both active and passive killing hands apply to all attacks...including roundhouse and disarm. This is intended and can be seen in the item files themselves.

In any case the 'strength' of melee is attacks that also sap AP. Unarmed is the useless style unless you are an adept...or in my UGC where I've added in bone spurs and hand razors which increase unarmed damage significantly.

As an aside calling rifles inferior is something I personally found pretty funny. Maybe in the pathetically easy combat in DMS where everything hits 99% of the time by mid game, but not in any UGC that has actual combat.

[Emil]

TT a écrit :

Except this is not true.

If you focus on it, by the end of the campaign you will deal less damage than if you had equipped a top tier gun. And with the gun you also get free dodging bonus (Even if you don't buy a single point of dodge, quickness itself confers a bonus to dodging).

In terms of damage output: Mage > Gun samurai > Melee Samurai.
In terms of survivability and damage soaking
Gun samurai > Mage > Melee samurai

Adept bonuses are equally useful for all 3 of those choices. But you only have so many KP to spend.

Also, the only melee only adept power that doesn't apply to guns as well killing hands. Which passively give a +4 to unarmed damage (still worse than a weapon), when activated it goes up to +10 damage but prevents you from using combat maneuvers for the duration.

Except this is not true... Chi focus gives 2 melee attacks with a melee weapon and Chi onslaught gives 3 melee attacks with a melee weapon.

Learn the game before you make a statement.

[talt]

Stymie Jackson a écrit :

Both active and passive killing hands apply to all attacks...including roundhouse and disarm. This is intended and can be seen in the item files themselves.

In any case the 'strength' of melee is attacks that also sap AP. Unarmed is the useless style unless you are an adept...or in my UGC where I've added in bone spurs and hand razors which increase unarmed damage significantly.

As an aside calling rifles inferior is something I personally found pretty funny. Maybe in the pathetically easy combat in DMS where everything hits 99% of the time by mid game, but not in any UGC that has actual combat.

I was explicitly talking about the official campaign. And I did explicitly mention that every weapon hits 99% in the official campaign.

That being said, if you are facing real combat in a UGC then you better not be saddled with a strength based fighter since they will die.
Quickness = dodging = living.

[talt]

Slappiz a écrit :

Except this is not true... Chi focus gives 2 melee attacks with a melee weapon and Chi onslaught gives 3 melee attacks with a melee weapon.

I am finding no documentation of the existence of those abilities. I see them now mentioned (although cut off by a UI bug) in the chi casting levelup menu.
How much AP do they require?
Do they work with unarmed or only a weapon? (their description explicitly states weapon; which doesn't benefit from killer hands)

Learn the game before you make a statement.

Learn to have a discussion like an adult.
The game is buggy (UI bugs hiding information due to it not fitting in the screen) and poorly documented (there is no actual manual; and for example, I just found out trolls have a +60HP that is not mentioned anywhere in game). Furthermore, there are major changes being made to it via updates, particularly to unarmed and adept which have been completely revised in v1.1
It is possible I made a mistake, in which case I will admit as such. Your personal attacks are uncalled for.
In the meanwhile, I am going to further experiment with unarmed and see if there is something I missed. But it will take a while.