I wish melee-focused characters were more viable in the endgame

[This...IS...BACON!]

I assume I'm in what is considered the final "act" of the game's story, and my main character isn't doing much other than being the party's face and a bit of damage here and there. It's gotten too risky for my main guy to rush in and start smacking guys around with his katana without getting mulched by flashbang spam and near-guaranteed RNG crits. I started investing in shotguns about half of the way through and it's helping both his damage output and survivability, but without it near-maxed like I assume the game expects me to have it by this point, I'm missing lots of shots.

Not to mention the fact that enemies by this point in the game seem to be effectively immune to AP damage now despite the numbers popping up, since when I decide to melee them and the RNG decides to let me hit, 2 AP damage still appears to let them run across the room to cover and shoot him full of holes.

Don't get me wrong, I love this game. In all honesty I probably just built my guy really badly combat-wise, considering this is my first playthrough. But I really don't like how the game is effectively nullifying my playstyle now that I'm near the end, especially with how if I'm not in cover (something that happens often with melee), enemies are essentially guaranteed to hit me for max damage criticals.

I get that melee is probably more of a sub-spec thing. I just wish the game rewarded you more if you decided to invest in it, rather than AP damage that seems to do nothing in the endgame, and a few bland manuvers that don't really do much and make an already low chance to hit even lower. Yes, I'm one of those guys who hates it when an 80% chance to hit means more like 30%. Even XCOM's RNG wasn't this bad.

[2much]

Post your build so people can critique it.

[2much]

Hmm, I haven't played a melee character, but my ranged rifle character is at seven and she's batting about .275. If you want to be Ninja like, you probably need to be at !0+.

I don't know what race allows you to be 10+, but its not a human.

I'm pretty happy with Glory, she's batting about .330.

The low hit rates are kind of jarring, but I'm getting used to it now :-)

Wow! where'd you get all the money for that armor and cyberware.

Haven't had an enemy AP problem, but I think some of the enemies have 3AP.

Also, I think buffs and debuffs are in integral part of the game.

[Gus the Crocodile]

I must say, coming off the back of my first playthrough as a mage, into this one as a sword-wielding adept, the extra Karma requirements for weapon skills are pretty striking.

By which I mean, in terms of karma spent on actively doing stuff (as opposed to body for heatlh, charisma for dialogue etc), my mage needed Willpower and one subtree - Spellcasting. My adept needs Strength, one subtree (Close Combat) and then another subtree under that (Melee Weapons)?

Seems like kind of an unbalanced design. And that's ignoring Chi Casting, which I'm currently sitting at 4 in, for Stride. Is the idea supposed to be that adepts put points into Chi Casting instead of a weapon skill? Still doesn't seem to balance out if I'm still investing in Strength and Close Combat to hit stuff.

I dunno. Maybe it's less that karma for adepts is too demanding and more that karma for mages isn't demanding enough.

[Alik]

Melee is pretty powerfull even on Very Hard if you do it right. Considering your build it's no surprise you have problems. First of all you have to forget about ranged combat, period. There is not enough Karma to spread widely.

At the final part of the game strenght and close combad have to be at least 9/9 (max for most metatypes). Melee should be taken up to area attack skill (4 or 5, do not remember exact number), you do not need disarm skill (it's more effective to knock out and kill enemies).

The best weapon is katana due to AP damage.

In your build the eye implant is good. Other implants I'd choose differet. Two bioware arm and implants would give you +2 strenght (+hit chance), Hydraulic Jack (+3 or 4 movement for several turns for, activation costs 0 AP) is usefull when you need to get close with enemy quickly. And +1AP implant (the reward for telephone booth quests) of cause.

And you should bring Dietrich on runs to boost your aim. And use +AP drugs.

With this build you will be able to knock out 2-3 enemies and even to do some damage to them on your turn. And there have to be enough Karma to level Charisma to 6, biotech to 4-5, Dodge to 4-5 (not very effective) or throwing weapons (not very effective but fun).

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

I must say, coming off the back of my first playthrough as a mage, into this one as a sword-wielding adept, the extra Karma requirements for weapon skills are pretty striking.

By which I mean, in terms of karma spent on actively doing stuff (as opposed to body for heatlh, charisma for dialogue etc), my mage needed Willpower and one subtree - Spellcasting. My adept needs Strength, one subtree (Close Combat) and then another subtree under that (Melee Weapons)?

Seems like kind of an unbalanced design. And that's ignoring Chi Casting, which I'm currently sitting at 4 in, for Stride. Is the idea supposed to be that adepts put points into Chi Casting instead of a weapon skill? Still doesn't seem to balance out if I'm still investing in Strength and Close Combat to hit stuff.

I dunno. Maybe it's less that karma for adepts is too demanding and more that karma for mages isn't demanding enough.

In P&P every spell costs karma to learn, including upgrades. Not sure why they dropped that.

Still, that's why spellcasters are a bit unbalanced in this series in comparisons with weapon users.

[2much]

Here's a nice thread on the matter: http://shadowrun.com/forums/discussion/43777/how-do-you-adept

[Mauman]

I agree with Alik for the most part. The one thing I wouldn't agree on is the points in melee weapons skill. The skills you get (even cleave, which is overrated IMO) are vastly inferior to the Chi attacks, that don't need Melee weapon skill since they AUTO-CRIT and they don't require a spell slot or are affected by essence.

Those skills are ok at the lower levels of the game when you occasionally have an extra AP - but they will ultimately be wasted points.

The path of ultimate power for close combat is to ultimately spam chi onslaught as much as humanly possible by the endgame (up to three times per turn, one time for each melee weapon equiped).

[chriseggroll]

if there are several enemies and you are in range of them, sometimes just pommel striking 2-3 helps. it does -4 ap and would let your team unload or get into better positions

[SupidSeep]

Originally posted by This...IS...BACON!:

Body: 7 (6 with a +1 from cyberware)

Strength: 7 (6 +1 from cyberware)
-Close Combat: 7 (6 without armor)
-Melee weapons: 6

Quickness: 7 (6 +1 from cyberware)
-Ranged Combat: 7 (6 without armor)
-Shotgun: 5
-Dodge: 5 (3 + 2 from armor and cyberware)

Intelligence: 4
-Biotech: 4

Willpower: 2 (Dunno why I did this, I thought the magic resist would be more noticable)

Charisma: 4
...

As others have pointed out, by adding in Ranged Combat and Shotgun you have diluted your focus in Melee quite badly, probably explaining why you find yourself struggling in the endgame.

I never had a Melee Street Sam, but I do have an bioware-enhanced Unarmed Physical Adept.
These are the stats with 4 major missions left to go ...


Body 6
(remaing Essense balance 3)

Strength 8+2 bioware = 10
Close Combat 8
Unarmed 5

Quickness 3+4 bioware = 7
Dodge 3+2 bioware = 5

Intelligence 3
Biotech 3

Wisdom 4
Chi Casting 4

Charisma 4

[Mauman]

Originally posted by chriseggroll:

if there are several enemies and you are in range of them, sometimes just pommel striking 2-3 helps. it does -4 ap and would let your team unload or get into better positions

I never said they were useless, I just said they were inferior to the chi attacks.

Besides, your example is less stellar when you remember that anything that survives a chi-onslaught is going to be out of the fight for a round anyways if he/she survives it due to the massive ap damage the auto-crits will do.

I would rather use the points that you're putting into melee weapons on more damage/to hit (which melee weapons skill does not really help you with) or maybe some int/chr for dialogue options.

Also, sadly unarmed is massively outclassed by melee in this game. I don't really find it as viable on VH.

[wovieknight]

Does the game let you change difficulty? Personally I don't think the game is worth playing on Hard+. All it does is skew the hit chances. I don't consider this game to be combat-centric so Normal is fine for what it is. That said, your character should do fine on Normal. My first character had something like 9 INT / 8 DECKING and somehow I was able to manage. I used Dietrich's Haste and Aim on Eiger a lot - she's a wrecking machine.