What is the point of melee classes?

[Varivox]

I've been wondering for a while.

The game keeps becoming more and more friendly to ranged based classes. Now, every character has access to infinite ammo effects with ranged ultimates that do a ton of damage.

I just tried slayer for the first time in a while, after playing GK for the first significant amount of time ever, and realized that, while I do good in melee, I effectively am doing nothing for the majority of the maps. My last slayer game, I had over 150 melee kills more than the next best player, but I was third in terms of damage. The GK had almost no kills and dismal damage... The Kerilian INFINTE ARROW SPAM and BH one-shot machine had almost no melee kills (neither broke 50, if even that) yet both were double/triple my damage.

I played the engineer for a while and was easily reaching 20k damage in a lot of matches... as I watched my allies stand there and twiddle their thumbs. It just became sad watching my engineer experience end up being a negative player experience.

In V1, ranged was a much more muted thing. It still existed, but the game was still very much focused on melee, which gave every character time to shine. It also increased the tension, as you had to actively fight and work towards a victory. In V2, ranged is so prevelant and easy, that specials, elites and hordes are pretty much moot. The only real challenge anymore comes from a couple of specific missions, in specific areas (Convocation) that are designed specifically to not reward ranged while simultaneously spawning so many specials and elites at once that it makes an almost unfair challenge.

So, why did the devs even bother to focus on making classes like Slayer or GK if their entire game's design is hellbent on focusing on ranged gameplay? In my last game (slayer) I took FAR more damage from ff than the enemy horde ever had a chance to do to me. Even the end boss (Skaven lord) was over in <5 seconds since BH basically 1-shot him... on LEGEND!

[Haggis]

It's your fault. If you weren't playing the Slayer and Grail Knight so damn well; these ranged-only types would be overrun by the horde and die painfully.

The only characters that you can do a semi-reliable 'ranged-only' run with are Waystalker with Swift/Longbow, and Sienna with Conflag staff. I feel like the BH should be able to do it with the Repeater Pistol, but it just doesn't have the damage to clear out hordes before they get close to you; so unless your team covers your vulnerabilies, you will have to swap to melee. Neither Kruber nor Bardin have the weapons to adequately clear out hordes and deal with armour; I did think that Drakefire and Gromril plated ammunition might work for Outcast Engineer, and whilst it maybe could it still just doesn't feel as 'safe' due to the lack of a 'safety button' (Waystalker can press F if anything gets the jump on her), and the fact that his ramp up time is too long to be able to immediately deal with an expected threat (Sienna has essentially no ramp up time with her Conflag staff and can insta-stagger pretty much anything that surprises her).

[guts' theme (Cut & Looped)]

They're fun.

[Moffin Bovin]

Originally posted by Varivox:

In V1, ranged was a much more muted thing.

clearly you didn't play much of vermintide 1. Haste/berserker and scavenger was a thing, so was the wizard and drakefire pistols on dwarf. There was even scavenger on melee to make sure that everyone had unlimited ammo.

[Varivox]

Originally posted by Captain Fantastic:

Originally posted by Varivox:

In V1, ranged was a much more muted thing.

clearly you didn't play much of vermintide 1. Haste/berserker and scavenger was a thing, so was the wizard and drakefire pistols on dwarf. There was even scavenger on melee to make sure that everyone had unlimited ammo.

Well, for the wizard/drakefire, yea, that was their thing. It really made them stand out, but they were exceptions and had their own heat mechanic to limit the abuse. As for the other things like "scavenger on melee" well... yea? It forced you into melee to gain ammo. There was no "Bardin spawns tons of ammo for the entire team" or Kerillian's "Ulti that kills 10 different elites all at one time while also replinishing ammo and recharging instantly" mechanics. I remember having "infinite" ammo in V1, but you had to work for it. In V1, you had to use melee to generate infinite ammo, in V2 you have to use ranged to generate infinite ranged ammo...

[ColdConduct]

Ranged careers usually need space to do their jobs properly. The melee careers create that space for them.

[Moffin Bovin]

Originally posted by Varivox:

I remember having "infinite" ammo in V1, but you had to work for it..

you really didn't. playing with an infinite ammo swiftbow in vt1 was pretty much the same in vt1 as it is in vt2. You had 100 ammo and irrc it was something like 1 in 4 kills gave you back 5 ammo and then when haste or berserk procced you had a few seconds of free ammo that could also proc scavenger. So unlimited non stop shooting was easy to do. You only needed scavenger on melee if you were unlucky or missing too many shots.

the hagbane gas cloud would also proc scavenger and non charged arrows still had a small gas cloud, allowing the elf to fire off a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about of shots, even more than she can in vt2.

You could also put regrowth on ranged weapons and get health back from ranged hits in vt1.

Legend in vt2 is about the same as playing nightmare in vt1 and a ranged build could easily shoot everything before anyone had a chance to do anything in that game on nightmare, too.

[Pungent]

OP, I think you've reached the point where you simply need to move up in difficulty. Even regular Cata is too easy if you have competent melee players to cover the ranged. I mean, ♥♥♥♥, whenever I'm playing with friends and we're doing something like all book Cata deeds and/or Twitch, me ditching Engineer or BW in favor of Slayer is how we actually make the run easier, since I'm disproportionately better with him than anyone else, and if someone else goes GK as well, then all of a sudden the runs are a cakewalk.

Horde without specials to back it up isn't much of a threat, but the opposite holds true as well, where specials without (mixed) horde present to bolster their attacks, are effectively useless.

[v4nd4hl]

In cata QP, whenever I play FK or GK or IB with focus on CC and keeping the others alive, my personal success rate in terms of finishing the runs is higher than with anything else. And I almost never get the green circles. When I realize there is another player being great at melee CC, i switch to ranged glass cannon sometimes.

In legend I yolo with ranged glass cannons as well (I dont play melee careers there, especially the more "defensive" builds). Legend becomes easy at a certain point.

Well actually in my opinion you have to play the "defensive" melee builds more agressively and offensively than any other chars. Your the wall on the frontline which should never fall back and take all the aggro after all.

[v4nd4hl]

Infinite ammo talents also come with their compromises. Compromises you wont "feel" until cata.

[Xdiespa]

There should be a tier 1 talent for ranged classes that converts friendly fire into healing. As long as you shoot your teammates in the back.

[Xdiespa]

Originally posted by Captain Fantastic:

Legend in vt2 is about the same as playing nightmare in vt1

What? I'd like to see a side by side comparison of the damage you'd receive from a slave and storm in either, but overall it looks like V1 cata with all the V2 power creep.

[SeR!ous2k]

please just search up True Solo runs for Slayer or Grail Knight on youtube
this will maybe show you the ropes for melee only

[Alistair MacBain]

Playing higher difficulties helps. Especially on modded you rarely see more than one ranged career per team cause you can barely support it.

[old Charlie]

Originally posted by Xdiespa:

Originally posted by Captain Fantastic:

Legend in vt2 is about the same as playing nightmare in vt1

What? I'd like to see a side by side comparison of the damage you'd receive from a slave and storm in either, but overall it looks like V1 cata with all the V2 power creep.

Not really sure what you are trying to say. I'd agree with captain fantastic, that legend is the equivalent to nightmare. Its not identical or anything but its about the same in overall difficulty. And there is alot of powercreep in both game - in V1 its less "balanced" because with weapon traits, you can do some insane stuff just the way captain fantastic described.

[Neptune Towers]

Originally posted by Bowerick Wowbagger:

Not really sure what you are trying to say. I'd agree with captain fantastic, that legend is the equivalent to nightmare. Its not identical or anything but its about the same in overall difficulty. And there is alot of powercreep in both game - in V1 its less "balanced" because with weapon traits, you can do some insane stuff just the way captain fantastic described.

Legend is actually the rough equivalent of the old Cataclysm in terms of overall enemy stats. For example, unless stuff has changed in the meanwhile, lone slaves and clanrats do 37.5 damage in both difficulty modes, whereas they did about 20 in the old nightmare mode. Overheads do 100 damage in both, as opposed to 50 in old nightmare and so on. Of course it's not the same experience since you have many tools like +% health, it's easier to 1shot bosyshot enemies in Legend as opposed to old Cataclysm and so on. I'd say that Cataclysm in Verm2 is quite different from the old version and a bit of a step up from it.