when are melee heroes good?

[snuggleform]

Is there a particular faction/secret tech or vehicle that makes melee heroes worthwhile developing as a 1 (or even 2) of?

edit: for example I was trying to vanguard as melee with PUG giving cloud cover and jetpacks...I wasn't terribly impressed.

[sfbistimg]

IMO Melee is very good with Assembly .

[DrSuperEvil]

Depends what you are up against and how much cover there is between the enemy line of fire and their troops. If the enemy army has lots of snipers and long range units clustered together it can be very hard to get into melee range without being focused on. Still life regen mods and armor/evasion mods are a must.

[Kref]

Chainsaw with some lifestealing proved to be good.
Generally yes, shooting is better only if you manage to keep distance. If melee guy get close to shooter he would hit him when the shooter would do anything.
Also jetpack is of some value for getting close and personal.
Insectoids have pain transfer units which can give your hero additional survivability for close combat.

[Climhazzard]

I usually use melee as meat shields, and while heroes can fulfill the role, normal units can too, so I'd rather use the hero to actually kill stuff.

Assembly for example. Scavengers with cloaking implants and regen make fine meat shields, or wreckers, no need to have your hero do it, when he could instead be sniping people from 9 range with martial tradition.

I think the Vanguard hero is a pretty bad route if you do want to go melee hero though, Vanguard heroes don't get much to support that. A Dvar hero can get stagger immunity and higher resists/armor, for example, a Vanguard hero gets stuff like dig in, which doesn't help much for melee.

Voidtech seems like at least one good tech to pair with a melee hero. There's an ability that teleports you, obscures you, and leaves you with one free AP you can use for something like a hammer. Speaking of hammer, I'd recommend weapons that stagger, the higher the tier the better, and do the most damage with melee overwatch. In other words, hammers are great, imo, and since the damage is all in 1 AP, you can move really far and still get the most out of them.

[Fringehunter7719]

Works pretty well if you get this weapon:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1842450090

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Climhazzard:

I usually use melee as meat shields, and while heroes can fulfill the role, normal units can too, so I'd rather use the hero to actually kill stuff.

Assembly for example. Scavengers with cloaking implants and regen make fine meat shields, or wreckers, no need to have your hero do it, when he could instead be sniping people from 9 range with martial tradition.

I think the Vanguard hero is a pretty bad route if you do want to go melee hero though, Vanguard heroes don't get much to support that. A Dvar hero can get stagger immunity and higher resists/armor, for example, a Vanguard hero gets stuff like dig in, which doesn't help much for melee.

Voidtech seems like at least one good tech to pair with a melee hero. There's an ability that teleports you, obscures you, and leaves you with one free AP you can use for something like a hammer. Speaking of hammer, I'd recommend weapons that stagger, and do the most damage with melee overwatch, in other words, hammers are great, imo, and since the damage is all in 1 AP, you can move really far and still get the most out of them.

Where can I get/research hammer?

[Climhazzard]

Dvar I think can start with one, otherwise I'm not sure, have to find one like you do with most other good melee weapons, there might be more reliable ways though, idk. Factions quests give you all kinds of stuff for example.

I'm not sure I would want to use Dvar melee though, melee don't tend to function to well by themselves. It'd be good with a secret tech that provides melee units though, another honorable mention for void tech here, pretty sure the Dvar void walkers get hammers too.

[Astasia]

Assembly, Xenoplague and Psynumbra are really good for melee.

Melee has high damage inherently so you can focus mostly on survival for them, which makes them exceptionally strong for autobattle. It's especially ideal to use heroes as your melee tanks because if they go down they aren't lost (assuming you win).

[Cacomistle]

I think voidtech assembly is probably the best. Maybe kirko cause you can cast absorb pain on them.

Vanguard seems good cause of pugs, and combined with voidtech its like 60% evasion. But they don't have any synergies on their hero with melee.

[[TwitchTV] TorNis]

Step 1 - Find Tier 4 Psy Blade with insane damage and full lifeleech x3 attacks and many other benefits
Step 2 - Create or Respec your commander/hero into melee
Step 3 - Get that unit immunity to stagger and status effects
Step 4 - Solo maps

[Fringehunter7719]

I quite like xenoplague dvar with a 1 point weapon with no repeat for the racial stagger immunity and skitter. Kir'ko feels really strong with the racial teleport move that leaves a smoke cloud for 2 turns to close range and provide some protection. Even though your target will also get obscured you won't miss your counterattacks due to the global hero skill. Kir'ko also have resurrection, regeneration and restore all action points on a kill mods and your hero will have a tonne of hit points to make them last a couple of rounds - and you can always use their support unit to redirect damage. I don't know what's the best secret match up for that, promethean looks promising since you can use some ranged support to chuck a load of fire ground effects down and then stand in it to heal up while your targets take damage or flee and eat melee overwatches.

Lots of races have good stuff though, the vanguard equipment line alone, for example, has a jet pack that provides free moves which don't trigger overwatch and get you into or out of melee range in a second, a mod that provides a 9 range missile attack, 2 armor and stagger immunity and a mod that provides 30% damage and 1 action point refunded on a kill.

[Knight9910]

I particularly like the combo of Assembly Promethean. Assembly gets Assimilate, which drains health on melee attacks. Promethean gets Plasma Surge that lets them teleport and deals thermal damage to everything around them when they land. It's good for moving into melee range, so that you don't waste turns trying to move them in.

Psynumbra is also good, though, because they get a skill that debuffs every enemy that's adjacent to them. I particularly like Kir'ko Psynumbra, actually...

Also...

Originally posted by Climhazzard:

I usually use melee as meat shields, and while heroes can fulfill the role, normal units can too, so I'd rather use the hero to actually kill stuff.

"And why do people own cars? I mean, I only use my car as a paperweight, and I feel like I could get a better paperweight for much cheaper!"

:p

But seriously, I usually run melee on my commander most of the time. I find melee to usually be MUCH better than whatever else I might otherwise be using, honestly. Just a short list of the benefits of melee...

1. Ignores cover and miss chance, meaning that it actually rewards SKILL over dumb beginner's luck.

2. Usually deals WAY more damage than everything else. Especially against higher tier units... while my assault rifles and even snipers are just impotently plinking off tiny slivers of health from that Tier 4 plague lord, and praying it doesn't notice them, my melee commander just gingerly strolls over and wastes them. :p

3. Meanwhile, that squishy little rifle dude next to you is completely shut down because if he so much as scratches his nose, you get to chop his face off.

[Kuromiya]

Originally posted by wsc150:

Is there a particular faction/secret tech or vehicle that makes melee heroes worthwhile developing as a 1 (or even 2) of?

edit: for example I was trying to vanguard as melee with PUG giving cloud cover and jetpacks...I wasn't terribly impressed.

I had an Assembly Hero with Assimilate, Martial tradition, and the Tier III lightning sword (the one which causes arc damage to multiple targets). He was able to solo half a 2600 rating invasion while the rest of my stack dealt with any fleeing stragglers.

Melee doesn't sound great at first, but if your faction has access to a skill/mod/weapon that provides life drain (Assembly, some psionic stuff, or Dindin for example), and preferably stagger immunity, then melee is awesome.

[Tiasmoon]

Vanguard's tool set isn't great for melee. The jetpack is very nice tho.

Assembly has very nice tools. Lifesteal passive ability for their heroes. A few resses/immunities as well. Having some sort of lifesteal is the best option for melee.

For the rest hmmm. Celestial Tech can be decent. Arc Weapon Tech has a pretty good mod and its a T1 mod at that.

I havent tried melee much myself, but there's not all that many tools that work well with it. The main issue with melee isn't even range, its that you will get focused due to proximity to their units, unless you also move your ranged way in close.

[Knight9910]

Originally posted by KickySonichu:

Melee doesn't sound great at first, but if your faction has access to a skill/mod/weapon that provides life drain (Assembly, some psionic stuff, or Dindin for example), and preferably stagger immunity, then melee is awesome.

I mean yeah, I get it. "Are you literally asking me to bring a knife to a gun fight?!"

But then you remember that one time you watched Star Wars. :p