Looking for tips for making melee heroes

[WinSlaya]

Updated on 7/14/2020:

Salutations my friends!

As much as I wanted to cover every aspect of making a melee commander this week, I just simply ran out of time in the video. In part 1, I have covered my general tips, and the tips relating the racial faction in the game, but did not get to the Secret techs, or some of the more fun/cheesy combinations. I’ll post part 2 next week. Thanks to everyone who helped me research this massive topic!

Please feel free to let me know if I missed anything about building melee heroes, and I'll add your advice to Part 2.

(video guide is on my Youtube Channel)


Recommend Commander Backgrounds:

1. Taking Close Quarter Equipment is strong, but a bit risky. A lot of players like to wait a bit before investing heavily into the melee strategy. One exception is Xenoplague commanders, as you can get a really nice melee weapon that can allow you to build up infections, leading to more pustules and eventually more destroyers and plague lords. Another good option for Dvar commanders is to take the hammer, which you get so long as you do not pair Dvar with Celestian, Xenoplage or Voidtech. Hammer pairs well with Martial tradition. (kill, teleport, attack or ability in one turn)
2. Keltomacinc > decadent. Both are good for a melee commander. Klepotmanic can generate very powerful mods, where as decadent gives +10 to your commander while significantly lowers the rate in which you generate population.
3. Stubborn good for stagger resistance
4. Martial Tradition -> Ruthless killer, which can reset a high dps commander (although it can be risky investing too much dps too early on, at the expense of survivability on your commander)


General Tips for Weapons and Mods (from things like kelptomanic + loot + NPC factions):

1.The way you get into melee range determines what kind of melee weapon you should be using. If you have access to a Vanguard Jetpack, it does not use action points to activate, meaning you can use a repeating melee weapon. Kir'ko using Shrouded Step leaves only 1 action point so it makes more sense to have a melee weapon that only uses 1 action point.
2. Din-din is an amazing weapon, because it allows you to heal units that are very likely to be targeted and damaged by enemy units.
3. Leg Exoskeleton Systems, a tier 3 hero mod can be obtained as a kleptomaniac draw, or from battle loot. It gives a point of armour, stagger resistance, and fast movement all in one mod.
4. Lightning Blade hits three units in front of it, and is repeating. Attacks like this on can be paired wit heh assembly to do an insane amount of healing. With an assimilate, each arc hit can heal the hero, resulting in up to 27 HP (3 hits x 3 enemies x 3 HP/hit), regained per turn.
5. Carbon Glaive hits three units in front of it, and is repeating.
6. Swelter Blade hits three units in front of it, and is repeating. (check the other weapons, maybe some mods)
7. Edge is a t4 repeating psionic melee weapon that heals when it deals damage, regardless of the target.
8. Antaran Armor reflects incoming damage and is acquired through an anomaly site. (not in imperial archives)
9. Displacement Systems give evasion, which helps you get closer to a ranged target, without taking as much damage as you would without it. Also acquired through an anomaly site. (not in imperial archives)
10. Hollow Essence Ark gives resurgence and is a reward for an early game anomaly where you have to defeat 6 siphoners.
11. Chemical Scythe applies Neral toxin. Reward for clearing reaper sites?
12. An Amazon psynumbra hero and a Vanguard Psynumbra hero come with Ethereal Spear, a repeating psionic melee weapon, which is a bit better than psitec fists. (14 repeating > 12 repeating)
13. It is important to recognize that you can cross-research important mods. So even if you are not playing Vanguard, if you have a Vanguard colony you can still get Jetpacks.
14. Owning a syndicate colony unlock, psitec fists. (conquering counts) Some would argue that it’s better to just get enforcers for psionic melee, as they get a special defensive mode + and secondary single action attack that cripple (which does reduces movement and accuracy by 30%)

NPC Faction Mods
15. If there are Therians on planet; they have Enhanced Leg Augments that gives fast movement, stagger res, and +1 armor. Hunters camouflage gives flanking attacks the cripple debuff, and +2 armor. And of course the Therian prime mod which turns hero into the best melee unit of the game. Pheromones are awesome, and the Might of the Therians mod lets you trigger them when you want (giving you melee units skitter and health regeneration when it is the most helpful).
16. Growth can use Worker Bees to heal melee units so good synergy there. Putting the Regeneration Glands on a few bees, who can follow your melee heroes around giving them health regeneration. If you can put Sprouting Infestation on a melee hero with biological damage, the extra vine sprouts will allow you to get a lot melee attacks on your enemies, maybe even turning them so your main dps can get easy flanking shots.
17. Autonoms - Autonom Network Connector allows melee heroes to get networked, so that they can get the defensive bonuses that the monitor and Network Controller can apply to autonom units. If you put your melee heroes in a mechanical vehicle, like the Phoenix Walker, they can use the Self-repair Systems to get health regeneration.
18. Psifish - mantra of illusion both allow you to put obscures on friendly units, and to apply hallucinating to enemy units. Very strong on enforcers. Mind barrier adds a lot of defensive capability to non-mindless units, especially for factions that are weak to psionic attacks, like the assembly, the dvar, and the vanguard.
19. Spacers - Hallucinating Regulators makes all attacks on the target count as flanking, allowing your melee units to take out their targets faster. If you can put mantra of the branded on a melee hero then you will get a free melee overwatch on some of their targets (i think it causes them to run away for one turn
20. Forgotten - Forgotten energy siphon gives melee heroes an attack that can hit air units. Corrupted Incarnation gives health back when the units kills another, which most melee heroes should be able to do most of the time.
21. Paragon - reactive shielding gives lots of shielding, greeting increases the tankiness of the unit. (pair well with health regeneration) Combat protocol Implants gives extra crit chance, and a bit of evasion.



Other Generic Tips
1. The two things you need are defensive capabilities and mobility, and there's also a difference if you want to make your commander the melee hero, or a hero. You want Damage mitigation (thru things like Shields, Armor, Evasion, Regeneration, Status Resistance/Immunity), and mobility, (thru things like Jetpack, Phase Shift, Shrouded Step).You may want to consider taking 1 mod that boost damage, but not before boosting survivability.
2. Reviving expendable/high dps melee heroes with the Hero Resurrection Protocol operation, is a valid strategy. (80 energy and 16 operational points)
3. All-round Awareness and Counter Attack skill are fantastic melee hero skills available to all heroes. Some would argue that because there are other ways to get immunity from flanking that you shouldn’t spend 4 skill points on it.
4. Try to avoid putting support skills like buffing/healing other units on this hero - you won't have the time to spare or be in position to do these things. Once in melee your only jobs should be tanking and killing stuff that gets close.5. When you build your hero, you generally want all the passive abilities, and few or no active abilities. Melee heroes should be attacking every turn after the first one, not using their abilities. The same goes for mods, you don't have time to spend your turn using an item, so your mods should be passive or cost no action points.
5. You need to think about your anti-air capability. If your stack doesn't have this well-covered, you may need a tac-op, or your hero will need a secondary weapon, mod, or skill that gives you an anti-air attack.
6. I would consider bringing a support unit that can heal damaged melee hero’s, so that you don’t need to put health regeneration on the unit. Altho bringing both does drastically increase the units survivability, it will lower the hero’s overall dps.


Racial Factions-
General:
1. Assembly heroes make for great tanks, as they can get health back for each hit they make. The assembly have a lot of armor which helps in melee combat, as melee attack bypass shields. Can reset hero's action points with the Linear Acceleration Operation. Has lots of melee units in the roster, which can support a melee hero well. Only having one melee unit in a stack tends to lead to them being the first to die in tough combats.
2. Kir'ko heroes are good at melee, because their leaders can get linked to transcendents, reducing their incoming damage. Lacking (just early game?) stagger res, unless you go celestian. Has lots of melee units in the roster, which can support a melee hero well. Only having one melee unit in a stack tends to lead to them being the first to die in tough combats.
3. The vanguard have some great mods for melee units, but do not have any melee units in their racial tech tree, unless you count valkyries, which cannot be modded.
4. Amazon lancers are really good at melee, and putting an amazon hero into a lancer vehicle is quite potent. (mostly due to mobility, and tankiness). Arboreal Sentinels can grant 3 shields.
5. Syndicate heroes can buy psionic melee weapons on turn 1, which bypass enemy armor and shields.Syndicate also has some very good evasion mods which I like to stack on melee as they tend to die too soon other ways. Also the escape module is important for keeping the hero alive. Syndicate also lacks stagger resist. Enforcers can shield other melee units give them psionic buffs in the process. Mirages can also support melee units by adding to their defense, while also burning some anti-air capacity.
6. Sharkarn heroes get access to a lot of mods that make them extraordinarily tanky, like the Holodisplacement fields, which grants skitter to the unit, and Orbital Recall Systems, which teleports the unit, boost shields for a turn, only requires one action point to use, and leaves you with an action point so that you can attack, and/or set up a couple melee overwatches. Lack healing and early game stagger res.
7. Dvar heroes get access to some fun mods, like Super Powered Pistons, which can apply concussion when your unit attacks with a kinetic melee attack. (pairs really well with voidtech). The Dvar have a lot of armor which helps in melee combat, as melee attack bypass shields. The General Alert Protocol operation allows melee heroes to sprint to the edge of the movement and then enter defensive mode. You can also use that operation to allow your melee units to enter defensive mode after attacking.

Hero Skills:
1. Assembly - heroes can get stagger resistance without mods. Assimilate is op. Reassemble work on other hero units.
2. Kir’ko - Shrouded step (teleport/mobility). Frenzied assault= passive boost to damage. Fury of the swarm = passive boost to damage.
3. Vanguard - Dig in makes the unit a bit tankier when in cover
4. Amazon - Biological Expert, and Animal discipline add a bit of tankiess. +
5. Syndicate - Escape module, keeps units in the fight a bit longer. Backstab can be ok for melee heroes. Shield Battery gives extra +1 shield.
6. Sharkarn - quaking shields, Domok skill branch, and pick up Call Insider to have additional units.
7. Dvar - heroes can get stagger immunity without mods (more room for other mods) and ability to run through obstacles. Siege Master a rather easy to activate damage resistance (in cover means that one of the 6 adjacent squares grants cover, no matter the direction) armorer gives +1 armor.

Weapons and Mods:
1. Dvar - the rocket hammer is great for killing weak units with one hit. Stagger res mod. Super power pistons can concuss.
2. Shakarn- skitter mod is fantasic. Omni claw has two attacks: one melee, and one ranged. Chroma Engine mod. For free retaliation dmg either before or after repositioning. Jumping arc damage hits Air units! (needs to take arc damage for that). Late game loadout: Sono-fins alt (secondary “weapon”), Assault exoskeleton, Xeno Defense Module, Orbital recall Systems, Chroma Engine mod. Trigger-phase systems grants resurgence, but cause the unit to attack random enemy targets.
3. Assembly - Reviving expendable/high dps melee heroes with the Reassembly Module, is a valid strategy. Arc Retaliation Defense hurts nearby enemies when the unit with it takes damage. Wrecker vehicle.
4. Vanguard - get an early stagger resist mod, Interlocking Armor. jetpack for heroes is pretty strong, you can hit 3 flanking attacks in one turn. nanite injectors are great for healing, and temporarily increasing defensive stats. Improved Combat Sensor will make it easier to close the distance by boosting evasion. Sequential Kill Systems gives back an action point after killing a unit once per turn. Reactive Armor Plating reflects damage back at attackers.
5. Amazon - get an early stagger resist mod, Grounding Harness, and they have a lot other mods that are good for melee. Regenerative Bioregulator give health regen. Blood Fury Inducers increases dps, and gives health regeneration when some units die in battle. Earth link mask for infantry units. Spirit Link Module for animal. The Tyranodon vehicle has a nice melee attack, Tail Swipe, which hits three hexs.
6. Kir’ko - Regenerative Bioregulator gives health regen. Resuscitation Glands gives resurgence. Mantra of life allows you to heal units when a transcended links with them. Tunneling claws gives mobility, +20% melee damage, and 10 hp. Adrenal Response Gland can give up to +50% melee damage. Accelerated Metabolism give skitter, and can reset all of a unit's action points when it kills an enemy unit. Ravenous Vehicle is strong.
7. Syndicate - Mantra of life allows you to heal units when using one of the many psionic support skills that they get. (overseer, mirages, and ) Adaptive Camouflage Projector give 15 evasion, and a defensive mode which give even more evasion, allowing melee heroes to potentially get in melee overwatch and then enter into their defensive mode. If the enemy tries to shoot the melee hero, they may miss and hit their own units. Psitec fist are amazing all through the game.


Original Post: Salutations my friends!

This week I am going to make a video highlighting all the tips that I can think of, and that are suggested through threads like this one, for how to make an effective melee hero.

Right now I only have a few tips, and will get more when I go back through my hero skills video later in the week. Ideally it would be great to point out what equipment works well in melee (weapons and mods), and maybe even how you can get in it game, as well as useful hero skills (which you can select when you level up)

Here are my initial tips:

1. Assembly heroes make for great tanks, as they can get health back for each hit they make.
2. Kir'ko heroes are good at melee, because their leaders can get linked to transcendents, reducing their incoming damage.
3. The vanguard have a great mod for reducing damage and healing, called nanite injectors.
4. Amazon lancers are really good at melee, and putting a amazon hero into a lancer vehicle is quite potent.
5. Syndicate heroes can buy psionic melee weapons on turn 1, which bypass enemy armor and shields.
6. Sharkarn heroes get access to a lot of mods that make them extraordinarily tanky, like the Holodisplacement fields, which grants skitter to the unit, and Orbital Recall Systems, which teleports the unit, boost shields for a turn, only requires one action point to use, and leaves you with an action point so that you can attack, and/or set up a couple melee overwatches.
7. Dvar heroes get access to some fun mods, like Super Powered Pistons, which can apply concussion when your unit attack with a kinetic melee attack. (pairs really well with voidtech). The General Alert Protocol operation allows melee heroes to sprint to the edge of the movement and then enter defensive mode. You can also use that operation to allow your melee units to enter defensive mode after attacking.
8. Din-din is an amazing weapon, because it allow you to heal units that are very likely to be targeted and damaged by enemy units.


Looking forward to seeing what strategies people recommend :)

[Dr Duh]

Not that I'm anywhere near an expert, but a few things I would recommend:

1) Immunity to flanking. If you're up in melee range, it is much easier for your opponent to move units into flanking positions. Since there are a lot of other things that provide this, I don't know if it is a good idea to spend 4 skill points on all-around awareness though.

2) Stagger resistance/immunity or at least avoid having your most important attacks be full-action if you're not stagger-immune. Also, you don't want to be knocked out of melee overwatch.

3) Passive buffs and auras like Sinister Chorus that you don't have to spend your action on.

4) If you're going to be up in melee range it should be for one or both of two reasons: you want to draw all enemy attacks because you can tank extremely well, or you can deal damage so well in melee that you can get one or more kills with every attack.

5) Don't put your support skills like buffing/healing other units on this hero - you won't have the time to spare or be in position to do these things. Once in melee your only jobs should be tanking and killing stuff that gets close.

6) You need to think about your anti-air capability. If your stack doesn't have this well-covered, you may need a tac-op, or your hero will need a secondary weapon, mod, or skill that gives you an anti-air attack.

[Midas]

pro tip: don't.

...

Actually, I got some pretty good mileage out of the Apex mutation from Therians as a melee hero. Gives you a lot of strong tools for a melee character if you're not playing a faction that gets a lot of strong melee vehicles. Even then, it's a mutation to a T4 whereas melee vehicles cap out at T3.

[ApocalipsisZ]

Originally posted by Dr Duh:

Not that I'm anywhere near an expert, but a few things I would recommend:

1) Immunity to flanking. If you're up in melee range, it is much easier for your opponent to move units into flanking positions. Since there are a lot of other things that provide this, I don't know if it is a good idea to spend 4 skill points on all-around awareness though.

2) Stagger resistance/immunity or at least avoid having your most important attacks be full-action if you're not stagger-immune. Also, you don't want to be knocked out of melee overwatch.

3) Passive buffs and auras like Sinister Chorus that you don't have to spend your action on.

4) If you're going to be up in melee range it should be for one or both of two reasons: you want to draw all enemy attacks because you can tank extremely well, or you can deal damage so well in melee that you can get one or more kills with every attack.

5) Don't put your support skills like buffing/healing other units on this hero - you won't have the time to spare or be in position to do these things. Once in melee your only jobs should be tanking and killing stuff that gets close.

6) You need to think about your anti-air capability. If your stack doesn't have this well-covered, you may need a tac-op, or your hero will need a secondary weapon, mod, or skill that gives you an anti-air attack.

Those are pretty good tips. I will add one more: jetpack for heroes is pretty strong, you can hit 3 flanking attacks in one turn.

In case you dont have access to it, you can use T4 Therieans mutation as someone said before. It has a jump which consumes only 1 action point and leaves you with another one to use. It has no cooldown.

[WinSlaya]

Thank you on your inputs everyone! I got two last questions:


1) If you are going with a melee focused strategy, is it worth taking the Close Quarter Equipment- Commander Loadout, or would you rather keep your commander out of melee range?


2) If you do take it, what other Backgrounds would you pair with it for a melee commander (for example, I usually put Decadent on my melee commanders)?

[Stardustfire]

Missing the Fact here that some Secret Techs Deliver no good hero skills for Melee Heros at all, while 2 deliver a whole Kit of Skills that makes live (and survive) as melee hero much easyer.

[ApocalipsisZ]

1) Early game is really hard for melee Heroes, they can die easily. I never do that.
I always wait till I have some good weapons/mods and skills.

2) I always take "Stubborn" :)

[ApocalipsisZ]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

Missing the Fact here that some Secret Techs Deliver no good hero skills for Melee Heros at all, while 2 deliver a whole Kit of Skills that makes live (and survive) as melee hero much easyer.

That's right.

[Kaysoky]

If you find a Lightning blade (the one that arcs twice), and are Assembly, then go melee. Each arc hit can heal the hero, resulting in up to 27 HP (3 hits x 3 enemies x 3 HP/hit), regained per turn. You can then go crazy and add the Assembly mod that increases life gain per hit (Shredding claws or something), which will make you regain up to 63 HP (8 HP per hit) per turn :D

[WinSlaya]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

Missing the Fact here that some Secret Techs Deliver no good hero skills for Melee Heros at all, while 2 deliver a whole Kit of Skills that makes live (and survive) as melee hero much easyer.

Just for clarity's sake, which two are you talking about? Xenoplague and Heritor?

[WinSlaya]

Originally posted by ApocalipsisZ:

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

Missing the Fact here that some Secret Techs Deliver no good hero skills for Melee Heros at all, while 2 deliver a whole Kit of Skills that makes live (and survive) as melee hero much easyer.

That's right.

Same question as with Stardustfire:

Just for clarity's sake, which two are you talking about? Xenoplague and Heritor?

[sandman25dcsss]

Psynumbra for sure, decreased resistances and chance to miss attacks.

[Solitary Traveler]

Equip them with Edge.

/thread

[Stardustfire]

to be true its 2,5 for me and i dont count heritor as one of them.
Xeno and Psy both deliver strong self AOE Passives that cry "Melee Range" the ,5 is Voidtech because the Phasing and the 50% Repel Skill, what is much more exploitable with a melee than with a range unit hiding behind some rocks (ok the other type profiting most from the repeal woud be Drivers, but they are not the theme here)

[Herr Riebmann]

I was able to run an Assembly Xeno Hero with the Lightning Blade, DVar Pistons, Alpha Strain, Kirko Accelerated Metabolism and some movement mod. It was pretty bonkers.

Chaining lightning attacks that apply concussion, heal on hit and fast movement. Coupled with the Assembly Tactical Operation that resets actions points it was able to kill more than half of a stack per turn usually. Then again, i was lucky to get the races and it was very late game.

[Faust]

Usually I use psynumbra character as melee damage source. There a lot of crazy weapons in the ruins that can make any dedicated melee character into true death machine. My favorite melee characters are Kir'ko for they can link shields together with other melee fighters (especialy Acolytes who excels at applying on hit damage). + You always have 2 abilities that allow you some ranged presence - devour hope and devouring gaze mod.