Weaponless Melee

[Snarky]

Was hoping for some insight into the various weaponless combat forms.  I am pretty good on Super Strength and Dark Melee.  Have played a little bit of Energy Melee and Radiation Melee.  Ran Elec Melee for a couple months back on live.  I was sort of focusing this more on the pure martial forms, but who doesn't love to ramble?

 

So, Street Justice.  Ran it for like 5 levels 10 years ago.  Martial Arts...same, I think.  Savage Melee ran for a half day three weeks ago.  StJ is a combo set?  I really know little or nothing.  What is good, what is bad, what is cool, what is sad?

 

Thanks.

[Queen Nefertiti]

I really like savage melee. I'm playing a scrapper atm and it is fun and fast.

[Major_Decoy]

Street Justice is not exactly what I'd call a combo set. It's resource set. Some attacks build a resource and some attacks spend that resource. Dual Blades has the mechanics that I consider a combo set. The issue is that the resource Street Justice uses are called "Combo Levels"

 

So it's "Combat Readiness > Finisher > Builder > Builder > Builder > Finisher

 

Not counting the build-up replacement (that gives you three combo levels) there are four combo builders and three finishing moves. Now that bruising is gone, it makes more sense to start with Rib Cracker than Initial Strike, regardless of what the name says.

 

Savage Melee is kind of similar, except the blood fury stacks give recharge reduction and and endurance cost reduction for active stacks, so you have a reason not to spend them on the finishing movies.

[Snarky]

Do both these sets crit on Scrappers?  I looked at the detailed descriptions on Street Justice and it led me to believe only one did. Of course documentation in game is iffy at best lol

[siolfir]

5 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Do both these sets crit on Scrappers?  I looked at the detailed descriptions on Street Justice and it led me to believe only one did. Of course documentation in game is iffy at best lol

The critical damage is at combo level 0 (ie, not enhanced by combo levels) for both Scrappers and Stalkers in Street Justice. This means that if you have combo levels built up it's only a "partial" critical.

I haven't played Savage Melee, but I think the only power that doesn't critical there is the t9, and the critical damage doesn't account for the damage over time.

[Without_Pause]

StJ is legit awesome on a Stalker. You swap out one ST attack for AS so you don't lose any AoE and get a better ST attack. It has a great balance of St and AOE with some mitigation.

 

The selling point for Rad would be a more offensive, ie AoE, based take on Dark. I finally switched at least one idea over from Dark to Rad and have enjoyed it so far. I can't get past Shadow Maul's animation. Yes, I know the numbers work out.

 

I'm currently leveling a StJ/en Stalker and Rad/shield Scrapper. I am tempted to try Rad/ice because I don't see how that doesn't work well.

[Chris24601]

Its considered a little below the Street Justice and such level in performance, but Kinetic Melee, particularly with the effects set to the darker shades of "light" (i.e. light customization then pick the darkest red or blue you can) makes for a good soft martial arts style like Tai Chi (which I believe some of its animations were based on actually).

[Snarky]

I incarnated a Invul / Kinetic Tank.  It was strange, good, and surprisingly ranged.  Like a Sentinel more than a melee, not even kidding.  Because Taunt, which is ranged, a heavy hitting (short ranged ST), a ranged cone, then add a ranged cone from epic.  Since super high damage was not a priority and knocking down opponents and taunting them was I just worked at about 40.  which took the martial arts feel away and made him a mage tank, which I made him magic and tricked out to look that way anyways.  But not (quite) melee.

[Heraclea]

Kinetic Melee has consistant damage debuffs for the mobs.  It also adds energy damage to the smashing.  As such it works well with primarily resistance based armors.  I have a kinetic/rad armor scrapper that I built as a speedster concept.   For AoE it relies mostly on Burst, a Foot Stomp style power with reasonable recharge.  Repulsive Torrent is skippable.    You will either love or hate the revving sounds it makes. 

 

Street Justice has a little bit of -def, a little bit of -res,   Apart from that it's all smashing damage.  Probably best suited to a tanker or brute that gets its toughness from its own armor and doesn't need synergy with an attack set.  Your most significant AoE attack is a 'finisher', which means you may have to wait to use it to best effect.  I have a StJ/Willpower brute that works fairly well; this was my first level 50 brute in fact. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Heraclea

[biostem]

How do you view stone melee?  It has the stone hammers, but you kind of create them "on the fly".  They definitely have a nice, weighty feeling to them.

[Snarky]

I have serious issues with all weapons in the game because of the disappearing nature.  That include "permanent" weapons like TW or war mace, that disappear if you use another out of set attack.  but not always....it is a tough walk to figure out which powers work with which powersets and have smooth animations.  Weapons that are created on the fly, like Ice weapons and fire weapons, are especially irritating to me.  You either have a sword of ice (so why use your fist the next second) or you don't.  I can see creating an ice sword out of nothing.  That is all over the comics.  Okay.  where did you put it?  Did you lose it?  Did you lose your ice sword?  in combat?  tsk.

[Dreamboat]

13 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Its considered a little below the Street Justice and such level in performance, but Kinetic Melee, particularly with the effects set to the darker shades of "light" (i.e. light customization then pick the darkest red or blue you can) makes for a good soft martial arts style like Tai Chi (which I believe some of its animations were based on actually).

Exactly the reason I picked it on one of my characters.

[Coyote]

8 hours ago, Snarky said:

I can see creating an ice sword out of nothing.  That is all over the comics.  Okay.  where did you put it?  Did you lose it?  Did you lose your ice sword?  in combat?  tsk.

 

Nope. Didn't lose it. See that body over there? It has one in it. And I left another in the Gunslinger two rooms back. What can I say? Sometimes ice just likes to stick to people's insides if it's cold enough and you jam it in hard enough 🤷‍♀️

 

That's my villain's explanation. Heroside, I'm leaving ice in their bruises so they don't swell up too much while being booked in the local hospitajail. 😛

[Erydanus]

I'd actually like to see a "conjured weapons" ala Skyrim/Elder Scrolls weapon style, but not as a powerset. Just as a skin for the existing weapon sets, since having the conjured weapons appear and fade out as the combat moves on would be explained by the weapons being turned off and on again. It would look cool and replace suddenly appearing and disappearing physical weapons with appropriate effects. Plus, you can explain that style of weapon as spells, or telekinetic energy focused into a solid enough form, or force field energy focused into a solid form; so easy to pass off as magic, tech, mutant, etc. 

 

Anyway I did want to chime in that I enjoyed the feel of street fighting so much from the new low level Skulls storyline where you disguise yourself as a Bone Daddy candidate that I rolled a character to play it. I haven't gotten up to far but I really like the feel. Back on live I had characters who used kinetic melee and electric melee and thought they were fun sets. Weirdly the one that never did it for me quite as much as I expected it to was super strength.  Somehow I get this vague sense of not feeling it's that particularly impactful; but then I've never been at a level to rip up ground and chuck it at someone. 

 

[DR_Mechano]

1 hour ago, Erydanus said:

Weirdly the one that never did it for me quite as much as I expected it to was super strength.  Somehow I get this vague sense of not feeling it's that particularly impactful; but then I've never been at a level to rip up ground and chuck it at someone.

The problem with SS is that you only really need Rage, Footstomp and Knockout Blow. You take Haymaker or Jab because you're forced to take it but they're very lackluster damage wise. Nobody ever takes Hurl. I took handclap as a means for CC AND slapped both the KB>KD Sudden impact IO and the Force Feedback +chance for recharge proc in it which makes it way more useful.

[Snarky]

Er my SS/invul main takes Hurl. And uses it.  It is a very hard hitting ranged attack.  Haymaker is lackluster?   Ok

 

the build i use is by Hyperstrike. It is posted in the Brute forum as a response to my request for a ss/invul build. I have played ss/invul Brutes since i got into tbe game about issue 7? Or so.  This is a incredibly strong iteration. It uses the stuff you say You do not need

 

i will agree that Handclap properly slotted is a wonderful power. On a Tank. Where crowd control and AoE taunt is mire important than pure DPS