How is Melee in PvP these days?

[Marshal Valor]

I know for a while it was pretty much not worthwhile to PvP as melee. They were basically taunt bots. With movement now being stalled after attacking how is melee these days? I wondered if it was more worthwhile nowadays. I'm thinking about making a EM/Regen brute, hence why I ask. 

[Glacier Peak]

58 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

I know for a while it was pretty much not worthwhile to PvP as melee. They were basically taunt bots. With movement now being stalled after attacking how is melee these days? I wondered if it was more worthwhile nowadays. I'm thinking about making a EM/Regen brute, hence why I ask. 

 

[Marshal Valor]

That's nice and all, but it still doesn't answer my question about Melee in PvP. Just because people are doing that doesn't mean it's worthwhile. Last time I PvP'ed it was nothing but ranged AT's and some stalkers. No melee at all pretty much. I'd like to know how well it does now with the recent changes against ranged characters.

[America's Angel]

1 hour ago, Marshal Valor said:

I know for a while it was pretty much not worthwhile to PvP as melee. They were basically taunt bots. With movement now being stalled after attacking how is melee these days? I wondered if it was more worthwhile nowadays. I'm thinking about making a EM/Regen brute, hence why I ask. 

 

Movement is no longer stalled after attacking. That was a feature called "Travel Suppression" that was introduced by the live devs. It has since been switched off by the Homecoming devs. (And rightly so!)

 

Whether melee is in a good spot depends on what you're using it for. Melee is good in 1v1 fights as well as in PvP zones. The only area where melee isn't so hot is in 8v8 arena matches where kills are determined by spikes, and taunt is banned. (Taunt reduces your enemies range by 75%, and it stacks.)

 

EM on brutes is poor. If you want to go with that combo I suggest going EM/Regen Scrapper. It'll do well in 1v1 versus other melee characters, and it will also do well in zones. (Epic hold>TF>ET.)

Edited June 9, 2021 by America's Angel

[Marshal Valor]

1 minute ago, America's Angel said:

 

Movement is no longer stalled after attacking. That was a feature called "Travel Suppression" that was introduced by the live devs. It has since been switched off by the Homecoming devs. (And rightly so!)

 

Whether melee is in a good spot depends on what you're using it for. Melee is good in 1v1 fights as well as in PvP zones. The only area where melee isn't so hot is in 8v8 arena matches where kills are determined by spikes, and taunt is banned. (Taunt reduces your enemies range by 75%, and it stacks.)

 

EM on brutes is poor. If you want to go with that combo I suggest going EM/Regen Scrapper. It'll do well in 1v1 versus other melee characters, and it will also do well in zones. (Epic hold>TF>ET.)

 

I knew what travel suppression was the name just escaped me at the time I made the post. Travel Suppression I know was turned off in PvP on live. I remember it. I've done alot of PvPing. I can't even begin to imagine people PvP'ing with melee if travel suppression is off. How in the hell would you even lock down a ranged character in PvP if the ranged character can just keep moving. It sounds like PvP is still a trainwreck. The devs on live should have never made those sweeping changes that they did I think it was in I13 where they destroyed PvP. Before that I absolutely loved PvP. My stalker was rather infamous among people and God did I ever enjoy every single minute of it hahaha. It's a shame that PvP is in such a horrible spot still. I had heard the devs were working on it and I knew travel suppression was brought back recently in a patch and I wondered if it affected PvP and from what I'm hearing apparently not, which is really sad.

[America's Angel]

6 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

 

I knew what travel suppression was the name just escaped me at the time I made the post. Travel Suppression I know was turned off in PvP on live. I remember it. I've done alot of PvPing. I can't even begin to imagine people PvP'ing with melee if travel suppression is off. How in the hell would you even lock down a ranged character in PvP if the ranged character can just keep moving. It sounds like PvP is still a trainwreck. The devs on live should have never made those sweeping changes that they did I think it was in I13 where they destroyed PvP. Before that I absolutely loved PvP. My stalker was rather infamous among people and God did I ever enjoy every single minute of it hahaha. It's a shame that PvP is in such a horrible spot still. I had heard the devs were working on it and I knew travel suppression was brought back recently in a patch and I wondered if it affected PvP and from what I'm hearing apparently not, which is really sad.

 

Before Issue 13, Travel Suppression didn't exist. Travel Suppression was turned on in PvP on during Issue 13. From this point onwards it remained active in PvP zones until the servers were closed. (Although you could opt to have it disabled in arena matches.) Travel Suppression was turned off by the Homecoming devs back when they launched. It has remained off ever since. It's not been brought back in a recent patch. I'd be surprised if it ever returns.

 

Speaking as someone who currently plays melee characters in PvP, the lack of travel suppression is a good thing. You have to remember travel suppression affected attackers, too. So, if you hit someone with a melee attack, your travel will be suppressed. This makes it harder to chase people to land follow-up attacks. With travel suppression gone, you are now able to chase enemies easier.

 

For PvP zones you probably want an EM/Regen Scrapper. For 1v1s with movement allowed you probably want a claws/fire scrapper. If you want to do Fightclub (1v1 melee vs melee no moving) then there's a whole bunch of viable stuff. (This is why most people with an interest in PvPing on melee tend to gravitate towards Fightclub. It's more balanced than melee vs ranged in zones, and closer matches the PvE play experience.)

[Marshal Valor]

We'll have to agree to disagree on the travel suppression thing because I remember it very differently and I recently witnessed it in game first hand and it was in the recent patch notes about it as well. This was when they made the movement power changes. Also I never once in my life when I PvPed ever had a problem chasing someone down in melee with travel suppression. Why in God's name would I want to play a scrapper? Their inherent is awful. I do zone PvP because real PvP happens in the open world in games. Has been since the beginning back in NWN on AOL and other games that followed. I can't stand PvP in a box to be honest. It grates on me. I tried it a few times but just didn't care for it. It just felt like there was something missing from it and that it was just wrong. That was my takeaway from it. I stick to zone PvP. In zone PvP melee seemed worthless to me and if what you're saying is true then melee sounds like it's still in a bad place. 

[Marshal Valor]

I asked in the help channel and someone explained the statistical values of why a stalker is generally better over a brute. However, it sounds like zone PvP is pretty much dead for melee from what I was told. 

[Glacier Peak]

Check it out, @America's Angel responded succinctly to your question. In fact, AA posted multiple responses to your post and even corrected your misconceptions. You can say thank you and go about your day now.

[Marshal Valor]

9 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Check it out, @America's Angel responded succinctly to your question. In fact, AA posted multiple responses to your post and even corrected your misconceptions. You can say thank you and go about your day now.

 

And you can go on ignore for being so damn rude. You don't listen very well either.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Marshal Valor

[America's Angel]

47 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

We'll have to agree to disagree on the travel suppression thing because I remember it very differently and I recently witnessed it in game first hand and it was in the recent patch notes about it as well. This was when they made the movement power changes. Also I never once in my life when I PvPed ever had a problem chasing someone down in melee with travel suppression. Why in God's name would I want to play a scrapper? Their inherent is awful. I do zone PvP because real PvP happens in the open world in games. Has been since the beginning back in NWN on AOL and other games that followed. I can't stand PvP in a box to be honest. It grates on me. I tried it a few times but just didn't care for it. It just felt like there was something missing from it and that it was just wrong. That was my takeaway from it. I stick to zone PvP. In zone PvP melee seemed worthless to me and if what you're saying is true then melee sounds like it's still in a bad place. 

 

 

Can you remember which zone you experienced Travel Suppression in? If you've experienced travel suppression in zones recently then that was 100% a game bug and you should report it here:

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/32-bug-reports/

 

(If it was in an arena match then you likely just had the option for it switched on. It's switched off by default.)

 

The reason Scrappers are better than Brutes for zones is because Brutes struggle to build fury in zones, and scrapper crits are VERY good for burst damage. (Which is king in zones.)

 

Using an EM scrapper, for example, you can hit your enemy with a procc'd out epic hold to hold them in place for a few seconds. That's time enough to close the distance, hit Total Focus (with the Critical Strikes ATO slotted), follow up with a Critical ET, and then follow that with a Crit Snipe.

 

This chain will drop most squishies.

 

A Brute by comparison will probably want to do: Stone Cages>KO Blow>Fossilize, or TF>ET>Fossilize. This does a decent chunk, but it's not enough to drop squishies.

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

I asked in the help channel and someone explained the statistical values of why a stalker is generally better over a brute. However, it sounds like zone PvP is pretty much dead for melee from what I was told. 

 

I'd say for zone play a stalker is better than a brute. Stalkers do better burst damage, and can evade easier.

 

Stalkers are kinda OP in zones tbh. You should never die on one if you know what you're doing.

[Marshal Valor]

I did most of my PvPing on live in Recluse's Victory but I lived out of all the different PvP zones to be honest haha.

 

So I was talking to a guy in game and he said Street Justice has more burst than EM and that the only thing EM really brings to the table is the fact it can stun and detoggle offensive toggles. Is this really true? Why would I want EM over Street Justice? 

[America's Angel]

5 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

I did most of my PvPing on live in Recluse's Victory but I lived out of all the different PvP zones to be honest haha.

 

So I was talking to a guy in game and he said Street Justice has more burst than EM and that the only thing EM really brings to the table is the fact it can stun and detoggle offensive toggles. Is this really true? Why would I want EM over Street Justice? 

 

On Scrappers, EM does much more burst damage than Street Justice. That's the reason to take it.

 

Don't get me wrong, Street Justice on Scrappers is a good set, but it doesn't compare to EM.

[Marshal Valor]

Hmmmm, well I think I'll give it a try to be honest. Thank you for all the info. By the way what epic hold specifically were you talking about to take?

[America's Angel]

2 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

Hmmmm, well I think I'll give it a try to be honest. Thank you for all the info. By the way what epic hold specifically were you talking about to take?

 

I'd suggest Soul Storm, it lets you take a snipe, and that snipe (Moonbeam) has an extra damage proc over the other scrapper snipes.

[Marshal Valor]

Thanks I will take a look at it then. Can't believe I am rerolling yet again. This is like the fourth time LOL.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Marshal Valor said:

 

And you can go on ignore for being so damn rude. You don't listen very well either.

Ha nice edit, good thing you cleaned it up

[America's Angel]

1 hour ago, Marshal Valor said:

Thanks I will take a look at it then. Can't believe I am rerolling yet again. This is like the fourth time LOL.

 

I know what you mean. My account is like 90% characters I've PL'd to 50...and then abandoned. 

[Marshal Valor]

LOL this my fourth. Started out a Sentinel, then went to Stalker, and finally a tanker. And now of course I am switching to this build. Crazy! I hope this is the last version of this character that I play LOL.

[MJB]

fightclub has a community, but also imo scrappers are really strong in small scale pvp situations, for example:

 

 

and 

 

 

really ive been having a lot of fun with this toon lately. in big stuff like 8v8's i think you would struggle to find people who want to play with you

[Marshal Valor]

Watching that I got to say I'm not thrilled with the no travel suppression being turned off. When it was off it felt more like a comic book to me to be honest. It also found it easier running guys down. They would get one or two ranged shots off on me and then I'd close and that would be the end of it. Just like in a comic book too. I wish these guys would totally bring it back.

[M3z]

TLDR ver.

0 uptime in regular pvp (zone/arena etc), only viable taunting or fightclub scenarios (1v1 not moving).

 

Jaunt has made the uptime worse, wasn't AS bad when there was animation cancelling (animation cancel the end of jaunt animation to maintain more momentum to stay glued to target) but now that that's removed it's generally you're going to get hit 2-4 times for every hit you get in and since pvp boils down to procs and not base damage (melee have advantage on base damage) you lose trades while trying to chase and maintain melee uptime. Stalkers have the easiest time and you can always assassin strike bad players in zones, but it's generally a useless class against anyone who knows how to play/knows the stalker is there (raptor pack/jaunt means low AS chance).

 

The only real solution is to revamp mez system(not likely) or make melee movecap higher than ranged ATs for more uptime. Could also tweak ATs individually (scrapper crit has unresisted or completely unresisted damage, brute generate more fury on hit, AS is completely unresisted for stalkers etc) so when they do actually get hits they are somewhat more threatening.

 

Taunt also needs to be put on suppression timer as well if any buffs like this get implemented.

[America's Angel]

@M3z you should check out MJB's videos, above. They show that melee can be viable in small scale stuff just as much as it is in 1v1s.

 

In Zone PvP, stacking taunt for -range is one way of countering your opponent's Jaunt. This is what it looks like in practice:

 

 

Here's what my psy/em with Intuition, and a whole bunch of +range bonuses look like vs stacked taunt...

 

 

Melee being able to seriously neuter the best evading power in the game, reduce the range of all ranged foes' attacks, as well as dish out loads of damage themseles (their epic attacks now have increased crit chances from the ATOs, remember) means Melee is in a very good spot right now.

 

[RageusQuitus2]

20 hours ago, America's Angel said:

Brutes struggle to build fury in zones, and scrapper crits are VERY good for burst damage. (Which is king in zones.)

I used to love sirens call for the grey con clockwork.  Id taunt a mob of em on my ss/elec brute and roam the zone at full fury.

[macskull]

15 hours ago, Marshal Valor said:

Watching that I got to say I'm not thrilled with the no travel suppression being turned off. When it was off it felt more like a comic book to me to be honest. It also found it easier running guys down. They would get one or two ranged shots off on me and then I'd close and that would be the end of it. Just like in a comic book too. I wish these guys would totally bring it back.

Melee is waaaaay worse off with travel suppression than without.