Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #28: Smash Smash Smash (Melee Powersets)

[SeraphimKensai]

Welcome back folks. This week the discussion veers to all things that Smash. That's right we're talking melee combat.

 

Feel free to discuss, compare, and contrast any melee Powersets in the game. Do you have a preferred melee set you enjoy? Is there one that you don't like? What do you find enjoyable about playing melee sets? Is there anything that holds you back from playing melee sets? Do you have any suggestions for melee weapons such as a hockey stick or a bass guitar? Do you have any interesting thoughts for a new melee powerset? Do you find melee to be in a good place now or does it need tuning?

 

As always thanks for playing.

[0th Power]

First, we need nunchucks so I can complete my ninja turtle theme.  (I had a proposed powerset a couple years back).  I think it would be hard to add any other melee options that couldn't be covered by the other sets we have.  

 

Back on live, I LOVED energy melee.  Energy transfer was my favorite power and I stopped playing on live before it was changed.  When I got to homecoming, the second character I remade was my inv/Energy tanker and was quickly disappointed with the long animation.  The added gimmick with energy storage does help the set, but it still doesn't allow me to use ET as an opener as I would back on live.  (side note - I don't really like any of the gimmick sets).

 

My favorite melee set now is either katana or street fighting (I know its a gimmick, but try to ignore it).  Both sets have good animations and are effective on all ATs

 

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have a preferred melee set you enjoy?

 

I think Katana and dual blades are the most fun, but I also like martial arts and street justice. I've had fun with spines as well.

I think I've tried all the melee primaries at this point.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Is there one that you don't like?

 

For some reason kinetics seems awkward to me. I don't know why exactly.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

What do you find enjoyable about playing melee sets?

 

Oh, it's the getting up close and personal part. I'm a fan of melee in the real world so that translates in to THE CITY as well. 

Oddly enough, I don't tend to play melee characters.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Is there anything that holds you back from playing melee sets?

 

Team composition.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have any suggestions for melee weapons such as a hockey stick or a bass guitar?

 

well ...

 

 

... I would like to see some wrenches (maybe the ones from mace) and a giant flat-head screwdriver for dual blades.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have any interesting thoughts for a new melee powerset?

 

well, there is the always the legendary whips power set.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a nunchaku melee power set for scrappers, but I know it would be a pain to animate.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you find melee to be in a good place now or does it need tuning?

 

The first character that I ever made in CoH was a spines regen scrapper and that is the first character I made again on Homecoming.

In general, I'm fine with how melee characters play.

I tend to play scrappers>tankers>stalkers>brutes.

 

oh, almost forgot ...

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by UltraAlt

[High_Beam]

It wasn't until I came to Homecoming did I embrace melee characters.  On Live I was a shooter or a locking shooter, or a supporting shooter.  Most of my characters were Blasters followed by Controllers then Defenders.  I wanted to like them, admired some eve,  I created a Tanker (INV/MACE) and ran her to 50 and found the experience . . . boring.  Then I created a Scrapper (BS/SR) and well hated her.  Oh I ran her to 50 as well but I just wasn't feeling it.  SO I made more of what I did enjoy.  I never hated on those that did do melee but I did kind of become a little bit of an ass regarding Blapping (Beam don't Blap - No Blaster should Blap).  I dislived the whole concept of villains and deleted my Stalker around level 39 or so and the Brute, shit she didn't make it to 20, I just wasn't feeling it.

 

I got better.  Enter Homecoming where I told myself I would avoid doing or falling victim to same issues I had on Live and to try new stuff.  High on that list was giving a real chance to the non shooter types.  What resulted was that I had to realize that the fun I had with most of my shooters was the alterations to the fighting style even with the same primary, that's why I have three separate DP Blasters and each is played completely differently.  So with melee types I tried the same thing.  So from worst to first.

 

Stalker - Yeah I have one, (tried two others on test - deleted) and I don't like them.  I am not a sneaky pete so the whole mechanic doesn't work for me.  The one I have committed to play on Excelsior is out of stubborness and to be honest is a bad mood away from deletion.  Oh I am sure the power set I took is "teh suck" by stalker people (PSI/SR) but that was the only one that actually seemed interesting to me.  My brain cannot let go of the thematic problems.

 

Scrapper - I have 1, she's Level 50 . . . and that's all there is to say.  Scrappers feel disappointing to me.  I am sure I am missing something.  After the one (BS/WP) made it to 50 as part of a theme group I build a couple on test server with different powers and every time even with the Set IOs kitted in I didn't find them fun.

 

Blapper - Yep a Blaster who gets in the melee and mixes it up is better than a Stalker and a Scrapper to me.  But really, it isn't a melee type I am just putting it here to show I can grow.  I have two Blasters and another that's maturing into that roll and I find it fun in doses.

 

Tanker - I have 1 and she is awesome.  There I found joy in true survivability, finally realizing that while it is about damage its damage taken.  When I was a level like 30 Tank with very little in the way of Set IOs slotted but fully kitted out armors (Invulnerability) and sidekicked to a level 50 against +4 enemies, running that Freakshow portal mission and I was taunting multiple mobs and corner pulling and they were beating on me and my health bar wasn't moving . . . it was glorious.  Oh I was rarely even hitting and when I did the damage was microscopic and slow (Energy Melee), that was my team mates job, but I held aggro and didn't die.

 

Brute - Very interesting thing here.  I like Brutes, probably my favorite melee types to play, I have like 3 on Excelsior and like 1 on Everlasting.  Brutes are fun to me because they aren't quite tankers, just a bit shy on survivability but not too much to where you scream at the monitor and the whole mechanic of fury building is perhaps what does it for me.  You have to keep chugging, like that Statham movie where he like couldn't let his heart rate drop too low or he would die.  It ads this self-imposed sense of frantic need to constantly seek out a fight which I cant help but embrace.  And because they aren't quite tanks you have to actually pay attention a little to your bars.  Fun.

 

As for new powers.  Everyone seems to want to El Kabong people, so how about you make a General weapon-based melee that is bashy like mace but not a copy of mace and then let the weapons be things like a guitar or plain old heavy log obviously you could have bats and crowbars and batons.  Maybe a lamp or sure Nunchaku.

 

Also I had a fever dream about a power called Magic Fists - Like the punches did crazy things with like random effects like sometimes it holds or it sets a guy on fire or shrinks them down to bobblehead guy size.  Oh call it Chaos Melee and totally lean into the "you wont know from one punch to the next" Sure it does a fixed damage but the secondary effects random.  OMG!  Perfect crazy!

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by High_Beam
Added additional answer and Crazy Idea. Do it!

[Blastit]

Melee sets? Pretty neat. You get to have a sword. I do wish that there were more styles of axe to pick from, especially some more generic ones. Many of the axes just feel too specific in style.

 

I would like to see melee sets paired with something that isn't an armour set, perhaps support or minions, but that's a somewhat different topic.

 

 

 

My favourites are Earth with its big chunky fun, Spines with its quirky ranged and AoE specialisation and Broad Sword for just the simplicity of it adding an iconic costume piece (and Parry is fun, gotta have wrists of steel to swing some of the sword models around like that!).

[Spaghetti Betty]

On 5/10/2023 at 11:55 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have a preferred melee set you enjoy?

Super Strength, Street Justice, Staff Fighting, Martial Arts, and Stone Melee are my top 5

 

On 5/10/2023 at 11:55 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Is there one that you don't like?

As good as Energy Melee is, I just can't get into it. There isn't enough variety in it for me.

 

On 5/10/2023 at 11:55 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

What do you find enjoyable about playing melee sets?

I love how intimate melee combat is. It's very easy to tell a good melee player from a not so great one.

 

On 5/10/2023 at 11:55 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Is there anything that holds you back from playing melee sets?

Nothing that isn't ultimately unrelated to theming.

 

On 5/10/2023 at 11:55 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have any suggestions for melee weapons such as a hockey stick or a bass guitar?

Tons! Don't put me in charge of Creative. I'll break people.

 

On 5/10/2023 at 11:55 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have any interesting thoughts for a new melee powerset?

Tons. But the one at the forefront currently would be a Hook and Chain powerset involving the repositioning of mobs and heavy Dots for ST damage.

 

On 5/10/2023 at 11:55 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you find melee to be in a good place now or does it need tuning?

Melee is in the best spot it's been in since the days of pre-ED. Any noise about needing to reposition yourself during fight mechanics or ranged just being better DPS are age-old MMO complaints that will never go away.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Spaghetti Betty

[Biff Pow]

I've played Super Strength far more than any other melee set, so it's probably my favourite even though I find Rage kind of kludgy. It's very powerful, no complaints about that, but when I'm on my other characters I appreciate not having to watch for a "crash". 

 

More recently I've played Psychic Melee a lot, because I love Confuse powers, and also slicing through Shock Treatment when she's in that annoying Power Surge mode is very satisfying.

 

My suggestion for a new melee set would be "Mighty Melee", a Super Strength-like set that can be ported to all ATs. That way no changes need to be made to Super Strength, which would probably upset a lot of people even if they made the set more fun.

[Greycat]

7 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Feel free to discuss, compare, and contrast any melee Powersets in the game. Do you have a preferred melee set you enjoy? Is there one that you don't like? What do you find enjoyable about playing melee sets? Is there anything that holds you back from playing melee sets? Do you have any suggestions for melee weapons such as a hockey stick or a bass guitar? Do you have any interesting thoughts for a new melee powerset? Do you find melee to be in a good place now or does it need tuning?

 

 

 

I do... eh, whatever fits the character. I'm fine with the majority of melee sets.

 

Dislikes... titan weapons (I hate the Momentum mechanic, especially when it runs out JUST as you get to the next group so your swing... is... .painfully... slow...,)

Psionic ... I have one or two and there's just something about it that... eh. It's an all right set, there's just something about the feel of it that just isn't *there.*

And Kinetic Melee will always be "nascar melee" to me from the sound effects. All the swirly hand waving kind of reminds me or the constant pistol-flipping of Dual Pistols and makes it hard to find a character it fits. I have ... one, I think, maybe two, and I don't think I've ever gotten one to 50.

 

Most amusing bit in any melee set, for me, has to be the assassin strike dual blades uses. "Got your kidneys!" *SLASH* - just vicious.

 

That said, I think I've generally had an easier time getting non-melee to 50. I just enjoy ranged, controlling or supporting characters more.  I don't think I've gotten a Katana, Claws (ignoring seeing what a CEBR was about on live and just kind of shaking my head at the resulting 50) or ... well, several sets to 50.

[lemming]

I have a bunch of different melee sets I play.    My badger is a Dual Wield/WP Scrapper,  I do play my tanks more lately.  Bio/Fire, Ice/Ice, Inv/Axe, Elec/Elec probably the most, though I have tried all of the various ones and played to 50.   And while I love Claws, I haven't been playing it as much.

Titan Weapons is the one that is the least liked by me.  It's improved from the first iteration.  Yea, the dmg went down, but it's smoother.

Oddly enough, Kin Melee doesn't bug me.  Maybe it's because no mechanic tied into it's waving about.

 

Whips would be my wanted melee set.

Edited May 11, 2023 by lemming

[ZemX]

Slap Fighting

 

Pillow Melee

 

Shadow Boxing

 

Food Fighting

 

Wet Towel Melee

 

Lucha Libre

[Snarky]

I have played Dark Melee on Brutes, Tanks, and now a Stalker.  I almost always pair it with Invulnerable or Dark Armor.  To me there is no stronger melee pairing in game than Dark Melee Invulnerable Armor. Invulnerability lacks a few things and Dark solves all the possible issues except Psi hole.  Need a quick heal to top off Dull pain?  Dark. Need some End?  Dark.  Need some tohit debuff?  Dark.  It is, of course, very synergistic with Dark Armor as well.  To hit debuffs, Fear, End, Heals, all of that is hand in glove with Dark Dark.  Dark Melee is a strong ST damage dealer and a mediocre to poor AoE.  It gets the job done against hard targets and works with your armor to patiently get around to the schlubs.

 

I started on Super Strength.  Played it for years. Knockout Blow.  That sound! That impact! That animation!  What is not to love?  Well, corpse blasting when you are new to it lol.  But you figure it out.  Foot Stomp. So good they could not justify increasing the AoE for Tanks like they did all other AoE.  Rage.  Sigh.  The reason I do not play the set anymore. There are probably 20 things you can do during the Rage crash. I am tired of all of them.  Moved on.  In hindsight (where I could squueze it in) I might have taken handclap more.  Need to KB-KD it and enhance it.  But it is a worthy power in the game.  

 

I have only flirted with other melee power sets. So I will let others describe those.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Snarky

[Justin_Ogre]

Melee tends to be my main focus. And Brutes most of all. Dual Blades is just awesome to watch. I want to love Broadsword/BattleAxe/War Mace but some of the animations really throw me off.  Like the description doesn't match the animations and half the time they cut into themselves.  I really tried to love my Broadsword / Shield Brute. 

Justin Ogre is a SuperStrength / Invuln Brute and with the alternative animations options is awesome. May not be the most efficient build but he's a joy to play.

[FupDup]

I generally don't like melee much because if your target walks 1 foot away you have to move to catch up to them, which can be especially annoying given that the NPCs' fleeing code is completely borked and causes them to cower in abject terror after you gently tickle them with your weakest attack. Ranged attacks have the versatility of letting me cut down runners from a distance while still letting me blast them in the face if they get close (even if they do less damage than melee). And for some reason I have a much harder time coming up with melee character concepts than ranged ones. 

 

Also, as someone else said, Battle Axe really needs more alternate models. 

[cranebump]

I have enjoyed most melee sets I’ve played (with Street Justice probably being the fav). Only ones I’m not a big fan of are psi melee and kinetic melee (“and herrrrrre’s the windup….” [obnoxious sound effect]).

[momentarygrace]

On 5/13/2023 at 10:59 AM, FupDup said:

I generally don't like melee much because if your target walks 1 foot away you have to move to catch up to them, which can be especially annoying given that the NPCs' fleeing code is completely borked and causes them to cower in abject terror after you gently tickle them with your weakest attack. Ranged attacks have the versatility of letting me cut down runners from a distance while still letting me blast them in the face if they get close (even if they do less damage than melee). And for some reason I have a much harder time coming up with melee character concepts than ranged ones. 

 

Also, as someone else said, Battle Axe really needs more alternate models. 

 

I have a lot of melee toons because I play mainly to relieve stress and hitting things helps. 🙂 Things that aren't real and won't break, that is.

 

I have this keybind on most of my mele characters:  /bind ` "target_enemy_near$$follow"

 

Yes, use with the awareness that it can make life very interesting and get one in trouble, but then again, debt badges, amirite?

 

 

[Clave Dark 5]

I find melee a bit boring to play: go find someone, run over to them, POW.  I much prefer being about to do... you know, other stuff as well.  Which may be one reason I'm thinking Doms work best for me, there's a little of that in but lots of other fun tools (I was working on a Corr recently and just felt like she was missing like one or two good POW IN THE FACE melee attacks, despite being otherwise pretty effective), tools with range too.  I find when I'm tired the whole having to chase down your next target feels like a chore, which is why my BAMPF stalker melee method (check the Stalker forums for my thread on this) is like perfect: Shield Charge, Spring Attack, etc. are melee attacks from range!

[Nyghtmaire]

I’m with @Snarky: dark melee is the tits. Can I say that? It’s great and phenomenal in all iterations. 

 

I enjoy tankers much more now. As I get older; I find the added safety to accommodate my slower physical responses. Mostly, the brain is still sharp so I can select targets at leisure knowing the character will survive my reaction time. Overall, I gravitate towards brutes above all else (followed by tankers, stalkers, blappers, then waaaaaay in the back - scrappers).

Most recently, I’ve fallen in love with Stone Melee. Massive crunch. Lots of bounce. Stuns stack with Oppressive Gloom (DA FTW). So much to love.
 

As to likes/dislike, I’m merely happy to have the game. I’ll play new sets, but I have no requests or desires in this department. If a set needs to be changed - cool. Something new - cool. Whatever! Similar to @Clave Dark 5, the BAMF life is the best life. Lazy or slow, take your pick.

[Wavicle]

When will the promise of Carp Melee be fulfilled?

[rolandgrey]

I've got a bunch of melee characters.

 

Super Strength is like a diesel engine, it takes some time to build up to feeling like super strength, but when you land that first Knockout Blow, you feel it.

 

Titan Weapons takes that same impact and spreads it across the set.  The set is all about swinging a big, heavy object at the enemies and that's just great.  You are practically AOE Death with this set, and I love it!

 

Dual Blades and Katana both satisfy that "quick and nimble" mentality.  Neat thing about Dual Blades, you don't necessarily NEED to use the combo system to keep a high DPS, so you don't need to feel like you're missing out when you don't follow the combos.  I kind of wish the other sets had Combo mechanics, too.

 

Broadsword and Battle Axe are great for, well, feeling like Jason Voorhees, moving in and chopping your enemies into oblivion.  I wish there was a dual wielding version of these, sort of like what we see with the Scrapyarders.  Current Dual Blades comes across as almost like ballet.  We just don't have a nice "vicious" dual-wielding the way that Broadsword and Battle Axe are vicious.  I'm really liking Battle Axe's Axe Cyclone now, too, with how it draws enemies closer.  Sort of like "You WILL pay attention to me!  Come here!"  I wonder if the HC devs are toying with the idea of a Ninja Weapons set, complete with Scorpion's Harpoon (rope dart), or heck maybe a whole Rope Dart set...  I'll stop daydreaming now.

 

War Mace used to just be the Smashing alternate to Battle Axe.  I really like the changes HC has made to both sets, and both are behaving much better nowadays.  A hard-hitting stunning set.

 

Energy Melee is about as close to boxing as we'll get, I think.  Punch-punch-punch-punch-PUNCH!  I especially love that the HC crew has found a way to bring back my beloved Sucker Punch version of Energy Transfer.  This is what I'm talking about with having the other melee sets have their own combo systems (as well as Street Justice and Staff Fighting), but it's mostly just a "Do extra damage NOW!" approach.

 

Dark Melee is slow, but it hits hard.  It can be useful for the right kind of character, but it's certainly not the go-to for fast-paced play.  It's also thematic for vampirism and terror, so it's really difficult to multipurpose it for other character themes.  Still, it's hard to argue with "Effective."

 

Kinetic Melee is also slow, but it doesn't hit hard.  It also eats up too much endurance for the small amount of damage it's doing.  I like the idea of a martial arts set that feeds into the more "mystical" themes, but this one really highlights how impractical all those buildups are in anime cartoons.  Filler is useful for cartoons that need to be cranked out every week, not so much for a video game.  I do like the build up mechanic in it, though.  Paired up with a Shield character, and you will make some really painful hits.

 

Aside from Lightning Rod, Electric Melee is just boring.  It hits hard, yeah, but the character sprite hardly moves.  Electric punch, then electric tap, then a flying overhead smash...  I get more dynamic motion by adding attacks from Pool Powers into the attack chain.  Still, it's hard to argue with a hard-hitting Lightning Rod

 

Fiery Melee and Ice Melee are just great.  Some would think Ice Melee is too slow, but it's freaky how enemies are suddenly collapsing around you.  Fiery Melee is damage and lots of it.

 

Spines hits harder than it looks like it does.  Toxic damage continues to be the silent killer in this game.

 

Staff Fighting is fun and full of motion.  Maybe a bit too much motion, but the damage is largely reflected for the animation times.

 

Savage Melee...  This is probably the power people think of when they think "Claws."  Quick, vicious, and a REALLY low endurance cost.  Super fun, I'm using it on a bunch of my beastly characters.  Catgirls, Dogboys, Gator Men, it suits all of them!

 

Speaking of Claws...  This set is a bit disappointing.  Most of its attacks look the same, because this set is built more around Vega Claws rather than Wolverine Claws, despite making the classic "Snikt!" motion to deploy them.  It also has a pair of thrown attacks in it, as if the claws are somehow shooting energy in one and you throw what looks like the Beastmaster's Caber for the other.  Was this supposed to be the Paragon/Cryptic Devs' initial approach to ninja weaponry?  Still, while visually disappointing, the set is GREAT if you want to feel like a blender.  The attacks are quick, quick to recharge and hit damn hard.  Plus, that ranged attack that throws a random bit of metal at the enemies?  It's fantastic at getting enemies off your back for a little bit.

 

Street Justice...  I like Street Justice.  It's brutal and bone-crunching.  As a Marine, I can say it bears a lot of resemblance to MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program), making it great for military-themed characters that you don't want to just keep using firearms.  Or maybe you just want a brawler who fights like he just came out of a bar room.  Either way, this set will scratch your itch.

 

I would love Martial Arts, except it's ridiculously expensive on endurance.  Pair MA with Super Reflexes, the pairing that was meant to be, and you can find out what it's like to suck wind for 90% of the game.  Which is really too bad, because I love Crane Kick and sending enemies flying head over heels into the distance.  Even on secondaries with extra endurance, like Regeneration and Willpower, this set can drag the character near to sucking wind.

 

About the only one I haven't used is Stone Melee.  I just never have a use for it.  I did try it back in the Paragon days, paired up with Fiery Aura on a Brute.  It was...  Okay.  It's a bit of a clunky set, with a lot of disjointed visuals.  Sure, Fiery Melee and Ice Melee have similarly disjointed visuals, but it just stands out more on Stone Melee as you jump to wildly different particle effects.  That said, though, it's a great utility fighter, regularly knocking enemies off their feet and stunlocking them as well as Energy Melee.

 

Radiation Melee is a bit of an odd duck for the same reason as Stone Melee.  The character keeps slipping awkwardly from one pose to another, and a lot of the animations look like they were chosen just to be a different from all the other sets.  There's practically no reason for the set to use anything different from Energy Melee or Dark Melee, but there it goes doing a full-bodied double-hand smash or a leap into the air to titan punch the ground for its PBAOE (which was supposed to be the animation of the Mighty Judgement).  It's like if you needed a set to be labeled "Try Hard," it's this one.  That said, it's still very effective, and its Irradiated Ground power is deliciously unsettling.  Try blending it with a Stone Tanker for some really nifty visuals!

 

I love practically everything about Psionic Melee EXCEPT the gigantic psychic fist.  Simultaneously, I love the gigantic psychic fist.  I wish this was two different sets, one that is Psychic Slashing, and another that is Psychic Smashing.  That said, I can deal with it as-is, and it's still plenty fun.

 

Finally, there's the Fighting Pool.  I love Cross Punch.  I LOVE Cross Punch!  This power helps round out just about any melee build.  Need one extra cone attack for your Titan Weapons character?  Cross Punch.  Need another power on your Super Strength character that looks like they're clotheslining an entire group of enemies (or just drilling their fist through their heads)?  Cross Punch.  I've even got non-melee characters that use this power.  Whoever had the bright idea to put this power in the Fighting Pool, thank you. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by rolandgrey

[Tankshock]

One of my best all around toons is DM/SD.  Great mix of ST and AoE, with top notch survivability.  Can pretty much do any content well, with any group or solo.

[DougGraves]

Dark melee is my favorite for the effect.  Dual blades is my favorite for the animation.