Minmax Melee Archetype Comparison & Tier List

[Anon4321]

On 5/20/2023 at 7:34 PM, Ston said:

This will be a WIP as long as I'm playing this game, but I've finally wrapped up some initial results for all the primary powersets of melee archetypes. My goal is to get a baseline of how sets compare with each other before any new changes come out (particularly changes to archetypes and procs). All of this testing was done with what has worked best for me. I don't claim to be an expert on each AT & powerset, but I did do several rounds for each and used what got the best results.

 

Has there been any significant changes to powersets or procs since this testing was done?

[Uun]

17 hours ago, Anon4321 said:

Has there been any significant changes to powersets or procs since this testing was done?

I don't see anything significant in the patch notes since then other than some tweaks to Thunder Strike.

[DarknessEternal]

Anyone have a guess how Ice Melee clears fast on Scrapper?  It has only one generic AoE and a cone not worth using.

[Bellicose]

13 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

Anyone have a guess how Ice Melee clears fast on Scrapper?  It has only one generic AoE and a cone not worth using.

 

Well, per the testing Ston performed, Ice Melee had the second fasted Trapdoor clear time (4:38) and the 5th fasted Pylon time (1:24). I would say Frost (a cone with a 90 degree arc) is quite worth using.

[DarknessEternal]

Are you sure Frost was being used though?  Seems unlikely.

[VertigoIguana]

10 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

Are you sure Frost was being used though?  Seems unlikely.

 

Frost is a pretty great cone.  Get yourself in the middle of a mob, jump up and hit Frost at your apex and you'll tag pretty much everything if you can time it right.  Good damage on it's own and procs decently as well.

[Bellicose]

On 6/29/2025 at 2:47 PM, DarknessEternal said:

Are you sure Frost was being used though?  Seems unlikely.

Well, it wasn't included in his rotation for the Pylon. That rotation was Frozen Touch,  Zapp, Greater Ice Sword and Cross Punch. But Frost is in the Build (procced). The Build can be downloaded from page one. 

[DarknessEternal]

6 hours ago, Bellicose said:

Well, it wasn't included in his rotation for the Pylon. That rotation was Frozen Touch,  Zapp, Greater Ice Sword and Cross Punch. But Frost is in the Build (procced). The Build can be downloaded from page one. 

Forgot all the builds were there, thanks!

[StompyOne]

Has anyone re-evaluated Staff Fighting with the new updates?

[Maelwys]

6 hours ago, StompyOne said:

Has anyone re-evaluated Staff Fighting with the new updates?

Very minor increase to AoE (except on Tankers, obviously!) as Eye of the Storm's "bonus damage" got increased by 13-19 base damage.
Slightly more noticeable bump to ST damage as Sky Splitter's "bonus damage" got increased by 35-52 base damage.

Note that this Bonus damage is affected by damage buffs (like Enhancements and Fury and Build Up and Assault Core Hybrid) but not by Scrapper/Stalker Critical hits.
 

 

Edited July 29 by Maelwys

[StompyOne]

3 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Very minor increase to AoE (except on Tankers, obviously!) as Eye of the Storm's "bonus damage" got increased by 13-19 base damage.
Slightly more noticeable bump to ST damage as Sky Splitter's "bonus damage" got increased by 35-52 base damage.

Note that this Bonus damage is affected by damage buffs (like Enhancements and Fury and Build Up and Assault Core Hybrid) but not by Scrapper/Stalker Critical hits.

 

That's a shame.  I'll withhold the limp staff jokes as they've been done to death.  But I really like the animations, and I was hoping for a good reason to get to see them beyond  just appearances.

[BrandX]

Is Vengeful Slice really good on Stalkers for ST DPS?

[aethereal]

On 9/11/2025 at 10:52 PM, BrandX said:

Is Vengeful Slice really good on Stalkers for ST DPS?

 

I don't have any direct experience with DB Stalkers, but...  I don't think so?  It doesn't seem any different from Vengeful Slice on other ATs, and it's not generally one of the good moves in DB.  Decently high damage marred by long cast time, with Ablating Strike and Sweeping Strike and Assassin's Blades all being superior in DPA.

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

 

I don't have any direct experience with DB Stalkers, but...  I don't think so?  It doesn't seem any different from Vengeful Slice on other ATs, and it's not generally one of the good moves in DB.  Decently high damage marred by long cast time, with Ablating Strike and Sweeping Strike and Assassin's Blades all being superior in DPA.

 

That's what I was thinking but VS was used in the charts.

[aethereal]

12 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

That's what I was thinking but VS was used in the charts.

Well, who knows.  I mean, maybe just a mistake to build that way, or maybe his build just didn't have enough recharge to drop Vengeful Slice from the attack chain.

 

The classic non-Stalker DB chain uses Blinding Feint, which obviously isn't there on a Stalker.  Assassin's Strike has a much longer recharge than BF, so you can't just sub it in.  I'm a little surprised that he couldn't drop VS with both Zapp and AS, but... who knows. 

[Frosticus]

13 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

That's what I was thinking but VS was used in the charts.

Take the stalker results with a grain of salt. If you look closely at them you'll see some odd stuff like:

above recharge cap required to run the claws chain and nearly 400% recharge (so +300% enhancement) to run the Stj chain

Neither of which are happening under normal conditions and definitely not with the parameters he laid out.

 

That said the order of rankings look reasonably accurate against a pylon