Can you be a flying/hovering scrapper?

[Extor Prime]

One thing that stops me from playing melee (and always has) is the fact that you seem to have to stay on the ground. I love flying. I know SJ/SS is faster and there is no practical reason to insist on flying, but it's "my thing".

 

Also, when you fight giant-sized enemies in melee, you look dumb just beating up on their ankles.

 

Are there any melee sets that function well in the air?

[Hopeling]

Most sets work fine while hovering. It's only an issue for attacks like Foot Stomp which require you to be on/near the ground.

[Seroster01]

I haven't done any flying melee characters that I can recall. (I'm the opposite of you, flying ISN'T my thing...) but your talk about ankle-punching made me think about how far melee hitboxes stretch vertically.  I'm  not positive, but I think the hit boxes are based on the ground & thus trying to attack some of the taller enemies at a more "natural" height may be considered out of range.

 

As mentioned however, I'm not 100% sure on this, and even if true there's not very many mobs this would even be an issue for (basically just Giant Monster mobs & maybe some of the larger robuts.)

[jack_nomind]

Played a BS/SR hoverscrapper on Live for a while.  If you can get enough Hover speed, I feel like it's actually easier to melee with -- just Follow the target to close with wherever its hitbox is actually centered (which is very often near the visual center, but not always).

[EggKookoo]

My Kin/DA Stalker perma-hovers. So far so good.

[retiarius]

I played a Hovering BS/SR Scrapper from the moment he obtained Hover until shutdown.

 

You might occasionally have to do some positional jostling, but finding the 'sweet spot' for powers like Slice and Whirling Sword in a crowd of enemies is very satisfying.

[Gone]

Dark Melee is excellent for hovering builds.

[Rathulfr]

I've had hovering melee characters.  The only drawback is that /follow doesn't always bring you close enough to some targets for your queued melee attacks.  You have to nudge forward the last half-step to get it to fire.  And because it doesn't happen consistently, it always takes me a second to realize "why no punchy-punch NOW?"  In fact, I recently respec'ed my WP/EM brute without Hover for this exact reason.

 

I have no idea why this is, because I never have this problem with my melee characters on the ground (unless I run into an obstacle of some kind).  My F key is bound to /follow, and I routinely tab-target, press F to charge in, and attack.  No muss, no fuss.

 

YMMV.

 

[MunkiLord]

"why no punchy-punch NOW?"

 

I ask myself this when talking to customers every single day.

[Seitheach]

This is totally do-able, but there are a few caveats.

 

The hit boxes on giant monsters do tend to stop halfway up or less, doesn't impact most mobs but something to keep in mind.

 

More importantly, it really depends what your powersets are. Atom Smasher from Rad Melee, the Mighty Judgement attack and Arc of Destruction from TW all require you to be on the ground to activate. Mighty / Atom Smasher let you hover right on the ground but Arc of Destruction flat out does not work if you have hover or flight enabled, which is a bummer.

[Rathulfr]

"why no punchy-punch NOW?"

I ask myself this when talking to customers every single day.

 

+1 for TRUTH!

 

[MyriVerse]

On live, my first char was a Dark/Dark Scrapper with flight and teleport. However, I mostly use travel powers to get from A to B, not while fighting.