Theres the lie spouted by the melee guys about Tacs/Traitors/Shootas/Dires being pure ranged classes. They're hybrids. Devastators/Havocs/Lootas/Reapers are the pure ranged classes. Not as much firepower as a heavy but can defend themselves in melee better but as not as well as a dedicated melee class. Edit: My bad.
I don't understand why OP thinks ranged should have a strong chance of being able to down a melee class in melee when melee classes have 0 chance to down a ranged class in ranged combat. All a melee class can do at ranged is avoid damage - that's probably all a ranged class should be able to do in melee, honestly. Especially given that the maps significantly ranged combat with their long sight lines into important areas.
Against Eldar a pistol can win a close range gun fight against them rather quick especially if its a smart pistol, for Orks you can beat tacticals with the dakka slugga at times due to the durability differences and a few lucky headshots, I do lots on my tank busta, non Eldar pistols are actually really good for the 50lp price tag and only lose out in rof and mag size compared to rifle counterparts. For range, a pistol is not going to beat a boltor or heavy weapon at a distance as much as a knife isn't going to beat a primary melee weapon in clangs and durability, they are better in one field than another but are competent and should stay competent in the other.
I feel like nerfing tacticals in melee is really really bad. You need tacticals to survive and cap. Won't happen if they get shut down by any average Joe Power Sword. Plus this would be a buff to melee cappers, and a nerf to everyone else's cappers. Bad idea. Terrible idea. You haven't played enough to learn that pistols are fine ranged weapons, I see.
Winning the RPS 100% of the time never leads to a broken weapon unless on one very specific circumstance: You Pick Dbash every single time and your opponent rolls out every single time. In all other cases you will kill the enemy with the RPS even if your knife can only survive a single clang. And even on this 100% Dbash scenario you can roll between clangs to buy more time. This is a problem of Dbash reducing Durability, which is quite frankly stupid. But let's not pretend that winning the RPS in any other situation reduces your durability, mkay? Edit: Upon further reading, it seems you are under the impression that durability loss happens regardless of win? It only happens on Dbash for some reason. If you FA a STrong attack, or Strong attack a Dbash you don't lose any durability.
I've got my thoughts on fixing melee littered about the forums and am somewhat fatigued by constantly retyping them, so I'll just summarise: No clangs. Ties ("melee trades") result in damage to both participants if they are within swing range. No stuns. Instead of a stun, there is a camera knock effect on a successful throw ("winning trade"). Stronger weapons swing more slowly but inflict more camera knock or do more damage or both. The DBash animation is considerably shorter. Melee lock-on is removed (along with smart pistols). When a Ranged class performs a melee throw, they need to manually swap back to their main weapon before they can fire it. This system would considerably speed up melee encounters as more attacks would cause damage. Combat positioning and timing dodges would be paramount to long-term melee survivability. All weapons would be viable, as more hits would connect, meaning higher alpha damage weapons would be applying that damage more often. Removal of lock-on would increase the skill threshold. DBashing no longer stuns, but does provide the largest camera knock effect, so can be a short animation (effectively it is more of a riposte than a parry) and still be a viable throw. The Camera Knock effect explained: Spoiler When on the receiving end of a successful throw ("winning trade"), the player's screen is displaced to a different position, somewhere from 45 to 135 and 225 to 315 degrees horizontally from where it started and somewhere from -90 to 90 degrees vertically. The heavier hitting the weapon, the bigger the effect. The heaviest hitting weapons (Mauls and Power Fists) cause this displacement effect on all successful throws. Swords and Axes cause the effect on Strong Attacks and DBashes. Knives cause the effect only on DBashes. Maul/Fist - Light: Low intensity Strong: High intensity DBash: High intensity Sword/Axe - Light: No effect Strong: Low intensity DBash: High intensity Knives - Light: No effect Strong: No effect DBash: High intensity Low intensity: 45 to 90 or 270 to 315 degrees horizontal displacement, -45 to 45 degrees vertical displacement. High intensity: 90 to 135 or 225 to 270 degrees horizontal displacement, -90 to 90 degrees vertical displacement. Weapon profiles: Spoiler Fist - High damage Low speed Heavy displacement Very expensive Maul - Medium damage Low speed Heavy displacement Expensive Axe - High damage Low speed Medium displacement Expensive Sword - Medium damage Medium speed Medium displacement Average cost Knife - Low damage Medium speed Low displacement Cheap
I was always talking about post launch. I believe the time you where talking about was 1 patch during beta lasting around a fort night with the rest of the time vastly bent towards Rangeds favour. And it certainly didn't drag on for 2 months going on 4 post launch, possibly more when the 2 month roadmap is either pushed out or scrapped entirely leaving the current Ranged faceroll meta in place and Melee completely obsolete in all situations. A reckoning is coming and its not for Melee. Like it or not no denial, misdirection or smoke screening is going to change that and you know what the best part is? Its their own fault! Ranged will have to get used to that fact, adapt or suffer. Just keep allowing Ranged to continue to instantly switch from Primary (bolter) to secondary Combat Knife, but in order to switch back give it a reload timer That way forcing them to commit to Ranged with the option to instantly switch to Melee, but to commit to Melee is a more fixed stance. I'd also like to see some form of crowd control for Melee: Tentacle Grab for CSM Melee Anti Grav Pull for LSM Melee Looted Tek Magnet Pull for Ork And nothing for you Eldar! (cuz your already speedy)
