To understand this, play a Banshee against Orks, both sides are almost comically underdeveloped and really exemplify what I'm talking about.

Basically everything in melee takes too long to perform. Ok so maybe not everything, but Melee is locked into vectored animations that are on a guide due to lock one. I swing and step in one direction.

This is fine.

But then there is a "recovery" time where my character does nothing before the next move. It's not very long, but it's enough to notice while under fire that I'm literally waiting for my animation to finish before I can do anything again. I get that this is here to help prevent people from simply using RMB to travel faster than people (even Eldar) can run, but it's not really helping- it still happens and the methodic chopping makes for some really ridgid combat in the sense that I'm always waiting for my swing to recover and my ability to act on a new choice returns. In combat, clangs stagger each opponent. I get that this is to prevent RMB spamming, Dbash, sorta works, but again, both sides are led fairly open to other elements around them because the recovery time is too long. Clash and immediately move on to the next move. Combat could seriously be hastened universally by as much as 10%, reduce or completely eliminate the pauses between each move and into the next to improve flow, and both Dbash and and Power Attack should honestly be just a tad slower than a RMB rather than 1/2 the speed.

Dbash and power attack are absolutely insanely long in this combat game. Look I get that people should be able to react to their opponent, but there's still a huge lesson from SM you're missing BE. You fail to allow players to take fate into their own hands as an aggressor. A lot of combat remains Dark Souls reactionary/parry based. I'm not trying to advocate for power attack spamming either, but common, Rock beats Sissors, paper beats rock, scissors beats paper. Don't let people simply react to what the other player's hand is doing every single time. I'm going to choose rock very quickly and smash into them. I've made my commitment I was proactive in my positioning, I'm going to kill this person who chose scissors at the same time let it happen. Melee is vastly unfair to this sort of play. Due to all the durability and differences between races and classes, it's often foolhardy to be aggressive as a non melee class and this just doesnt feel 40k. Everyone should be agressive. And in SM the assaults were still better in melee than a tactical, but the tactical still felt aggressive. To be agressive or proactive often just means playing your hand too early and allowing the other player to take advantage of it: plus all of the other issues with clangs, staggers, animations, and stuns, all being too long, it just leads to a slower paced combat that allows for reactionary play over "I came with a plan!" Sprint Attack, RMB, Clang, Dbash, Power Attack - guy is dead in about 2-3 seconds tops. This is especially important when engaged in a multiple melee combat. Clanging against your friend in the back of the head and stunning him, that's fine, not being able to perform a necessary action because you've cast your move and have a 2/3rds chance of failure because he only needs a clang in order for his friend to stab you isn't really good for mass melee when it happens. Let me fight off two enemies at once by constantly making the correct choices (clang included). Being able to 1v2 or 1v3 people with the RPS should happen, and quickly.

TLDR: Combat is too slow and is restricted by pauses between each animation. They are brief, but prevent the necessary flow to make melee a more enjoyable experience. In addition, stuns, clangs, and some animations all last too long and often remain ineffective for what they're trying to achieve. Dbash and Power Attack could honestly run 1.5-2x faster than they do now and still leave enough time to predict when they'd happen. It should not take 4,5, or even 6 seconds to run an entire animation loop to perform a RMB, Dbash, to Power Attack Combo. If I did all three and was successful at all three, reward me with a kill so I can move on to the next target quickly!

There's no way anyone is going to fall for your bait.

...and on the off chance there are some, I will just sit here and watch. This gon' be gud.

Uh... Alright. How are the melee timings correct?

For example if you're a tactical class, and you're in melee, do you ever feel slow, or constantly on the defense? Or more specifically that you have to wait for the Assault to commit to something like a RMB so you can Dbash him?

Or ever get locked in combat and just drag it out? Or get stunned for a frustrating amount of time? Or how breaking a weapon essentially perma stuns you?

I don't really have an issue with recovery animation.

I think it's sort of refreshing to have characters actually need to recover and regain balance/form before swinging again.

Unlike other touted "combat" simulators where everyone turns on a dime, instantly recovers from attacks, spam things at lightning speed or somehow swing behind them as their torso's turn independently from their legs in an awkward comical fashion.

I'd have to agree with you, I find it's especially noticeable on evade attacks, there's a definite pause between the evade and the attack, it's only slight but it makes for a much more clunky system. It wasn't like that a few patches back. All in all there's a severe lack of fluidity to melee

I have no problem with the recovery time specially now with the tier 3 new system with the ministun on the power attacks. Well, I have one and its called super fast heavy ork attack, but we can talk about that later haha.

I made it to 'play a banshee'

Right now, Eldar and Orc melee attack speeds and reaction times are COMPLETELY broken, ESPECIALLY strong attacks

It is to critical levels of game breaking

It's still possible to win against them but it is So ****king bad.

Biggest BS ingame right now is Strong Attack banshee spam

FIRST THING the devs NEED to do is Balance ALL FACTION ATTACK SPEEDS

So I want to be clear.

I am in no way trying to advocate that actions can be stacked on each other, performed simultaneously, or instantly, or some other nonsense- or even that there should be different melee speeds between races, with few exceptions like T3-4 weapons all animations should run at the same speed. Melee is largely ok with it taking time to perform an action. The thing is that alot of these actions sometimes take way too long. For example why on earth does power attack and Dbash take so long if RMB essentially is near instantaneous? RMB straight counters power attack unless it's on the down swing, it doesnt need a huge windup, especially if RMB is still offered a decent window to counter it. Likewise, DBash is stupidly long. It should essentially be like it was in SM with the backhand. It parries a blow, and allows you to immediately open someone up for a quick hit. No need for a 2 second stun that allows for a massive power attack windup. Just backhand, power attack- same result - target is dead. Why do we force both players to have to wait so long for the same result?

Also, BETWEEN actions there is a noticable pause. This interrupts flow. Flow is essential to making a combat game feel better. You're not going to stutter/hesitate as an 8ft armored tank, or a centuries old sure footed champion, you're going to chain attacks, one right into the other, RMB spam should not exist at this point in the game because RPS should flow so well that it allows for players to make effective combos. There should be threads on how to interrupt a RMB RMB, Dbash PW Attack combo, that occurs in half the current time, not "I'm tired of RMB, Dbash, and/Power Attack Spam."

I like how you claim it is too slow, considering that eldar and orks have faster animations than any SM.

Well, I certainly feel slow and constantly on the defense. But do I feel I need to wait for the Assault to commit? No, can't say I do. When I'm a tactical, and I'm in melee, I mostly die quite quickly. Sometimes I try to fight back if lag permits it, but I only managed to stall twice and kill once thus far. Mainly because in those instances the attacking player was flabbergasted he didn't two-shot me, but I honestly couldn't tell if the delay in killing me was due to their amazement (that someone actually hit back) or due to bad recovery timing after a swing. Dragging out melee combat is out of the question. As the amount of time I get stunned is rather small, I can honestly say that my frustration does not stem from it. This also keeps me from perma stuns, so there is a bright side to it!

Edit: after reading your last post, I agree with the point on Dbash having a windup. It is quite stupid, plain logically speaking. But oh well. Perhaps it does so RPS can have heavy attacks beat Dbash.