Once I learned about the auto lock I found I could just mash buttons and watch the kill count go up. I don't play jpa/raptor because of that. The hardest part for me is figuring out the fuel thing and why I'd run out so quick while others just seemed to zip around
I specialize in melee, mostly the fist. So basically what I will say about melee being easy or hard.... It's all situational. Melee does what it needs to do and quickly kills if you sneak up on someone. Melee succeeds if the melee combatant gets with 15 meters it should be in his favor. 1 v 1 at close melee should beat ranged 9/10 times, they got that. But.... 1v3-5 melee gets destroyed. It is easy if it's 1 v 1. The auto lock helps noobs out to be competent and lets them have fun. But against groups melee requires mastery. And the auto lock as a skill ceiling, against multiple enemies it sometimes locks onto someone further away, screwing them over. Noobs need auto lock, masters don't. I have been using ranged more to see what can be done to improve . Working on it still.
depends what you mean by easy or hard I guess ... I find melee easy since all I have to do is run/ground pound like an idiot at the enemy and start slashing/power attacking anyone whos not looking at me ... I usually take a few down before I end up getting killed myself, whats difficult is trying to outdo a competent anti-melee opponent 1v1 or 1v1+ at the same time using the RPS system ... mostly because the RPS system has never actually worked properly in the first place and when you throw latency into the mix things get rather tricky
Way before this patch, I used to get the feeling that if I ran up to a guy with a gun outside 20m I'd die if I wasn't careful and quick. I also used to get the feeling that guns would actually kill you if you didn't get a good shot off. Somehow now I get the feeling that guns are nothing more than pee shooters and really the only danger lies in focus fire. More than 1 gun shooting at you is still very bad news but it's almost embarrassing how little damage they still do. I can be at 60+ steps and still have enough life left over to kill a single opponent by that time I got to them.
Melee is easiest part in EC to do. Mastering it, depends, GA have much higher skill ceiling then JPA due to mobility and you need to know which fights you need to pick as GA as you won't be getting out of them unless victorious or dead where JPA can just run. So JPA=easy mode for low skill players, godlike and overpowered AF if you know how to fight. GA=easier then standard bolter user, hard to be very efficient due to mobility, reliance on support from healer and need to flank. Current JPA with power fist could be successfully operated by a cat.
If anything you do right now involves a fist or a jpa you deserve approximately 0 respect. I've seen that kill through everything including defense bash, and I have no words for how bullshit this weapon became apart from "who thought this was a good idea".
I dont think its either. Its kinda just... clunky. You can just roll, spam and win. OR Dbash, stun and win. Thing is, frame rates, lagg, poor hit detection and general design stuff ups cause melee to just feel garbage. I admit though, even I am liking the changes that were made for this patch. Although I still think there should be more changes.
In my opinion (now that ground slams arent a OHK after the hotfix) its not the raptor/jpa thats overpowered, its that range is underpowered. It used to be that as a melee class you had to pick your route in carefully, use the cover available to you, you couldnt just just blindly charge into fire and expect to live, let alone jump into a group of 3 or 4 tacticals and down all of them. It used to be a rewarding feeling when you closed the gap, killed an opponent, maybe injured another, and got away again, albeit damaged yourself, and allow your team mates to move in to finish the job. Now its plain boring knowing you can just float down soaking up shots and destroy a whole group. I was looking forward to patch 20 for one reason, the hope of the bolter being deadly again. But it seems that either survivability against ranged is up, or lethality of ranged is down. Plasma guns no longer do the damage they did (and to be honest I thought they were in a great spot in #19, just needed to be a bit more expensive in LP), and whatever has happened to dbash is beyond my comprehension, my god it takes forever to run that animation. I was desperate for the bolter to be a viable loadout, and i've tried every iteration of it I can think of, but it just doesnt seem to cut it again. Im a supporter of low TTK, be it up close or ranged, and I fear we're slowly creeping up to a loooong TTK again where mexican standoffs and 5 minute duels are all that matches end up being. Dont nerf raptors/jpa's, make ranged a formidable force again. TLDR Melee damage is fine, up ranged lethality significantly so raptor/jpa players have to use tactics to close the gap again.
At present, melee seems to deteriorate into a clusterf*ck of 3-4 JPA fisting some poor sob in a corner and last I checked this was supposed to be a lobby shooter, not "Space Marine: Orgy Iron Fist Simulator 2016". *sigh* Would be a bit more bearable if there were nekkid eldar running around.
Melee is system is good. Really like it, still everything is not working as it should. I suppose they will add new wergear soon and increase some loudout items for jump assault units. This patch really made completly mess with them. On hit kill from descending attack is mad. Powerfists everywhere add to this armour/health upgrades and we have god-killers. Some poor experienced player can play them talking to himself "damn I`m so good". Sure mastering melee sytem is needed in duels with another melee player if he is good but otherwise you can just repeat same pattern of jump-autolock and fastright clicking. I have also one idea about jump classes. They are mobile as they should but there is to hard to stop them before they will reach you. I was thinking about ground test rule from tabletop. It is not for jump units there but well. If you could ground jumping target by hitting it with ranged weapon this could help. Just stopping jump with no extra damage perhaps with some momental stunning. This could give ranged classes something more then counting on d-bash. I`m also don`t like lock on melee. Making things even easier. Why ranged classes have to aim, try to follow target and then shoot and meleers can just lock on and have fun? I know opinions are different and devs want to keep it, still I don`t like it. I love wh40k for melee. I mean in many science fiction stories everything is focused on advanced range weaponary. But EC is going much too far with it right now. If they will keep this diraction it will be third person slasher not a shooter. Ranged weapons needs more care. What the hell is happening with bolter? In tabletop it is same dangerous as chainsword. And in EC even if chainsword is poor comparing to other weapons it still get you with few strikes, bolter needs much more hits. Some heavy weapons still crappy too. Maps are also favouring melee classes. Closed, dark areas, a lot of line of sign blocking structures. Complaining about OP melee are repeating and devs are doing nothing with it. I hope it will change soon.
