Melee is currently easy to kill people, but you try getting to the person. You try taking back a point with 3 people inside all ranged and you are 1 person with a chain sword. Half of the ignored part of melee is the work the player has to put in to get in melee ranged. The whole reason I play Slaneesh over any other mark is because of the speed boost. a PF moving that fast is a force to be reckoned with. Even then my melee is only as good as I can aim my pistol. many, many, matches I've gotten top ranged downs with my PF. SO yes melee weapons deserve to kill people fast than a ranged one can given the right situations.
I'm going to copy/paste a response I gave in the melee lock- on thread, with an addendum- Personally, I think having any form of auto-aim, never miss mechanic in any game is piss poor. Be it ranged or melee, the deciding factor should be about actual ability, and not an in-game crutch to support button mashing and calling it "skill". Melee lock-on is my biggest peeve about this game (and many others). I once equated it to the /stick command in Dark Age Of Camelot, which allowed you to constantly be in melee range and strafe around your victim endlessly. Which was handy when you played a class that had a Backstab multiplier. You could drop people with only a few hits, and they never had a chance to defend themselves. But it really wasn't terribly fun for the victim. It was designed to help players stay with their group while traveling, but was easily abused by people like me. Eventually, with enough people bitching about it, it no longer worked on enemy realm players. Here, it's a game "feature". And one that shouldn't stay. Why? Not only did it get mentioned as one of the top complaints, a LOT of negative reviews mention it as something that shouldn't even exist. Just because you like to abuse the %^&* out of a questionable mechanic, doesn't make it a valid point of defense. Addition- Another thing NO ONE talks about is how melee units never appear on the radar. Outside of sprinting, jumping or firing a ranged weapon, they never appear on the radar. Melee units can literally drop an entire capture point of defenders, and no one would even know they were there. I love it when a Fist spammer is beating the piss out of me, and the people 10 feet away don't even know he's there.
Take away locks. No JJ inside buildings. Some kind of stamina drain against friendlies when you hit them. Restricted spawns for anything above Tactical. So use them wisely. game fixed.
I suppose some people like mindless, uninspiring hand to hand combat and game mechanics. It's terrible the way it is. The main reason their active numbers are crap. Melee and the aimbot that it really is.
Which is what most people are saying about the system we currently have. RECENT: Mostly Negative (134 reviews)
I think melee is finally (since launch) in a good place. The latency is hiding some of that though, I can understand. And I can understand some people having a different opinion and not liking it. But for me, I'm enjoying it. And that's playing mostly as a primary shooter (curse you 2.5/4 support classes and your mandatory melee!) When I lose, it's not because I have the weaker weapon, but because I either messed up or took to long with the weaker weapon (power fists are still aggravating, but eh). Which is parallel to pistols and primary shooters, a pistol can handle most opponents, but you have to land the entire clip* unlike the bolter, which has a little bit more leeway. As a knifer I don't have leeway, but I have a chance. It's been refreshing to see actual variation in my opponent's attacks, and I'm seeing a lot of strong attacks. I won't lie, I'm still adjusting, there's a timing issue of dodging before they lunge (from farther than I can quick attack, so no luck interrupting it) but late enough that the lock-on doesn't follow me. It's been thrilling, a real challenge. From the mandatory melee support side I've also been more challenged by other classes, but also more capable in controlling melee fights, especially against multiple opponents. *Bolt pistol has 10 rounds at 38 damage/80 pen. The plasma pistol has 16 rounds at 43 damage/140 pen. Ignoring the damage it's still the better pistol because it has 16 shots. No one needs to extol the virtues of ork pistols (they are the best). The shuriken pistol on the other hand is crap (17 damage? What the hell), you might as well take the fusion pistol if you really want to use one (I use the MC fusion pistol, people call me a sucker, whatever). However, all the smart pistols suck. It's not just the reduced damage, the auto-aim points you at the abdomen (reduced damage) and once you start firing you can't control the recoil with your mouse so most of your rapid fire shots will miss. If you're on about smart pistols being good or anything, have a good day, we have nothing to agree on and that won't change.
I actually object to the part about the game being class locked forcing people into tacticals, since forcing me to play something I might not want to is something I don't tolerate. An ally hitting you in the back recently killed me which is enough friendly fire that I don't want to lose dodges out of my buffer as well which would hurt everyone not just melee. The defense bash change was nice and I like look forward to seeing how else they change melee in future patches. Hopefully there comes a point where I can change my neutral review into a positive one, but I don't feel the game is complete yet so I'll bide my time.
