I know that there have been a lot of threads devoted to melee combat. Hell there are probably several in floatation right now. Awareness of the limitations and shortcoming of melee combat is at an all time high. And you would think with all this awareness, the devs would have long since adjusted melee combat. I mean the game has launched, it should be smooth as silk in it's performance. Yet we have had for several patches now, a system that feels clunky and unresponsive. The idea of fast attack, parry, and strong attack is fun in theory, but only if it works all the time, not just some of the time. And to make matters worse, is that the system that barely works, is biased towards melee centric classes. Now I know some people would ask "Well obviously melee focused classes should have an advantage in melee"! I agree. But I don't agree with the notion that a ranged class caught in melee is automatically given a death sentence, just for picking a ranged class. The Rock, Paper, Scissors nature of the system should be the leveling of the playing field. Best example. Space Marine. Again. In Space Marine, I could pick a devastator class, knowing full well that I was at a disadvantage in melee combat versus a tactical, and a jump class. But. BUT! if I managed to successfully anticipate a melee attack and get a kick, I could stun and gun, winning or, buying time for the engagement. In Eternal Crusade, winning a melee clang as a ranged character offers no advantages. You can't stun the melee attacker long enough to use your bolter/shooter/shuriken cannon in most cases (Though sometimes you can, which makes me think this is a unintended bug.). You have to follow up with another melee attack, and this is not guaranteed to down an opponent. (This is not even an option for heavy weapons classes, which had to stunlock the attacker, and this was nerfed, because it was deemed cheap ) Now this is where the current iteration sucks balls. As a ranged attacker, if you are anything other than a ork shoota, your knife will break. Devs just nerfed the fuck out of knifes. This makes me want to slap the hell out of each one of them with my wallet. If the system was not janky enough, you are going to nerf the durability of a weapon that offered very little damage or protection in the first place? Look. I get it. Versus power Weapons, a knife should break. But damn if we are going to be forced into a melee heavy situations, give us the option to take better melee weapons at the cost of LP. Or how about fixing the horrible fact that Melee can use Power Attack to catch up to a opponent, and auto lock to constantly press ranged characters into a corner. This makes my stamina and stamina regen, dump stats. Because dodging out of a melee swing means nothing, because I can't suddenly disengage, because auto lock for melee means he can power attack again and be right on top of me. I can dodge a limited number of times, yet a melee class can power attack indefinitely to catch up to my attempts to disengage. Devs this is shameful. This deserves every dripping inch of criticism thrown at it. But wait there's more. I have been playing the game for awhile now, but I admit I have owned the game longer than I have played it. And it has come to my attention that during beta, melee was more intricate and more tied to the stamina system. Classes had to manage it as a resource as it was more tied to attacks. There were more kinds of attacks and that melee could do, and they fell under the Heavy, Fast, Parry system. This blows my mind. Merc was talking on stream, about how several patches back, before I started playing the game, there was this magical spot where the melee system felt good. It sounded fun as hell. If this is true. What the flying fuck? What happened. Excuse my language. I know I have been whirring up the storm here recently, but damn. What is this. Why would you gut that system and keep Stamina in the game in it's current iteration. It's caused so many problems. Space Marines are having a time of it trying to get people coordinated enough to play tactics. I imagine Eldar are short on Dire Avengers too, but I imagine their speed makes it a lot more tolerable. Look I know this issue is old a dirt. But the fact is, something has to be done. The systems we have in the game currently have to feel like they work. I want more Wargear, I want more content. But until then, if ever, I just want the stuff we have to feel like it's awesome. Sorry for beating a dead horse. But his bad for getting meleed to death.
The short term solution would be fixing the d-bash so we have a chance to fight back when they stuck us on melee. The long term solution would be changing the maps so range characters get more benefits from the positioning.
Only if vehicles take 3x as long to kill. I am not looking forward to bigger maps than we have now without transports. Assault that point? Yeah I'll get back to you as I get mowed down over the long distances of open ground HB/AC killing fields haha.
This. As long as I have been playing, D-Bash seemed to only work in one patch, and that was back when you could still stun kill an attacker as a Devastator/Havoc. Since then. Nothing. You can't stun long enough to do anything meaningful but light attack. That is if jump classes don't fly away from it first. And as far as maps. All inside buildings, with little 1 way doorways and halls. Gee.......wonder how that is gonna play out.
D-bash working 100% is paramount though, it should be the one goal we strive to achieve first above all other balance changes. D-bash should give the attacker enough time to get one LA with their melee weapon of choice(maybe 2 for Knives). Period. Edit: Oh, and no durability loss on a successful D-bash. That's just silly.
I think it should be long enough to do that, or get a blast of bullets going before melee engages again. Because I can do it with my Rodeo Shoota sometimes, making me think that was supposed to be an option.
Fixing durability loss ratio on successful RPS counters should be priority n°1 for the balancing team at the moment. Threads keep popping up about perceived melee OP status, while all that's needed is giving ranged classes a fighting chance (and improving map design, but that's worth another discussion by itself). Right now, if i'm on my JPA and manage to get in melee range to a tactical equivalent, there's very little he can do about it. If I decide to just not bother with the RPS system and spam light attacks, what is he gonna go? Dbash? That stuns for a fraction of a second, when I'm out of it, if he Dbashes again, the knife is gonna break, and he's dead... and that's with a power sword, if i'm on my WP with clashing generator Crozius, it's even worse. Frankly, they need to fix it, since my fear, as a pretty much melee exclusive player, is that they go and touch other aspects, such as swing range, disengagement capability and ability to fire in melee, thus breaking melee. It's 40k, once knives and swords are clashing you should fight it out, not avoid it. Give ranged classes a fighting chance.
Honestly I think they're pretty close to getting it right. First they need to fix a few bugs: durability loss should only occur on clangs fix server lag which causes desync issues (dbash not registering, etc) remove the ability for jump troops to jump out of stuns Then just reduce the spread of the storm bolter by a tiny amount and call it a day.
