Melee is lagging behind ranged in general combat effectiveness ever since the toughness patch. Because of how long dueling can take relative to packing heat, a lot of players resort to shooting into melee quite consistently for cheap, easy kills. Mostly, because they can usually kill the target before the melee class has a chance to rightfully finish them off with the necessary damage after a stun, etc.. If you look at scoreboards these days, it is unheard of to see melee topping the kill charts in any large games because of this FF factor and the amount of damage required to kill a target with a melee weapon. Melee classes need to be able to put down targets quicker than they are now, because the ranged versus melee dynamic is far too favoring toward the former. The best example of this are the jump assault classes which have been demoted to assassination and sneak tactics to be effective in game. Even then, ground combat is obviously king due to their increased durability.
Actually I see melee 'topping the kill charts' quite regularly. However you are correct and by now pretty much everyone is aware that melee is effectively worse than ranged. Not as much as most people think, simply because it also happens to require more 'skill' than ranged, but clearly inferior. The interesting question however is how to fix it. A flat damage buff would certainly make melee more powerful, but not address any actual problems. Generally speaking it has to become more reliable, its too easy to stall.
Flat damage isn't the issue melee has at the moment. Currently the problem is how any troop with a knife can just stun you and blow your head off, and that's -if- you get to them in the first place.
Melee needs some mechanics changed to get viable. Especially mechanics like stun, clang and weapon-speed by swing. Why has axe become slower again? isn't it that you allready pay more for it LP wise and lack other gear for that?
