Thanks for the replies everyone. If we can keep this on page one, maybe it will get a Devs attention.

**As far as ranged being able to shoot while being melee'd. I'm all for it. My melee attacks do more dmg, so unless they keep their cool, I win. If they can not panic, then they have at least a 50/50 chance of winning.**

I agree with what was stated about rolling. The worst thing you can do while I melee you is roll. With my lock on, I'm still on you, and you have a pause after the roll. Plus, because you're panicking, your friends can't help you.

Match just now: A marine is rezzing another marine, a third marine walks by heading to the stair. I attack in melee, and fast attack all three down. 3 kills.

So from what I'm reading here ... you want to carry artillery pieces and be able to kite a melee character whose job it is to close on you and stop you using artillery?

When I play melee - I get shot and killed from great range very often and there's mo shield or "stun them so I can get to cover".

You gotta learn to stay close to the classes whose job it is to protect you from melee.

Varanos, I'm gonna assume good intentions from your post. I'll also assume you'd like me to state what I'd like to see to help the ranged guys/gals out. I'm sure you're not mean or a troll, so I'll answer in order of what I list in my original post.

1. I would suggest shortening the lunge of all melee attacks. If a ranged guy is dead set about not engaging me, he should be able to stun and run. (I'd pull out my pistol. ) If he stops to engage, I'll still be back into melee range. But full retreat should allow them some success.

2. Increase the "weight" of transports. Fix Klaws.

3. Allow ranged to shoot in melee. Keep damage as is. OR remove lock on in melee. Either one would probably work.

**As a melee, I never get shot an killed from great range, unless it's a vehicle. The maps have LOTS of cover and encourage melee. I can easily get in close, and rip them apart.**

You know, all things considered, melee as a Tac wouldn't be so bad, if at least the knife had more durability. I dont' mind where the ranged damage is now, or anything else. What I mind is that a knife breaks in 2 Dbashes, not clangs, but actual successful Dbashes against Fast Attacks. It's like.

You clang, you die cause your knife breaks.

You Dbash, you die cause your knife breaks.

They power attack spam? You die because you can't interrupt it from their long lunge distance, and if you clang your knife breaks.

You wanna roll away? You die because their Power Attack travels farther than the rolls, and they can spam power attacks nonstop (that you can't stop), and you can only roll so many times.

You wanna maybe get a fast attack in after successfully stunning them (even though after a single Dbash your knife durability is halfway gone), won't work. The stun is so short that the second you try to get that fast attack in, and they can swing at you, meaning your clang, and your aforementioned already damaged knife will break.

Etc Etc.

I'm literally ok with doing zero damage in melee, as long as my knife durability would be brought up to par so an enemy has to actually try to kill me, instead of just derp one mouse button and win.

I hate lunging. People literally use light attacks to move faster. What the fuck is that. It looks ridiculous and feels so backwards.

Well lets look into what you're saying.
There's 2 primary scenario's - Ranged gets the drop on melee or melee gets the drop on ranged.
Your proposed ranged guy that does not want to be engaged, let's call him 'A' and he is alone in all scenario's and facing a foot-based melee as jump-packs sorta make all this moot.

Ranged has the Upper Hand:
1/ Ranged see's Melee (who is unaware Ranged has seen him) at max. Range and decides to not engage - there's nothing Melee can do to stop him from escaping and Melee does not even know.

2/ Ranged see's Melee (who is unaware Ranged has seen him) at max. Range and decides to engage - Ranged gets the opening blow as a reward for seeing enemy and Melee will wear the first round or two with no awareness.

3/ Ranged see's Melee (who is aware Ranged has seen him) at max. Range and decides to not engage - there's nothing Melee can do to stop him from escaping.

4/ Ranged see's Melee (who is aware Ranged has seen him) at max. Range and decides to engage - Melee can start evading/covering but must stop moving forward in order to survive.
Melee either dies or finds cover.
Ranged can choose to pin and wait, betting on his accuracy or flee (no exposure to DPS).
Melee has to keep covered (stuck), bet on his jinking abilities and poor Ranged accuracy or flee (exposed to DPS in both cases).

Assuming Melee survived all of this, he get's into melee range of the ranged player at 100% Armour/HP.
Mr. Melee is likely low on Armour and/or HP unless Ranged missed all shots/grenade.

At this stage - you want to stun the Melee and still be able to escape even though you had several opportunities to leave the engagement, rolled-the dice and missed the kill?

I'd argue that several poor decisions were made that allowed Melee in range and you don't deserve a chance to escape, especially as you came to a knife fight solo and ill-equipped.

Melee has the Upper Hand:
1/ Melee see's Ranged (who is unaware Melee has seen him) at max. Range and decides to not engage - Ranged does not even know.

2/ Melee see's Ranged (who is unaware Melee has seen him) at max. Range and decides to engage - Melee takes immediate risk in approaching Ranged but luckily gets to Melee range and has the opening blow as a reward for risk.

3/ Melee see's Ranged (who is aware Melee has seen him) at max. Range and decides to not engage - there's nothing Ranged can do to stop him from escaping.

4/ Melee see's Ranged (who is aware Melee has seen him) at max. Range and decides to engage -
Ranged can flee and there's nothing Melee can do to stop him.
Ranged can stay and bet on his accuracy at Range whilst remaining untouched as Melee tries to move forward.

Of all these scenario's - Ranged has every chance to back off or bet on accuracy except in the one scenario where Melee essentially ambushes a Ranged player.

If a Ranged player roams solo and gets killed by a solo Melee player - either the Ranged person made poor choices or the Melee player is a sneaky bugger who deserves the kill.
There are times as a melee when I can't enter a room due to Ranged door spam - I don't expect some invulnerability to allow me to rewind time to when I wasn't plasma dust.

Just to expand your point, if I stun bash a melee opponent as a dire avenger with my shuriken catapult out, I barely have enough time to shoot 4 bullets before he is hitting me again. at 750 rpm. That's about 12.5 rounds per second. Meaning I get less then half a second to fire.

I think stun bash shouldn't necessarily stun for longer, I think the person who performed it should recover faster instead of being locked out for a second or two after the bash connects.

No, OP wants the game's supposed defenses against melee classes to actually defend people who use them. D-bash does literally nothing except buy the ranged class about 1 second of time to continue breathing, because the stun doesn't actually stun long enough to follow up offensively or allow an escape

Fixing this would benefit melee classes too, as it would help the rock-paper-scissors system in melee vs melee or smart melee vs panicked ranged

Once you start adding stuns .... that's a slippery slope.
I think any longer on stuns and Ranged guys would complain about being stunned longer.
These ideas cut both ways guys so be careful what you ask for or melee will get telepathic ranged stuns for 5 seconds to allow us to close!!

Stunned by what? The stagger from melee weapon breaking? The stagger from explosions? Those already use separate timers than the D-bash kick. From getting D-bash kicked? That would mean they lost the rock-paper-scissor system fair and square ("smart melee vs panicked ranged")