I agree. But the maps are horrible. You never have a safe zone. You can never clear an advance. If you are busy supporting your team mates in melee you get flanked or JPAed from behind. The accuracy is so god aweful that you have to aim and lose your spacial awareness. Shield Bro with a power sword may not "stun" you, but your animations does that freeze/stutter thing where you cannot do anything and you are RMB spammed to death.

It you are spouting a game as a tactical shooter, then the maps need to reflect that. Tactical play is seizing/controlling/fortifying areas.

There is also a problem with the classes. My favorite classes are more support classes (healer and tank hunter) or heavy weapons. I play tactical once in a while, depending upon the map. But when I go JPA I just start wrecking things. The JPA is and always has been an easy killer. And that is the problem. When I get frustrated I switch instantly to that easy killer class, get some kills, and then switch back. That is why I feel melee is broken--it's too easy.

I agree but = I don't agree.

I'll try and answer your points one by one.

There are plenty of safe (from melee) zones I can think of, especially inside capture points.

Not sure what you mean exactly by clear an advance? If it's what I think it means then the problem is true for melee classes as well as ranged.

Awareness = no flank by JPA. Use the minimap.

Of course you should aim when shooting, go for their heads and watch them drop. Again, use the map for awareness.

I can beat shield bros in melee, and the counter to this is to have back up, be in a team.

I think the maps give ample opportunity to play and succeed as a tactical shooter.

Reference the last point, I manage to do pretty well as a tactical shooter class. Perhaps not as well as my Klaw build, because I can wreck vehicles, but I can certainly compete with JPAs and similar classes. It's not about getting all the kills, it's about supporting the team and getting objectives.

The tactical class is, outside of capping a point, completely useless. It is not "equally good in melee and ranged". It is "equally horrible in melee and ranged".

When the iconic boltgun tactical marine that the 40k universe and Space Marines faction is known for does so terribly, it's no wonder that the game's balance is so wonky.

Tbh all the complaining people did before about the non tacticals not performing is a big part of why this is a problem. JPA didnt like being less durable so now we have full durability, high mobility, high dmg, and server issue exploiting jumps that resulted in the Jump units in all factions being what they are now.

Melee didnt like that gun classes could roll around and actually use guns so now lunging and animation stagger on range classes are a major issue.

We have people rolling sticky nades off because they didnt like heavies and dedicated range relying on it as their go to defense measure so now thats not an option against competant players.

We saw nerfs to heavy weapons because they were everywhere being used as massive area denial sniper insta death weapons that could destroy tanks. Many of the nerfs were justified but they left some problems while not fixing animation and ready up problems at shorter ranges making heavy weapon users just a free kill vs melee now ( I just redploy if I see the JPA slam warning now)

Again justified but an example is the plasma losing its snap shot power awhile back. Too strong yes, but still an example of a heavy handed nerf that probably coulda been handled better.

I think the ork pokkit rokkit took a nerf at some point due to it providing too much safety net and offensive power. Now I dont see anyone using it ever.

We had the FD fusion nerf when that was their only good gun at the time. That problem has been fixed now though.

All in all most nerfs I've seen in this game directly benefitted melee in some way. Even yes the MoN and shield nerfs because they benefiteed opposing factions melee.

Actually most of the capture points room I can think of are indoor, where keeping enemy at distance is impossible.

Knife still too crappy in melee to play ranged classes.

Spot on! There has been this attitude from the devs that melee should never ever not be able to close the distance on ranged! Melee has always got to be viable and if that means nerfing ranged into the ground that was a price they were willing to pay. Any time ranged have had a decent weapon to use against melee it has been nerfed

I think it's time ranged got some unashamed, straightforward, unapologetic buffs