IMO more damage is the way to get a similar TTK in melee when you make your move smartly but still fragile if you mess up, the point being if you mess up you will die more often than not before closing the gap. But a heavy attack from melee should OS 300 EHP characters on tier 1, 350 EHP on tier 2 and 400 EHP on tier 3 and PF OS anything (exept véhicules). EDIT When talking tier 1 damage it is for chain weapons not the knife
I can't say I've noticed JPA's being all that squishy with the 50 armor buff they got in the last patch. Their missing 25 armor from the base 100 they used to have. I did notice how quick they died with the 25 armor nerf though. JPA's are, remember. Supposed to be for ambushing heavy weapons for the most part. If you want to run up to someone you should really be using GA, since it's far more durable. Also, benefit of not showing up on minimap. Just be aware the current Meta for Ork melee is to tie people while someone else shoots them, so it makes relatively little difference in the grand scheme of things. And as much as it pains me to give tips to SM's, get behind an Ork if you can, because there's A, no chance of them retaliating with their turn speed and B, they take more damage from behind. Slam behind them to stun, and just light attack. It's what i do on my Raptor. (Without the Necrotic Chainsword) and they stand almost zero chance of walking away unless someone else intervenes and joins the fight with them.
Switched from a bolter apothecary to a melee aopecary last night and had an absolute blast! About 20 kills per match plus healing and revive XP
The main problem right now is that overhaul patch with melee and TTK changes is what changed everything. Iframes, less TTK, melee damage nerf and penetration changes brought the original system down. I miss being able to wield other weapons when their pros we're not completely outweighed by their cons. Beforehand people picked all tiers of weapons. Now most people swing with the swords because speed is the absolute best stat to have for CC. Everything else is slow enough that you can be shot 2-4 times in the head before you even swing. (Especially if you get D-bashed) The basic knife is more effective than half of the heavier melee weapons and the weapon tier system means absolutely nothing. No point in worrying about weapon breakage if you always die before it happens. Honestly since this patch, only my Heavy classes have had their melee weapon broken. For everything else I either killed them or died before the durability hit half.
On a second note, I think TTK is fine (from the perspective of the person shooting). However, because the netcode and servers are complete shite, TTK feels WAY off on the side of the person being shot.
No, beforehand everyone picked power fist if they could. But you are right, most people seem to have swords how. Whether that is because of the reason you suggest, or because they are mostly new players without access yet to the other weapons, we as players don't know.
While there were A LOT of fists prior they were hardly all that was used, I had and used JPA/GA/Slugga loadouts featuring all melee weapons prior to the TTK patch. Now I exclusively use chainswords and powerswords. The odd Fist or Klaw but thats for AV duty sneakin. Axes and Mauls/Clubs are entirely dead with perhaps the khorn chainaxe being the exception here? As someone else said it's pathetic AF that the standard knife sidearm for most races > axes and mauls atm because you'll eat nearly half a dozen bolt rounds in the time it takes to do a fast animation with those suckers. "exaggeration yes but not that far off. " I'd really just like to use axes and mauls again without feeling like im 300% handicapping myself.
I'm sure some will laugh at me for the following because I normally oppossed such solutions: melee waepons need some kind of "stagger" when they land a hit. Not that kind which is already implemented (dbash, heavy attack), but a "shooting a ranged weapon"-stagger or delay. The duration of the stagger depends on the tier/clang level of the weapon. this doesn't mean that the ranged char can't shoot in melee anymore but he won't get off as many shoots as he does now. example: chainsword and knife won't add any delay... axes, mauls will, 'cause they are slow, but fist won't, 'cause I don't like eternal fisting. power swords won't either add any delay, 'cause they are fast. So what this does: It actually makes slow weapons more viable, because the user won't be shoot inbetween the swings anymore... he still can be shoot, if he is stupid enough, but he will eat less bullets than before. bolter pistol and knife won't be affected by any of this above. apart from that: lower dbash stun duration
