But its not a 1vs1 game :/ Tactical have more chance in melee than devastator, good everywhere but exellent nowhere. If you want to compare a tactical, then compare with avenger or else, no ?
My point is this, we could go back and forth for days, no doubt. For everything you can come up with, I can come up with a counter point. And for everything I come up with, you can come up with a counter point. So we are kind of just at an impasse right now. But your story proves my point, you still were able to get in. You had a whole bridge of ranged units, of all variety, on overwatch and (yes I know you had 4 fuel bars), you were still able to get to them. Now yes, you got there weakened, and yes, not everyone was aiming at you. But the point still stands, a melee unit was able to gap close something like 20-30m (which is about the distance you went), and then still land and cause damage against entrenched ranged players who saw/knew you were coming. Now, that was about as advantageous a position ranged units can be in, in regular battles you likely would only need 2-3 fuel bars to get up to ranged players. So, if melee players can can do things like that, why wouldn't a ranged player be able to hold out a bit longer, or disengage?
No. The point is that if you need two tacs to kill a melee, then what will you do against two melees? Bring four tacticals? Six against three Traitor assaults? At some point your whole team is there while half of the enemy is. So they have the advantage and the tac would better be replaced by other classes. At the same time the tac has no enemy he can defeat reliably. Havocs outgun them, Melee slaughter then in Melee. Traitor Marines face the same problem.
I don't mind debating, as long as it's civil and with someone actually willing to confront ideas, instead of beating on your head with their point of view. The point of my story was that, with skill and the proper build, I was able to take an unfavorable scenario and make my death significant to the outcome of the battle, while still "losing" from a strictly personal point of view. A tactical engaged in melee, able to fend off the assailant long enough for aid to come, could be seen the same way.
If someone has just burned away 3 fuel bars getting to you, then dodging them twice will win the fight for you. They will, at best, have 1 more fuel bar left to chase you after your first dodge. After that your second dodge puts you outside of their engagement range. You now get to shoot. Melee player looses. Most JPA's don't even run 4 fuel as it gimps their loadout. Most will have landed with zero fuel remaining and a single dodge will win you the fight. That's something you learn with experience, which is part of getting better at this game. Just as JPA's learn to approach targets on foot and only use a single fuel to "jump" a target. Those giant 20m-30m jumps are noob moves because of how easy they are to counter for anyone who isn't a rookie.
Ok so, with skill and the proper build you were able to make it work, which is something I can get behind. This is where the problem lays. A Tactical who is more skilled than a melee opponent, still wont' be able to make it work. A Tactical has few mods for a knife, and truthfully, even with those mods he still won't be able to make it work. And at most, you will buy yourself maybe 2 seconds, and that's a big maybe, so you won't even be able to hold out long enough for aid (usually of course). Ask any experienced Tac, or you yourself if you play Tac alot, how long you really survive the majority of the time, even when fighting back as much as you can. And, as you may have had a death significant to the battle, it works differently for Tacs. If a Tac dies, there's no one to capture a point, so our deaths are much more punishing, and our deaths of course are much more prevalent.
Your dodges don't put them out of their engagement range though, that's what we're talking about. A roll/evade covers less distance than your standard Power Attack lunge. This means even if they are out of fuel, you can roll away and they can just Power Attack and not only cover that distance and get to you, but they will likely hit you the second you come out of your roll. Can't shoot when they're already in your face attacking. This kind of blows the "roll back and fire" tactic out of the water and makes it invalid.
Then my turn to say no, you need melee to down melee, assault to distract, rogue to harass. You also need healer to heal, supports to support (long range kill, vehicule destruction or cover). Actually, exept sorcerer, they are too strong in melee in my opinion. The tactical is for mid range battle, caping and he can defend himself enough to survive in melee. They can cover when your squad is moving. Again, its not a 1vs1 game.
As we agreed in the pinned melee thread, penalties for knife wielders winning melee confrontations should be reduced (if not outright removed in some cases). That's as much a moot point as maps needing balancing in my opinion.
Rolling backwards is what rookies do. People who know what they are doing roll past the person heavy attacking and then backpedal a couple of steps while shooting. This results in the melee attacker being a significant distance away from you as they heavy attack almost in the opposite direction that you rolled: [the range of their heavy attack away from you + a % of the range of your roll + the range of the steps you took while they were going through heavy attack recovery] = a range that cannot be covered by another heavy attack. If they have no stamina/fuel remaining because they just burned it all getting to you, you can now gun them down. If necessary use your second roll to do it again. If they get to you with enough stamina/fuel to match you roll for roll, then it means your team did something wrong by letting them get that close on foot, or that you have put yourself in a bad position that is very exposed. Most rookie ranged users either panic backpedal, panick back roll or panic dbash. The counter to all three of these is a heavy attack, which is why you see it used so often. The counter to a heavy attack is advancing and light attacking, or rolling past the heavy attacker to gain some range. In either case it means accepting that melee is now happening and aggressively committing to winning it, instead of panicking and trying to escape.
