What's my incentive to use my melee powers when I'm ranged?

the1egend1ives

I see a lot of builds which incorporate melee and ranged powers together. As cool as that sounds, I come from a game (city of heroes) where such a combination would be unheard of. Granted, FF allows me to grab defensive powers to help me in melee, but there's also another problem.

What keeps me using my melee abilities when I have ranged powers that can do the job just fine? I grabbed one hundred punches because it sounded brutal, but I hardly ever use it. It's too much work to get into melee range and punch this guy super hard in the face when I can just shoot him in the face instead.

flyingfinn

FYI, CoH had combined melee and range powers.
I played CoH many years. So it's not unheard of.

And it's up to you to choose what to use. Theres no incentive to pick both in your builds.
Free Form. Ability to choose what ever you like.

chaelk

well I had a ranged one with Roomsweeper, anyone did a grab and pull. got a punch in the face.
sometimes you get stuck in a crowd and a melee power is useful.

---

Lunge gets you within range fast. and only has a few seconds CD also a lot of the lunges have nasty advantages for when you hit.

flowcyto

Sounds like you made a melee/ranged mix w/o fulfilling the intent to play it as one. Sometimes players add redundant or superfluous powers just for the concept or 'fun' of having them, even if they don't find much practical use for them. Its only 'wrong' if you have different goals in mind.

For pure effectiveness, yes ranged has inherently more advantages than melee in this game. Some players accept that and deal w/ it- but for most players that just means putting their own limits on their characters so they can have a variety of styles to employ (ie. not giving everyone TGM, or w/e).

If you want a more practical way to mix melee and ranged in this game, though, play up the biggest advantage melee powers have: single-target dps- although there's always exceptions, its stronger across the board, vs. ranged where its all much more scattered.. and pair it w/ one of the key advantages ranged powers have: reach. Melee for boss dps, ranged spells for wide AoE- its a good mix that actually does work out well in practice. There are some good melee AoEs, ofc, but imo they are the minority.

alexandrafreya

Personally for me the just the same Incentive to have a Earth build character I guess....Theme reasons and..Just enjoying the attack styles and such.

But yes as already said the best way is to use Melee on Bosses and Ranged for AoE, I've looked into this idea afew times and it's not even that hard to have two passives or even two forms if you really want to push the limits on your powers, but even then you have to be willing to accept you have two or three less powers than the other "Pure" ranged or Melee DPS.

Still...It's a fun idea and one I think has enjoyment in playing..so..the Incentive is to enjoy yourself I guess?

Alexandra

monsterdaddy

The melee powers a ranged user would want to use offer defense: Thundering Kicks, Laser Knight, Elusive Monk, or a buff: Demolish, Laser Sword, etc.

For example: Timing a melee attack before a Gravitar yellow to proc Laser Knight saves you a good 25% in damage. This is how my TGM ranged dps toon tanks her.

ajanus

Incentive? None.

On a primarily ranged toon, I would say not to bother with melee unless you need something for specific situations, like Demolish debuff or a Dragon Rush buff. Other than that, not a lot of reason to do it.

On a primarily melee toon, I can see taking ranged powers to continue dps during certain phases that are particularly inconvenient for melee toons.

Either way, it's situational, and unless you are going for some type of theme, don't worry about it.

selphea

There's also mechanics synergy, like SMG to bleed then rupture with Reaper's Embrace - take Aspect of the Bestial and Reaper's Caress and call your character Blayde or something.

Then there's the classic Epidemic/Devour Essence with Phletobomist combo for self heals, or just straight up Defile tap, Fire Snake and spam Devour Essence. Ego Blade Annihilation also works for a rupture mechanic, but to a lesser extent since TK Lance does the same for ranged, just with less base damage.

That said, melee is quite poorly designed in this game. It should be better at covering PBAoE than ranged but there's more ranged PBAoEs than melee, and they're much bigger too.

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xcaligax

Melee hits harder than ranged powers.

bluhman

xcaligax wrote: »

Melee hits harder than ranged powers.

Only if you're built to hit in melee range. We're not going to see people with stuff like Ice Form or Targeting Computer closing range any time soon. Ditto for people who use Concentration, as there is literally no way to stack it with melee attacks - that is a huge incentive against using melee right there.

Base-DPS-wise, though, this is entirely correct. I'd say its definitely feasible to have a mix of ranged AoE moves, and melee single-target hits (in fact this is probably the best attack combination for tanks.)

One character I have is a DEX/Str/Ego build using Primal Majesty, with the main attacks of Pulse-Beam Rifle, Avalanche, Dragon's Wrath, and Gauntlet Chainsaw. Gauntlet Chainsaw was probably a mistake, since I almost never use it, but as for the rest they all get a great deal of use. Avalanche for mobs of weak guys, and when fighting a boss, run up to the target while using PBR and then Dragon's Wrath once I'm in range, because its DPS is waaaay better than my rifle.

chalupaoffury

I've ran a few tank concepts that use an aoe with challenging strikes for a group pull, then melee to burn em all down. If you're tanking, having a decent aoe pull attack is a pretty nice time saver, especially if you want to aggro an entire mob without having to worry about any of em breaking off and attacking someone more squishy than you.

jarfaru

I love this combo. Your going to get mobs in your face. Take out blade tempest and its fun to watch. Guns and blades are the best with a little wind damage thrown in. My favorite 3 powers.

nepht

the1egend1ives wrote: »

I see a lot of builds which incorporate melee and ranged powers together. As cool as that sounds, I come from a game (city of heroes) where such a combination would be unheard of. Granted, FF allows me to grab defensive powers to help me in melee, but there's also another problem.

What keeps me using my melee abilities when I have ranged powers that can do the job just fine? I grabbed one hundred punches because it sounded brutal, but I hardly ever use it. It's too much work to get into melee range and punch this guy super hard in the face when I can just shoot him in the face instead.

First up we all come from City Of Heroes ( lotta Cryptic fanbois here ^__^ ) . Secondly there was ranged/melee in CoH >_>

In CO i use melee combind with things like Locust Breath . Works well for me when I am up against a Boss that just hammers melee toons to death with a big hammer of deathy death dead I fall back and attack with ranged.

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jimhsua

Shuriken storm is actually pretty serviceable with the advantage even though its raw dps is fairly low. With the adv, it's literally the only 25' aoe that scales w str. If it fits your theme of course.

Again, we need more melee pbaoes... Things like cyclone should be classified as melee (I mean, it's a freaking physical object attached to your hand).