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Forums > Home› Feedback› Feature Episodes, Events and PvE Content

Melee: dead in T3 and beyond?

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited February 2010 in Feature Episodes, Events and PvE Content
I have been trying to keep melee alive as an option, especially with my Klingon. I know all the combos, I'm good at doing them and I keep my bat'leth upgraded. In T1, melee is on par with guns, I feel.

In T2, melee definitely falls behind. You're better off with 2 guns than with a bat'leth and a gun. But you can still find the occasional use for the bat'leth that can be used to justify carrying it.

In T3, I finally had to retire the melee option and pick up a second gun. Gun DPS, skills and hit points have simply outpaced the weak melee upgrades. I can no longer justify its use.


Any other melee people out there finding this to be the case? Especially in PvP, but even in PvE (the Klingon ice mining mission) I find melee to be just silly to try and use. Even the NPCs are rifle butting me to knock me down and stun me and interrupt my combos. I eventually end up just shooting them because otherwise I end up killing so slowly that I start to get overwhelmed.


Of course, in TV, a fist fight always starts with knocking your opponent's weapon away, forcing him to fight you hand to hand. That....doesn't happen in STO.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I'm finding the same problem. If the enemy doesn't have shields, I end up using firearms because they're so much more effective. Granted, my character is human, but I still love melee combat.

    However, if it's a higher level NPC with shields, I'll typically use the bat'leth simply because I can bypass his shields in the process. In that sense, it's still very useful...but it really does need a bit of a hand from Cryptic, if you ask me...in some way, shape, or form.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    One thing people forget is that guns have a melee attack as well. And although you might not get the special attacks you would like with them, if you have higher melee skill you will do more damage and so forth.

    But you are right, I don't see many Klings with the Batty at this tier, and that might explain it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There's an age old addage ,,, Never bring a knife to a gun fight.

    It only makes since the things like phasers, disrupters, plasma weapons, etc will kill much faster and be more effective than a Bat'leth (regardless of how good you are with it) ..... Unless you can surprise your prey and overwhelm them in a fist fight.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    This is probably a good thing. After all, if using a strangely shaped sword worked in an environment where most people use personal shielding and hi-tech energy weapons, the borg would have come out in suits of plate mail, speaking like scottish clansmen.

    The Batleth is very cool and certainly should be useful in certain situations, but it should never be the weapon of choice. It's a traditional item, associated with archaic concepts like honour and manly combat, but it shouldnt be an effective military choice.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Finally, a Star Trek game treats Klingon 'martial prowess' as the joke it clearly is. It was mind boggling that the series paid so much lip service to this concept.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Totally agree, even with full trails specced in ground melee ranged weapons simply outperforms it post T2.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    On the other hand, T3 is about when some NPC's start getting annoyingly good at recharging their shields, so it might still be useful against them, but it definitely moves to more of a niche role as opposed to something you can use as your main attack method. If all else fails, have a Science BO using Dylovene on you. Considering there aren't any abilities that buff energy damage by 30-50% (as far as I'm aware at least), it might help you close the damage gap.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Khorak wrote: »
    Finally, a Star Trek game treats Klingon 'martial prowess' as the joke it clearly is. It was mind boggling that the series paid so much lip service to this concept.

    This is "Star Trek Online", though, not "Future Combat Simulator".

    In Star Trek, melee was pretty common. In order to be loyal to the shows, I do think some efffort should be made to keep it viable. Guns will always have an advantage in range and even in T1 it's suicidally stupid to charge into 5 enemy players and try to melee them but if you catch someone 1v1 it's not a bad option.

    In T3 it's kinda stupid to even keep melee as an option. Just shoot them with two different special attack guns!

    (Incidentally, I've always felt that letting us carry two high powered weapons and switch between them to deliver two back to back blasts was a silly design decision. I think it trivializes PvE in addition to making melee into a much less desirable alternative. Special attacks should share cooldowns.)




    In thinking about this some more, what if being struck by martial arts or a bat'leth added a 3 second cooldown to your gun's shooting attacks? Or at least to the gun special attack. So long as someone keeps hitting you with melee, you can't shoot back.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Well, I've trained Martial Arts (T3 melee) up to level 6, got the rank VI bat'leth from the PvP vendor and am officially giving up on melee. I wish I could respec to get my points back.

    There is almost no circumstance where I won't do more damage 2x split beam rifles.

    Did you know that even 2 of the same weapon don't share a cooldown? So I can use the split beam special attack, then switch to a copy of the same gun and hit them with another split beam.

    With that kind of power, there's simply no reason to melee. Maybe if you were fighting one of those annoying shield repping, high resist engineers, martial arts would come in handy but it's not worth killing your damage in every other situation just to have the bat'leth ready for that one.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Actually I've found a melee to be VERY helpful in T4. Using it against the annoying big bosses that you can barely get through their shields. Like those damn Combat Engineers...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I too have found Melee to be pretty powerful, especially against Borg and their uber shields, but fairly weak health, My Bat'Leth crushes them.
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