The best balanced melee?

I think they're all pretty well balanced, all things considered. If you're asking which does the most damage, the answer is probably Fire.

In general, Brutes who can maintain Fury do more. Barely.

First off, what are your qualifications for "balanced"?

Secondly, why no Stalkers?

Super Strength has knockdown and some good attacks. It's defined by Rage, Footstomp and Knockout Blow in my opinion. Good AoE and decent single-target.

Tanks and Brutes tend to have the same defensive caps, but Brutes have about three-quarters the defensive strength of tankers.

1. does good damage good health and exeptional defense (could always use enhancements


2.because this thread is going to help me decide what Toon I will do next and I am terrible with stalkers.

But Stalkers *ARE* the most balanced melee. They do great damage and potentially more burst damage on teams when it counts (against hard targets like GMs and AVs). They trade this for less HP and therefore less survivability. While they could be torn apart like a paper bag, that is only a concern if one garners that much of the enemies attention and Stalker's specialty is *not* getting that much attention. That's called balance.

The most unbalanced melee, IMO, is Brute. It has supreme damage thanks to fury, decent defenses on par with Scrapper but with more HP to make sets like Willpower all the more broken. They also share mitigation caps with Tankers meaning a buffer can put a Brute's def/res on par with Tankers. The only downfall is maintaining fury.

Anyway, I'm doubt that's what you actually want to hear. You probably just want someone to tell you what to play (no idea why anyone would want that). No need to make a thread, if you want straight forward melee damage then play a Brute or Scrapper. It doesn't matter the set you pair with it. Go look at some guides if you need hand holding...

Any Brute or any Tanker will have good health. Any Scrapper or any Brute will have good damage (though for Brutes, it depends on you to keep up Fury). Any of the three archetypes will have good defense.

If defense is the sticking point, play a Willpower or Stone Brute or any tank. If damage is the sticking point, there's too many different kinds of damage to make a suggestion.

That's not so much "balanced" as "powerful".

If that's your qualification, I'm gonna have to say either Brutes or Scrappers. Brutes get better peak performance in all categories, but some people, for reasons I've yet to understand, aren't capable of maintaining decent fury levels. For solo play, they're roughly the same, with a survivability edge and a slight damage edge for Brutes. Brutes also get most of the Tanker powersets (all but Ice melee) with a couple of the Scrapper sets thrown in for flavor (*/SR is all at the moment, Claws/* will come in I16).

Either way, for what you're wanting, either a Brute or Scrapper is your best bet. Pick based on the side you feel like playing the most. For a Scrapper, it's kinda hard to make a bad choice with your powersets. Any/Any can really be highly effective if you know how to play (*/Dark can screw with people's heads sometimes). For Brutes, it's generally best to avoid Energy Aura. Anything else is fine.

Hey. Dark Melee was a Scrapper set.

Based on this statement, especially keying in on the word exceptional for defense, perhaps you should consider a tank.

Tanks have the best damage mitigation in the game for melee. Highest base hitpoints. Base values for each power are higher than what their brute/scrapper cousins get making it far easier to hit the damage mitigation caps.

But their damage output isn't anything to write home to momma about.

I've finally accepted the great words of wisdom from my scrapper brethren and will be utilizing the over the top potential damage output of dark melee paired with shield defense, but I'll be doing it on a tank.

The extra damage output should help keep me entertained (where all other tanks I've tried have failed in this,) while the higher hitpoints and ease of hitting the defense softcap will make herding up the masses enjoyable.

I recommend you go scrapper or brute. They are quite similar.

Here is how it works with numbers:

Offensively, there are what their attacks are multiplied by:

Tank: 80%
Brute: 75% times fury bonus (at about 80 fury, they equal or better scrappers)
Scrapper: 115% plus crits
Stalker: 100% plus lots of crits

Tanks have the most defense and HP, and a 90% resist cap.
Scrappers have 3/4 what a tank gets, and a 75% resist cap.
Brutes have scrapper defenses, with higher HP and can be buffed to tanker caps if teaming.

If you're doing this off of melee damage scalars, you got the Scrapper number wrong. Their melee scalar is 1.125. Also, Brutes are going to equal Scrappers much earlier than 80% Fury (which is 160% +dam). Assuming both of them are slotting for 95% +dam, it would only take the Brute 59% fury to equal the Scrapper (assuming 7% average contribution from crits). If the Brute short slots to 66% +dam to get a bit more end redux, it would only take 74% fury to match damage with the 95% slotted Scrapper.

It would also behoove those numbers to more accurately dictate the exact contributions of the various critical mechanisms. Stalkers don't really get appreciably dangerous unless there are a number of other people around them (giving them a 31% crit rate when surrounded by 7 teammates). When solo, all they've got is the base 10% crit rate and guaranteed crits from hidden. Overall, you could probably rate them as having a 21% crit rate. Scrappers on the other hand get an average 7% crit for normal play (if you prefer AV fights or other situations that completely remove minions, 10% is your best bet).

You're also ignoring peak damage capability, though you bring up peak resistance. Tankers have a peak of 300% +dam, Scrappers and Stalkers have one of 400% +dam, and Brutes have one of 750% +dam. In general, you'll find that Brutes, Stalkers, and Scrapper all have roughly the same damage if you take their performance across the varies situations into account (solo, teamed, peak) while Tankers will be left in the dust for all situations.

A more accurate definition would be to simply give the numbers, since those are rather vague and (in the case of your Scrapper hp assignment, off by nearly 5%):
Tanker: 1874.1 base hp, 3212.7 max hp, .1 self defensive self buff modifier, 90% res cap
Scrapper: 1338.6 base hp, 2409.5 max hp, .075 defensive self buff modifier, 75% res cap
Brute: 1499.4 base hp, 3212.7 max hp, .075 defensive self buff modifier, 90% res cap
Stalker: 1204.8 base hp, 1606.4 max hp, .075 defensive self buff modifier, 75% res cap

Using Scrappers as a baseline, the first of each pair of numbers is the expected average and the second is absolute peak:
Tankers: 30-50% lower damage, 86-333% greater survivability
Brutes: 0-3% greater damage (assuming average performance can average 60% fury), 12-333% greater survivability
Stalkers: 0-6% greater damage, 10-33% lower survivability (ignoring placate capabilities)