What kind of Melee?

I've been playing CoH for five and a half years but one of the few types of toon I've never gotten to grips with is melee. I've only ever managed one melee character to 50, a WM/SR brute. My 2nd highest by a long way is a level 40 MA/Shield scrapper - and whilst I have plenty of concepts, I've never managed to get any others past level 24.

I've played blasters and controllers to death. I've probably deleted more 50s than I've created melee toons - and yet when I get one to a reasonable level I tend to mostly enjoy them.

So why do I find it difficult? I'm not honestly sure, but I must admit I dislike having to run after targets. With most other toons, target the nearest and zap them from where I stand. And with many blasters I tend to be a blapper anyhow so that's a pretty specious argument.

What I do know is that I'm missing out on a lot of this great game so how do I fix that?

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Are there any specific sets you want to avoid? Any specific ATs come to that?

Stalking is not Tanking is not Scrapping and so forth.

I'm the other way around, I can't do ranged toons. I've got a Blaster and a couple of Defenders but they're all sets that allow me to operate in the middle of everything rather than standing around on the periphery. I much prefer to just leap into the middle of the nearest group and go from there.

Right now I'm loving my Night Widow, but she was a complete nightmare up to Lv24 at which point she suddenly became awesome, but that's just the nature of SoA I guess.

What did you like so much about your brute and scrapper that got you to play them to such a high level?

Something that can help with runners is the ability to have ranged attacks. Spine scrappers get two of them. Imaple is a mag 3 mobilize, and Throw Spines is a wide cone.

The downside is that you look like a really big pincushion.

If you don't want to run after targets - play a brute and take taunt. Taunt aura's + auto taunt in attacks keep most things from running away and when they do, you can just taunt them back. This is why I have almost given up on scrappers and play mostly brutes - not because I don't love scrappers but because all the runners drive me crazy.

Sheild, EA, Invuln and to a lesser extent WP scrappers should have less problems with runners, as they all have taunt aura's. However, when all you have is a single taunt aura you have to rely on luck to make sure it is pulsing just after the mobs morale breaks and it starts to run but before it gets out of range. Brutes have enough other sources that runners are rarely an issue.

EDIT: if you want a brute that will have even less problems with runner, play a claws brute. Focus has enough range between it and taunt you can pull most runners back to you and if they don't come back, focus usually knocks them down so you don't have to move far to finish them off.

Or alternately, play a Scrapper and take Confront. It's single-target, but it's on a VERY fast recharge. It stops most runners and it recharges often enough to cycle between them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Step 1) Create a tournament

Step 2) Include Melee characters in the tournament.

Step 3) Set tournament rules so you have to play characters in order so you HAVE to play the yucky melee toon before you can get to your preferred ranged/control toon.

Step 4) ?

Step 5) Profit!

Step 6) Eventually realize what a ridiculous, overly regimented way of playing the tournament system is and quit it. Go back to playing the game the way you WANT to play it instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole just because you haven't done it before.

I have to agree with Steelclaw on this; it's hard to force yourself to play something.

I've never managed to get a scrapper or brute past level 26. Some people love them, I don't understand it. On the other hand, of my nine level 50 characters three are Stalkers, and two are tanks. I have another four tanks that I play regularly.

I haven't managed to get a mastermind or a controller past level 6.

I have a warshade at level 33 I'd really like to enjoy, but I just can't manage it. I'm considering deleting her and starting her as a peacebringer. (I've looked at the MFing warshade guide, and that just doesn't look fun to me. I don't particularly like Hasten)

I mean, I can suggest lots of builds that I found fun, but I can't say that you'll like them.

Hi Scarlet,

I have the same issue with melee. I have and always loved ranged ATs, but mostly Dominators. I tend to always be on melee wih my dom and that's my favorite place, melee.. The fact that I can hold the aggro by myself and survive is my favorite thing! It's been 7 years of not touching Brutes, Tankers, Scrappers etc.. I do have a stalker for PvP though but it's a spine.

Recently I rolled a Kinetic Melee/Energy Aura Scrapper, and I'm kinda enjoying it! I tend to "Herd" the whole room or map and stay in one place and kill everything, without chasing a thing. With the new buff Energy Aura got, I can taunt things without Taunt. I'm now at lvl 42, a bar away to 43!

Electric Aura has a taunt aura too and some other sets. I think they buffed Fiery Aura so the NPC's don't run away. Not sure about Stone Armor, but I've seen lots of those herd things.

Taunt is very good too, to keep things on melee range. I don't usually take it, except for my MM. But it's very very useful for Brutes To keep Fury up.

But yeah, it takes a little bit of effort to play melee, it's totally up to you. Pick something that can get you survive through all those herding. Again that's probably just my taste, I hope this helps you on your decision.

Couple of interesting points here

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everything_Xen What did you like so much about your brute and scrapper that got you to play them to such a high level?

For my Brute, it was concept. His name is Kwiturbitchin and is just an interesting thug, using a pipe wrench for a weapon and looking generally scruffy. He's now very slightly incarnate but he's about 4 years old and took ages to get to 50.

As for my shield scrapper, he's come to a grinding halt and frankly I'm not enjoying him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kinrad Something that can help with runners is the ability to have ranged attacks. Spine scrappers get two of them. Imaple is a mag 3 mobilize, and Throw Spines is a wide cone. The downside is that you look like a really big pincushion.

well the look of a spines scrapper doesn't bother me - and it's reasonably rare these days I guess but I wasn't aware it had good range.

I should maybe also point out it's not "runners" per se that are the issue it's the fact that when you get a large mob spread out you can end up running around a fair bit whereas with blaster/trollers (my main ATs) you just stand there and hold/blast them to oblivion.

Writing this has reminded me of a time when I was first playing the game - and I was playing some kind of scrapper and it was in the troll caves (must've been the Hollows - we did that a lot then) and some chap was playing an energy blaster. Every time I got near a target he took it out from under me - I guess he was targeting through me so every time I got close... bam he'd blast the target away so it turned into that something resembling Lee van Cleef, Clint Eastwood and the stetsons.

From other dabblings, I don't think I could bear to level a tank to 50. I seem to recall their damage to be so poor it makes a controller look tough. Not at all sure about a stalker so maybe another brute or scrapper. Of those, a brute seems preferable but if you ask me why I'm not sure lol

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Ok then... lets try a different tact.

Whats so much fun with the non-melee characters you enjoy? There ought to be a reasonable likeness somewhere in the melee community.

And I wouldnt write off tanks either... my Shield/Kin tank will probably be my first melee to 50 in all these years.

Sell you a tank? I'll give it a try.

As to the running around; I don't find this happening often. On tanks with cone attacks, I'll occasionally jump to try to leverage an AoE attack better. If you want to avoid that temptation, Super Strength, Stone Melee, Martial Arts, and Energy Melee are all entirely devoid of cone attacks. Of those, I've really enjoyed Super Strength and Stone Melee (From level 15 to level 35, Energy Melee is kind of painful). I've only played Martial Arts to level 16 right now, and I'm enjoying it, but since Crane Kick has pretty good knock-back, if you don't want to run about, I'd suggest either not doing Martial Arts or skipping Crane Kick. Kinetic Melee has one cone attack, but it's also the most common skipped power in the set, since it's cone and does knock-back, so you'd probably be alright with that. Kinetic Melee was good fun too.

Primaries: It's hard to go wrong here. If you go Stone Melee or Super Strength, that's 35 or 38 levels without a damaging PBAoE, so you might consider a set with a damage aura. You could also pick up Leap Attack. Combat Jumping is a nice bonus for any set (Resistance sets can use the extra immobilization protection, defense sets can use the extra defense), and Super Jump is the best travel power ever, so you're not sacrificing anything to meet the prerequisites for Leap Attack.

Fiery Aura/Stone Melee gives you a nice magma skin for the stone attacks. Stone's control abilities gives Fiery Aura a good survivability boost, and Fiery Aura has endurance recovery powers, which are invaluable for Stone Melee (well, Stone Melee feels very endurance heavy).

Ice Armour gets you slows and two taunt auras, so enemies are much less likely to try to run away.

Dark Armour has a lot of control, but with the stun aura you might have to chase after some of the enemies staggering drunkenly away from you.

I don't know. Pick a concept.

Whereas I'll vote Fire/Stone tank (though I suppose you could work Stone/Fire Brute too, but who wants to play a brute?)

Stone Melee has good control (better control than Super Strength), Fiery Aura has good AoE.

But Ice Armour/Stone Melee is good for a glacial build. The AoE damage isn't as good, but the build will have more debuffs and get more aggro.

And Celestial Lord's claim of "not even a tanker could steal your aggro" is entirely unsubstantiated.

ok I've got to say I'm not terribly keen on Shield Defence. It really hasn't moved me

I also have never liked the look of stone and fire shield... well let's just say that one fo my first friends in game was a fire/fire tank way back when... and that seemed very squishy, but I like the idea of something like Fire Shield/SS just for kicks.

But MajorDecoy raises an important point: I probably am less in tune with the subtle (or perhaps unsubtle) differences between Brute/Tank & Scrapper/Stalker.

Why wouldn't I want to play a brute? I had always thought that a Tanker was more resilient but less damaging than a brute, which was repeated through scrapper & stalker. Sure you get variations like Fury and Stealth but that was the extent of the differences.

What else have I missed?

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Playstyle.

Brutes have to keep fury up. If they let it drop, they do less damage than tanks. It's pretty easy to keep fury up, if you're okay running from spawn to spawn.

With my tanks, it's more leisurely. I don't defeat spawns as quickly, but I don't need to. If the video I'm listening to ends and I want to switch to a new video, I don't even need to finish the combat I'm in, I'll just alt-tab over, switch to the next video, and alt-tab back. Sure, I don't do that in teams, but solo, I'm rarely in any danger.

Try a Elec Melee/Fire Armor Brute or Scrapper... Insane amounts of damage opportunity, and lots o' AoE.