Mêlée all the Way (Discussing the state of Mêlée Hunting)

Introduction
I started hunting with Mêlée Weapons since the day I had sold enough sweat to afford one. I have always had a liking to Mêlée ever since, even despite the many setbacks. I've been thinking about creating a thread on this forum to discuss the state of Mêlée Hunting and some of the ideas to improve it. Hopefully something that Planet Arkadia can do about.
This thread starts with some common info about Mêlée Hunting in Entropia and ends with some of my ideas to improve and add to Mêlée Hunting. I like to hear/ read more ideas about Mêlée.

View attachment 8459
An early picture I made with PECs, in a lake somewhere on Calypso.

Mêlée all the Way has been my motto ingame for many years now, but I'll admit to having hold Handguns and Rifles enough to unlock Markmanship and Ranged Damage Assesment.

Different prostandings of Mêlée in Entropia
There are six different types of Mêlée proffessions in the Entropia Universe, all ofcourse both in (Dmg) and (Hit). These are: 1) Swordsman, 2) One Handed Clubber, 3) Two Handed Clubber, 4) Brawler, 5) Knifefighter, 6) Whipper.
With these you can unlock the two Mêlée skills Melee Damage Assessment (lvl 18 Dmg) and Martial Arts (lvl 20 Hit). You can also unlock other skills the same as with Ranged hunting like Serendipity, Coolness and tougher skills.
Like with Ranged Weapons, there is also another approach to Mêlée: Light and Heavy. But unlike Ranged, this doesn't mean much to my understanding. All knives are Light and all swords are Heavy.

The two Clubber Proffessions are very similair, see this table for the (Hit) Prostandings:
[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"]

Skill
One Handed
Two Handed

Agility
2
2

Strenght
3
4

Clubs
38
39

Combat Reflexes
5
5

[...] Melee Weapons
7 [Light]
7 [Heavy]

Melee Combat
9
9

Bravado
7
7

Courage
4
4

Dexterity
2
2

Perception
2
2

Combat Sense
4
4

Commando
3
3

Martial Arts
7
6

Coolness
6
5

Serendipity
1
1
[/TABLE]

Different types of Mêlée Weapons in Entropia
Each proffession has ofcourse its own weapons. It will be too much to name them all, but I will name the brands and from wich planets they originate. If I type (others) then I mean that there are weapons without a distinc brand in the name. For example "Labrys" or "Dehere Immolation Sword". If I type (...) before the name, then the brand is after the first part of the name. For example "(Mux-2) EnergyGlove" or "Road Crew Axe (L)"
I start with naming the Old Skool, the ones that are maxed at level 100.

1. Swordsman
The more powerful of the Mêlée Weapons, but that comes with often slower speed. You can use swords, but also axes for this prostanding. If you want to hunt with an axe then look for the Rocktropian kind. All planets have good swords, although I must confess that I don't know them all.

Old Skool: Castorian, Katsuichi, Killian, RepEdge (Axe)
Calypso: Castorian, Katsuichi, Embra, Genesis, Katsuichi, Kilic, Loughlin, Omegaton, Rutic, (others)
Arkadia: MAKO, (others)
Rocktropia: (...) Axe
Cyrene: Psy-Swords, (others)
Next Island: Swords of ..., (others)

2. Clubber
I merge both Clubber Prostandings because of the similarity between the Two Handed and One Handed. In terms of Dmg/Sec clubs are like swords. There is however much less choose, one reason is that not every planet have clubs.
Old Skool: Thorifoid
Calypso: Castorian, Force Mace, Loughlin, (others)
RockTropia: (others)
Next Island: Ice, (others)

3. Brawler
Fast, little damage and terrible Dmg/PEC. Most often only used for fun, although the higher ones can deliver quite a punch.
Old Skool: Castorian, Manticore (...) EnergyGlove, Sollomate
Calypso: (...) Argonauts, Castorian, Chikara, Genesis, Loughlin, Omegaton, (others)
Cyrene: (...) Psy-Blade, (others)

4. Knifefigher
About as fast as PowerFists can be, but these deal more damage on average. All planets have good daggers, although I must confess that I don't know them all.
Old Skool: Castorian, ClericDagger, (others)
Calypso: Bicak, Castorian, Genesis, Kesmek, Loughlin, Omegaton, (others)
Arkadia: MANTA, (others)
Rocktropia: (...) Shank
Cyrene: (...) Survival Blade, (others)
Next Island: Ice Dagger, (others)

5. Whipper
I don't like whips personally, these are slow and do little damage compared to other type of Mêlée Hunting. Whips where used with the Taming Proffession.
Old Skool: Dominax
Calypso: Dominax, (others)
Rocktropia: (others)

Pro's and Con's of Mêlée Hunting in Entropia
Most Mêlée Hunters will agree: it's fun to do, but it comes with a price.

The good about Mêlée:
1) It's fun, cool, awesome, ...
2) You gain Strenght that let's you carry more before slowing down.
3) You get more HealtPoints, the main reason some Ranged Hunters do occacially hunt with a mêlée weapon.
4) (debatable) You get more Evade and Dodge, because you're getting hit more. It's not well tested and there are some that say the Evader/ Dodge level of a Mêlée-hunter is the same as that of a Ranged-hunter. Others say that there is a significant difference.

The bad about Mêlée:
1) There are no amps available, despite the community having asked about it for years.
2) You are pointless in a teamhunt.
3) It's expensive, even compared to ranged weapons with amps Mêlée Weapons have often less Dmg/PEC.
4) You'll have to pay more defensive costs (armour and fap).
5) Limited Mêlée can be very expensive. Let's take for example the MAKO FAL-5 (L) at 113% with a full TT of 155 PED. Your friend the Laser Carbine Hunter buys a similair weapon, the Isis LC-35 (L) at 135% with a full TT of 155 PED. You paid 175.15 PEDs for the MAKO and after your hunt that's all you paid for dealing out damage. Your effective markup is therefor also 113%. To say it different: [Paid for]/[Spend]*100% = [175.15]/[155]*100% = 113%.
Your friend had to buy ammo for 1518.45 PEDs at the TT and 209.25 PEDs for the Isis. His effective markup is only [1727.70]/[1673.45]*100% = 103%.
Generally speaking: Limited Mêlée because too uneconomical about 105% markup.
6) There are often gaps in the progression-tree of Mêlée. Talking about the available SIB-weapons.
7) The power (or quality) of a Mêlée weapon is often lower then a Ranged weapon that is maxed at the same level.

Ideas for Mêlée Hunting on Planet Arkadia
I have my own ideas, but I welcome all to post your own ideas and I will add them here. I hope that Planet Arkadia can increase the Way of the Blade for us all.

1. Mêlée Amping
It's been discussed often times on forums with ideas ranging from "Sharpening Stones" to "Poison" to "Electric Amplifiers". And to make sure that Arkadia won't lag behind Calypso, this is a quote from Kim|Calypso of today (07-Nov-2013) "Yes, definately."

2. Reorginaze the Prostandings
Not anything that Arkadia can do about perhaps, but I like to see Axes and Swords seperated and the two Clubbers merged.

3. Add more Mêlée Weapons
Where are the Arkadian Clubs, PowerFists and Whips? Especially with the latter, if Taming will come back, then it's good for Arkadia to have some Powerful Whips available. There is also something to be won with a small Club available at the TT.

4. Create more Mêlée Prostandings
For example Spears or Poles, a bit longer in range then most other Mêlée Weapons, but at a slower speed? Nin-chaku's and other wooden Mêlée that deal tiny amounts of damage, but are fun to use and maybe can also be used for Taming? Spiked Armour, or something like that's added to your armour and deals a bit of damage on its own when you're attacked? Bare-handed Fighing, a prostanding that is combined with MindForce that let's you use your fists, kick your leg and do a headbutt. Just for fun against other players?

5. Dual Wielding Mêlée (Sniqs)
Give the Masters of the Blade the possibility to use two weapons, perhaps as an unlock like Deathspeak after a certain level. Maybe only good with Power Fists, Daggers and Swords. Use two weapons in each hand or add the second weapon to the first like an amplifier?

6. Shields (Sniqs)
An additional piece of armour that increases your change of evade/ dodge. With great durability too, to make it a valuable option above getting a better set of armour.

Mêlée all the Way!
Ardorj

 

Fantastic introduction to melee weapons, Ardorj. I've been using longswords for the vast majority of my hunting since day one, and haven't looked back.

My biggest issue is the lack of choice and smooth progression. Whereas one can find an abundance of relatively affordable and useful energy and blp guns for any level, either L or UnL, there are large gaps for melee weapons. And some of the existing swords are somewhat prohibitive due to high cost, high level requirements or unappealing stats (even for melee).

In the last year or two, some very attractive mid to high-ish level melee weapons have come out. The Philosopher's / Hero's / Archon's Swords of Ancient Greece. Numerous blades from Aakas instances on Arkadia -- Dehera Immolation / Shagadi Disintegration swords, and Aakas Fire / Songkra Corrosive daggers, to name a few. While many of these have a markup of several hundred (upwards of a thousand or slightly more) peds, there's no question to their quality (and the Aakas weapons simply look cool and menacing).

Melee amps would be a big step to increasing their host weapons capability.

Melee all the Way, fellow swordsman!
Medeina

 

I agree with Medeina, great post Ardorj. Personally I think the biggest problem is the MU issue. Melee weapons would have to have much better base eco if they keep decaying the way they do. Otherwise you don't get crafters making them because it's just not worth it, so the supply is limited and/or expensive. The ammo powered swords (MM Edition series) were an interesting experiment, but I don't know how that turned out, didn't have the pleasure to try one out myself. What is needed is some way to make the blades low enough MU for hunting but high enough for crafting. The melee amp taking some decay from the sword might do the trick (see the thread with Kim's post), but I'm skeptical. Most of the amps will probably be (L) themselves so unless they sell for 103% or less the effect will be negligible...

The other thing is the dps. If melee is supposed to be on par with ranged weapons (I'm saying IF, because it need not be), I think a similar level melee weapon should have higher dps than ranged. This would be to balance the fact that with ranged weapons you can damage the mob from afar.

I've actually been toying with a few ideas regarding melee, might as well throw them out there though I have to say they're not entirely thought through. Instead of amps, let us use two weapons, this would probably not work so well for axes, clubs and whips, but perfectly good for swords, knives and powerfists. The second weapon could be limited in power as well, just like an amp. It could even work the same way technically, the only difference could be visual. For example: in your inventory you drag your Khorum dagger onto your Shagadi sword, making an "amped" Shagadi. The stats get added up as usual for amping and you equip it as one item, use it as one item etc. This ability could even be an unlock at some level (sort of like dead speak, i.e. not a skill which you can raise).

Second thing is some kind of a shield that would either add to your armour or work somewhat like an additional chance to evade. In the former instance the shield would need significantly better durability than armour to be desirable, otherwise why not just use better armour right? For the latter, it could allow you to use an additional defensive skill like Parry while equipped, so you would get a chance to Evade and then a chance to Parry on top of that.

I guess melee does not need to be made into a profession that is a clone of ranged. It could have something unique about it to balance the lack of range: better dps, boost to defence, other...

 

Medeina, I've added the point about the gap for Mêlée to the first post. I've only tried the first two Ancient Greece swords (Laconian and Falcata I think it was), but those were not to my liking. Haven't tried an Arkadian Aakas yet, but those are on my wishlist.

Thanks Snape, I'll try to find some time this weekend to add pictures.

Sniqs, I've forgotten about the MM-series and ELM-series. I got a few in my Storage of those, but haven't tried them out yet. I'm not a crafter, but I think that the markup of the materials is killing it for them. Will have to look into that a bit more I guess before I can say something constructive about it.

I'm not a big supporter of dual weapons, except with Power Fists and maybe Daggers. Can't find the words why, but what I know about Mêlée in real life is that you need your other hand and arm for balance mostly. But I can be wrong on that. Perhaps it works as an unlock at some level, something for the Masters of the Blade and the lower skilled to look forward too.

Your idea of a shield I like very much. We've seen other items that increase a stat so it defiatly makes sense with a shield to add to your Evade. I've added both ideas to first post.

Mêlée all the Way!

 

"4) You get more Evade and Dodge."

This is not true from any of my testing and watching of many players.


The only "increased" skill gain you get is from the fact you are spending more time in "melee" aka under attack then the ranged jockey who kills the mob before it gets to them.

I have swunted and helped people and had them swunt and they gain evade at the same rate regardless of killing with ranged or melee.

 

With the recent update crafted and looted ranged weapons were separated (Hermans are only crafted now, while from mobs we can loot Pirons, as far as I understand). Does anyone know what happened to the MAKO and MANTA series? Were they removed from loot as well? If so, was anything else introduced? As a sidenote I think we should also get a new set of repairable TT melee weapons like the TT R ranged weapons series.

 

bit of a coincidence but i overheard some people on Calypso talking about melee amps being introduced very soon, rumor maybe but they seemed to be saying it had come from official sources.

And i looted a manta chill (L) from an oratan today

 

Thanks for this piece of info. So I guess no changes on the melee front. As for amplifiers I think it comes from the thread linked in OP, but as usual I'll wait till they're actually ingame

 

For rocktropia I thnk the only shortblades are the shanks (couple of different ones) looted from various inmates in prison.
Also whips on rocktropia are the Infections from THINGs in the arctic. (2 different lvl whips both with the same name which makes it hard to tell the difference except for sib/dmg and tt)

 

You have misunderstood his point. Of course it is only because you are getting hit more that you get more defensive skills, rather than anything to do with the weapons.

To OP, use the term Health Points, not Hit Points. Yes, everyone should get some of all the skills which give HP, including mining, all 3 types, but using Melee mostly does give you much higher HP and Evader/Dodger in the long term. I am Lvl 38 Evader/31 Dodger/186 HP, with no chipping.

I am Lvl 62 Swordsman, the main problems with melee are lack of quantity of L weapons available, and lack of power. I use Kat Dets mostly, which is of course not efficient. I have had to become Lvl 54 BLP Pistoleer to deal with larger mobs when necessary.

I looted two MAKO Longblades last week, one was 400 Ped Lvl 12, the other 480 Ped Lvl 20, when I hit a big
Hof from a Raptor Young.

 

At that level why not buy a Dragons Breath or similar? What you spent to become L54 pistoleer would more than have paid for the markup of the blade, and you would have ended up with a great weapon. (im guessing you may even be able to pick up a slightly higher lvl than dragons breath cheaper, just because not many people have the skills for the higher lvl blades. (imo why the firefly/dragons breath are so under rated)

View attachment 8363

Maxed at L38 (maxed hits at 39) this does 79.75dps which is more than any of the L pistols you can buy in the L50 range.
There are a couple of higher tiered Dragons Breaths as well, which has the same requirements except swordsman instead of knifefighter.

 

True, but at no point in my years of playing EU have I wanted to deposit the sort of money needed to buy a UL Dragons Breath (12k Ped), or Niflheim (23k). I have a weekly budget, and stick to it, and can occasionally celebrate a Hof. I don't have any CLD either.

Buying a UL weapon is the right thing to do for some players, but it is no good as general advice, there simply aren't enough in game, even if everyone could afford one.

 

Their is no "misunderstanding" he has written it wrongly if that is indeed how he intended it to mean. That said I have read the forums alot over the years and it is said time and time again that the act of using melee increases skills gains not the fact that one "gets hits more".

I would also note that you repeat this fallacy

First depending on the style of melee you engage in, you will get even less defense skills then ranged in the short term. One can use a drive by style similar to ranged killing and have pitiful defense skills. I know melee players in the high 30s for skills who barely have more defense skills then ranged counter parts. As to long term this is questionable as well. Once one starts hunting bigger ALL, mobs engage you in battle for extended periods of time. One can no longer avoid melee combat.

So long term unless melee weapons boost your defense skill gains your long term effect will be marginal at best. Only people that remains on such a scale that they can kill the mob they hunt before or at the point it enters melee will see any noticeable difference in skill gains. To do that one must be hunting fairly "small mobs" with massive weapons.

 

I'm Hunting melee for HP increase also. I maxed falx , anyone knows whats a good next step ?

 

keep in mind, mele is some of the highest cost dps in game.... so find a weapon, set a goal, and dont spend too much.... when the MU of the weapon gets to be too much, or the decay bill too high, hang it up for a bit, and shoot a gun. After a few lvls of shooting, you will notice your mele skills are still increasing, that can get you past some of those "rough" spots.... some of the fist weapons are great, but the manticore mentor edition is where most have to stop at, since the MU for anything past is crazy.

 

If I had read that on the Forums, I would have corrected it. It is easy to refute, just go to Entropedia and look at the Evader Profession. The contribution from skills which are common to melee and ranged is virtually identical, which means the weapon type makes no difference.

My Evader is noticeably higher than that of my Soc Mates who use ranged, and we are in the level 60-70 hunting range, so fairly long term. It also follows common sense, so I don't see how it can be described as a Fallacy based on an unusual hunting method.

 

If you have the defense skills you can hunt fairly big with the falx you just need a few of them. As far as UL longblades the next most easily gotten blade is the philo sword for about TT+50. It starts at prof 18 though. You can either use the falx to get into the 20s for prof(I did), do some cross skilling, do alot of cross skilling or be ever watchful on the AH for L blades that come up from time to time.

Its not an easy or set route past the falx your going to have to wing it a bit.

I have already explained why it is that your stats are likely higher then your ranged friends.

You continue to put forth the fallacy that melee gets you more defense skill gains... IT DOES NOT.

 

There are some very eco unlimited SIB melee weapons, it is just when you pay markup on (L) melee, or you use old school L100 that they are usually uneco.

 

I already have a philo in storage waiting for me