So after trying out a few powersets that make use of ranged attacks and abilities I decided I would give a melee-centered character a shot. FOR SCIENCE!
The hairy fellow pictured above makes use of the Blade powerset, which I chose in order to get a general idea of how smoothly the melee abilities mesh with the rest of the game. The resulting impression I made is, to say the least, mixed.
Initially I felt that melee combat was much more challenging than some of the other options. Throughout the tutorial and much of the first zone thereafter I found it more than a little cumbersome trying to keep myself up close and personal with all my foes.
Even as I was making the character I assumed I'd have quite the time getting to the flying opponents I knew I'd find both in PVE and PVP. Not to mention the ranged attack users in both categories that would delight in blasting away at me while simaltaniously backpedaling to make my job of closing the distance more of a chore.
Like I said, for the most part I was right for much of the earliest portions of the game. I wouldn't have said at that point that playing a melee-centric character would be a complete pain, but it would have indeed made for a more challenging experience.
And then I discovered the lunge attack while selecting new powers after a level up. Fantastic, I thought, a way to show those dirty gun toting, flame throwing, psychic javelin hurling ranged ninnys whats what.
And boy was I right! Unfortunately.
As soon as I picked up this particular power, melee went from being a challenging and interesting alternative to a big ugly cheeseballing. Lunge certainly does close the distance between you and ranged opponents. And it does work quite well at getting to those flying opponents too. So what's the problem?
It's current incarnation is just ridiculously overpowered.
Not only does it hit from a range, but it's also practically free of energy cost, has no cool down, no minimum range, and does ridiculous damage to the targeted enemy. So while I was expecting an ability that would help me get into range to link up subsequential melee attacks, what I got was an attack that could two shot any given mob of equal level to my own and could be spammed pretty much endlessly.
As dissapointing as this first foray into the realm of melee combat was, however, I'm sure such an obvious balance breaker will be tweaked soon enough by the developers. And it's an easy fix to make: slap a minimum range on the thing, raise the energy cost some, or just significantly lower the damage so that it's not possible to mop up an entire room of enemies with a string of Lunges.
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