The State of Melee

As a double melee user, my only gripes so far are ;

The Extended Range flamethrowers mod in a hallway.

The danger compass for cannonback and bomb traps being awfully wrong,

The lunge on sledgesword teleporting me inside activated traps even if my intention is to hit the side of it with the wide swing, or even worst, the wide swing not registering a very clear hit on the trap even though it left a clean swipe decal on it.

And the worst of all. Fake trigger registration which results in fake melee swings with no damage, essentially killing you instantly if you tried to time your hit on a guard before he shot.

But the rest is do-able, hard, but do-able.

Mind you, playing crossbow/shield is worst, and that's a choice you made with your available equipment.

the game is a "bring the correct tools to the task to make your job easier" scenario. some things are suited for melee, guard fights for example. BAM BAM armor break, dead instant. or rushing halls, SWING SWING SWING SWING just spam lunging. but plasma and fire are a weak point. but since co-ops and solos play the same game and single/double fire traps only reset on TPK and co-ops have limitless revives, multi-fire traps like plasma and incinerators are currently meta to prevent outposts from being trivialized. it is your choice to take the hard route and refuse to use the free equipment swap offered at every respawn. it is also you choice to continue doing an outpost that your equipment is not well suited too. you can always back out of it and come back once you have more gear or practice. i've seen dual sword builds tear through some of my hardest content, i've seen it done with two guns, a gun and shield, a sword and shield. everything is possible. but dual sword was deffinately the HARDEST way to take it on, but still possible.

perhaps the bad melee spot you feel is actually a desire to have melee be all around good when this is a pick the right tool for the task style game.

the extended range can be rough to deal with i normally see it handled by sword users with either a grenade, or patiently timed grapples to take down piston blockades and then as it powers down they grapple it and lunge before it can activate.

can you elaborate on the compass issue? sounds like you may have located a bug.

for the lunge thing that has to do with where you target, look at the edge of the block next to it to prevent the lunge, but it's treating you as having "targeted" the trap for a lunge, so it goes to that.

There have been lots of reports of input eating, on swords, shields, and guns, push button, might hear a sound or see the animation even, could even give it a cool down/reload, but won't actually go off.

no worries. i myself don't like any weapon that can't break traps and i'm not big on getting into close combat unless forced. most of my time is spent avoiding a trap or enemy. i go into outposts as a rogue, my goal is to get the treasure and get out while causing the least ammount of disturbance and in as little time as possible. in some cases the sword is the right answer for a playstyle like that because of the lunge and speed increases, but because of my aversion to being in close i stick to my 3 shot bow. i am also prone to making mistakes in my wild grappling around, or getting pinned by a warmonger's shoulder, so i run shield. but there are times when i've had to pull out the plasma bow because it's a 20 guard map and going to get that ammo from the 3 shot gun is a pain. there are plenty of tradeoffs to each weaponset. as for when it's not great to have a gun, tight corners with warmongers are immensely dangerous for ranged users, anywhere a good ammo eater or corpse collector is built is also detrimental to the ranged user. it forces us to get close into a situation that isn't our best. we also have the ability to miss and lose a shot to a room, or a pit, or some contraption. that isn't something the sword user worries about.

as a gun player i have to constantly manage my ammo and hunt it back down in the middle of a room just to continue my combat, where as a melee user has the ability to seemlessly move from one combat to another at any pace they can manage/choose. i have seen sword players make plays that i would have thought weren't doable. and it's really opened my eyes to their potential. once the rank reset comes in in june i plan to swap build and practice sword and shield through the ladder.

edit - the main thing i'm trying to say is that forcing a ranged player into melee causes them to enter chaos mode, i know i don't want a plasmabow against 7 armored warmongers in a narrow hall.. a melee user just doesn't care and starts slashing. not many bases currently utilize guards in a way that they ambush you in close quarters from all sides, so often you can kite and bow. that gap in builder skill will go away over time and the sword will become more viable. also as there are new augments and AI improvements. but on the "pick the right tool for the job topic" i just don't think there are many JOBS right now that have been created for swords.

I'm in the habit of immediately jumping backwards after every melee attack because of this. Just play into it, expect the lunge will happen.