[KickKat]

This is a work in progress. I will have it cleaned up and updated soon.

Learn 2 Play: Melee (Part 1 & 2)
April 12, 2016
Written by: KickKat

We have all seen it: everyone is running around a ground map shooting everything in sight with phasers and disruptors when, suddenly, one person runs in armed with nothing but a sword, or even their bare hands and wipes out an entire group of baddies all by their lonesome. It looks awesome and it is! So, you try it yourself. You get yourself a sword, or just use your bare hands if you are a cheapskate, and jump into a ground map, ready to do something besides chew the bubble gum that you do not have. You single out your opponent and charge in to meet them, pressing your attack button as fast as you can to lay down the proverbial smack upon them. Unfortunately, you die a glorious death as your enemy stands over you with 3/4 of their health intact.

“What gives?”, you may wonder. “That guy was the cheats!”, you may jealously assume. “Melee sucks!”, you may exclaim in frustration. Then you hang up your sword and go back to your phaser.

I. Why melee?
II. Combos and quirks
III. Fisticuffs
IV. Melee weapons
V. … but, I am not a Tac!
VI. Your BOffs are stupid

I. Why Melee?

The truth is, melee doesn’t suck. You suck at melee. Melee in STO is not as simple as picking up a weapon and trying to haphazardly beat an enemy to death with it. It takes planning, understanding, and some skill. You can expect to spend a fair chunk of monies if you want to do it seriously. That sounds like a lot of work and more money right out of the pocket that could be better spent on ship shiny. Why bother with melee?

The most important thing about melee combat is that it almost completely negates any shield protection. Every hit you land ignores at least 80% of your enemy’s shields and does the full damage directly to their health. What? Yes. Shields. Feh!

The second important thing about melee attacks one should know is that each attack has a 10% chance to cause an expose on your target. This expose chance percentage is higher than any ranged weapon in the game, so in melee combat you will always expose your enemy more often than than your shooty counterparts. This becomes more important when you start using combos.

II. Combos and quirks

The real key to doing damage as a melee character is the use of combos. Sure, you can spam the attack key as described in the intro, but while you may get by, you will be extremely inefficient and run the risk of getting laughed at. If you use combos, you can do devastating damage to your adversary, taking down heavily shielded targets in moments. The only way to look cooler would be if you had a keybind setup to utter some really awesome, pun-laden comment every time you take someone down.

Combos are important for several reasons:

Each attack in the combo chain is stronger than the last. The first attack is normal damage. The second attack is stronger. The third attack is the strongest, with the potential to be extremely powerful if it is an exploit attack and the target is exposed.

Any combo attack that is not specifically an exploit attack is an expose attack. This means that in a three hit combo ending in an exploit attack, the first two attacks each have a 10% chance to cause an expose.

Single attacks have cool downs, while combos do not. After two attacks of the same type, there is a cool down of 2 seconds or so before that attack can be done again. Combos do not have this problem. You can repeatedly chain combos together, starting a new one as soon as the current one ends.

Unlike ranged weapons, the exploit attacks in combos have no cool downs. This means you can run exploit combos back to back indefinitely with no interruption. Combine everything so far and you can see that you can do this:

Expose chance
Expose chance
Exploit
Expose chance
Expose chance
Exploit
Expose chance
Expose chance
Exploit

Even if the target is not exposed, the Exploit hit still does the most damage out of the three hits and since there is no cool down on the exploit attack, you aren’t “wasting” the exploit like you might when using a ranged weapon.

Hits in combos also apply additional debuffs to your enemy. In addition to having a 10% chance to cause an expose, your combo attacks each have their own unique debuff that they can apply to your target. Such debuffs include roots, interrupts and disabling your foe. Buffs include +300% critical chance. Keep in mind that your adversary will become immune to a debuff for a short time once it has been applied to them, so it is best not to spam the same debuff hits over and over. Mix it up a little.

So, that sounds great and all, but how does one perform a combo? Well, a combo is simply chaining together normal attacks in a certain order. You cannot just spam your buttons and hope for the best though. Combos require timing. It is a very deliberate process.

Start your first attack. When it is done, you have about a 1 second window to start the second attack which will trigger a combo and a different move than the second attack normally would.

Below is a list of combo elements, their debuffs/buffs and exploits. I cannot take credit for this, as I did not compile this information, but I cannot give credit to the one who did because I simply do not know. Thanks to them, whoever they are.

1 means attack 1, 1 on your keyboard or the attack button on your mouse.
2 means attack 2, 2 on your keyboard or your right mouse button.
12 means do attack 1 and follow it with attack 2, etc.
Anything in () is an alternate way to perform the same attack/combo.
III. Fisticuffs

1 – Jab: 80% chance to Interrupt, 10% chance to Expose.

2 (12) – Punch: -100% run speed for 1 sec, 10% chance to Expose.

11 – Chin Strike – Root for 1 sec, 10% chance to Expose.

22 – Backhand – Root for 1 sec, 10% chance to Expose.

21 – Uppercut – 80% chance to Interrupt.

112 – Haymaker (EXPLOIT) – +300% Critical Chance. Choose this to do more burst damage, especially if your crit chance has been boosted.

211 – Knife Hand Chop (EXPLOIT) – Basic damage + Stacking DoT. Choose this to do more evenly-distributed damage.

212 – Snap Kick – Disables target for 3 secs, 10% chance to Expose. Good against tough foes.

122 (221) Spin Kick (AoE, EXPLOIT) – Basic damage only, but a lot of it, especially when surrounded.

121 – Combined Fist (AoE) – Knocks back targets in forward cone 3 feet, 10% chance to Expose. Good for crowd control.

So, 1 11 122 would be a jab, a chin strike and a spin kick combo. Make sense?

IV. Bat’leth / Sword

NOTE: For Federation players to get Bat’leths, please check the Exchange under Personal Weapons (search for Klingon) or, for ranks V and up of Bat’leths, visit DS9.

The Bat’leth is primarily oriented towards damage although it can also root, slow and knock down. It does much higher damage than Martial Arts, especially with finishing moves, but has no means of disabling or interrupting your foe.


1 (2) – Slash – Basic damage and 10% chance to Expose.

11 (22) – Stun (does not actually stun, roots instead) – Root for 1 second, 10% chance to Expose.

12 (21) – “Heavy” Slash – -100% Run Speed for 1 second, 10% chance to Expose.

122 – Impale (EXPLOIT) – Basic damage + Stacking DoT, hits *incredibly* hard on Exploit. Best single-target attack.

121 (212) – Spin (AoE) – Basic damage, 10% chance to expose. Useful when surrounded by enemies as it not only affects all enemies in your front arc but also takes effect instantly and thus gets interrupted far less than any other finishing move.

211 – Rake (AoE) – Knocks back targets in a cone before you 3 feet, 10% chance to Expose. Fairly quick and useful for crowd control.

112 (221) – Chop (EXPLOIT) – Basic damage + Stacking DoT, hits *incredibly* hard on Exploit. Activates slower than Impale and is thus easier to interrupt; is thus inferior to Impale.

V. but ... I am not a Tac

Tactical players get some martial arts abilities by default. This makes them the best suited for any and all melee combat. They have the most moves of all three classes and their attacks hit the hardest. This only makes sense. If you are wanting to be a serious melee character, Tac is the way to go.

Engineers do not get any melee skills and their melee hits are about as damaging as a science officer’s. They can use their kit powers to supplement their melee attacks though. Things like chroniton mines and transphasic bombs can provide crowd control and additional debuffs allowing the engineer more time to perform their less damaging combos. Fuse armor and weapons malfunction are also useful in this regard. If there is a science captain/officer on your team, they can give you a shot of the ol’ Dylozene to buff your melee damage and resistance. Tier 2 or 3 Dylozene will buff it by a LOT.

Science captains can use Dylozene on themselves. Tricorder can can expose targets so the captain can go straight for the exploit combo without the uncertainty of getting the exploit hit. Anything that slows, root debuffs or immobilizes your opponent is useful.

VI. Your BOffs are stupid

Do not give them sharp things. Do not bother giving them melee weapons. BOffs will use the weapons, but won’t do combos, making their damage output near worthless. Give them ranged weapons and forget about it.

So far I have focused on martial arts and use of the Bat’leth. While Lirpas are used just like Bat'leths, swords are an entirely different matter. A very important matter.

Tsunkatse Falchion/Nausicaan Tegolar:

These are one handed swords and are the preferred melee weapons of the game because their attack speed seems to be greater than the bat’leth and lirpa. This has the advantage of lessening the chance that your combos will be interrupted. There is a price to pay for this speed, however. The button #2 attack does not have any expose chance, so your combos have less of a chance to expose as compared to the other weapons and you are more limited in the number of useful combos you can perform. Also, don’t forget about your enemies becoming immune to exploits for short periods of time. You have fewer combos to use to mix things up and keep them off balance. Here is what you have to work with:

1 – Slash – Basic damage, 10% chance to Expose.
2 – “Heavy” Slash – Slightly more damage. Does not Expose.
12 – Spin – AoE damage, knocks back, 10% chance to Expose.
21 – Backslash – Cone damage, DoT, 10% chance to Expose.
111 (221) – Double Strike (EXPLOIT) – Cone damage, knocks back, Exploits.
112 (222, 212) – Cleave (EXPLOIT) – Single target, knocks back, does a LOT of damage if it Exploits.
121 (122, 211) – Spinning Jump – Single target, Disables, 10% chance to Expose.

Despite the difference in speed and the more limited number of combos and exploits, the swords still do really good damage. All of the melee weapons probably do equal damage over time, all things considered. Which you choose comes down to individual play style and personal preference … and maybe price.

Speaking of price, once you have decided on a weapon type, you might ask yourself what weapon modifiers you want. Well, these are my observations and personal opinions. I have no data with which to back up this information.

Obviously some weapon modifiers are more desirable than others. As with ship weapons, the Dmg modifier should be of least interest to you. Sure it increases your weapon’s base DpS, but this increase is insignificant when compared to the power of the Force … and also once you start using combos and exploits. There are ways to increase your base damage through character traits and skill point allocations without wasting a precious modifier.

CrtH is a decent modifier. [CrtH]x3 sounds nice because it gives you an additional 6% chance to crit, but, there are more effective ways to boost your crit chance through skill points, traits, character classes, DOffs and devices. Some of them make the 6% gain seem a bit puny.

That leaves CrtD. There is a certain ratio between crit chance and crit severity that is considered optimal. If this ratio is too far out of balance, you start losing damage potential. Since CrtH is easier to come by than CrtD, you want your weapon loaded with as much CrtD as possible … [CrtD]x3 is your holy grail. [CrtD]x3 gives you a 60% boost to your critical hit damage. Combine that with a combo that stuns, exposes and exploits, and you can take a heavily shielded enemy down to less than half health with one combo. Suck on that, Elite Tactical Drone.

“Great, but how do I bump up those numbers you are talking about”, you may wonder.

Good question. Let’s have a look.

Traits: (Before the recent skill revamp) There are many options that affect CrtH, CrtD, exploit chance and base damage among the traits available to you. Some of these include Lucky, Physical Strength, Covert, Aggressive, Situational Awareness, Bite and Pounce. Some are race and class specific, so take a look at your trait list. All of the traits are also outlined in the STO Wiki, so you can see what you have to work with and plan ahead.

Skills: Just like with traits, there are many skill to invest in to increase your melee performance. Notable skills include Weapon Proficiency (does NOT affect martial arts), Combat Specialist (stacks with Weapon Proficiency), Special Forces, Willpower, and Combat Armor. These are for Tac captains. Other options are available for science and engineering.

DOffs: As a melee character, there is one DOff you want above all others: The melee variant of the Security Officer. These fun little guys give you both an increased CrtH percentage AND an increased CrtD percentage. They range from white to purple and are priced from reasonable to absurd. The blue ones each give +6% CrtH and +20% CrtD and can stack up to three times. For those keeping score, that is +18% CrtH and +60% CrtD total. As of this writing, the purples are completely out of the price range of almost everyone. The blues are expensive but are probably your best value for the money.

Devices: Two words – Gambling Device. This is a Lobi Store item. It costs 30 lobi and is a steal for the price. This little buggar gives +10% to both CrtH and CrtD. It activates like a tribble and the effects last for 1 hour.

hope you are beginning to see why melee is worth doing and, more importantly, worth doing right. A properly geared melee character can tear NPCs to shreds faster than most with ranged weapons. They just take a bit more planning, patience and practice. Once you have them working though, they make ground really fun.

I hope to see you out there, sword in hand, ready to kick some butt.

Remember … Go for the eyes! (or ocular implants, or whatever they have).