Before going into anything here are the items.
Applying Ice to a target increases melee damage by 135% for 5 seconds.
Hitting an enemy increases melee damage by 110% for 20 seconds.
So prior to the Anthem launch, I was pretty hyped about how people and even Bioware Dev's talked about if you wanted to make a melee ranger, you could. Well I am here to tell you that it is awesome.... on any content that is below GM1.
So lets talk about the perks about ranger melee.
Ranger melee has a 2 second cool-down between uses unlike the interceptor that can melee until the cows come home. Additionally, the unique way the ranger swings its "mace" make it miss more than it hits and the only consistent way I found to hit enemy's is to leap up in the air putting myself at death risk and smash down. If they are laying down, your going to miss 90% of the time. If you are dashing and try to melee, your probably going to miss. This alone needs fixed and feels very unrewarding. The only reason I even try to melee is to self prime.
So now lets talk about these abilities. One only gives a 5 second buff, while the other is 20 seconds. Why is this so inconsistent between masterworks?
Both give a decent increase in damage but lets talk about the elephant in the room. If you go to melee in GM2+, its a suicide mission. The class fantasy of ranger is a gun toting bad-ass with iron man like abilities not "One Punch Man". I feel like I am being punished for not only obtaining these masterworks but for trying to utilize the perks and putting my self at very high risk of dying for damage for ZERO reward. I could deal the same damage with my pistol from complete safety...
This can easily be fixed with one of two things:
If they are dead set on making the ranger melee, make it for a reason like on melee you could have any number of other perks like the following
On melee:
50% shield restored
25% reduced damage for 5 seconds
Assault Launcher 35% cool-down reduction
Etc, Etc
If they can let go of ranger melee, literally any other perk like increased squad weapon damage, increase any other ranger damage, increase ranger combo % by X.
I think they took the whole "ranger melee" thing a bit too far and realized these end game mw perks are useless for endgame and only for hard mode goofing around which even with a 2 second melee cd and wonky melee hitbox isnt fun.
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