I have seen that when allied with Anu and developing their mutation tech, there are some pretty awesome mutations for a melee class.
Like total immunity to mind attacks and panic as well as total body regeneration of HP and damaged limbs.
The only thing I would change about melee in PP would be adding the ability to focus melee attacks to specific body parts. Actually now that I think of it, I don’t believe I’ve actually tried. Lol. Does scrolling the mouse wheel in allow you to free aim a melee attack?
Afaiaao immunity to mind control is a berzerker skill and not a mutation? Unless there are more mutations than the 6 heads, 3 torso and 3 legs?
Just Dash. I have 3 assaults who were lucky enough to get melee/shotgun proficiency. No dual classing, their speeds are maxes out and their wills are close to max. Usually fights go dash X times to enemy, bop them once or twice to kill them and refund will, then dash into a safety spot. By then they should have plenty of enemies to reach with their movement next turn. Even if the strikes dont kill the enemy they usually get dazed (hammer), which makes them functionally useless for a turn. You may end up striking enemies with return fire, which is why my assaults always carry 2 or more medkits on them.
To sum it up, melee characters need at minimum Dash and Hammers to be effective, as well as high will and high speed. They’re relatively squishy, so they need to get in and kill fast, but it’s totally worth it for the amount of damage they dish out.
They really should have something like the wh40k terminator lightning claws and a perk that allows attacking with both hands (2 attacks on one time AP). That would make the Berserker rock.
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Not good at using them to attack personally, but with multi classed into something else I use that as their primary focus, but on those annoying occasions when a bad guy runs up to me, it’s pull out the hammer and whack that guy four times (usually less) time. I hate bad guys who close on me!
1st time I encountered a Scylla
“NO MO BULLETS!” - Assault
“I NEED BULLETS!” - Sniper
“IM OUT OF NADES!” - Heavy
“GET IN HERE YOU COWARDS! Use your guns to bash this damn thing!” - Berzerker
First time I encountered a Scylla… “WTF!!!” Scarab shoots 2 missiles at it. My 2 heavies shoots 4 grenades and 2 missiles at it. Sniper shoots it once in the head… DEAD before it does anything hahaha
I stand corrected TomRon. But the melee class is not a total loss 
Not a complete loss no, but the assaults with shotguns outshine the berzerker at point blank range, AND can get into range easier. But like several including myself have stated, this could be easily fixed by improving the advanced melee weapons that currently are worse than the hammer.
Make the piercing axe cost 1AP, and give the sword something better than 30 bleed. Then suddenly the axe would be king except for when using the zerk lvl 7 perk where you would use the hammer or sword.
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Huh, that’s a really weird change. The advanced melee weapons USED to be 1 AP in BB5. Even then they were only an upgrade for a non-maxxed berserker as maxxed berserkers got optimal damage out of the starter weapon (the hammer).
Speaking of: the starter hammer is really where Berserkers get value (in melee) at the start. Most any Triton or Arthron struck by them will be dead or dazed and of those enemies only an Arthron with a Pincer arm or Triton with Pistol remains a threat on the enemy turn.
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I didn’t know that, that actually makes much more sense. And yes, a berzerking berzerker should be wielding a hammer, it’s still the coolest of the weapons. Now there’s not even a choice, if you melee you use the hammer or the neurowhatsitsname, or possibly tentacles. The swords and axes go to the scrap pile.
Adrenaline Rush is an extremely powerful ability, but it obviously has much better synergy with ranged weapons than melee. You can’t move for free once you activate it, but can keep shooting. Even better if you shoot 3AP Snipers and Heavies for only 1AP.
Melee really needs a big revision for it to make any sense. So far, I hadn’t played a lot of such games where melee makes any sense from XCOM to Space hulk.
Hey, Melee in Xcom2 can be ridiculously strong. Slashing up aliens is one of the more fun parts of XCOM lol
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But thats at the risk of aggroing 3 other pods and getting killed on the very next turn so…
The only time melee made sense for me in XCOM2 is with the ninja mod. Double handed strikes and the ability to immediately fade away.
I dunno what to tell you man. I had all my rangers specced in blades and they were massive against Vipers, Faceless, Sectoids, the chosen, and any number of others. Combine that with bladestorm, and they were sure to kill almost anyone you placed them next to.
Run up to a soldier, slice him, next turn he tries to run for cover, gets sliced again and he’s dead. It was good, man.
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LOL… you play on legend?
I have, yeah. Enemies aren’t much different on Legendary difficulty aside from more health. I don’t like playing on Legend because of the increased construction times and increased pressure with the avatar project weighing down. I like to take my time, so I usually play on commander unless I’m just really feeling like being punished lol.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, not EVERY situation is suitable for melee, just like not every situation is suitable for snipers or any other class really. Subway tunnel missions, for instance, I cannot make use of snipers during those.
But while they aren’t in their element 100% of the time, melee units certainly are not useless. It’s one thing FiraXcom did very well. They knew how to balance the enemies so that there were strengths and weaknesses on both sides.