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Melee 1.0 since Update 13.0 (2014-04-09)

Melee (ver: 2.0) is a form of combat system that utilizes edged or blunt weapons and close quarter attacks. Every attack causes the player to take a single step forward. However, if the player is crouched, non-combo melee attacks will not cause a step forward. Melee weapons can be equipped in the tertiary slot of the arsenal in Warframe.

Current melee weapons consist of a number of classes, in which each class of weapons has a unique set of attack animations, including normal, jump, slide, stealth attacks, finishers, combos, and blocking.

Basic Maneuvers

Basic melee attacks can be achieved while equipped with Primary or Secondary weapons by pressing melee attack key. To perform advanced maneuvers however, players must fully switch to a Melee weapon by holding down the weapon switch key (default F  or Combops4tri). Equipping the melee weapon will unlock additional melee combat features such as Parrying and Channeling.

Each melee weapon has a number of attributes, such as attack speed and damage. Each attribute can be altered by a variety of Melee Mods.

Normal Attack

Basic Melee

Excalibur performing a basic melee combo.

Combomousewht E   Combops4wht R1

The simplest form of melee attack. The action is achieved by simply pressing the melee attack key repeatedly, in which the animation pattern continues to loop until the player ceases the attack.

Common Attributes:

  • Damage: Damage done by each hit. Enhanced by damage mods such as Pressure Point.
  • Attack Speed: Speed of the attack animation. Enhanced by speed mods such as Fury.
  • Max Targets: the maximum amount of targets you can hit in a single cleaving motion (excludes jump attacks and slide attacks)
  • Cleave Radius: A rough estimation of the size of the swing. May not be accurate due to individualized cleaving animations.

Slide Attack

Spin Melee

Excalibur performing a slide attack.

Combo While Sliding + Melee

Air variation :

Combo While Air Sliding + Melee

Also known as a Spin Attack, Slide Attacks propels a Warframe forward while performing a spinning slash around them, dealing greater damage and hitting multiple enemies. For sparring weapons like the Kogake and Obex, slide attacks perform a double kick that targets only a single enemy, but ragdolls them away instead of only dealing damage. Slide Attacks can be performed on the ground to hit low-lying enemies, or in the air to hit tall enemies, potentially landing headshots.

Slide attack damage can be increased by the Pressure Point mod and all other elemental damage the player may have equipped on their weapon.

Attributes:

  • Slide Damage Type: Damage type slide damage is dealt as.
  • Slide Damage: Damage dealt when doing a slide attack.

Aerial Attack

Aerial Melee

Excalibur performing an aerial attack.

Combo In Air + Melee

Also known as a Jump Attack, press melee in mid-air to perform a targeted aerial slash, regardless if a jump has already been made or not. The Warframe will slash and be propelled towards the direction that the player is aiming at, making melee capable of targeting airborne enemies like Ospreys.

Attributes:

  • Jump Damage Type: Impact damage type
  • Jump Damage: Impact damage (direct contact with mob)

Slam Attack

Slam Melee

Excalibur performing a slam attack.

Combo In Air + Aim Downwards + Melee

Also known as a Leap Attack, aiming down towards the ground when performing a jump attack will perform a slam attack that forces the Warframe downward and creates a small radial damage and special effect upon impact with the ground, such as knock down or elemental damage. One can perform this move to anchor themselves to the ground, losing most if not all momentum.

There are two damages dealt by slam attacks:

  1. Direct contact to an enemy will deal a slightly higher damage, normally with the damage type of the weapons base attack.
  2. Radial damage deals a secondary damage type which diminishes with distance from the point of impact, but will often have a secondary effect (knockdown, stagger, etc.).

Attributes:

  • Slam Damage Type: Radial Damage type
  • Slam Damage: Radial Damage
  • Slam Radius: Radial size.

Wall Attack

WallMelee
Combo While Wall-Latching + Melee

While wall running or climbing, a player may initiate a melee attack, causing the frame to launch off the wall at the angle of the direction aimed, with a special melee attack animation. The attack will change depending on what melee weapon is used; most weapons will slash the air in front of them as they launch, while heavy weapons will swing the weapon around them, and sparring weapons will launch with a forward punch. This maneuver is also useful as it may be used to leap parallel to the wall surface during a wall run; in contrast, releasing the jump key will always jump away from the wall.

Advanced Maneuvers

Advanced maneuvers can be achieved by equipping the melee weapon by holding down the weapon switch key, default F  or Combops4tri.

Stances

MeleeCombos

The Melee Combo list for the Crimson Dervish Stance.

Main article: Stance

Upon equipping a Stance Mod, up to three additional advanced Melee Combos will be unlocked, which are special chained attacks that enhance the melee abilities of the weapon. These combos can only be performed while wielding a melee weapon. The combination will vary depending on the melee weapon equipped and the Stance mod equipped, Some Stances will change the default melee combo when the melee is wielded.

Channeling

Channel Melee

Excalibur's body and weapon glowing under the effect of Melee Channeling.

Main article: Category:Channeling Mods
Combomousewht Weapon Fire LMB   Combops4wht L2

Channeling converts energies from the Warframe energy pool to enhance melee attacks and blocking, and is activated by using the Melee Channeling key with the option of either holding it down or toggling. While Melee Channel is activated, each enemy hit in melee will drain 5 Energy from the Warframe and deal +50% increased damage and any additional effects from channeling mods.

Currently there are only two exceptions to the 50% channeling damage, such weapons being the Fragor Prime and Furax Wraith with 1.8 times output.

The damage dealt by Channeling can be improved by mods like Killing Blow. In addition, various mods such as Reflex Coil can improve the energy efficiency of Channeling, while mods like Second Wind will grant bonuses but reduce Channeling efficiency. The list of Channeling mods can be found here.

  • When active, parts of the Warframe tinted by Tint Color 4 will glow according to the Warframe's energy color, while parts of the melee weapon which gain elemental effects will glow according to the melee weapon's energy color.
    • Immortal Skins will change the patterns of the channeling glow, as they change the position of sections tinted by Tint Color 4.
    • Armor parts will also glow while under the effects of channeling. Despite having their own Energy Color in the Attachments tab, Armor will glow using the Warframe's energy color instead.
    • When using Frost Prime, the parts of the Warframe tinted by the Secondary color will glow instead, as Frost Prime does not normally use Tint Color 4 without an alternate helmet.
    • When using Excalibur's Immortal Skin, the parts of the Warframe tinted by the Primary color will glow instead.
  • Enemies killed by Channeled attacks will disintegrate while floating in the air and will sometimes drift away. Desecrate can be used on floating bodies as long as the body has not completely disappeared.
  • Channeling will consume energy for each successful strikes. Strikes that do not connect do not drain energy, nor do strikes that connect to neutral objects like Containers.
    • Energy is drained per enemy hit, i.e. hitting two enemies in one swing will consume twice the energy.
    • Energy drain rates are affected with Channeling Efficiency mods and not Power Efficiency mods.
    • Channeling Efficiency has a maximum cap of 80% with Reflex Coil and Focus Energy even while they both have a total of 100% efficiency.
  • Channeling increases damage based off total melee damage, which is the sum of the base damage plus any physical damage and elemental mods.

Parrying

SkanaBlocking

Excalibur with Skana in blocking pose.

Combomousewht Weapon Aim RMB   Combops4wht R2

Essentially a blocking action. It is achieved by holding the aim button while having melee weapons equipped. Blocking will reduce incoming damage and will block knockbacks; however, this action can only block frontal damage and not back. The amount of damage reduced differs between melee weapon types, with some blocking more damage than others.

Channeling while Blocking will nullify all incoming damage and reflect some damage back, but will drain Energy on every blocked attack. 

  • Can block Fire Blast and Rippling Shockwave. Doing so will push the Warframe back, but prevent the knockdown effect.
  • Can block continuous weapons like Flux Rifle lasers and Scorch flamethrowers.
  • Parrying can block Bombard Rockets, though it will not prevent damage from the explosion itself.
  • Will also block Scorpion grappling hooks to prevent getting pulled.
  • Parrying with Rhino's Iron Skin active will not deflect any damage and instead mitigate the hitpoints to Iron Skin.
  • Will not block Status Effects from affecting the player.
  • Channeling Efficiency mods do not affect the amount of energy lost from blocked damage while channeling.
Weapon Class Max Damage Reduction
Claws 35%
Dagger 35%
Dual Daggers 35%
Sparring 35%
Glaive 35%
Nunchaku 35%
Tonfa 35%
Whip 35%
Blade and Whip 60%
Dual Swords 60%
Fist 60%
Gunblade 60%
Sword 60%
Staff 60%
Hammer 85%
Heavy Blade 85%
Machete 85%
Nikana 85%
Polearm 85%
Rapier 35%
Scythe 85%
Sword & Shield 85%

Combo Counter

ComboCounter

A 45-hit Combo Counter with a 2.5X Damage Multiplier

Each successful consecutive melee hit against enemies with a Melee weapon equipped within a short period of time will start a Combo Counter that appears above the weapon UI, which tracks how many hits have been performed. Once a certain number of consecutive hits have been made, a Damage Multiplier will be given to the Melee weapon, increasing the weapon's overall damage including any additional elemental damage. The Damage Multiplier increases as larger consecutive hit counts are achieved, allowing for greater damage against larger numbers of tougher enemies. The Combo Counter resets if no enemies are hit after 3 seconds, which can be increased up to 15 seconds with the Body Count mod.

The Bonus Damage Multiplier starts at 1.5X the weapon's base damage after five consecutive hits. The multiplier is increased by +.5X after achieving three times the number of hits of the previous multiplier, i.e. 15 consecutive hits yield a 2X Damage Multiplier, 45 consecutive hits yield 2.5X Damage, 135 hits yield 3X Damage, 405 hits yield 3.5x etc. The exact formula used for this formula is known to be y=(1/5.4)*9^x, where y denotes the combo hits while x represents the combo multiplier that needs certain ammount of hits to aquire.

The table below displays the values up to a damage multiplier of 10.0x.

(This is simply to make it plainly-evident how disproportionately-quickly the combo-chain-minimum increases, compared to the base-damage multiplier.)

Combo-Counter Bonus-Tier Total Base-Damage Multiplier Minimum Consecutive Hits Required
0 1.0X 0
1 1.5X 5
2 2.0X 15
3 2.5X 45
4 3.0X 135
5 3.5X 405
6 4.0X 1,215
7 4.5X 3,645
8 5.0X 10,935
9 5.5X 32,805
10 6.0X 98,415
11 6.5X 295,245
12 7.0X 885,735
13 7.5X 2,657,205
14 8.0X 7,971,615
15 8.5X 23,914,845
16 9.0X 71,744,535
17 9.5X 215,233,605
18 10.0X 645,700,815
5

5.5X Damage Multiplier Confirmed after 32,805 hits.

  • Currently there is no known limit to the Damage Multiplier, thus it's theoretically possible to attain massive damage multiplier numbers of 5X or more. In practice, the number of possible consecutive hits is limited by the number of enemies, their durability, and the player's skill at connecting combos to other enemies.
  • Certain Warframe abilities benefit from and contribute to the Melee Combo Counter, allowing them to further enhance their damage as the Combo Counter increases. The following are the list of abilities that use the Combo Counter:
  • Despite its name, the Combo Counter should not be confused with the Combos performed using Stance Mods. The Combo Counter will count all melee attacks performed while equipping Melee weapons, including stealth attacks.
  • The Combo Counter counts melee attacks performed while having Primary or Secondary weapons equipped. Immediately switching to a melee weapon within 3 seconds will show the amount of hits performed before the switch.
  • Melee hits against objects, like Mining Equipment, do not count towards the Combo Counter.
  • The Combo Counter does not increase the damage of prompted stealth attacks or prompted finisher attacks.

Charge Attacks

Chargeattack

An example of a charge attack.

Holding down the melee attack key while melee is equipped will perform a Charge Attack. After approximately 1 second of charging, the attack will release, dealing 3x damage (unconfirmed with non-sword weapons). It is still possible to sprint, slide, crouch, double jump, and bullet jump while charging, though double jumping and bullet jumping will have a lesser effect. Being knocked down will cancel the charge.

Some weapon types can have up to two different types of charge attacks, the type of attack performed being dependent on when during an attack chain the charge attack is begun, ex. the first type is performed if the charge is done after the first melee attack, while the second type is performed if the charge is done after the second melee attack in a chain, etc. Stances can further modify the attack timing necessary to perform the desired type of charge attack.

Charge attacks are generally precise melee attacks; melee weapons will be swung in the direction of the reticle and can more easily obtain headshots or more accurately hit targets.

Finishers

Finisher attacks have custom animations, and deal a very high percentage of the equipped melee weapon's total damage as Finishing damage –a special form of damage of apart from the standard Damage Types. Heavier weapons tend to perform this action slower than lighter weapons. Players performing finishers are immune to any kind of damage for the duration of the animation.

Finisher attack damage is dependent on the type of melee weapon used: 1200% total melee weapon damage for daggers, dual daggers, polearms, and staves; 2400% total melee weapon damage for hammers; and 1600% total melee weapon damage for all other weapon types.

The damage dealt by this attack can be increased by Finishing Touch, Banshee's Savage Silence, and Excalibur's Radiant Finish. As the weapon's total damage is accounted for, equipped mods (including critical chance and critical damage mods) will also affect the stealth attack's final damage.

Examples of finisher moves can be found in the gallery page.

Stealth Finisher

CBMeleeStealth
Main article: Stealth
Combo Approach unalerted enemy from behind + Melee
Stealthattack1

A stealth attack prompt on an unalerted Butcher

Stealthattack2

A Prisma Skana's stealth attack

Walk up behind an enemy who is unaware. Wait for the "stealth attack" prompt. Special enemies, such as Targets and Wardens, receive extra damage from stealth attacks; see the pages for details.

Ground Finisher

Combo Aiming at Downed Enemy + Melee
Groundfinisher

A ground attack finisher with a Prisma Skana.

Execute knocked-down enemies. This attack is performed upon moving close to a downed opponent, aiming your crosshair at the target and pressing the melee attack button. This will not work on most bosses. The damage done will be 400% of that of the melee weapon before resistances. This attack often will initiate even when not looking down at an enemy, but when contacting an enemy who has been knocked down.

Counterattack Finisher

ParryFinisher

An impaling finisher.

Counterattack1

A Butcher staggered by blocking while channeling, leaving him open to finishers

Counterattack2

A finisher with a Prisma Skana to the previously staggered Butcher

When parrying, activating Channeling just before an enemy strikes the player with a melee attack will grant a chance to stagger them—a move known as a Counterattack. While enemies are staggered, an attack prompt similar to stealth attacks will appear, allowing for Finisher moves to be performed.

  • The Parry mod gives a chance to automatically perform a counterattack against enemies while blocking with Channeling, reducing the need to time Channeling while parrying to perform a finisher.
  • Enemies stunned by Ash's Teleport, Valkyr's Paralysis, Excalibur's Radial Blind, Equinox's Rest and Ivara's Quiver sleep arrow act as if hit by a parrying counterattack, giving the attack prompt necessary to perform a finisher.
  • Retribution also initiates the stealth prompt on stunned enemies, allowing enemies to be killed by finishers without needing to block or use energy.
  • Another means of initiating Finishers is by performing certain Stance-based combos, like the headbutt in the Venging Thrash ​combo of Malicious Raptor.
  • When activated, the Justice effect of certain Steel Meridian-related equipment will stagger all enemies in a 25-meter radius, leaving them vulnerable to finishers.
  • Counterattack finishers can only be performed on non-humanoid Infested, and Robotic units like MOAs by certain weapons. For Infested, only Leapers and Crawlers can be executed by finishers.
  • Counterattack finishers are not affected by the damage increase through channeling (in contrast to the additional effects gained from channeling mods, which do apply)
  • If a staggered enemy's attack prompt is activated from their backs, a different rear finisher animation will play instead. The animation is also shared with stealth attacks.
    • Due to sharing the stealth-kill animation, it does not knock the foe down after the animation unlike the frontal attack.

Tips

  • For players wanting to specialize in melee combat, remapping the equipped melee attack key to LMB  can make performing attacks and melee combos easier and more instinctive. Quick melee attacks when using Primary or Secondary weapons are considered a separate keybinding, and can be kept in its default key E .
  • While doing charge attacks, the moment the swing does damage, immediately pressing the melee key will execute another charge attack, this can be repeated.

Bugs

  • Successfully blocking an attack while rolling can make a player unable to attack with their melee weapon. This is usually accompanied by a slight change in camera perspective where the camera is positioned slightly down while facing upwards. This bug can be resolved by performing a roll or dodge again.
  • Tapping the melee key slightly before landing causes the player to slide across the ground with minimal friction for a brief period.
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