Is it just me, or do the melee companions all seem to be trash. Just sponges to soak up the extra hits of the enemies, ie. repel boarders, ripost, overwatch, strike first ect. Mine seem to miss more then my ranged. Even with all the accy talents i can buy them. Mine also seem to do no more damage then my ranged ones. Nor do they have more HP Dodge or Armor to soak up this damage. I always find my Melee Companions at the bottom of my list. I cringe when they show up in battle. Heck I've even taken to killing them off and leaving them ghosts so I can get extra ZZZ's for them in a way. What's the deal?

drwe on Dec 15, 2013 wrote:

Is it just me, or do the melee companions all seem to be trash. Just sponges to soak up the extra hits of the enemies, ie. repel boarders, ripost, overwatch, strike first ect. Mine seem to miss more then my ranged. Even with all the accy talents i can buy them. Mine also seem to do no more damage then my ranged ones. Nor do they have more HP Dodge or Armor to soak up this damage. I always find my Melee Companions at the bottom of my list. I cringe when they show up in battle. Heck I've even taken to killing them off and leaving them ghosts so I can get extra ZZZ's for them in a way. What's the deal?

It is not just you, but melee companions are not trash either. I admit that my Musketeer vastly prefers musketeers over melee crew in most fights, but that is because of the team epics he has available. Give Buccaneers team epic vengeance strike and flanking and you will see all melee teams in PvP. Really, a companion is mostly as good as his epic talents, and Melee epic talents really are as good as ranged epic talents overall. There are tricks to use that maximize any companion's utility, and each type of companion is best for a different circumstance. For instance, melee units can move, then attack on the same round. This fact allows them to hide from the ranged units' attacks just before they charge in for their own attacks. It also allows them to flank and do a normal attack in the same round, but crossfire requires the unit to move (usually), so the musketeer gets only one attack. Also, overwatch will not trigger if the approaching unit is already inside the threshold range for overwatch, but repel borders will trigger so long as the approaching unit moves through an empty space immediately before reaching the repelling unit. These are just examples of the many tricks you can use to make any type of unit fight like a boss.