Three changes around melee combat, with two targeting the most exploitable weapons on both sides, reining in Fireteam knife rushing and the Shock Gauntlet’s stun-lock, and also making the Predator’s Shield worth equipping, since it’s currently useless.
Starting with the knife, because:
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Parrying the Predator is far too easy and carries no risk. A lone knife rusher can parry attacks and follow up with the knife, and a missed parry costs nothing, so there’s no reason not to spam it.
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The tap-melee quick-swing has short animation gaps and auto-returns to the gun, letting players throw rapid swipes and cancel the recovery to chain a swipe straight into a gun shot.
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Knife swings cost no stamina, so there’s no cap on how long a Fireteam member can keep swinging.
Proposal 1: A three-part fix to Fireteam melee.
• Add a short self stun to the Fireteam member whenever a knife swing connects with the Predator. This forces a recovery window between swipes, caps melee DPS, and nullifies the swing-into-shot cancel, since the stun prevents immediately firing or chaining another swing off the back of a hit.
• Add a longer self-stun whenever the Fireteam member parries the Predator. Tying the parry to a longer self-stun turns it from a no-risk, spam move into a strategic survival move.
• Add a stamina cost to each knife swing. This removes the ability to spam the knife indefinitely and forces players to manage melee like any other resource.
Together these reduce knife-rushing DPS, make parries a genuine risk/reward decision, and close the animation-cancel and stamina-free spam exploits in a single pass.
Next, the Shock Gauntlet, because:
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Its range lets the Predator land the stun from far enough away that there’s no warning and no way to react.
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It works straight through walls and cover, so positioning doesn’t matter, because the stun lands regardless of what’s between the Predator and the target.
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With no real cooldown, it can be spammed repeatedly, chain-stunning a target with no recovery window.
Proposal 2: Reduce the Shock Gauntlet’s effective range, require line of sight so walls and objects block it, and increase the cooldown between charges. This keeps it a real threat up close while removing the ability to stun through cover or spam it from range with no counterplay.
Last, the Shield, because:
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It has zero offensive capability, because you can’t attack from behind it, and the only option is a weak wrist-blade swipe. It does nothing to pressure the Fireteam.
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The Predator can’t sprint while it’s raised, sacrificing the core of Predator combat (hit, disengage, reposition) for a purely passive block the Fireteam can simply ignore.
Proposal 3: Allow the Predator to sprint while the Shield is raised, and give it a bash attack that pushes back any Fireteam member it hits. This turns the Shield from a stationary, do-nothing block into a real tool that is usable on the move and able to create openings instead of just absorbing damage until the Predator gives up and switches weapons.
