Good post, brother

Interesting post, but personally I disagree with several of the suggestions, for example amongst others those concerning the power axe and power hammer as well as the block skill of the shield. Also 'Knockback' which I find to be highly effective and adds flavour/immersion to the game.

But, the post does highlight some confusion on my part as to weapon balance. At the moment and, I do accept that it may be because there are many aspects of the game yet to be activated, some weapon types do not seem to be a viable choice, when we do not know what type of mobs we are going to be facing when making deciding what to equip. The skill mix of the various weapons seems to make some a better choice for a load out then others when running solo missions; I do  understand that it could be a design decision with co-op missions in mind.

Obviously if the order of mission selection and inventory selection was reversed much of this alter.

Again, as you say a personal perspective.

One of my characters uses a power hammer and shield load out, and dual pistols on the other. Most of the time I will use the pistols to take out the opposition, but occasionally I find that the hammer and shield is more effective. For example, when | want to take out a warp gate, because with Strike, I can clear a path to the gate and, as necessary use block to reduce the punishment from all the mobs that it spews forth ( I believe that if you hold the button down it is activated for up to 3 seconds when it triggers again, with the aura surrounding the character showing when it is up). The knock back also comes in handy when I am being swarmed by nurglings and, again want to clear a path to a better spot to trigger Discharge. the combo also works out better for me when taking down dreadnoughts and, those apostles who regenerate unless you stun them, etc.

Whether Strike is on the LMB or RMB does not really bother me but, given how the game is designed to utilise the first 2 skills of a weapon when dual wielding, I can see why the mouse buttons might be fixed; all other keyboard controls can be configured.

I have to say, I absolutely love 2h hammer. I run all of my missions with 2h hammer and dual bolt pistols. I love the added mobility of the leaping attack and the AoE damage/stun is nice. The range attack that hits enemies in a row is nice, just requires a little setup. The LMB attack is pretty nice against the squishies. I do not care for the RMB attack as i find it inefficient. I have not found a 1h/shield combo I would take over my 2h (although, I have ran with a grav pistol and shield as backup before getting my second purple bolt pistol). I find 2h hammer to be the most satisfying of the melee weapons.

Hmm, when I get a decent 2H hammer, I might try that. How doe you find the 2 H hammer fare in the more 'punishing' situations?

I stay mobile and use the destructible environment quite a lot. If I were to try and stand toe to toe with a Dreadnought or a Hellbrute with their minions, I'm going to die real quick. I pull the minions away, kill them, then come back and I very quickly beat most elites to death. What I can say is I find the 2h hammer to be far more reliant on the activatable skills. If your fighting several enemies, you must line them up and use the ability mapped to the 2 key. If you're being swarmed, or before every fight, or every time it comes off cooldown, you must use the ability mapped to the 1 key (I'll try to edit this later when I can login to the game and get the actual skill names). If you ever want to see it in action, shoot me a steam invite or a game invite and I'll run through an instance or two so you can see how much fun it is (name is the same as here on the forum). Disclaimer: I am using a purple hammer and the majority of my gear is purple.

Can't edit the earlier post, but the skill mapped to 1 is Thundering Leap and the skill mapped to 2 is Shockwave

Thanks for the answering replies.

I did try the hammer last night, but discovered a significant bug (subject of another thread). Have to admit that it before those issues it was more effective then I had imagined it would be and, that may result in my revising my views on some of the other melee weapons. 

big fan of the toggle ability for deflection boost, rather than the current ability which is really awkward. Nice. 

I wanted to add to the discussion and feedback  here.

Shield

I think the shield is worthless at the moment. The trade off between two handed damage vs the increased defense of 1 handed and board feels poor.

The OP give good advice and suggestions on ways to make it more viable and fun. I agree with mostly all the suggestions and analysis but like to contribute with some more options.

You can make the 1 ability work as a cover for a set amount of time consuming a fixed amount of focus. Similar to option 7c of the OP but different mechanics. That way it will be a force to be reckoned as you will mitigate damage as well as recover some suppression and health. You can adjust the movement speed to a very low turtle stance so it wont became too powerful.

Greatwsword 

It needs a bit more punch to make it a viable contender to the Eviscerator. Another solution, assuming we are using a two handed power sword and not a chunk of iron, will be to add Armor Piercing to the Blade Fury and Armor Breaking to the Crippling Strike. 

The whirlwind attack DoT feels week. You have to hit and kill the enemies afflicted or they will tear you apartar in the time it takes for the DoT to finish them.

Knockback

Due to the speed and mobility in the game I feel that the Knockback abilities in melee weapons are to detrimental. Enough for people to directly avoid such weapons. I think a general suggestion will be to swap Knockback for Knockdown mechanics.

All in all, melee feels very good for an alpha state. Keep up the good work!