Meele Combat - why?

[Zepar72]

I've read lots of older and newer topics about this, but I would like someone to explain it for me properly. What exactly does Meele Combat do. Do weapon attacks rely on it (even if they say damage according to weapon) and if not, is there any point in leveling it except for Block and Parry?

[Vigilance]

if you're horrendously lazy you can just button mash your melee attacks like sideswipe or quick barrage and shield up gives you a goofy amount of weight

in general optimal usage it is flat out terrible to level only melee because it's just infinitely better to open with unarmed moves and the unarmed manuevers are more fun.

[azrid]

MC is good because you can do openings on 5 different dungeon monsters with storm of swords.

[NeoBasilisk]

Weapon damage (the actual HP damage inflicted) is calculated by the base weapon damage and I believe modified by strength. This is not affected by your MC level.
However, the openings caused on the enemy by that very same attack are increased by your MC level. If you have 1 MC, your melee attack will not increase the openings on your enemy at all, but it will still do heavy damage if the enemy already has high openings.

[KitsuneG]

Weapon damage... I believe...

If there was a formula somewhere for weapon damage.. oh wait, on every weapon page =))

http://ringofbrodgar.com/wiki/Hirdsman%27s_Sword

But yes, MC skill not affect on end damage at all.

[Aceb]

Very simple answer:

UA and MC usages are to create openings on your enemy.

The higher the value, the higher the opening per attack will be.
Damage is calculated only by quality and type of weapon + strenght and it doesn't matter if You're using UA or MC.

UA is considered better than MC, because MC moves are very limitted while UA has wide enough selection.