Well title is pretty self explanatory, I was just thinking, “you know what would be cool? A melee spec”. Now obviously trying to balance a melee spec would be a nightmare since itd have to be stun immune otherwise theyd die in seconds after being stunlocked by 3 warriors.
But yeah just wanted to see what people thought of it.
patrice
My admin abuse wasn’t enough to make the B18 melee specialist idea better than a marine with an Mk2.
Better idea shotgun spec.
A long time ago the mercenary/freelancer ERT had a chance to spawn one of their goons with nothing but a claymore (the sword). If you put the marine machete in your off hand, you could stack parry chances with both weapons. As back then certain weapons and objects had a chance to parry attacks including disarms.
It was still highly dependent on RNG and your odds were very poor. But doing so I managed to kill a few xenos who were trying to tackle spam me before finally going down. Much to the annoyance of dchat. Even back with the parry mechanic a melee specialist wouldn’t work as its dependent entirely on the xenos running up to you.
Made even less viable gentlefood because nowadays block (formerly parry) does not stack.
so TGMC vali 
Coming from TGMC and very, very much enjoying Vali- it’d likely have to have a very flashy telegraph on who was the melee spec and some sort of hard counter like Queen’s neuro or something to keep frustration from becoming absolutely insane. Otherwise, I feel like with the way CM is balanced it’s gonna be difficult for the melee spec to be satisfying to both play as and fight against DESPITE the fact that I yearn for exactly this- it’s why Spec remains my favorite, the mere idea of melee kills on bugs fucking rules!
But, ultimately, you’re gonna have a guy that the bugs have to contract carpal tunnel to put down after shuffling 500 tiles from the front, and then the guy who basically HAS to have insane melee stats to be able to get xeno kills at all or else just face the experience of melee that is >bug just runs away.
In essence, I’d love to see it happen, but genuinely am unsure if CM can support such a thing.
I used to be against it until they made ranged xenos more viable (sentinel or spitter or whatever). Now that I see the sanctity of the contrast has been shivved violently and left to bleed out on the rocky street, I’m more in favor.
So yeah, do it. Give a specialist a big state of the art shield and a special short barrel shotgun. As in, it shoots buck that loses effectiveness past 1 tile so you gotta PB with it permanently.
Melee Specialist would not fit the theme or “vibe” of the Colonial Marines in any capacity.
Sticking some 18 to 20+ year old with a giant machete, weird armour, and telling them to charge at the giant alien monsters, or enemy rebels with GUNS, is something I’d expect on TGMC, or Wh40k. Not for a Colonial Marine of the Aliens universe.
That’s also another v salient point- the flavor of CM just doesn’t match up with melee at all. In none of the movies do Marines really get melee (pointy sticks, though…) and the machete is the only real flavorful way to get away with it, it’s just underwhelming and leaves you wanting. I can empathize, but it’s also just not how it is here.
I am against this. Does not fit the atmosphere at all.
No,
They had to nerf swords and a bunch of other stuff after the scout spec was slaughtering xenos in cloak.
I can only imagine the changes you would have to make to make a melee viable. Its the kind of role that is a constant headache when someone works out that a crowbar oneshots xenos because of weird math…and has to be hotparched… again.
Further you would have to buff it and make it viable enough that someone would pick it over sniper/sadar/scout. Which is a mess
You already have melee spec. Its called synthetic. 
And goes to highlight the balance nightmare. Synths hit like cardboard for a bit after they changed melee because of scout. But then had to go back and revert the changes and nerf the damage of the specific item instead
I want to say it was the replica katana…
If management won’t do funny admin abuse with it why should it be regular?
patrice moment
RU-CM has an interesting take on a melee spec that’s a dude with B18, a shield, a tac shotty and a breaching hammer
Shotgun spec; has a “Breacher Shotgun”, but it actually isn’t total ass, as in, it functions like a Breacher, but actually does damage as well, and can take various different shells.
Basically the class would be a frontline clearer and “Breacher” build, with decent armor, probably not as good as the Grenadier, but along those lines. Probably should require you to be wearing your armor to wield the shotgun, otherwise you’d get Marines running around in light armor with the good shotgun.
I would imagine a melee spec being sourced from Weyland-Yutani. The spec would be equiped with a special suit that injects multiple different kind of chems to counter xeno stun/slows. It could be balanced with limited charges/duration and would require recharges at a weymed vendor. The suit itself would need to be cumbersome/unergonomic grip where you cannot use long rifles and would mainly use a melee weapon/smg one handed.
But this is likely a stretch and not sure if it fits the lore or theme of CM.
EDIT:
I guess you could consider a potential heavily modified [Apesuit] meant for melee/cqc. (Apesuit | Xenopedia | Fandom)