Can we increase overall dps by alternating with melee attack

Question

In Overwatch we have a melee attack. Mei's melee punch causes the same damage as Genji's melee sword strike - 30 points. Each melee attack takes 1 second.

I know that if Roadhog runs out of ammo and then uses his chain hook, then it doesn't improve his overall DPS. What happens is, after hooking, Roadhog will still have to reload. I often end up in a situation where my Roadhog is reloading after I successfully hook them.

However, many players incorporate melee attacks. It's as if melee attacks are good even though the DPS is much lower than their own ranged attack.

Genji, for example, does 84 DPS with his shurikens - yet sometimes does melee too.

The only explanation I can think of is that melee improves DPS. So DPS on melee is an addition instead of replacing the other attacks.

Am I correct?

Can anyone give details?

Answer 1

Melee does 30 DPS which is lower than any primary attack so its not viable to use constantly and all the time.

There are some exceptions where you can and in fact should use melee:

1. The developers state that melee can be used to cancel ability animation. Instead of waiting for the animation to end you can quickly sneak a melee attack.
2. More importantly melee is used to output just a little bit more damage when you have nothing else to do. Genji has so much ammo at his disposal to do 84 DPS, after which, he needs to reload, so does Mei. When you're in the middle of a fight, and you're out of ammo you can melee as a last hope, or if you have some ability - melee and use that (melee + Mei's Cryo-Freeze, melee + Genji's Swift Strike)
3. Sometimes you can see you need only so much damage to finish the kill and it would be much faster to do melee damage than it would be to even do a normal attack. Roadhog's primary attack after a hook does plenty damage and most heroes would be released from a stun by the time you can shoot again, so melee in this case is guaranteed damage to the enemy.

Extra proof of 30 DPS melee: http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Melee

Answer 2

It will never be an increase in "overall dps" but can be higher burst damage as it will happen instantly without having to wait for the normal firing cooldown.

So for instance with Genji, the reason you see people use melee is you can use Right-click followed by an immediate melee to get an extra 30 damage, but then you have to wait for the melee animation to finish before doing anything else, so if you aren't finishing your target off, it's not really worth it. This was the premise behind the "Genji combo" that was recently nerfed, you could cancel the melee animation with a dash for another 50 damage, but with the most recent patch you have to wait for the melee to complete.

This works for almost any class, you'll even see Winstons and such using a punch on low-hp enemies to finish them off quicker than his normal fire would allow.

Answer 3

Although adding melees will not increase your overall dps, it can still be quite useful. This is because calculated dps is a theoretical number that doesn't actually matter in most game situations. You're not continuously damaging a large target that absorbs all your bullets all game. Much of the time, you have nothing to shoot at. It's best to reload during these times, rather than when you're actively fighting.

So, I use melee attacks to extend the amount of time I can do damage before having to reload. If somebody is right next to me, I might as well punch them, rather than wasting a round from my gun that I could use on a more distant target. Also, it's often easier to hit them with a melee when they are very close than it is to hit them with a gun. I can easily melee a Genji jumping back and forth over my head, whereas I would likely miss them with most weapons. Missed shots have zero dps.

Of course, all this depends on the hero you're using. Winston's gun can't shoot distant targets, but pretty much auto-hits close ones, and Roadhog has a shotgun that can easily hit close mobile targets, for instance.