If you bothered reading the blog blog about the Nova Knife you would know that the blade is surrounded by hot plasma which means it can cut through any dropsuit easy.
Also if you want to kill someone in an armor with a kinfe you might want to stab him because clearly you can't cut the jugular or other arteries since they are protected...which is why slash instant melee are silly in FPS to begin with and why Halo, KZ have animation stabbing melee!

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As I said you don't use a knife to cut through an armor you use it to pierce/stab through it.

Don't mistake animation melee with instant kill.
Instant Kill is COD, animations driven melee is Riddick, The Darkness 1 & 2 KZ and Halo.

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What then: Nova Knife is there here but CCP could not come out with an idea (lore) to make it truly effective!
They HAD to make a melee because all FPS has it but didn't think bout making it good.
And before you say something read this:



Does it sound right to you that to have melee as good as in any other FPS you must make yourself a "glass soldier".

Lore can't matter more then anything, more then gameplay, not in a video game!

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But this is what CCP wants, this is how they intended things for us.
To have a decent melee, as decent as in other FPS, you HAVE to sacrifice the rest and transform yourself into a "glass melee soldier"...all in a game based on range combat and on GUNS

The only obstacle to a good melee is CCP obsession with RPG skills, nothing more.