Using Melee Weapons (in General)

Is it viable to upgrade a melee weapon as a source of secondary damage and is it worth the cost of doing so?

So far, I am using a tat for my main source of damage but I was wondering if I needed a secondary source of damage to combat GA/AMF. The only real possibility would be for me to squeeze in a melee weapon but I wanted to make sure it was viable financially before I made the leap.

The only reason I am considering a melee weapon is due to the fact that other than a few certain "huge tanks" I can successfully drain most tanks with a reasonable sized exbow, thanks to a big EC. Upgrading it seems to be fairly meaningless. This EC also ensures that I will be protected against most other exbow users if i do rely on melee damage and also gives me near 100% dex cth against most targets.

So given my situation, should I be looking to use a melee weapon? I have some doubts since melee weapons are not very common nowadays (as opposed to relying on archers for physical damage) and the cost of upgrading one is fairly steep.

Additionally, if one were to invest in a melee weapon to combat the effects of AMF/GA on mages, which weapon would be preferable? I was leaning towards MH since it has the innate drain. All opinions are welcome! :)

No

In the wise words of Jon Stewart: "Go onnnnnnn." :P

Still confused as ever :S

I'd say the above setup is one of the few where the melee weapons is borderline worth using. But only borderline.
The current level of the ToA grants a +179 to both weapons, IIRC (out of BA right now, can't check).
I have been considering dropping the melee weapon altogether or maybe upgrading it more, but, eh, it's about as large as I am comfortable with right now.

In your case however... I wouldn't know what to say.
Vampiric weapons deal very roughly -20% raw damage compared to a similar non-leeching weapon, and the health leech is not that great compared to a heavy-duty spell, so I'd say just go for max raw damage instead of minor leech.
I would have gone with the BoNE instead of the ELS, but I wouldn't have liked the switchover blank and the DX penalties, so, eh, again.

Can you explain why your setup is "borderline worth using"?
I was messing around with melee weapons earlier in my NUB run and abandoned it because I had a x2000 MH or so and a x2000 exbow and the two seemed to be doing comparable damage in melee rounds, which was surprising. Can you give the damages done by the ELS and ELB as well?

Best to pick a missile weapons, most likely a SoD and just pump it up. Instead of splitting NW between 2 weapons.

I don't have that option because the ranged slot is occupied by exbow.

Then get your exbow up to x10k and as high a + as you can for the NW/ENC and forget out a melee weapon. That strat works perfectly for Areo.

x10k seems to be the highest upgraded needed for almost all cases for the exbow to leech 100+% of strength. Higher + is just to overcome DB.

But I would almost never use a melee weapon except a lower level MoD with a SoC in some rare cases.