Borderlands – Swordsplosion melee bonus meaning Borderlands 2

Override skills such as Scorn are not affected by the following +Melee Damage bonuses:

• +50% Melee Damage weapon statistic (Tested with Bad Touch Flakker)
• +% Melee Damage Relic (Tested with +23% Melee Damage "Strength Relic")
• +% Damage by Brand Relic while wielding a gun of that brand (Tested with +24% Maliwan Damage "Allegiance Relic")
• Roid Damage (Tested with Bandit "Slo Maylay Shield" with 13k Roid Damage)
• Amp Damage (Tested with Hyperion "The Bee" with 49k Amp Damage)

(All tests done as a Level 50 Maya with Scorn; Scorn dealt 722 damage per beam on every test. Melee damage Badass Ranks and +% Melee Damage talents untested as I have no available Tokens and Maya has no talents with +% Melee Damage.)

Yes, Melee damage deals crits; most easily seen on Crystalisks. Note it can be hard to actually see "critical" (and the damage number) pop up when you're in melee range.

The different classes' Melee attacks, while dealing the same damage, "feel" a bit different thus it's easier to get critical his with some than others. I've found it much easier to aim Zero's melee for a critical hit than Maya's, for example. I'm not sure if the actual range/location is different, or if Zero's attack animation just makes it easier to determine the exact point of impact, however.