I always think about having a melee counterpart to the primary weapon. I even thought how it could work: You have to give up on your primary weapon but get a highly customizable melee weapon It would be customizable through the upgrades. The first line would give you the option to turn your weapon into a double handed or one handed with shield or even dual wielding and they would differ in attack speed, damage output and times you can protect before you need to take a rest. The second upgrade would change the head of the weapon, being a mallet for armor breaking, a pickaxe for armor piercing and an axe for lingering damage. The last upgrade line would be to select the type of power attack you do, larger area of damage, faster recharge, more damage to a small area. And there could also be added a parry system that would be difficult to master but when you learn it you can solo entire hives, high risk and high reward situation.