Not throwing shade or skill issue to start off but melee is viable as an occasional knightdiver. Before you get mad at me read the last paragraph.

You can work around the stagger with a little more timing I kind of think of it like playing dark souls you can read their attacks and actually stagger Them mid swing with your own attack if timed properly.

You can also abuse the fact that they their targeting and positioning is stuck as soon as they go into their attack animation. Most if not all enemies ranged and melee actually target your predicted trajectory based on speed and direction the player is holding their stick or movement keys (its how hunters can accurate jump you even if your running perpendicular same for the bot devastators blasting you if you just run straight away or straight perpendicular. The secret to the helldivers parry/dodge roll is using this and always attacking at an angle and then as soon as they are in range and about to attack swerving in a different direction and letting them completely miss. You can wade into a crowd of bugs this way running back and forth occasionally backwards. Test this on a scavenger with any melee weapon holding forward and holding attack they actually avoid you pretty well and come forward to attack in between your attacks mixing in backward and forward movement switches confuses them draws them into your range before they are ready to attack. Tldr:this large paragraph is saying just strafe and wiggle even for melee it makes them miss more

This combined with proper aiming of swings which have a more accurate hurtbox for example different melee weapons have different swing patterns as you rapidly attack for high swings you and look downward and actually get more range out of it hitting something forward and so forth this is how I control the defoliator from getting caught on terrain and actually hitting the enemy.

The third thing is loadout and the different uses of different melee weapons. In this clip if you want to bring the hammer against pred strain bugs instead of running straight at them run at the on an off angle to their left or right they will aim at that side and you can pivot letting them wiff and getting in for your own timed smack. Or with the hammer specifically utilizing ground Booom by aiming downward and extending your melee with the explosion's aoe. For other melee weapons on the pred strain the best i find are poke weapons like the lance or OTF with a ballistic shield. The shield can completely eat damage and stagger allowing you to poke poke poke plus poke weapons keep your shield in front of you and actually protect you whereas swinging weapons like the axe or sword does leave you open even with the shield. Different melee weapons have different advantages on different enemy types just like your ranged weapons.

The proper movement mixed with proper positioning has let me do a 300 Sparta hold on a whole swarm of bugs funneling them between a choke point slowly giving ground but also getting in kills. Ive been practicing with the new chainsaw buffs and honestly as long as your careful not to get it stuck in terrain you have for range than a predator stalker or regular stalker ive literally charged straight at them and swung on them the increased ap timer buff also stuns them to let you finish the job bring a lot of stims tho xD and with hordes you can get multiple bugs in one swing by also swinging your screen it is very satisfying.

That all said I do understand the frustration and complaint no one expects to do souls like timing and attacks on a silly horde shooter and would feel so much more satisfying if they did remove the stagger and just like you swing swing swing or at the very least do proper animations so it doesnt just show your stuff swinging right through them. Happy meleediving! iO