cmp, do you think it's good that both players take damage when one player times their attack better than the other? Try being hoplite/spearman or lancer when they charge eachother, or lancer vs. lancer. I find it ridiculous that one of the more exciting challenges in the game, which result is always defined within a
very small timing window, now get's both of the players damaged. Yes, I know that there's reduced damage for the player who gets hit last (now), but if you don't make any mistake, why should you take damage, or even die because of it? It promotes backstabbing cavalry yet again (like the reduced lance angle), and I guess it might promote longer spears like pike/long spear instead of war spears/forks, which (other) people complains dumb down the melee part of the game.
As for the rest of the melee part, I've yet to experience a lot of it and won't bring any complaining or praise for that (yet), since my appearances on EU1 stopped when what I mentioned above happened. One-shot by people I outreach.