>>545615065
take all of these at minimum to make it feel usable
there's some other melee nodes in the tree too but they're not necessary for all builds
also how are you having trouble keeping enemies away? are you pushing often enough? because between pushing and the electrocution effect I find it one of the easier weapons to use for crowd control
you shouldn't even bother with the special attack if there's more than a couple of elites on you since it locks you into an animation for a second, but yeah it's fun and being able to stunlock multiple bulwarks at a time right through their shields just by spamming the special at them