Ok, so I’ve been at level 100 for a while, and have devoted by far most of my playing to Rath & Galilea, both of whom I have mastered.
Galilea is by far my favourite, with her combination of sword & board snd survival abilities.
My options of other characters are sadly a bit limited, as my 4 friends on my team all use Oscar Mike, Reyna, Miko, and KLEESE / Isic almost every match.
Who are some other top tier characters I could try?
Thanks in advance.
Personally I enjoy Phoebe and Shayne most. As you´ve already experience with melees you should´nt have a problem. S&A have great AOE & range capabilities as well, her boomerang is underappreciated often 
If you play meltdown give el dragon a shot. By far the best wave clear hero and insane dps. But he’s not as easy to play as rath
This has nothing to do with melee, but I’d give Benedict a try. He just got a whole lot stronger and is very rewarding to play and master.
As far as melee, I find S&A kind of similar to Gali. I also find El Dragon the skilled version of Rath, but more dominate in the right hands. Run a shard gen, wrench, and attack speed on El Dragon to get to 5 as fast as possible and then just wreck face.
I love Rath en Galilea too. I also like Phoebe, Deande and Shayne & Aurox. They’re great melee characters, I think Phoebe is the best to try I have only mastered Ambra so far, but completed a lot of lores. After starting Battleborn with Orendi I played a lot of melee characters and I love them the most!
Boldur is the obvious one.
Then Phoebe
Try pickiing a melee cc based BB. S&A and Kelvin fit that description granted they are far from being mindless as Gailiea and Rath.
Once you unlock her mutations, Phoebe can hit insane damage per hit and attacks scarily fast (still not as fast as all attack speed Galilea though). But El Dragõn is an excellent choice if you have the skill and patience to learn him. Shayne has good survivability as well
I deeply admire any player who actually plays El Drágon well - I tried him once and it was a DESASTER. He´s clearly a high finesse char, his movement skills confused me alot >.<
I did a couple rounds each last night with Ambra, Boldur, S&A.
The results were…less than impressive.
Going to give Phoebe and ED a try this afternoon.
Thanks for the input!
Boldur’s a pretty different one. You largely have to play defensively and carefully until you get your ultimate - his dash is kinda slow, he doesn’t hit too hard and he isn’t a great pusher. Fortunately, if your friends regularly bring along Mike, ISIC and Miko, that should be plenty of the support Boldur needs to get there.
And when you get that ultimate, it’s kinda confusing too. Basically, it increases damage (until you toss your axe) and grants healing from blocking damage (until you dash), so while it’s active you’ll have to be careful about using those abilities. While you’re level 5, USE THE ULTIMATE CONSTANTLY - the duration of its effects last until you use your other abilities so there’s no reason being without its buffs while it’s available to cast. Correspondingly, feel free to use your other abilities while the ultimate is off cooldown anyway since there’s no point wasting the buffs by just refreshing them!
S&A’s a lot less direct than Gali or Rath and more opportunistic. As a Rath player, I’m certain you know the value of joining into a fight that’s happening from an unexpected angle and that is especially amplified in the case of S&A as losing their shields will reduce their melee damage. Naturally, Stealth Strike gives them little reason to not succeed in trying to do so, and Fetch is a far more powerful ability with friends to benefit as well. Try to keep moving around the map with S&A to keep searching for these opportunities (while not ignoring the minions, of course!). Again, having ISIC around to occupy the enemy’s attention should help you nicely. Also, if you get behind them with Stealth Strike, quick melee them toward your team for additional “Hah I made your positioning wrong” fun before you later Fetch.
Ambra, I’d say to try again after Thursday’s patch 
I’m pretty hopeful it’ll turn her into a very aggressive healer though.
Again, folks, thanks for all the tips!
Have yet to try El Dragon.
Will do soon.
Tried Phoebe today.
Had a pretty good time.
But, didn’t find her spectacular.
But then.
BUT THEN.
I finally tried Thorn, after seeing her wreck s**t in matches for months and hearing about her awesomeness.
I have most definitely found my new character to master!
I think I wouldn’t have felt as comfortable using her today if I hadn’t been playing Uncharted 4 multiplayer almost exclusively for the last 2-3 weeks.
In UC4 multiplayer, if you don’t get good at finding cover and VERY ACCURATELY firing your guns / throwing your grenades / mysticals, you do not survive long.
And that seems to be essentially how Thorn plays.
It’s a pleasant change keeping my distance, finding opportunities to rush up and strike or use my R1 / Ultimate, just wrecking wave after wave of minions, building buildables constantly with my shards per second / reduced building cost gear, being able to literally wipe out a Sentry’s entire shield with R1/Ultimate…played 6 Incursions as her in a row today and had a BLAST!