Melee combat scripting - Colliders, raycasting or other options?

So I understand both of these concepts for use with a melee and ranged combat system but I am wondering are there other ways of useful information and techniques that some of you guys use for doing melee stuff. The game I am working on needs to have a solid melee combat foundation but I am not sure which is the best method.

To me using raycasting seems like a more simple way because then all combat could use the same raycasting method with variables to adjust the range and maybe raycasting arcs, the other option is attaching colliders to all melee weapons, this way when the character swings any weapon if the weapon edge hits something it can trigger the damage that way.

Any thoughts guys?

 

I would go with trigger colliders instead of raycasting on this one

 

Depends a lot on the genre / gameplay of your game.

 

3rd person action combat with fixed camera controlled character, like over the shoulder locked shooter but for melee