Melee is hardmode

Only playing melee.

Sure it's not as ood as ranged, because ranged... is ranged.
It's in the very nature of "ranged" that it has an advantage.

But playing melee - if you want to do so - feels fine. Build tanky enough to survive most stuff, and hit it in the face. What's the deal?

"

Peterlerock wrote:

Only playing melee.

Sure it's not as ood as ranged, because ranged... is ranged.
It's in the very nature of "ranged" that it has an advantage.

But playing melee - if you want to do so - feels fine. Build tanky enough to survive most stuff, and hit it in the face. What's the deal?

i always have fun when I see several "OP" ranged builds getting one shoted by reflect. People don't really know what strong means

^part of the culprit in this design is the "everybody can play anything" design of the passive tree imo.

There are perfectly viable solution in other arpg's when it comes to this issue, like buff the EHP of melee players, however in PoE one has a hard time implementing this without actually buffing the entire passive tree. (there are however creative options available and i am amazed GGG has not yet utilized those)

Another thing is reflect, it proves to be counter-productive when trying to balance melee in the way you suggest (increased damage potential over ranged because they have to "hug the pack" to be effective) which is why i always advocate an increase in EHP, creating more endurance for melee utilizers over dps increase which lowers the endurance but also creates danger in other area's.

There are a lot of people for example that suggest in order to help out the 2-hand play-style they deserve an increase in damage, this however when implemented would result in more reflect dead's because of the status qua on EHP and increase in dps.(disregarding the fact this play-style usually has the lowest of all potential EHP available to them)

Obviously by far the biggest culprit in the state of melee is the game engine, but i am willing to ignore that fact at this point in time because the horse has already rotten away.

GGG has a very solid challenge in attempting to balance melee vs ranged in a FFA skill tree.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

blubbber wrote:

does every build have to be OP and atziri capable?
what happend to just playing for fun?
by far my favourite characer is my lvl 80 witch, because nothing feels better than punching enemies right in their face with a tiny little witch :) sure, I struggle with her in 75+ maps as my gear isn't optimal, but sooo much fun.... and blood... and bits and pieces.. and more blood... and fun!! :)

+1

I got sick of hearing "can it do Atziri?" to a lot of people when talking about builds.

Pretty sure most builds can do Atziri if you have an understanding for the fights.

"

terrex wrote:

Pretty sure most builds can do Atziri if you have an understanding for the fights.

I like how we are seeing from most recent uber atziri attempts that it's really just about dps and movement - a skilled player with enough dps and enough practice on the fights can learn to almost take no damage.

"

Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Frankly, I'd say it was well beyond their ability. Blizzard gave up on just one component of PoE's skill system (skill modifications as drops), so to expect a fledgling company to get it right is pretty outlandish.

But damn if they haven't given it a hell of a shot.

100% agree with you on this, given there situation and experience one cannot blame them for there attempts.

Even more so, the thing that works against them, if handled correctly can be utilized to solve the issue. Which is quite an elegant design if you ask me. The openness of the system is both it's strength and it's weakness. It is but a matter of perspective when approaching it.(referring to the passive tree here, not the engine, just noting it since some people might be confused otherwise)

Creativity within the passive tree can easily solve the current issue/disparity present between ranged and melee. It would however move away from complete freedom then.(from a min-max point of view, not necessarily for all players) But i think this is already the case so no harm would be done by enforcing it a little more.

Peace,

-Boem-

This is why god gave us ground slam.

I will attempt to face atziri's cleavage with my own in beyond today... Many rips will be had.

What i will be listening to before the fight

"

Pyrokar wrote:

I will attempt to face atziri's cleavage with my own in beyond today... Many rips will be had.

What i will be listening to before the fight

I hope you won't have to listen to Gates of Valhalla after.

"

Charanjaydemyr wrote:

I always play for fun. It's sort of what 'play' means to me. It's part of why I lambasted the latest build of the week, an Atziri killer. Seriously. All the possible combos out there, all the amazing ideas and innovating playstyles, and they pick a virtual cookie-cutter for offing an optional boss.

I STILL have the most fun with my itty bitty high 40s ES/EV Shadow smoke mine assassin build. STILL.

Agreed, that was a pretty poor choice. IMO, build of the week should be about highlighting the amazing possibilities that PoE offers. People keep complaining a bout how limited the game is, but it is only limited if your criteria whether a character is successful or not is based on its DPS and Atziri capability. There are however so many fun combinations in this game, yeah they will never get you past lvl 60-70ish but killing merc dominus is pretty much endgame, anything after that is optional. Personally I like having 1 or 2 powerful characters that can do maps, for a bit of variety inbetween and seeing that part of content, but I am a hopeless altoholic, low levels is where the real fun is at for me, every skill and whacky combo is still viable and level-ups and progress comes regularly. 'endgame' is just an huge grind, fun at times too but pretty repetitive


ps I have never even seen atziri and most likely never will, don't have a single exalt but the game is fun so /whatever :)