Until melee is fixed, a lot of people will not comeback.

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goetzjam wrote:

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Regarding low life builds, iamstryker is pretty much correct, the concept of "low life" in POE is broken, its not really the original design premise of low life.

Pre shav, and in most other RPG's/ARPG's, low life builds are ones where the character gets extreme bonuses for being almost dead, and thats relevant to you real life pool (which in PoE includes your ES)

PoE doesn't have real low life builds, every "low life" build in PoE uses a Shav/Solaris and stacks ES. This is hardly surprising, due to how punishing the mechanics are in PoE in regards to defense (there are so many ways to die in PoE, and there are very little mechanics/abilities which lets you deal with that, i.e. counter blocks/shields)

The concept IMO isn't broken its the addition of the item with practically no drawbacks that is. Granted something will always be "on top" this chest just kinda of points most players in its direction.

I guess players are forgetting that es to life ratio is typically 2:1 in regards to surviability (in general) So a player with 5k ES (low life without great gear) has roughly 2.5k life equiv, minus the ability to use life flask to recover.

Saying PoE doesn't have real low life builds is incorrect. The build by nature in PoE (because of chaos damage) relies on 2 unique items (or some crazy tree i've yet to see) I understand certain other games simply give a temporary (or even perm) bonus when on low life, but they also don't have mechanics that bypass a layer of defenses that is critical for players to survive in wraeclast.

I still have:

But it has taken me 2 years to have the gear to support using it. I got it close to a year ago and haven't had the supporting gear to effectively make a useful (compared to life) build.


Granted most of this whole conversation has nothing to do with melee.

I think you are misunderstanding why its design is broken. As a reminder, just because something is broken, doesn't mean you are unable to use it, it means that design wise, it wasn't thought about (for whatever reasons) and its causing balance implications.

The matter of the fact is, low life builds aren't actually low life builds. When people do low life builds in PoE, they don't put themselves on critically low health to do massive damage. Instead they reserve their life and get a massive ES pool. Low life builds aren't any less tanky than non low life builds in PoE

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deteego wrote:

I think you are understanding why its design is broken. As a reminder, just because something is broken, doesn't mean you are unable to use it, it means that design wise, it wasn't thought about (for whatever reasons) and its causing balance implications.

The matter of the fact is, low life builds aren't actually low life builds. When people do low life builds in PoE, they don't put themselves on critically low health to do massive damage. Instead they reserve their life and get a massive ES pool. Low life builds aren't any less tanky than non low life builds in PoE

5k ES pool is not massive, neither is 6k. Most low life builds don't have much more then this without mirrored ES gear. To say that low life builds with shavs have MASSIVE ES pool is incorrect. I further went to explain that the mere principle of ES builds has a ratio of 2 ES for every 1HP of effective life. Which means that if a low life build has 5k es they effectively only have 2.5k life (which you get now with ~150% in the tree at level 80 with little to no life on gear. That IS a really low amount of effective life. To say low life builds aren't any less tanky then non low life builds is also incorrect, they typically have no armor, can run grace, but some don't. The one benefit you typically do have is the ability to run all the purirty auras to have a higher +max res then MOST life builds, aside from that low life offers no defensive benefits that life builds aren't better at.

Low life can't effectively do:

Mind over matter
Pure armor
Pure evasion
Even hybrid isn't really a thing either.
Acro\Phase
Max block\spell block

In rare cases you can invest HEAVILY in order to run a nice level AA, but that is rare.

Your defenses are to kill stuff before they kill you, which is why the vast majority of low life builds are ranged.

Yes low life works differently in PoE we all truly do get that so does block and max resistances.

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goetzjam wrote:

5k ES pool is not massive, neither is 6k. Most low life builds don't have much more then this without mirrored ES gear. To say that low life builds with shavs have MASSIVE ES pool is incorrect. I further went to explain that the mere principle of ES builds has a ratio of 2 ES for every 1HP of effective life. Which means that if a low life build has 5k es they effectively only have 2.5k life (which you get now with ~150% in the tree at level 80 with little to no life on gear. That IS a really low amount of effective life. To say low life builds aren't any less tanky then non low life builds is also incorrect, they typically have no armor, can run grace, but some don't. The one benefit you typically do have is the ability to run all the purirty auras to have a higher +max res then MOST life builds, aside from that low life offers no defensive benefits that life builds aren't

Also note, that with Shav's, there is nothing stopping you from getting 6k+ ES if you want. Even though the item doesn't have the highest ES rolls, its still pretty damn high (+250% with ~600 ES). Most people don't have that much ES on their Shav's because they choose to go glass cannon, but the difference between a non Shav and a Shav build with ES is something like 8k vs 10k (asssuming you have a really good ES chest)

But thats besides the point, Its not to do with how massive your total health pool is, its to do with how much life you have as a proportion to your health pool. Low life means that if my total "health pool" (which means in this case, ES) is 5k, low life means you get the benefits of low life builds at around 2k ES).

It doesn't mean sacrificing your total health pool for more damage as part of your build, that is called going glass cannon, and is an entirely different concept (its also the reason why low life is broken in PoE, its because its not low life, its sacrificing health for defense, which are different concepts entirely)

The core difference is in gameplay, the whole point of low life builds is that when you get lowered to a "critical" amount of health (whatever critical happens to be defined), your DPS skyrockets. Thats not the same as an aura reserved low life high ES shav's build, in those builds, your DPS doesn't increase/decrease depending on how much damage you have taken (or how much ES you have). Your build is just sacrificing total defense for total offense

Honestly I am not talking about balance, the reason why its broken is because the gameplay style is completely different. Its like the guy I was arguing over a year ago, when he was saying that melee is fine because you can just use GS to get some range, was completely missing the point

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goetzjam wrote:

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Legatus1982 wrote:

Main thing is that ranged characters are outperforming my melee by leaps and bounds and with much less investment in defense and damage (just any non efficient build)

And your point is?

My point is? Thread title.

thats a truly ferocious looking character pepock.

Id love to see a tree for those cyclone builds. Ive wanted to give it a blast since the new changes, currently messing around with a disfavour trying stuff out but I need to wait for torment to finish before I can 6 link some proper gears.

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Pepock wrote:

good points but in all honesty HP > Armor always in my opinion

I agree but only to a point, I think you'd probably have a cutoff too. I doubt either of us would trade say 30k armour for 150 life for example. But when you are looking at a 10.5k life + 8k armour character vs say a 5.5k life + 20k armour build then of course Id take the life, all day. In fact, I wouldn't even play a 5.5k life + 20k armour build full stop, I've played them before and it's awful. My Ci melee Witch is the same, 10.5k energy shield, only about 4k armour rather than 8k, no life pots, but a legacy aegis shield with multiple legacy rumis flasks, so give and take probably a similar ability to tank maps. Thing is thats legacy gear, you are wearing a legacy kaoms, Im sure both builds would still obliterate with the new equivs, but theres a reason these things are legacy because Im guessing both of them are op and completely imbalance characters as they are now.

To get a 10.5k life pool with the 'current' game state if you will you are basically looking at CI as far as i am aware. Stacking hp vs stacking defenses in terms of life builds now, in a build that still gets good deeps etc too, 10.5k life isnt really on the table for most builds. When you start looking at getting 5.5k life with 15k armour + 10k evasion + ondars vs getting 6.8k life with 8k armour and thats it... then Im not sold on dropping life for defense and taking say belly of the beast for 40% life over a 2k armour + life + strength chest. If you can hit say 8.5k life with it then maybe were talking a trade off I can see myself making situationally.

the whole initial open beta kaoms heart hp stacking hype, if you are getting 10k hp and actually stacking life then its great. I think too many people came away from that though thinking armour and evasion sucked compared to just getting life, and block even, people laughed at kerkrom for getting block nodes. So they just stack 5-7k life, grab iron reflexes then still end up with just 8-9k armour and think thats good defenses, then bitch on the forums when they get gibbed by trash mobs, armour sucks, life sucks, melee sucks etc. If you are picking up IR and getting say 6.5k life I want to see 25k+ armour, 6+ endurance charges, soul of steel, level20 codt inc duration IC, block, the full works going on before I'll accept ok thats a seriously tanked setup thats invested in defense and should really be beasting trash mobs in the highest levels of maps.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

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goetzjam wrote:

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

Main thing is that ranged characters are outperforming my melee by leaps and bounds and with much less investment in defense and damage (just any non efficient build)

And your point is?

My point is? Thread title.

That is going to be case and point until GGG can give "melee" something to distinguish itself from ranged. Right now the current system doesn't really support much options for increasing the defenses of melee builds, because of the complex skill\class\tree they can't just do what D3 did and make all melee characters take 30% less damage. Ideally something like this would happen for melee characters in PoE as well, but I sure and the hell don't know how that is going to happen or if its technically possible with the system we have in place. Personally I don't care if melee has all these negatives as it by far has the best positive, which is being able to smash mobs faces in with either your fist (facebreaker) or melee weapons in general.

The majority of people complaining about the disparity honestly haven't played any number of builds in order to classify one so much better then another, people just hop on bandwagons. Legatus you yourself have tried the SAME (or almost same) build number of times and failed each time, I don't understand why you wouldn't change it up. Are you doing it to prove a point, if so what exactly is your point?

Like I said before in one of these discussions you brought up for the longest part melee in general sucks, point to the duelist and ladder to use as your proof and then not actually use it to make a character yourself. The overlap of your builds from a shadow or duelist start probably only overlaps 1/4 or less of the tree, how can you compare one class, built around certain defenses (keystones,ect) when you are two classes away?

Granted legatus you know more about melee then I do, at least in bloodlines I still have yet to see this grand fix all problem for melee\ranged only suggestion I get out of these threads (not specifically from you) is that certain items that melee builds typically don't use are overpowered, ect, ect. There will always be a discrepancy between melee and ranged in this type of a game, again the way D3 did it is arguably the best way to make sure that melee characters retain the tankyness they need. I do think this would be impossible to do in PoE like I mentioned before.

@deteego

"

Honestly I am not talking about balance, the reason why its broken is because the gameplay style is completely different. Its like the guy I was arguing over a year ago, when he was saying that melee is fine because you can just use GS to get some range, was completely missing the point

Gameplay should change with uniques, just like changing if you use a different skill gem or set of support gems, just because the game play is different doesn't mean it not balanced. That line alone has me wondering if you read what you said before you typed it.

Your second line bringing in ground slam really has nothing to do with anything I said.

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goetzjam wrote:

That is going to be case and point until GGG can give "melee" something to distinguish itself from ranged. Right now the current system doesn't really support much options for increasing the defenses of melee builds, because of the complex skill\class\tree they can't just do what D3 did and make all melee characters take 30% less damage. Ideally something like this would happen for melee characters in PoE as well, but I sure and the hell don't know how that is going to happen or if its technically possible with the system we have in place. Personally I don't care if melee has all these negatives as it by far has the best positive, which is being able to smash mobs faces in with either your fist (facebreaker) or melee weapons in general.

The majority of people complaining about the disparity honestly haven't played any number of builds in order to classify one so much better then another, people just hop on bandwagons. Legatus you yourself have tried the SAME (or almost same) build number of times and failed each time, I don't understand why you wouldn't change it up. Are you doing it to prove a point, if so what exactly is your point?

Like I said before in one of these discussions you brought up for the longest part melee in general sucks, point to the duelist and ladder to use as your proof and then not actually use it to make a character yourself. The overlap of your builds from a shadow or duelist start probably only overlaps 1/4 or less of the tree, how can you compare one class, built around certain defenses (keystones,ect) when you are two classes away?

Granted legatus you know more about melee then I do, at least in bloodlines I still have yet to see this grand fix all problem for melee\ranged only suggestion I get out of these threads (not specifically from you) is that certain items that melee builds typically don't use are overpowered, ect, ect. There will always be a discrepancy between melee and ranged in this type of a game, again the way D3 did it is arguably the best way to make sure that melee characters retain the tankyness they need. I do think this would be impossible to do in PoE like I mentioned before.

I HAVE changed it up, that's what you aren't getting. You keep saying I don't change it. Look at the iteration I'm at now and compare it to what I was doing last year. Last year I was using a shield for crying out loud. My first melee was a ground slam marauder. I simply enjoy everything about the dual daggers shadow too much to let it go though. People are going to do what is fun, and they aren't having fun watching their friends faceroll maps while they sit there being carried on the build that would be "fun" for them but isn't because the game inherently shits on them. I've also tried variations of damn near every ranged build out there (except for KB, to date) and they're all very effective but I hate them all.

And it's not even like buffing melee or nerfing ranged or rebalancing the game is the biggest issue. They could start by not adding bullshit shit-on-melee mechanics every new league. Totems that pop up on death and spray in circles and do the most dps at the epicenter? Really? Chaos bond? Really? Bosses that spawn right on top of you as soon as you kill the last mob as melee? Really? Shrouded mobs? Really? The list goes on and fucking on.

As for melee buffs, there have been MANY great suggestions in here. Buffing the melee gems which would free up passive points for more defense on the tree is one viable option. Another is to simply put big HP nodes behind melee damage clusters. Some of the ideas, like taking % less damage for a period of time after using a melee attack, I feel won't work based on how POE plays, but are still viable suggestions.

GGG doesn't want to implement these changes because it will make their game "too easy/faceroll/blahblah". The game is balanced around logout spike damage and you remove that from any one class and the game automatically becomes easy. Not our problem, bottom line is that players are leaving POE due to this issue. When a new game comes out you lose all the players who hate all the bullshit they put up with in this game.

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goetzjam wrote:

"

Honestly I am not talking about balance, the reason why its broken is because the gameplay style is completely different. Its like the guy I was arguing over a year ago, when he was saying that melee is fine because you can just use GS to get some range, was completely missing the point

Gameplay should change with uniques, just like changing if you use a different skill gem or set of support gems, just because the game play is different doesn't mean it not balanced. That line alone has me wondering if you read what you said before you typed it.

Your second line bringing in ground slam really has nothing to do with anything I said.

Thats precisely the point, low life in PoE doesn't change gameplay, thats why its not a proper "low life". In other games, low life builds drastically change how you play. You often bait damgae to put yourself into low life, you have specific shields and counter attacks so you can survive staying on critical health (amongst things like leech). Low life in PoE doesn't do that, its just sacrificing health for damage (and in some cases, that health sacrifice is minimal). It doesn't force you to play any differently

Think of it this way, if you have some boosted 6L arc build, one using shav's low life and the other just a generic caster, is the gameplay going to be any different (assuming you have the same skills boosted with the same supports?)

Answer is no. The shavs might have higher damage at the cost of some survivability, but thats pretty much it. I am not going to see the shav's build running around on 30% of their total ES to try and maximize their damage.

Of course, there is nothing mechanically stopping you from doing that in PoE, but doing so is generally suicide, and thats mainly because of PoE irrational hatred of glass cannons more than anything else (in PoE, defense is always the best answer, as long as you have enough DPS to clear mobs at a sufficient rate)

The anology with GS was around similar point (in context of that argument, its that GS fundamentally changes your gameplay, because it changes a melee character to a ranged one, same thing with Spectral throw, which a lot of people bitch about as well in regards to it being broken in design)

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Legatus1982 wrote:

And it's not even like buffing melee or nerfing ranged or rebalancing the game is the biggest issue. They could start by not adding bullshit shit-on-melee mechanics every new league. Totems that pop up on death and spray in circles and do the most dps at the epicenter? Really? Chaos bond? Really? Bosses that spawn right on top of you as soon as you kill the last mob as melee? Really? Shrouded mobs? Really? The list goes on and fucking on.

Personally this is the thing that shits me the most. There are so many mechanics in PoE that shit over melee much harder than ranged. In fact, the only mechanic that benefits melee more than ranged is proximity shield, and even that isn't true 100% of the time (as an example, proximity shield blocks flicker if you flicker from outside the shield)

I mean that list also misses things like shotguns from multiple projectiles, chaos damage from zombie deaths etc etc. The actual list in reality is huge

Wish we will see melee got buffed and Marauder with double buff, so they can be viable at least.

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ThethrowawayAccountAA wrote:

Wish we will see melee got buffed and Marauder with double buff, so they can be viable at least.

Marauder is viable, they have great starting area, not as good as a couple of trees ago, but still good.

People like you don't understand the meaning of the word viable.