Ranged Vs. Melee Disparity.

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

Stats are one part of the problem and there are a lot of good points in this topic about that.

Another factor which isn't getting much visibility is gameplay tactics. Some things counter Melee tactics and some things counter Ranged tactics. Adjusting the mix of the two may strike an equilibrium between the two kinds of tactics.

Ranged is good in open spaces, against mobs whose danger is measured primarily by how close you are to them (such as on-touch damage), and also more readily able to exchange defense for offense. These are inherent advantages of Ranged tactics.

Melee also has some inherent advantages. Chokepoints, dense clutter zones (meaning a noisy pathing map and copious projectile blockers), and damage reflection all impact Melee less significantly than Ranged.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

All of those points are true and I still think 2w is shit. Lol the balance

The main benefit of 2h is supposed to be the second 6l though. You can't balance the game around 2 6 links not existing for these weapons because they do exist.

I think both options should be good for rich players and new characters alike. I'm not a fan of leaving 2w in the shit at endgame because it's easier to get two 3l than one 6L, but we also cant leave 2h in the shit mid game because it gets a six link later on.

It's just more bullshit caused by the difficulty of linking to be honest. It shouldn't be so hard to link gems together when the entire game is based around it.

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agbudar wrote:

I thought that GGG was going the right way with adding defense bonuses to melee nodes
like health to axes armor to clubs/staves and evasion to swords.
daggers/claws ES although daggers don't need it as much since they already have such an insane crit chance. then they downsized those nodes sadly.

what we really need is defensive clusters for 2 handed.but not in the traditional sense i was thinking that if you hit something in melee range with a 2 handed weapon you could add "cripple" effects like decrease damage done for 2 seconds when hit or something 2 handed inherently should be "good offense is best defense"

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Poutsos wrote:

The OP was excellent. This situation existed from day 1 of open BETA. Then the strongest builds were freezing pulse, or Kaoms+Lioneye's glare. Then before anarchy we got the "melee patch" that was received moderately. It did increase melee damage by a whole lot, but also life passives were nerfed. After that patch we had some strong melee builds flourish, like aegis aurora tanks and dual weilding blenders, but still the end game king were low life sporkers, who melted entire rooms with full MF, without even being inside the room. This particular build is what gave us the first ever lv100 on harcore.

Then with release, we've had the first time that people talked about "path of melee". However this was an exaggeration. It was true that for the first time, due to several nerfs to spells, melee got really useful, since there were a variety of builds that could do the endgame with relatively low cost. BoR+facebreakers+Aegis aurora or lioneye's remorse were very widely used. HOWEVER, most level 100s during that time, were reached with Kaoms+ Voltaxic combination. Ranged was still the king of "high end" meta. We also did see the first traces of what was about to come(spectral throw). It is important to note that during this time, people like Kolp and AXN had started to reveal the first god like crated rares.

During 1.1 all hell broke loose. Low life spectral throwers at that point became the most broken build in the history of PoE. Wanders and crit bows followed closely, but melee at this point could not even stand the slighest chnce of competing with this.

In 1.2 the situation got even worse. So far, if melee had something going for it, it was that you could build a decent character with relatively lower cost. Especially if you abused max block with either aegis aurora, or evasion+acrobatics etc. you could be nearly unkillable, while ranged in order to be strong, definetely needed an amazing weapon. With master crafting, it became far easier to aquire good weapons, and well if you have a good bow/wand or a dagger(for spectral throw), there was literally no reason to go melee anymore.

And here we are in 1.3. With the nerfs to block, the only actual reason that melee could be SOMEWHAT competetive - max block/low cost(and this is only for 1 handed+shield, i am not even mentioning 2 handed) was nerfed to the ground. On the other side, while spectral was nerfed, bow skills like split arrow weren't and since last league we had new OP skills like tornado shot, and the recent kinetic blast.

I think now, after a huge melee landslide since 1.1, is definetely the time for another Melee Patch. Now i think i will be controversial, and say the issue is INDEED DPS/clear speed. As immortal almost defenses, melee DID have that, through aegis aurora mostly, but it could still not compete with high end ranged. I do beleive that the "through the roof" damage of ranged, combine to it's rediculous AoE aspect(multiple projectiles + crap like Chain or Pierce) is the biggest issue. If ranged put out mediocre damage, it would not be that safe, and ranged players would have to play much more careful, backtracking to net get hit and would not melt maps in seconds. On the other hand, melee could dish out alot more damage, and clear faster, but it would always have the risk of getting costantly hit.

When Dark Souls 2 came out, this was an issue as well. Ranged Spells were too powerful, and you know, this is dark souls, meaning that 2-3 hits WILL kill you. That resulted in ranged being way better option than melee. How did they adress this? They simply nerfed(ALOT) spell damage and everything is fine now. With melee you are doing far more DPS, but there is the danger of getting hit, with ranged you do less damage, kill slower, but you are safer. Of course in DS 2 we got tons of QQing with the spell nerfs, wanting to revert it to its former broken situation.