New Keystones to buff True Melee Characters

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Drazn wrote:

It's common knowledge that anything a true melee character could do, a pseudo or true ranged character could do better. There is a reason why Spectral throw and ground-slam are so popular while skills like Sweep and Cleave are not: They have larger AoE and/or can hit at range and allow you to avoid the thick of combat, while your character remains just as tanky as a true melee character would be.

The problem with the current design is that all defensive options that could benefit true melee, ALSO benefit ranged characters just as much, and any nerfs to current defense options ALSO nerf Melee characters (Such as the recent Block nerf, necessary to reduce it's OP-ness on a ranged character, but painful for traditional true melee characters.)

Horizontal expansion of the current defense meta is required to give true melee characters their own niche defensive options that cannot benefit ranged or pseudo ranged characters, while also increasing the viability of the classic true melee AoE physical skills such as Cleave and Sweep

To achieve this I propose two new Keystones in a setup similar to Acrobatics (First keystone, 3 buff nodes, second keystone.)

Adrenaline
You gain 1 stack of Adrenaline for every Normal monster, 2 stacks for every Rare Monster, and 5 stacks for every Rare or Unique monster within your Melee Attack Range. Each stack of adrenaline reduces Physical Damage by 1%, every two stacks reduces Spell Damage by 1% and every 5 stacks grants you 1 additional base melee attack range. The Effects of Adrenaline are doubled when using a Two-Handed Melee Weapon. You may have up to 5 Stacks of Adrenaline. You may no longer Dodge Attacks and you lose the benefits of Adrenaline for 5 seconds each time you Hit an enemy with a Projectile or Spell attack

Improved Adrenaline
You may have (1 or 2 depending on the node, the total of three adding up to 5) additional total stacks of Adrenaline. Rare and Unique monsters grant (1 or 2, again depending on the node and adding up to 5) additional stacks of Adrenaline.

Combat Prowess:
You take 30% less damage from reflected Melee Attack Damage and Critical Hits
You can no longer Block Attacks


The aim here to provide a substantial defensive buff to True Melee characters, Especially 2 Handed ones, while promoting their intended play-style of wading into the center of the enemies and letting loose.

This also helps to solve one of the biggest problems for Two-Handed melee characters: How to deal with Physical Reflect without trading all damage for defense or investing in extremely expensive unique items or rolling a Sword'n'board character instead. It also helps to improve the AoE for non-elemental melee area attacks such as Sweep, Cleave, Leap Slam and Cyclone.

The numbers may need to adjusted to achieve that (The Two handed adrenaline buff may be way too strong, or the crit damage reduction is a bit too much for example) but I feel the concept is solid and promotes the correct play-style for these characters.

Hopefully you agree.

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Combat Prowess:
You take 30% less damage from Melee Attack Damage and Critical Hits
You can no longer Block Attacks

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That combat prowess thing wouldnt be good. Cant block is a no brainer if you go 2h axe or mace as there is no block to begin with. So its mandatory. The drawback has to hit all 2h weapons equally if its supposed to be a drawback.

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Everything here is an absolutely terrible idea...

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2 Handed Melee doesn't die to reflect. 2 handers die to being A) Nukelocked by 17 charging blackguard elites or B) 5 quick croaking chimera in a +damage map.

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That combat prowess thing wouldn't be good. Cant block is a no brainer if you go 2h axe or mace as there is no block to begin with. So its mandatory. The drawback has to hit all 2h weapons equally if its supposed to be a drawback.

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Also, if you're doing point blank with a projectile, I Don't think you should be penalized. The idea that close ranged characters could get a defensive buff is probably a good one, but assuming that only melee attacks are point blank is a fail.

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I think there is an idea here somewhere, but that it might not be fully baked yet.

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Well, thats an actual penalty, no block, no ES no armor is pretty harsh.

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I'm saying that even as a caster, I often find myself in close proximity to mobs. Perhaps I should be using a skelly totem, but if you're in the face of something, then you're in the face of something. Regardless of skill. And rewarding such in the face-ness, is possibly a good thing. I'd like to see "melee casters" exist and be given such balance to support it.