Almost 30 years of gaming... and first time i EVER played a ranged character.

I am almost the exact opposite of you. No matter what game I play I always roll a ranged character first, when D3 was announced I knew I was going to be a sorceress before I even knew they butchered the class and called it a wizard. When I first downloaded PoE I looked at the characters and knew I was going to main a witch before I knew anything else about the characters.

Some prefer Melee and I can understand because I feel the same way about ranged.

I started this game as a selffound melee and on Hc(i guess it cannot get any worse than that)..

I tried, i died, i tried again, i died again.. then in 1 point i tested Spectral Throw, and there was no turning back... after that i rolled my first summoner and found out that it is the spec that fits my playstyle, feels fun after 2000 hours(as a summoner) and gets the job done (not Atziri, but then again why would i farm her as a selffounder, i don't have a chance at the uber anyways).

I have i very good 6L 2h mace in STD, Marohi, 5L Doomsower, couple of good 1-handers, 800% non-legacy facebreakers(lol at that divine) and i can use decent 6L chest or even Kaom's but after many tries with a 85+ character, i just cant stand any melee skill more than a couple of maps.

Only "melee"skills that i haven't played yet are flicker and reave, but i cannot see myself doing those in the near future.

Groundslam+Rend was fun, oh wait... :D

I was a melee for life until PoE. Even in pencil and paper RPGs I prefer unkillable bricks.

Here unkillable doesn't exist. Munis that brief period we could hit 100% elemental resists.

Fortify is a step in the right direction for melee, but it feels like too much of a trade off for the moment. I think the armour curve is a bit too steep.

OP was fun to read.

Also: glass4life

Ranged chars are fun if you dont mind dying.

(I'm about to communicate in sweeping generalities ok?)

Historically, ranged has always been better than melee, particularly in solo play. The ability to kite or distance oneself from direct damage has almost no equal for survival. And while I almost never play archer classes, I do prefer casters. In PoE I have 3 witches to everything else and only 1 ranger across two accounts.

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Shovelcut wrote:

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TheWretch wrote:

No Contra? :/

I played the hell out of that. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYkKa1SNTSI

Back on topic: I was the same as you OP and like you I've really enjoyed ranged and casters here. Hack and slash was always my thing, also hated summoners but PoE did it right with them imo. My first char was a summoner and I stuck with that for at least 4 months. :)
I'm really enjoying split arrow atm.

I'm not much older than you but my first game was Joust on atari 2600...boy have we come a long way. :P

:D me too. Thumbs were busted and controllers were thrown




On topic: I'm currently playing a Null's Inclination build and having a ton of fun

i am killing stuff out of my screen.
this is the simple sole thing that changed the whole game for me.

i have been playing melee in every game so far,
but this is plain new for me.

i just run around and kill stuff now. i don't even know what i am killing, since they die out of my screen.
sounds simple, but for someone who has been playing close combat, this is new.

i had so much fun in diablo 2 LoD and WoW. As melee.
now i'm like "wow, ranged is kewl. what did i miss in D2 and WoW?" :D

And no, i never played Ranged/Caster in D2, but in PvP my Piker Barbarian used to one shot everything in PvP. you can look up, MorphX in D2 Legacy. I 5-0'd the number one Necro-Boner in D2.

But naah. Everything aside, Ranger has changed the whole game for me. The whole system.
It's like i discovered something new. I am playing Path of Exile like i used to play "Golden Axe" for the very first time. A whole new world opened for me.

Apart from what i'm writing down... i think i might post a video of my ranger.
I am killing stuff too fast, it's unreal. It's even a little bit chaotic. I can't follow my own character. Stuff dies too fast. I'm like running around, pew pew, and i'm like "wtf where are all the mobs?" :D

Seriously.
After all those years, i'm playing "games" again.
i don't get it. :D

In my experience, when a game is new, or in the parlance of our times, open beta is the best time to be ranged, esp. archer classes.
So many games nerf ranged damage after a while. I miss my legacy crossbow from Ultima Online, my original Hib archer from DAoC that could 1 shot people at maximum range.
It seems game developers like to give ranged big damage and then regret it later when that's what everyone wants to play.

I know what you are talking about OP. I recently made a piercing ice spear sorcerer that can freeze almost everything and kill monsters my char can't even see yet. Also the shattering feels so good when you crit. That's really hard to do on a low aoe cleave char or cyclone or whatever.

Still, i enjoy melee the most. I create a melee char each and every leage. I even cleaved atziri to death in hc. Up close and personal will always bring a kind of satisfaction ranged never will.