So here's *another* reason why melee and the left side of the passive tree sucks

Well yes, ideally I'd also prefer that melee keep its focus on physical damage, but with things like Added Fire Damage, Heralds, Taste of Hate, etc around, the elemental genie is well and truly out of the bottle. Given that, we should at least try to let all classes benefit from all sources of elemental damage equally.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Ah, so this is really about elemental attacks and the scaling thereof. I think I'd rather see a shift back to the power of physical rather than adapting/pandering to the elemental damage meta but that's asking a lot more than what this thread would cover.

Interesting. I can't see an elemental meta at all. Aside from stupidly broken uniques (HOWA) and ignite (-prolif). Phys and kinda chaos have been king for a long time. Lightning and Cold Spells are pretty much dead, as mentioned elemental rolls outside the odd wanderer and bow user seem to be pretty much dead, too. I wouldn't go as far to call fun and wonky (albeit viable) builds meta when phys pretty much steamrolls anything. Even most elemental builds are just physical conversion. What exactly should be more powerful regarding physical attacks and spells?

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鬼殺し wrote:

This is beyond my scope because all I know about the meta is avoid it. But if double-dipping is such a big concern, and half of that is triggered by elemental damage, then I'd say that's a problem.

But let me make a simple example based on what I do know. Of my three swords, the one that converts physical damage fully to fire, has pretty high native crit and has faster burning is the most popular by far. It benefits from a LOT of nodes and I'm fairly sure it's the conversion to fire that really keeps The Goddess Scorned on any sort of radar.

it is the crit. it has dagger-level of crit and it is fast. the converted damage is cool but you cannot get big ignites without crit and esp crit multi anyway. note that you CAN get 100% fire from phys without your sword - it isnt anything unique. but is just cheaper to get your sword and get ignites 'big enough' this way

two other swords are less popular because first one is GREAT leveling item (found one myself in Legacy when leveling, it was the most broken leveling experience ive ever had) and the third one is just weird



the 'melee' situation is deplorable in so many ways that this one is just yet another facet

- the supports. list of melee supports is very very short. spells and so called funky stuff got more supports recently than there are generic melee modifiers.

- the supports again. 'melee PHYS damage'. why?

- the rolls. most of the game is geared towards CRIT. sure you CAN build non-crit or RT but game will and does tell you to play crit. you get so many free goodies (flask charges, status aliments, various triggers) with crit that playing non crit just doesnt feel 'right'

- the rolls again. non-crit flat ele (the very topic here). on a 2h. just no. there are so many roll combinations that are simply not supported by the game AT ALL. 3xT1 flat ele Labrys with attack speed. i had something similar. it was worthless (not monetary value, it wasnt possible to make this item work). i know that there are 'bad mods' so the 'good mods taste better' but items like these are just.. just why?

- the 'end game'. you need A LOT more effort to complete end-game with non-crit build. it can be done if you combine recently (over)buffed skill with a great 2h weapon and A LOT of luck - but with crit (aka the way this game should be played) it requires FAR less of everything

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Vipermagi wrote:

Elemental Damage is pretty much only meta when its base damage is beyond reasonable (Hand of Wisdom and Action) or works through Conversion (Ngamahu's Flame, Frost Blades, Lightning Arrow etc). The Poison buff back when made Elemental Conversion slightly less favoured. Actual flat Elemental scaling? That's history.

You forgot Signal Shot which is Bow phys dmg converted to ele then scaled up to absurd levels.

While not directly to the OP's point, there's another gripe I have with the melee/caster disparity.

Spells, except Chaos that I know of, benefit from both curses and penetration. Physical does not. Sure physical gets related curses, but where's my "Penetrates 20% of enemy physical damage reduction" passives and/or gems that casters and elemental damage dealers get to enjoy? Enemy armor just goes up and up and up as the game scales up, but enemy resistances don't as much. So Spells/Elements don't have to work as hard to continue to do their damage, they get more ways to reduce enemy resistance to it AND they get to double dip.

Sometimes I think the root of the melee/spellcaster thing is GGG figured people would just sit there and face tank with high attack speed, so physical needed to scale harshly to discourage it, while spell/elemental damage came with the trade off of needing to be mobile. But the game as it's developed has just added more damage multipliers to spells and elemental damage while melee....gets token flat buffs to try and keep it relevant. But when you can liquefy everything on the screen in 1 second flat at range, who cares how tough you are?

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Nenjin wrote:

Enemy armor just goes up and up and up as the game scales up, but enemy resistances don't as much.

I would advice to first do some research before making claims like this.

The reason there is no physical penetration gem is because enemy's have barely no armor value's to speak of even in end-game scenario's (t16's).

Peace,

-Boem-

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suszterpatt wrote:

Well yes, ideally I'd also prefer that melee keep its focus on physical damage, but with things like Added Fire Damage, Heralds, Taste of Hate, etc around, the elemental genie is well and truly out of the bottle. Given that, we should at least try to let all classes benefit from all sources of elemental damage equally.

There doesn't seem to be many ways, if at all, to convert elemental damage to physical on the other hand. Something like "convert elemental damage on weapons to physical" would suit primarily physical melee builds that Marauder, Duelist, and sometimes Ranger run, but knowing GGG they would make it an option that converts any elemental damage to physical, making it mostly benefit spellcasters more than melee so I guess that would be kind of a monkey paw suggestion on my part.

Looks like GGG don't like melee, even melee chars can easily be converted to ranged. My solution? Pick Spectral Trow, Iron Grip and be a ranged...

That is the reason I think double dipping won't be "fixed" per se, but nerfed a little bit and melee physical will have that same effect of double dipping like projectile or area damage have. I don't think it's possible to completely fix this thing, there is just an overwhelming amount of stats in this game.