Melee builds are complete trash

"

Ceryneian wrote:

5. Snorkle, get off your little high horsie. You keep harping about people not building melee properly, when the problem is melee just PLAIN SUCKS. Weren't you the one who posted a Chimera video on your CI melee character where you struggling to complete the add phase and resorted to hiding behind totems?

No, I dont use totems on any of my current characters, you must be thinking of someone else.

I can show you vids of melee chars playing chimera if you want

http://plays.tv/video/58bf00c4702cfaff73/wildstrike-raider-v-chim

http://plays.tv/video/58c56f0390c676a9ed/cyclone-ci-v-chim

http://plays.tv/video/58dfac8bd135384479/gladiator-v-chim

"

Dr1MaR wrote:

Actually Melee builds are at the very good spot atm. Look at alkaizer, he managed to get to lvl 99 with fucking cleave on fucking SSF withing fucking 10 days if not less. So are really melee builds at the bad spot or maybe you just got spoiled with stupid double dip broken builds or CI VP vinktars immortal builds? Melee is fine, it s the broken meta that needs a fix.

I dont think theyve even played those builds either to be spoiled by tbh Dr1MaR.

The whole ci vinktars poison double dip howa/sprinklers shit, that all blatantly needs fixed. Those are real balance issues with the game for sure, and thing is you can do melee with all that stuff. You can be a poison ci vinktars vaal pact 18k es over a million effective dps bladeflurry build, or you could do with a spell, like bladevortex, which is a melee range spell and isnt offscreen pewpew but still when you do it with all those things like poison vp etc its still broken as fuck despite suffering all the close range dangers of melee builds.


Whats really wrong with melee in my opinion:

* vol blood, its just such bullshit for melee ranged builds be them actual melee or spells like bv and tendrils.

* non crit attacks are pretty lame because crit multiplier still provides too much damage. Non crit ele spells at least have Ele Overload, and ele attacks can get that too if they happen to be going all the way north of templar and hence probably have shit tier defenses. Double dipping and the seemingly broken sprinklers/howa are currently covering it up but when theyre dealt with if crit multiplier isnt further nerfed were going to be back to plain as day if you want to attack, esp phys, you usually have to go crit or suffer pretty terrible dps disparity. Its not that life melees defenses suck so much, its not that you dont have enough points left over to spend on damage, its that the scaling options just are not there for them to have decent damage in an area of the tree designed to make physical non crit attackers. If you free up 10 points and they spend them on increased damage clusters theyre not going to suddenly have competitive damage, its more fundamental than ci existing in the epicenter of crit scaling have a few more passives to play with. Physical attackers running around with added fire + wed in their links wondering how theyre now going to get penetration to make this ele do something in a struggle to find gems and mechanics to scale their damage says it all imo.

Theres things that can help, giving fortify 30-35% more melee damage would be a start, but unless crit multiplier is reigned in then everything you can do for them crit can get access to as well, unless you attach it to RT and then that forces every single non crit attack build to get this 1 node. That in itself is a broken, tree restricting answer that isnt really good enough. Other option is bring in damage buff supports that can only happen on non crit.

* entry level physical attack weapons are too hard to find. As long as you cant be sure youll find an acceptable weapon at all stages of leveling people are always going to push ladder with spells and youll always see hc ladders dominated by that assured damage scaling from gem levels.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

I wouldnt worry about it mate because neither have ppl like sid or tinko etc that you are debating with.


Struggling to hit lvl90, cant make a build work with a 20ex budget, cant do t13+, need spell block, cant do atziri, those are all issues with people not making their characters well. None of that should be happening if people know what theyre doing because plenty of people are not having these issues.

Thats not saying there isnt issues, but like everything with criticism of this game theres issues with the game and issues with how people are playing it. People often want to blame the game because they like to think they know it all, cant accept any sort of failure on their own part.

I think the reason GGG have not 'fixed' melee for most people who think its broken is because they can see that 95% of criticism put forward is player error, thats why 95% of criticism has gone by without being addressed with balance changes. You start to pick apart peoples builds and say hey man you could do this or that differently, this thing youre doing here and there is rly not the way to do things, they start getting defensive and insisting they have no problems with their builds etc. So if their melee builds are doing just fine then whats the problem?

If I was having an issue with melee or casters or bows I would look for help. If you havent tried melee 10 different ways on high level builds I dont see how you can even begin to think youve done anything to rule out that the fault is with you. I dont have any problems putting together a wide range of melee, caster and bow builds that can absolutely trash high tier maps. In my experience theres actually more choices for trashing t16 maps very comfortably with attack builds than there is spell builds, but Im more than willing for guys in this thread to show me videos of a range of spell builds they have made making easy work of guardians/uber, maybe Im gonna see something I havent seen before. We talk about range offscreen etc, sure thats true, but one of the best spells for trashing those higher tiers of maps is bladevortex, that spell is ahead of most long range spells in my experience. Most boss fights are going to pin you into a small area anyway.

lots of words


so tell me, with examples maybe (gear if possible) how a Cleave player handles following situation (happened to me yesterday while i was slogging that piece of turd into 90)

- -regen
- beyond (map)
- beyond (stone)
- breach
- 30%+ pack size + magic mob pack size
- chilled ground

a dream map (shaped shore) so first first seconds of the map spawned 5 bosses (2 haasts, Epij, Bameth + one i couldnt even tell from the mess happening on the screen)

you know what is wrong with this picture?

Cleave player has to go deep. kiting produces even more of these suckers. and my AR/EV defence you like to talk about so much is IRRELEVANT in this case. IRRELEVANT. from what i see the only damage it can prevent is Bameth arrow. ONE SINGLE ATTACK. everything else is a spell

before you show me how you effortlessly facetank stuff like that with Aurora - i know that spell block solves this issue

how should i build my character 'right' to not face this kind of issues? (note: fortify 100% up with fortify effect from the Jugg and tree + ele reduction from the Jugg)

i expect two answers: build crit and out-dps this situation with vaal pact OR spell block

any other hints? typical 'solution' list you post (coil, ToH, AR/EV) DOES NOT APPLY to stuff like this. and as a melee I HAVE to have a solution. what are yours? dance around for 15 minutes chipping these bastards away until they luck out and you trip on a pebble?

is the solution 'switch character to ghetto caster and offscreen this crap'?
or 'some mod combos are not for everybody, just re-roll and take that difficult leaguestones out'?

"

sidtherat wrote:

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

I wouldnt worry about it mate because neither have ppl like sid or tinko etc that you are debating with.


Struggling to hit lvl90, cant make a build work with a 20ex budget, cant do t13+, need spell block, cant do atziri, those are all issues with people not making their characters well. None of that should be happening if people know what theyre doing because plenty of people are not having these issues.

Thats not saying there isnt issues, but like everything with criticism of this game theres issues with the game and issues with how people are playing it. People often want to blame the game because they like to think they know it all, cant accept any sort of failure on their own part.

I think the reason GGG have not 'fixed' melee for most people who think its broken is because they can see that 95% of criticism put forward is player error, thats why 95% of criticism has gone by without being addressed with balance changes. You start to pick apart peoples builds and say hey man you could do this or that differently, this thing youre doing here and there is rly not the way to do things, they start getting defensive and insisting they have no problems with their builds etc. So if their melee builds are doing just fine then whats the problem?

If I was having an issue with melee or casters or bows I would look for help. If you havent tried melee 10 different ways on high level builds I dont see how you can even begin to think youve done anything to rule out that the fault is with you. I dont have any problems putting together a wide range of melee, caster and bow builds that can absolutely trash high tier maps. In my experience theres actually more choices for trashing t16 maps very comfortably with attack builds than there is spell builds, but Im more than willing for guys in this thread to show me videos of a range of spell builds they have made making easy work of guardians/uber, maybe Im gonna see something I havent seen before. We talk about range offscreen etc, sure thats true, but one of the best spells for trashing those higher tiers of maps is bladevortex, that spell is ahead of most long range spells in my experience. Most boss fights are going to pin you into a small area anyway.

lots of words


so tell me, with examples maybe (gear if possible) how a Cleave player handles following situation (happened to me yesterday while i was slogging that piece of turd into 90)

- -regen
- beyond (map)
- beyond (stone)
- breach
- 30%+ pack size + magic mob pack size
- chilled ground

a dream map (shaped shore) so first first seconds of the map spawned 5 bosses (2 haasts, Epij, Bameth + one i couldnt even tell from the mess happening on the screen)

you know what is wrong with this picture?

Cleave player has to go deep. kiting produces even more of these suckers. and my AR/EV defence you like to talk about so much is IRRELEVANT in this case. IRRELEVANT. from what i see the only damage it can prevent is Bameth arrow. ONE SINGLE ATTACK. everything else is a spell

before you show me how you effortlessly facetank stuff like that with Aurora - i know that spell block solves this issue

how should i build my character 'right' to not face this kind of issues? (note: fortify 100% up with fortify effect from the Jugg and tree + ele reduction from the Jugg)

i expect two answers: build crit and out-dps this situation with vaal pact OR spell block

any other hints? typical 'solution' list you post (coil, ToH, AR/EV) DOES NOT APPLY to stuff like this. and as a melee I HAVE to have a solution. what are yours? dance around for 15 minutes chipping these bastards away until they luck out and you trip on a pebble?

is the solution 'switch character to ghetto caster and offscreen this crap'?
or 'some mod combos are not for everybody, just re-roll and take that difficult leaguestones out'?

Not sure what your smoking but that's extremely deadly for vast majority of builds that aren't completely top tier or well geared ;v

any ranged char just offscreens this crap - just like i had to do eventually.

id like to know how i should build my char right to do it as a Cleave - stack dps+leech or go full spell block/dodge (pick one)

melee is fine vs content that melee is strong (attacks, possibly phys). when the shit gets tough (and GGG way of making it is via elemental spells more often than not) all these strong points melee has are made irrelevant and all you have is your primary buffer and flasks


if 'melee is fine, but avoid this and that' then melee is NOT fine

"

sidtherat wrote:

any ranged char just offscreens this crap - just like i had to do eventually.

id like to know how i should build my char right to do it as a Cleave - stack dps+leech or go full spell block/dodge (pick one)

melee is fine vs content that melee is strong (attacks, possibly phys). when the shit gets tough (and GGG way of making it is via elemental spells more often than not) all these strong points melee has are made irrelevant and all you have is your primary buffer and flasks


if 'melee is fine, but avoid this and that' then melee is NOT fine

I have 0 idea where this offscreen stuff comes because you not going to off screen multiple beyond bosses/rares, a breach or -1 regen. Unless your talking about something like vaal sparks were "offscreening" is spamming the entire map with attacks while moving at lighting speeds, which aren't traditional melee, ranged or spell builds.

Then obviously being able to spam attacks across multiple screens is better than almost all melee, spell and ranged builds.

because i did it? whats difficult about that? cast FrostBolts in the general direction of enemies and move closer, repeat?

breach.. prolif solves this issue, just like it solves the beyond issue. Elementalist is just broken vs content like that. the -%regen is tough but my CI has no regen (and mana is no longer affected) and Vaal Pact ignores that completely

it is not glamorous nor skill-based gameplay but just cast stuff in the general direction.

cleave guy has no prolif (herald of ash.. maybe with high enough damage), has no range, relies on regen/leech that this map mod just destroys, all the defences he has (AR/EV/end charges) do NOTHING vs stuff that is dangerous


remind me please - beyond bosses/essences. do they deal 'attack' damage at all? if they do, what %of that is physical?

how can 'melee be fine' if the majority of damage dealt to players in end-game comes as ele spells that typical melee defences (AR/EV) do nothing against? Izaro is the last major phys attack mob added into the game. everything else just spams colors everywhere and if you HAVE to get close to deal damage you can only outdps it or spell block. diversity.

"

sidtherat wrote:

because i did it? whats difficult about that? cast FrostBolts in the general direction of enemies and move closer, repeat?

breach.. prolif solves this issue, just like it solves the beyond issue. Elementalist is just broken vs content like that. the -%regen is tough but my CI has no regen (and mana is no longer affected) and Vaal Pact ignores that completely

it is not glamorous nor skill-based gameplay but just cast stuff in the general direction.

cleave guy has no prolif (herald of ash.. maybe with high enough damage), has no range, relies on regen/leech that this map mod just destroys, all the defences he has (AR/EV/end charges) do NOTHING vs stuff that is dangerous


remind me please - beyond bosses/essences. do they deal 'attack' damage at all? if they do, what %of that is physical?

how can 'melee be fine' if the majority of damage dealt to players in end-game comes as ele spells that typical melee defences (AR/EV) do nothing against? Izaro is the last major phys attack mob added into the game. everything else just spams colors everywhere and if you HAVE to get close to deal damage you can only outdps it or spell block. diversity.

So you're going to compare a complex build using multiple mechanics like prolif with a top tier ascendency and complain that cleave which is a enhanced basic auto attack is worst.


??? I mean it's self explanatory why it isn't worst, and it certainly isn't damage or defenses.

You can also facetank all 4 guardians with 6k hp with a shitty attack like molten strike. Then again molten shit is much better then cleave.

I never said "melee is fine". My post is "obviously enhanced basic autoattacks are shit." Any melee attack that isn't a enhanced basic attack have potential to be good.

"

sidtherat wrote:

how can 'melee be fine' if the majority of damage dealt to players in end-game comes as ele spells that typical melee defences (AR/EV) do nothing against?

I'd restrict it to "the majority of damage dealt that hurts me". Pretty sure that there's plenty of physical damage in my maps, that my defenses work perfectly against.

What I am wondering: Spell damage is obviously dangerous in lategame. So, when making your build, why did you leave such a glaring hole?
Swap in Saffell's and Lazhwar, use Phase acro + Atziri's step, use items with additional max resists or swap in a purity of xyz, carry resist flasks, outleech it, maybe via Vaal Pact... just do something.

On a jugger, I'd probably use Saffell, Lazhwar and triple purities, and abyssus to compensate for the loss of Hatred/HoA. With 7+ EC, better fortify and huge armour, you can probably get away with abyssus even against Itzaro.

"

Izaro is the last major phys attack mob added into the game. everything else just spams colors everywhere and if you HAVE to get close to deal damage you can only outdps it or spell block. diversity.

Minotaur?
There's a bunch of map bosses with level >75 (uber lab) that want to hit you in the face with physical damage.

How many different defenses against spells would you want in your game to call it "diverse", btw? Currently, there's 4 that work (the ones I listed above). Not enough?

"

if 'melee is fine, but avoid this and that' then melee is NOT fine

If there was nothing to avoid, I'd consider it OP, not "fine".

In your example (double beyond + breach + a random invasion boss + some nasty map mods), you just bit off more than you can chew.
Why was there even an Invasion boss? Why did you not kill it before you opened the breach? Why would you even use double beyond when you know beforehand you have no defenses against spells? What exactly did you expect to happen?

Take away 1-2 of those dangerous ingredients, and you probably would have been fine.
...and btw, such scenarios can also kill op-op VP-CI builds with more range than Cleave pretty easily.

The clusterfuck of "breach + double beyond" alone regularly freezes my screen long enough to burst through 20k ES easily, a life builds with regen, block and armour/evasion is actually more survivable then. Which is one of the reasons I abandoned ES meta... ;)

there is NOTHING shitty about molten strike.. been farming end game with it for like 2 patches. its single target damage is disgusting. and with the damage comes leech. how is anyone expected to die with this combo?

and i just want to point out a simple fact: melee (close up melee, not lacerate/ST etc) has to deal with things ranged builds do not have to deal

and damage they (melee) are equipped to deal with (attack, physical) is less and less relevant. pretty much every dangerous thing added to the game recently (breach, beyond, breachlords) is: spell, elemental or degen (way to 'mitigate' AR and EV at the same time!)



i can offscreen crap without Elementalist. can you clear the map i depicted above (as a melee) without spell block and/or instant leech+gigaDPS?

this is a genuine question. what should i do more to make that build 'viable' (as in - not requiring running away from content)


because if the answer is 'nothing' then melee is not fine and case is rested


i can accept melee dealing less damage than casters/ranged IF melee has something to compensate for that. currently melee is meta or bust. HoWA or BLS -> melee is fine. normal RT build? better stick to blue T10 maps and remove the more dangerous stones.

it is NOT fine.

btw nothing in my FrostBolt build is complex. it is a joke of a build: 8k ES, VP, the same tree everyf..one uses. there is nothing good about it. 5 link, crap items, lvl19 gems. imagine what can it do if you actually try to make it good.

there is very little you can do - except using 1/2 crutches available - to make close-up melee build work. because pretty much EVERYTHIN dangerous right now ignores defences that make melee's identity: AR and EV forcing players willing to do endgame to a) outdps it without really 'playing the game' (Mathil's style, but he at least know how to play it) b) pick spell block/Saffaels (or Aegis if one wants to show off). this still does nothing vs degens (new faw of GGG)

if this is not a problem then well..

"

Peterlerock wrote:

Why would you even use double beyond when you know beforehand you have no defenses against spells? What exactly did you expect to happen?

well.. these are not the questions i have to ask to myself when i play ranged lol builds

this alone shows that melee sucks 'in comparison'



and what you say is exactly what i wanted you to say: melee BUILD is fine. you have very little flexibility, because you HAVE to pick this and this and this, turning 'my build' into 'A MELEE BUILD'.

diversity.

why? what do i gain when i let myself be pigeonholed into one build that happen to work when the alternative is to abandon this entire melee fiasco and join the merry crowd? (do not start with 'play however you like' please. if you want to buy yourself that green dream jewel - youll compete with players who play ranged and thus generate currency/wealth way faster. if you want to trade - you are competing with others. playing gimped build you gimp yourself)