The REAL problem with melee vs. ranged

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bionicg2040 wrote:

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suszterpatt wrote:

The REAL problem with melee is that there is absolutely no incentive to play it.


You sacrifice a lot of clearspeed and expose yourself to a lot of extra sources of danger, and have bugger all to show for it. Anything a melee char can do, a ranged char can do better.

If you want to play PoE, play ranged. If you want to play melee, play another game.

You also forgot shit targeting for the melee player.

Hence why Moves that you can't just click on a space to use are more or less abandoned now >.<
the game's just too past paced for most players to want to deal with having to click on a monster instead of a space.

Oh god, I love a good "Melee is Shit Thread"

Ive historically played only Melee builds, but this league I just couldnt do it anymore. Ive done many projectile builds this league. Mostly Spells, dont really have much love for bows.

Fact is Melee has been in a bad spot for a long time and I dont know why GGG refuses to address this. They tried with fortify, but it was just abused by ranged characters anyway completely defeating the purpose.

One of the biggest factors right now is the issue with "Life". A lot of melee builds would be better and more flexible as far as damage nodes go if you didnt have to literally go after every life node you can possibly reach on the tree. Evasion Melee is the hardest hit by this since you get far less base health with the lack of strength and you take the most damage from being in range of everything. Yes you can go ES, but you shouldnt have to feel like you have to if you want end game survivability. This issue right now closes a lot of build options.

A good example of this is I made a Cyclone Duelist with CI this league and ended up with 9k ES. I did this simply because I know how bad life is after almost 5 years playing this game. I ended up with 2k more EHP than most people can get on a life build starting form the furthest possible position on the tree and believe me when I say my gear wasnt even that good. I could have had much more ES if I put the money into it.

With the "Life" issue aside, I dont understand why this game allows ranged characters to have so much damage with all the free defense they get. Honestly I think a realistic mechanic that effects accuracy would make sense. the further you are away from a target the less chance you have to hit. This would be far less clearing of 2 screens by projectiles. It would also give ranged characters the choice to do damage if they want to take the risk of getting up close or to go slower from a safe distance. This would give Melee characters a damage advantage from being up close so they can focus more on building defense to survive up close. This would help even the playing field and allow clear speeds to be dynamically scaled by players on how close to packs they chose to play.

Another thing to note is what Pohx said. This game isnt Melee vs. Ranged. Its True Melee where you have to manually hit a target, Projectiles, or AoE. All the new melee skills that anyone plays is either modified by AoE or projectiles. Single target skills are literally a joke and even if someone plays them they throw on melee splash and make it an AoE anyway. As someone who played melee back before Melee Splash was a thing, "LofuckingL" If this game actually wanted to balance True Melee, Those single target abilities would have to have a massive amount of damage and Monster HP would have to be increased drastically so that AoE skills and Projectiles would have to make multiple hits to kill the monsters while the "True Melee" would be able to one shot them to move through packs at the same pace.

Fact is GGG is in a tough spot, if they change too much at one time they could lose a lot of their player base, and that is a big issue, it just cant be overlooked. Also changing too much at once could throw things way out of balance in unpredictable ways. GGG has essentially let this problem fester for far too long and are now in an impossible situation. After about 5 years of playing "Shit Melee" I honestly just dont expect them to ever do anything about it because they're too scared of how much they would have to change and what that would mean for the survivability of their company and their game. This is an issue that should have been taken care of and addressed at a much earlier stage. At this point I think we just have to accept that nobody, no company, no game is perfect and this is something GGG is simply going to have to learn from. They screwed up, and cant really get out now.

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TenTonBlue wrote:

Honestly I think a realistic mechanic that effects accuracy would make sense. the further you are away from a target the less chance you have to hit.

Agree there.
And for spells then, having their damage being reduces the farther the targets are from the caster ( for projectiles, for AOE, it could be .. the farther from the center or something ).

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aleksandor wrote:

Fucking hell, melee having to kite is one of the most disgusting things in the game ever.

Exactly. There can be no trace of any balance when this is the reality.

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Emphasy wrote:

So unless you take away the option for melees to be ranged they cannot be as good as a ranged char.

Plain wrong. A melee character can be stronger than ranged if it has more damage and/OR more survivability than a ranged build.

Again, we are not chasing unicorns here. Melee was strong back in the old PoE days of 1.2.

A perfect example is EV melee builds that have pretty much become fossils these days but were very strong back in the day. Why now extinct? Because they are running around with the SAME dodge as a ranged character, exposing themselves to MORE enemy damage and one shots, all while having LOWER damage than a ranged character.

PoE is the only game I have come across where melee builds having less damage and less survivability SOMEHOW makes sense to people here.

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Fruz wrote:

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TenTonBlue wrote:

Honestly I think a realistic mechanic that effects accuracy would make sense. the further you are away from a target the less chance you have to hit.

Agree there.
And for spells then, having their damage being reduces the farther the targets are from the caster ( for projectiles, for AOE, it could be .. the farther from the center or something ).

Well Accuracy only targets attackers, which already are in a generally worse spot than spells. People often seem to forget that bows are not the next best thing, they are even rarer in the ladder than melees (although those melees are using 2-3 skills only) and are basically only relying poison. I think there was a single Deadeye using straight physical damage to kill things in the Top50. Some Elementalists seem to have specced into Elemental Bow builds later, but at this point the equip they had would have allowed them to play as anything, they still leveled up with Flameblast. So bows aren't in a better shape if you try to just use a physical bow build you are in a situation pretty similar to what melees are in. You struggle as a life build because you have a hard time getting enough, you need a very good weapon or rely on crit scaling to achieve anything and after all you permanently wish you would use a spell that just scales while you level.

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Plain wrong. A melee character can be stronger than ranged if it has more damage and/OR more survivability than a ranged build.

Issue is how would you define them. Because the game doesn't work that way. So should a ranged character suddenly get tankier because he cannot fight at range for a reason? After all every ranged char has to be able to survive in melee range because the game throws enough situations at him were he is limited to being in melee range (like Dominus 2nd phase).

So either melees would be buffed so far that they could ignore all those scenarios that also force ranged into melee combat or ranged chars could simply not handle them. In a game were you can simply switch a skillgem to move from melee to ranged (like switching from Double Strike to Lacerate), it is not really possible to do that. Because you either make the true melee skills very powerful which means they benefit mostly those builds that can switch between single target and AoE without requiring different gem colors or you make many other skills too weak to even do anything with them.

The next issue is actually defining what is melee. Sunder definitly isn't, neither is Lacerate or Groundslam. Because most of the issues melees have are not defined by the tag melee on the skill. Warchief Totems and Blade Flurry are both tagged melee, yet hardly have the issues a skill like Cleave has. They basically gradually improve the more range they allow for, which means every single melee gem would need different threatment. And technically the same goes for bow skills and even many spells. A skill like barrage that suffers from great distances or Shrapnel Shot which loses a lot of damage over distance would need different threatment than a skill like Splitarrow which is basically limited only by the travel distance (which is about 2 screens, so you can basically hit all active monsters). Spells range from short distance like Lightning Tendrils to again those that go outside your screen.

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PoE is the only game I have come across where melee builds having less damage and less survivability SOMEHOW makes sense to people here.

Less damage compared to what? Blade Flurry and Warchief easily deal more damage than bows, they are worse than spells. In PoE spells are right now better than attacks but that is not something limited to melees it applies to bows as well. Of course Bows can abuse double dipping easier due to using projectiles, which does benefit them but it is not something tied to the skills, it is simply a mechanical issue that only applies til 3.0. After 3.0 Bows will be in a similar shape than melee skills, while having even worse weapons avaible. Most cheap unique Axes and Swords easily outmatch unique bows and with poison being nerfed heavily they hardly have anything in terms of scaling going for them as well.

The issue in terms of damage is mainly related to weapon based skills being worse than spells. And the survivability issue is mostly tied to melees relying more on life and have a hard time going for ES. So if we speak about melee issues, it is more certain skills not keeping up than a general melee issue and most of the issues are tied to weapon based scaling, which affects bows as well and the not so good state of life based builds.

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Emphasy wrote:

Issue is how would you define them. Because the game doesn't work that way. So should a ranged character suddenly get tankier because he cannot fight at range for a reason? After all every ranged char has to be able to survive in melee range because the game throws enough situations at him were he is limited to being in melee range (like Dominus 2nd phase).

So either melees would be buffed so far that they could ignore all those scenarios that also force ranged into melee combat or ranged chars could simply not handle them. In a game were you can simply switch a skillgem to move from melee to ranged (like switching from Double Strike to Lacerate), it is not really possible to do that. Because you either make the true melee skills very powerful which means they benefit mostly those builds that can switch between single target and AoE without requiring different gem colors or you make many other skills too weak to even do anything with them.

The next issue is actually defining what is melee. Sunder definitly isn't, neither is Lacerate or Groundslam. Because most of the issues melees have are not defined by the tag melee on the skill. Warchief Totems and Blade Flurry are both tagged melee, yet hardly have the issues a skill like Cleave has. They basically gradually improve the more range they allow for, which means every single melee gem would need different threatment. And technically the same goes for bow skills and even many spells. A skill like barrage that suffers from great distances or Shrapnel Shot which loses a lot of damage over distance would need different threatment than a skill like Splitarrow which is basically limited only by the travel distance (which is about 2 screens, so you can basically hit all active monsters). Spells range from short distance like Lightning Tendrils to again those that go outside your screen.

Less damage compared to what? Blade Flurry and Warchief easily deal more damage than bows, they are worse than spells. In PoE spells are right now better than attacks but that is not something limited to melees it applies to bows as well. Of course Bows can abuse double dipping easier due to using projectiles, which does benefit them but it is not something tied to the skills, it is simply a mechanical issue that only applies til 3.0. After 3.0 Bows will be in a similar shape than melee skills, while having even worse weapons avaible. Most cheap unique Axes and Swords easily outmatch unique bows and with poison being nerfed heavily they hardly have anything in terms of scaling going for them as well.

The issue in terms of damage is mainly related to weapon based skills being worse than spells. And the survivability issue is mostly tied to melees relying more on life and have a hard time going for ES. So if we speak about melee issues, it is more certain skills not keeping up than a general melee issue and most of the issues are tied to weapon based scaling, which affects bows as well and the not so good state of life based builds.

Dude is that not the whole point? There are certain skill gems in this game that are the real melee skills - and which all suck. I'm strugglign to understand how someone who is covering the screen with projectiles or standing behind his totems is defined as melee?

We all know what the melee skills in this game are, let's stop pretending we are at a complete loss on how to define melee in PoE.

If GGG doesn't want anyone to play these skills - that's fine, just remove them from the game, and remove the melee tag from gems and tree.

And I don't agree with your notion that weapon based skills are worse than spells.

Bow and wand builds actually can do a lot of DPS with certain uniques, flask, and jewels that give them absurd scaling with extra projectiles and mechanics like point blank. On the other hand, if you are ever looking for a good laugh - go check out some of the melee threshold jewels.

And what about HOWA? Those builds are weapon based and have great scaling.

Yet it must be a true conundrum that no one is using HoWa with a melee skill, but rather they are all ranged/"melee" skills like FB/ST.

Why is that?

The issue is obviously a melee issue and not an "all weapon attack builds suffer" issue.

Why is it that range build can use Point Blank to get bonus DPS for being in melee range?

Doesn't make any sense in today's game, but Point Blank is a legacy PoE mechanic when range had lower survivability and mobility than melee builds, so range builds that wanted to play in melee - were given extra DPS to compensate for their lack of survivability in melee.

Unfortunately these days, the game has become a complete mess balance-wise. Point Blank is being abused, because a ranged/spell build can get the same defence as a melee build, while still retaining the option to play at range to cut down on damage exposure, AND having better damage scaling options.

We had a similar problem before with ranged builds abusing critical strike multipliers meant for melee builds. Took quite a while, but GGG eventually ended up restricting those crit multipliers to melee.

Sadly, GGG finds balancing melee too much work, so it's much easier to just make new ranged skills and slap on a "melee" tag and give them high DPS. Problem solved right?

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Ceryneian wrote:

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Emphasy wrote:

Issue is how would you define them. Because the game doesn't work that way. So should a ranged character suddenly get tankier because he cannot fight at range for a reason? After all every ranged char has to be able to survive in melee range because the game throws enough situations at him were he is limited to being in melee range (like Dominus 2nd phase).

So either melees would be buffed so far that they could ignore all those scenarios that also force ranged into melee combat or ranged chars could simply not handle them. In a game were you can simply switch a skillgem to move from melee to ranged (like switching from Double Strike to Lacerate), it is not really possible to do that. Because you either make the true melee skills very powerful which means they benefit mostly those builds that can switch between single target and AoE without requiring different gem colors or you make many other skills too weak to even do anything with them.

The next issue is actually defining what is melee. Sunder definitly isn't, neither is Lacerate or Groundslam. Because most of the issues melees have are not defined by the tag melee on the skill. Warchief Totems and Blade Flurry are both tagged melee, yet hardly have the issues a skill like Cleave has. They basically gradually improve the more range they allow for, which means every single melee gem would need different threatment. And technically the same goes for bow skills and even many spells. A skill like barrage that suffers from great distances or Shrapnel Shot which loses a lot of damage over distance would need different threatment than a skill like Splitarrow which is basically limited only by the travel distance (which is about 2 screens, so you can basically hit all active monsters). Spells range from short distance like Lightning Tendrils to again those that go outside your screen.

Less damage compared to what? Blade Flurry and Warchief easily deal more damage than bows, they are worse than spells. In PoE spells are right now better than attacks but that is not something limited to melees it applies to bows as well. Of course Bows can abuse double dipping easier due to using projectiles, which does benefit them but it is not something tied to the skills, it is simply a mechanical issue that only applies til 3.0. After 3.0 Bows will be in a similar shape than melee skills, while having even worse weapons avaible. Most cheap unique Axes and Swords easily outmatch unique bows and with poison being nerfed heavily they hardly have anything in terms of scaling going for them as well.

The issue in terms of damage is mainly related to weapon based skills being worse than spells. And the survivability issue is mostly tied to melees relying more on life and have a hard time going for ES. So if we speak about melee issues, it is more certain skills not keeping up than a general melee issue and most of the issues are tied to weapon based scaling, which affects bows as well and the not so good state of life based builds.

Dude is that not the whole point? There are certain skill gems in this game that are the real melee skills - and which all suck. I'm strugglign to understand how someone who is covering the screen with projectiles or standing behind his totems is defined as melee?

We all know what the melee skills in this game are, let's stop pretending we are at a complete loss on how to define melee in PoE.

If GGG doesn't want anyone to play these skills - that's fine, just remove them from the game, and remove the melee tag from gems and tree.

And I don't agree with your notion that weapon based skills are worse than spells.

Bow and wand builds actually can do a lot of DPS with certain uniques, flask, and jewels that give them absurd scaling with extra projectiles and mechanics like point blank. On the other hand, if you are ever looking for a good laugh - go check out some of the melee threshold jewels.

And what about HOWA? Those builds are weapon based and have great scaling.

Yet it must be a true conundrum that no one is using HoWa with a melee skill, but rather they are all ranged/"melee" skills like FB/ST.

Why is that?

The issue is obviously a melee issue and not an "all weapon attack builds suffer" issue.

Why is it that range build can use Point Blank to get bonus DPS for being in melee range?

Doesn't make any sense in today's game, but Point Blank is a legacy PoE mechanic when range had lower survivability and mobility than melee builds, so range builds that wanted to play in melee - were given extra DPS to compensate for their lack of survivability in melee.

Unfortunately these days, the game has become a complete mess balance-wise. Point Blank is being abused, because a ranged/spell build can get the same defence as a melee build, while still retaining the option to play at range to cut down on damage exposure, AND having better damage scaling options.

We had a similar problem before with ranged builds abusing critical strike multipliers meant for melee builds. Took quite a while, but GGG eventually ended up restricting those crit multipliers to melee.

Sadly, GGG finds balancing melee too much work, so it's much easier to just make new ranged skills and slap on a "melee" tag and give them high DPS. Problem solved right?

It's too easy to forget that if GGG truly wanted it, melee could get a lot more balanced, heck even @Sidtherat proposed only one small but impactful change - make leech mechanics only work in an actual hit radius, let's say up to 16 - and I will further concede a small change, make them work at 100% efficiency in a 16 radius, 75% in a 24 radius, 50% in a 32 radius, 25% in a 64 radius and 0% above, while also removing offscreen projectile damage.

The point was that kiting provides enough defence and as long as you don't actually stop and fight at melee - single targeting skill wise radius - you just don't need leech.

That way even Point Blank would make sense if you want leech on a ranged character, you could always explore melee radius with enough damage incentive...

And Vaal Pact should be a truer double edged sword than it is right now, so making leech also radius dependant seems like the way to go...

They might surprise us and address those issues regarding melee in 3.0, but I wouldn't hold my breath as we have to still experience their double dipping fixes...

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Emphasy wrote:

The next issue is actually defining what is melee.

Less damage compared to what? Blade Flurry and Warchief easily deal more damage than bows, they are worse than spells. In PoE spells are right now better than attacks but that is not something limited to melees it applies to bows as well. Of course Bows can abuse double dipping easier due to using projectiles, which does benefit them but it is not something tied to the skills, it is simply a mechanical issue that only applies til 3.0. After 3.0 Bows will be in a similar shape than melee skills, while having even worse weapons avaible. Most cheap unique Axes and Swords easily outmatch unique bows and with poison being nerfed heavily they hardly have anything in terms of scaling going for them as well.

@Emphasy I read your post twice because I didnt want to have a knee jerk reaction to you arguing a point with blade flurry and ancestral warchief. I mean, obviously these skills bypass the issues with actual true melee skills regardless of if they have the melee tag slapped on them or not. So as you said, it depends on how you define it. The issues with Melee skils are the balance of the extra damage taken vs defense and the potential damage output. Theres nothing about casting totems and standing a screen away that could possibly relate to the issue with melee. In Essence its a totem build, not a melee build. I think people need to stop looking at the damage modifier tags and start defining skill types based on their interaction.

As I said in my earlier post(Agreeing with something Pohx said) There are really only 3 damage interactions in the game, Aoe, Projectiles, and True Melee. I suppose an argument could be made for totems, Traps/Mines, and Minons giving us 4, 5, 6. But when discussing issues with play types, I believe the interactions are far more important than simply the tags that are slapped on to each skill.

One good example of a melee skill that actually performs well is Cyclone. The reason this skill is popular and performs well is because it has a much higher damage output by being able to hit multiple monsters at once while still having viable single target DPS. And it doesnt require you to waste a gem slot like other melee skills would with melee splash. Cyclone is a great example of a melee skill (that actually attacks with the weapons) that has higher damage output and some built in defense(immunity to stun). An argument could be made that this is AoE and not a True melee skill, but lets be honest, its a much closer comparison than blade flurry which has a damage AoE in front of the character that never actually attacks with the weapons.

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TenTonBlue wrote:

One good example of a melee skill that actually performs well is Cyclone. The reason this skill is popular and performs well is because it has a much higher damage output by being able to hit multiple monsters at once while still having viable single target DPS. And it doesnt require you to waste a gem slot like other melee skills would with melee splash. Cyclone is a great example of a melee skill (that actually attacks with the weapons) that has higher damage output and some built in defense(immunity to stun). An argument could be made that this is AoE and not a True melee skill, but lets be honest, its a much closer comparison than blade flurry which has a damage AoE in front of the character that never actually attacks with the weapons.

Blade Vortex is probably the best "melee skill" in PoE. But it's a rare exception in the game GGG doesnt care to balance.