One shot?....

"

Kastmar wrote:

"

FCK42 wrote:

How and why would you get hit by his slam of all things?

Because You don't see it. With discharge you don't see nothing what is boss doing.

...and this is melee's fault?

I think people are misinterpretting this thread. This isn't a "help me understand how I died please" thread, because if it was then that would be solved already - Consume Curse Nova means goddamn business and a lot of players don't know about it/aren't ready for it.

This is actually an "I hate the fact that I can't Conan the Barbarian my way through this game and facetank literally everything with my MAN PECS even though my build makes it difficult to see/respond to the most blatant telegraphs out there" complaint thread.

First of all, I call shenanibullshit. There are plenty of Dischargers out there who can get out from beneath slams. Discharge is not THAT ridiculous now that Rainbownuke isn't a thing. If you get slammed it's your fault, not the game's.

Second of all, "70% physical reduction" is a myth. If that's what your character screen is reporting to you and thus is the number you're using, you're mistaken. Character screen Phys. Reduction is a broad guesstimate that's calculated against an average white monster of your level, the same way as every other interaction-dependent stat on your character screen. Against big slow huge-damage slambosses like the Pagan Bishop? That PDR score is not anywhere near 70%.

Third of all, melee is fine. Does it require more active play and finer positional control than range? Yes, of course. As it should. I've seen plenty of melee characters take down the Shaper. No, you can't run through the game namelocking individual critters one at a time with Heavy Strike to prove how Heroic your Thews are (well you can, but it's highly inadvised) or any of that other garbage all the "MELEE SUCKS" crowd keeps going on about, but if you build and play a melee-range character intelligently it does just fine.

I am not saying the dichotomy between range and melee is as dramatic as some in this thread, but your Conan The Barbarian posturing did trigger my defensiveness a bit.

It is more like AoE has eclipsed single target, as you say, and "melee-ranged" is what you refer to melee now (I note you have actually 2 BF builds in Legacy).

PoE game design introduced AoE skills that actually equaled or surpasses single target skills in single target damage. And those single target skills could not hope to approach equivalent AoE damage even while using up a gem slot with Melee Splash. See Blade-Flurry-what-started-ruining-melee-balance.

But don't you see the point some are trying to make; that more intimate melee skills are really hamstrung by OP mob skills like that nova that ranged characters do not even notice? Volatiles anyone (oh you nasty volatiles).

And all that being said, as you noted as well, melee builds can do endgame. But, oh man, they are expensive to gear, and (this is me being ignorant) don't most require the new threshold gems to really be viable? Molten Strike?

You can do most of the game with default attack, but why would you?

"

1453R wrote:

"

Kastmar wrote:

"

FCK42 wrote:

How and why would you get hit by his slam of all things?

Because You don't see it. With discharge you don't see nothing what is boss doing.

...and this is melee's fault?

I think people are misinterpretting this thread. This isn't a "help me understand how I died please" thread, because if it was then that would be solved already - Consume Curse Nova means goddamn business and a lot of players don't know about it/aren't ready for it.

This is actually an "I hate the fact that I can't Conan the Barbarian my way through this game and facetank literally everything with my MAN PECS even though my build makes it difficult to see/respond to the most blatant telegraphs out there" complaint thread.

First of all, I call shenanibullshit. There are plenty of Dischargers out there who can get out from beneath slams. Discharge is not THAT ridiculous now that Rainbownuke isn't a thing. If you get slammed it's your fault, not the game's.

Second of all, "70% physical reduction" is a myth. If that's what your character screen is reporting to you and thus is the number you're using, you're mistaken. Character screen Phys. Reduction is a broad guesstimate that's calculated against an average white monster of your level, the same way as every other interaction-dependent stat on your character screen. Against big slow huge-damage slambosses like the Pagan Bishop? That PDR score is not anywhere near 70%.

Third of all, melee is fine. Does it require more active play and finer positional control than range? Yes, of course. As it should. I've seen plenty of melee characters take down the Shaper. No, you can't run through the game namelocking individual critters one at a time with Heavy Strike to prove how Heroic your Thews are (well you can, but it's highly inadvised) or any of that other garbage all the "MELEE SUCKS" crowd keeps going on about, but if you build and play a melee-range character intelligently it does just fine.

I dont telling this is the melee fault. i'm telling this is the melee HUGE disadvantage comparing to ranged. So what does melee get to make balance between ranged and melee? NOTHING Only disadvantages comparing to ranged.

"

Slaanesh69 wrote:

I am not saying the dichotomy between range and melee is as dramatic as some in this thread, but your Conan The Barbarian posturing did trigger my defensiveness a bit.

It is more like AoE has eclipsed single target, as you say, and "melee-ranged" is what you refer to melee now (I note you have actually 2 BF builds in Legacy).

PoE game design introduced AoE skills that actually equaled or surpasses single target skills in single target damage. And those single target skills could not hope to approach equivalent AoE damage even while using up a gem slot with Melee Splash. See Blade-Flurry-what-started-ruining-melee-balance.

But don't you see the point some are trying to make; that more intimate melee skills are really hamstrung by OP mob skills like that nova that ranged characters do not even notice? Volatiles anyone (oh you nasty volatiles).

And all that being said, as you noted as well, melee builds can do endgame. But, oh man, they are expensive to gear, and (this is me being ignorant) don't most require the new threshold gems to really be viable? Molten Strike?

You can do most of the game with default attack, but why would you?

All right, this is worth responding to. Thanks for being clear and reasonable about your point.

First of all: I do have two Blade Flurry characters in Legacy, but they're actually my first Blade Flurry character(s). I avoided the OMG THIS IS SO BROKE bandwagon, which I usually do actually. I joke with my buddies that a meta has to be at least two leagues old before I'll touch it. That's neither here nor there, but neither build is actually a conventional BF either. Abyssal Scream is me fiddling with a streamer Abyssal Cry build I'd seen elsewhere; had actually considered Viper Strike as well as the trigger attack for Abyssal Cry, and if I ever do the build again in the future (Abyssal Cry Berserker is actually super freaking fun and I highly recommend it), I'd be using a less weird attack to do it. Viper Strike works, since it's good for boss-clearing and boss clearing is always the big weakness of any Abyssal Cry build.

The other guy is in progress, but he's a weird dude who'd actually engage in melee range (optimally) even at higher levels. Winter Knight is meant to play like an old-style spell-spamming CoC build but without the CoC (or the ridiculous game-destroying server spikes). One of his spells is Vortex, and since it doesn't get anything but one AoE cluster to boost it, Knight has to get pretty close to hit with all his stuff.

I actually find myself understanding the melee players' bitter hatred of Blade Flurry ("There's nothing MELEE about this damned skill! It's a ranged AoE spell that has nothing to do with swinging your sword!"). I agree - though the way Blurry is set up there's not really a better way to do it, since spells don't/can't use your weapon's damage, and also without Blurry I couldn't make my Winter Knight so I'll take it.

What I don't get is the folks who seem to think that every AoE skill should generally be useless, or at least reduced in effectiveness such that namelocking one critter at a time with Heavy Strike is just as fast/effective/efficient as attacking entire packs with AoE skills. It makes no sense at all to me. Wasn't Cleave one of the base skills introduced at launch? Isn't Cleave sort of a staple of Barbarian/Fighter-type builds across the entirety of the fantasy genre? There's Cyclone, too! Cyclone gets to be Proper Melee despite being literally the worst thing ever, making negative sense, and giving me ass cancer every time I even contemplate using it.

Those guys and their constant campaign to try and restructure the entirety of PoE to conform to their ideal - cutting critter density in maps by a factor of over ten so that a "pack" or four or five targets is a massive horde, all bosses are easiest when fought in ball-smacking range the same way Izaro is, and all ranged attacks deal less than half the damage of an equivalent melee hit - bother me because that's not the sort of game PoE is. Even aside from pacing, the simple mechanical nature of the game means getting a skill to do more is more effective.

You only have so many sockets. One skill being both your boss killer and your lawn mower means you can devote more sockets to supporting abilities, bolstering auras, or various trigger or buff skills. All the basic skills have already been built; the only ones left to make are the things like Blade Flurry or Storm Burst (GAWD Storm Burst looks amazing...), which have more intricate and advanced mechanics to make them stand out from the pack.

Even with all that, though? You can do builds that spend one four-link on a clearing skill and their main 5L/6L on a boss killer easily enough, without really impacting your build's self-buffing capabilities. Wanders do it all the time (and also have gotten far less attention than even TRU MELEE), and with the introduction of Maim you can even make your 4L clearing skill a useful part of your anti-boss toolkit.

The Conan builds can be made to work. I don't feel they should be given primacy over every other build in the game though, no. PoE is all about creatively figuring out ways to make what you want to work excel through clever combination and manipulation of mechanics. Swinging one sword one time at one critter, then repeating fifty billion times to level 94 without any variability to it, is...frankly, kinda boring. Why even have all of this other awesome stuff you can do if making use of it puts you behind the Heavy Strike guy namelocking his way across Wraeclast? if being that guy appeals strongly to you, you can do that here.

Or you can also take some time off and run one of the other hundreds of games out there built to appeal to the guy who wants to be the Mighty Barbarian Hero. There's a lot fewer games that appeal to folks who love to build intricate creations and fiddle with numerous interlocking mechanics, behaviors, triggers and abilities to create something new and awesome.

Why people keep wanting PoE to become one of the Brow Beaters I do not know, and it actively dismays me to see people keep suggesting it, just like it actively dismays TRU MELEE guys that Heavy Strike isn't the best skill in the entire game flat period end-sentence bar nothing.

Anyways. Rambled on long enough between customer calls. Thanks again for actually trying to explain rather than just opine. Hopefully I've offered something useful as well, and my apologies if not.