Why are fortify nodes and the fortify gem so punishing/bad?

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Satan_Assembler wrote:

I have tried making anything out of it for like 3 leagues already.
Lets face it, Vigilant strike is absolutely useless as a main skill and terrible as a side thing to use every now an then.
Glacial hammer is 3 times better.

Just delete it.

Neah, Vigilant Strike should always have double damage per each previous hit, and be capped at 3 hits, then a small CD of 3-5 seconds should get installed...

If it would be the hardest hitting skill in game, work for a "burst" with Multistrike, and grant a further 50-100% increased Fortify effect, it would become manageable.

Until then, it's better to use Frenzy with a level 20 or 21 Fortify, as that combo provides more versatility and utility in the same time...

2 things some people need to remember:

1. Melee characters also get a benefit out of having fortify on a movement skill over having it on their main attack.

2. There are spell casters with spells that are pointblank and there are melee skills that have long range on them. Why should the long range melee both deserve fortify and the easy leech they get, and the pointblank spell caster not deserve either of those?

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Telzen wrote:

2 things some people need to remember:

1. Melee characters also get a benefit out of having fortify on a movement skill over having it on their main attack.

2. There are spell casters with spells that are pointblank and there are melee skills that have long range on them. Why should the long range melee both deserve fortify and the easy leech they get, and the pointblank spell caster not deserve either of those?

This is why I always supported Fortify becoming intrinsic to single target namelocking melee, and work if an enemy is hit by the character in a <16 radius (with a subsequent decreased effect when linked to melee movement skills)!

Casters also enjoy various defensive alternatives, like MoM/ES way more easier than a melee character would, so they could manage without benefiting from Fortify - there is a reason why Fortify has the "melee" tag, and the "close combat" casters that use a Mjol/Cospri's always HIT with a melee skill, just like any other Coc build...

So, nice try, but maybe try harder?

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sofocle10000 wrote:

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SlippyCheeze wrote:

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aleksandor wrote:

As the topic says, why is the fortify support gem and the Fortify Wheel of nodes so bad for melee, the INTENDED users of fortify?

Why is fortify set up seemingly to be in favor of RANGED using it and not be more rewarding for melee users?

You seem to be discounting the value of fortify itself entirely in this rant. Have you considered that perhaps it doesn't bring huge DPS boosts because GGG want there to be a trade-off between "has fortify damage reduction" and "has extra DPS"?

Even the ascendency that just plain gives you full time fortify is a trade-off. You could have run an ascendency with bigger DPS bonuses instead, but you chose the defensive one. Again, trade-offs.

Then enlighten us where are the trade offs for cast/ranged playstyles versus namelocking melee???

The trade-offs of fortify for casters and ranged attackers, vs only namelocking melee? Seems a little unfair to exclude all the non-namelock melee from this, but...

They can't use fortify on their attacks, because they are not melee skills. So, unlike melee users, they can't get fortify all the time by trading off a DPS gem on the main attack for a defensive gem.

Like melee, they can put that gem on a movement skill that also hits enemies and counts as melee, with the restrictions those impose such as shield and non-wand use, or claw/dagger/sword use. They can also put it on a secondary melee skill they hit with occasionally, either with the support gem, or the fortify-giving melee skills.

In both of those cases the ranged/caster needs to give up at least two sockets for skill + support in almost all cases; for vigalent strike they "only" need to give up any non-melee weapon. They also need to either be in melee range (fortify, any melee w/ support), or move to/through enemies (shield charge, whirling blades) which puts them much closer to the enemy that wants to chew their face off than they would be without fortify, and shooting them from a distance.

They also trade off that they are highly likely to be doing vastly less damage with these melee attacks, because there are so few physical spells, in the case of casters, and bow builds tend to be relatively low on physical too -- many of their bonuses are projectile or bow based, not melee or physical damage boosts. So, kill-on-connect is much less likely than on a melee-focused character.

So: they have to get close to the enemy, and have to use an extra skill. Melee get the choice of doing the same, extra skill, or attaching it to the primary attack, and they are rather more built to be face-chewing right back...

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sofocle10000 wrote:

Even those cool GMP/LMP got added to so many items without the intrinsic less "multiplier" that it's asinine to even think about "trade offs".

Pointing to some random unconnected thing that may or may not be overpowered with ranged attacks is not a meaningful argument about fortify having trade-offs for otherwise ranged builds. If you wanted to have an argument about the relative power of ranged vs melee characters, great, but don't make like that is related to fortify in any way.

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sofocle10000 wrote:

Fortify needs to be specific for hitting an enemy in a <16 area around your character with MELEE DAMAGE, and become a 1 second buff, and also intrinsic to all single target namelocking melee skills. Everything else needs to have it at MOST at 25% effect. If they want "moar" Fortify, they should work for it and grab every single increased Fortify effect in the skilltree.

That is a set of mechanical solutions to a problem you see with Fortify being available to other classes, and irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is "does Fortify have trade-offs for non-melee players".

Though it does impose some limitation on Fortify for melee - now blade flurry and sunder attacks all the way across the screen won't be granting fortify even if supported, I suppose. Is that your intent, also penalizing them?

This troll is leading some kind of personal frustrated crusade against melee in ARPG (lul) on several melee topics now, for reasons only known to him, so that wall of text is not even worth the read.

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Raxik wrote:

This troll is leading some kind of personal frustrated crusade against melee in ARPG (lul) on several melee topics now, for reasons only known to him, so that wall of text is not even worth the read.

You know that disagreeing with you, and thinking your weak-ass "arguments" for your ideas are terrible, doesn't make me a troll, right? I just disagree with you.

The, uh, wall of text, as you call it, is what could be referred to ask explaining in very small words why fortify has trade-offs for non-melee characters, as requested. Because if I don't use small words, people like you who have ... challenges with comprehension get all flustered and head back into personal attacks.

I'm also not anti-melee in any way, I just think you have dumb ideas about why it is bad, and especially terrible ideas about how it should be improved. For example, I think that if you consider a keystone that takes away crits terrible compared to crit builds, maybe you should just do crit builds, and not take the keystone?

I guess saying that is anti-melee now, though, because if you can't buff a niche keystone to make it a huge melee DPS buff, you hate melee. Because, uh, IDK. Maybe Chris_GGG came to your house and threatened to cut you if you didn't always take it?

Fool.

Just checked your character list.

Good thing I didn't waste my time reading that pile of crap, 'cause your experience with game, let alone melee, is limit asf, and cannot be camo-ed by few fancy words.

Move along boy. Go troll some other game and/or genre where you might actually gain something, while here you gain nothing if Fortify or RT gets buffed... your crap softcore Necro mambo jumbo caster classes won't get touched.

Melee users can also stick fortify on a movement or utility skill. You don't have to use it on your main attack. This works for everybody, not just casters.

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SlippyCheeze wrote:

GGG want there to be a trade-off between "has fortify damage reduction" and "has extra DPS"?

This simply does not work, because you link a fortify gem with movement skill, not with main attack.

No trade-off. Have both: extra dps on main attack and a fortify effect.

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Baron01 wrote:

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aleksandor wrote:

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Dharall wrote:

And drop the duration to 1s

Why? Well that would "fix" the ranged users permanently having fortify with for example shield charge.
And it wouldn't affect melee at all, well.. as long as you have it linked with you attack skill.

:)

I would drop fortify's duration to 1 second in a HEARTBEAT if it also came with a nice "This skill deals % more physical damage" attachment.

This would only make Fortify a must have support in any melee attack skill. You either make Fortify too good, eg. 30% more melee damage at max level & Fortify buff, so every melee use it as a no-brainer support or you make it still not worth a socket while killing it for anyone not having it in main attack skill due to its 1s duration (this would include melee characters who can't afford to waste socket on it).

Any buff to Fortify damage increase should be strictly melee, not physical, because the game has evolved from melee being strictly physical damage dealing class to full hybrid. Giving Fortify just physical damage increase would hurt elemental attack skill melee characters.

Having a "Must have" Skill gem that melee is expected to have is about the ONLY way to level the playing field and fix melee in the current POE design/atmosphere though.

We have a system where ranged can wear the same armor and get the same survivability as melee, and use any skill they want, without any real class differentiation to prop up melee.

the only way to even out melee with Ranged is to give them an inherent advantage, like how In D2 melee classes had Skills they were EXPECTED to have-- Barbs were straight up expected to have battle orders and were balanced around it-- It was OP as fuck, but that was how to "Fix" melee. Or how Druids were expected to be in a Shapeshifted form if they were going to go into melee, massively increasing their stats. (Or how Melee classes in D3 are programmed with inherently more DR than Ranged).


The obvious solution would be to Make Melee skills deal more damage and for % increased melee damage nodes Give more benefit than Ranged % increased damage nodes so melee could put more into defenses than Ranged while still having the same DPS-- But for some reason that's too Hard for GGG so they gave us Fortify to "Fix" melee.

Since Fortify is seemingly the thing meant to "Balance" Melee having to get into Face smashing ranged compared to Ranged, Its perfectly Fine to EXPECT melee to always have it socketed to their skill.