So I wanted to see what the fuss was about melee..

I turned my ancestral warchief into an infernal blow character (level 85). 6700 life with 70% phys mitigation, capped res with a the chaos res cluster near the Templar area.

First map I did was a Canyon map. Think the worst mod on it was 17% increased mob damage. He got 1 shot by the bow betrayal unique mob.

It felt like Peter Griffin getting his lip pulled over his head at the womens retreat. OH so thats why people are complaining....

#Range4life

The damage from monsters and players got to the point of one shotting each other few times in a hit. So why would you even bother to mitigate it? Jugg is basically the only viable melee. With gladiator thx to the block. Which is basically a dodge or a avoidance.

I tried learning Calculus one day, and it was too hard... so fuck that.

Tora one shots most characters tbh as the other bow users have an occasional one shot that really clobbers you.

The fact that you get one shot more often as melee is part of the problem but its just one piece in the puzzle of melee mediocrity, also shagsbeards comment is a nice sarcastic summary of most peoples experiences ;)

Melee has been in a very bad place for a long time now and GGG doesn't seem to care about working on fixing it. It's a shame as an "in your face" play style is fun, but only if it is viable, which right now it's not. I haven't played my Dual Striker in years because it will die, even though I got the attacks per second way up (mostly a blur while in action).

I have a level 76 Tectonic Slam Jugg right now and it can facetank a twinned Gardans Map (can just stand there with the Devourers and 2 Sallazzang) and just slam away nicely (leech is wonderful) but I don't know how far this will continue to work. But then TS is only quasi-melee as the fissures it creates are filling up the screen with ranged damage. This puts it in the same category as Lightning Strike, Frost Blades, Blade Flurry, etc. as a hybrid skill (classified as melee but with ranged capabilities).

Melee and especially pure physical melee is dead now, at least when it comes to harder content. There is no way to not been oneshooted eventually, regardless of type and level of defence. This league I tried some brass dome builds, which at least in theory should prevent critical strikes. Unfortunately, seems like it works only with physical damage, so enemies with huge ele buff, like full buffed Izaro can still oneshoot me without any problems. Moreover, melee builds are just too weak and are forced to choose – clearspeed or DPS or big lifepool. Yes, it is possible to kill Shaper, maybe even Uber Elder with such build (actually I killed Shaper with pure phys. cleave setup), but overall comfort of play is just horrible. To recapitulate - melee? Stay away!

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Shagsbeard wrote:

I tried learning Calculus one day, and it was too hard... so fuck that.

While I agree that OP's limited example isn't a great demonstration of how fucked melee is, people that have been playing melee for years are also incredibly upset with where it's been relegated to in the meta. Making a good melee build right now is more like learning algebraic geometry than calculus--sure, you can make fun of OP because they saw some funny symbols and gave up, but many more dedicated people will also give up after putting in a lot more effort, and even the people considered experts will ultimately have an understanding that they themselves consider shallow and will have trouble making meaningful progress until one person comes along with a miraculous breakthrough.

And that person in our case has to be GGG :P

imo they should intregrate fortify in every skill gem with the melee tag so these skils have build in damage reduction instead of a support gem needed there
and put fortify buff effect on some more melee related notables through the tree in the templar/marauder/duelist area

this might be a good start i think?

They should bring in a new unique helm/gloves - armour from body armour is doubled, 50% of all ele dmg taken as phys, can not get endurance charges. Skills deal no damage outside of xx tiny range from character, can not use skills with projectile tag.

Give people a reason to build super high armour as s defensive mechanic

Melee doesn't work well in this game simply because the other options are better and there's content out there designed to test the limits of every build. So what if melee builds top out at a lower level than other options. Big deal. Play for the fun of it and get the fun out of melee that you can. You can't expect every build to be able to defeat the game.

Choices have to matter, or there's no motive to choose.

Yes. Melee is generally inferior to ranged, and ranged is generally inferior to spells.... and that's ok. Play the game for fun and none of that matters.