Cruel and higher difficulty tips?

Okay so I've never posted on these forums before but I would just like to know if its really worth it making a full melee marauder if I intend to play merciless difficulty etc. I've been reading a bit on the forum and from what I hear its particularly difficult to play effectively when going melee. I know it is possible but I would just like to ask some tips for confronting the higher difficulties with EXP and resist penalties etc.

Any specific passives I should be looking out for?

Specific mods to gear?

An overall different mentality about playing melee opposed to ranged?

I'm really new to the game and I have just gotten into cruel and it isn't very bad so far. Merciless is a completely different monster according to the forums and I would honestly hate to have to scrap a character that is this fun to play. Melee is generally more fun to play I find its just my ranged characters seem to have such an easier time dealing with enemies.

Also being this new to the game I would like to ask some perhaps out of place generalized questions for this forum.

Do gems have a level cap?

I use Blood Magic. Do Blood Magic builds use auras often? Like auras that cost %Mana(Health for Blood Magic users right?)

Blue or Magic items have the prefix and suffix clearly stated but do the names of the rare(yellow) items correspond to the mods they have or is it just a bit randomized?

Sorry about the long post and the bombardment of questions but I'm just a newbie trying to understand the game better.
Last edited by GunninGamer141 on Mar 31, 2013, 3:09:38 AM
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Any specific passives I should be looking out for?

Get extra endurance charges, around 300% increased HP, Iron Reflexes, HP regeneration, Elemental Adaptation, Unwavering Stance, skip most of the damage nodes. Super simplified for your reading pleasure.

"
Specific mods to gear?

Get HP on every piece of gear (of course not on weapon), followed by resistances. There is not much you really want to get for a melee character, but what you get has to be good. Highest HP values you can get, with highest resistances you can get (Fire, Lightning, Ice, Chaos).

"
An overall different mentality about playing melee opposed to ranged?

As a ranged character you are mostly sitting in safety spamming your Lightning Arrow. As a melee character, you cannot allow yourself to carelessly enter a room full of monsters and expect to kill them. It will work on Normal, be a bit questionable on Cruel, and impossible on Merciless. Unlike elemental damage based characters, physical damage scales with enemy armour, meaning you want to inflict really hard single hits instead of several lighter hits. Ideally you want to one shoot white monsters. You cannot allow yourself to get stuck in a pack of monsters, so you need good mobility (Leap Slam), and you don't really want to use a skill which will make you have to sit in the center of them to use it effectively (Sweep). Ground Slam is probably the best choice, because it provides controlled damage output and crowd control. Leap Slam can also be used, but with high awareness.

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Do gems have a level cap?

They do, level 20.

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I use Blood Magic. Do Blood Magic builds use auras often? Like auras that cost %Mana(Health for Blood Magic users right?)

As a BM character you won't be using any % reservation auras. There are different solutions to this, either using a BM support gems on active skills, or switching back to mana. Either of the two are a bit hard for a new player.

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Blue or Magic items have the prefix and suffix clearly stated but do the names of the rare(yellow) items correspond to the mods they have or is it just a bit randomized?

The names of yellow items do not correspond to the mods. They are randomized.
Life is tough... but it is tougher if you're stupid.
Thank you very very much VenatorTheShocker for your responses

I may have already ruined by build but:
This is what I have currently

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEABS0OPA_MFCAUcRiRIQIhVSFgKLUpLjTyOQ46Uj38QKBBqlBHUFBVtVYEWGNfP2BLYIhhUnKpdO108Xbneu97jHy4fNmGYIzPnrmezZ_LpmSnMKlzwQTG2MmY3D3fv-9O9kj3Mve--Os=

Is this something like what I should be buildint to?

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAdwEfgUtDjwOrQ_MFCAUcRXwGJEY2xrbIQIhVSFgI_Yn7Si1KS4ppTTyNYY5DjpSOlg6szrhPC09_D7PQKBBqkOcR35KfU3jUEdQUFFHVbVWBFb6WGNaSFuvXz9gS2CIYSFhUmVNZ6BodGz2cql07XTxdud4DXrve4x8uHzZguSE2YTvhmCHGYdqh3aI8YqvjM-QEZBslKCdqp65ns2fy6ZXpmSnMKluqXOplKp_qrisWayqrpO18rnNvea-isEExPbGrsbYyZjYTdpi3D3dDd-_4urnY-4O707v8PJF8932SPcy97746_lj_MX-Cv6P
I was in a rush when I wrote the last response; so now I can add a few more things. Basically if you want to play a melee physical character, it is all about reaching as high physical damage per hit as possible and killing the monsters within as few hits as possible. That also leads us to the problem with partying - such a character will be much harder to play in a party, because the monsters' HP goes up, and when you pair that up with the fact that you don't really bring any party utility with you, you conclude melee physical characters are best used when playing solo. Another variant is to go for an elemental melee build, in this case you are most likely looking at an elemental dual wield cleave build. This variant will be slightly better in group play, but most of the basic principles are the same as the physical melee variant. Elemental melee character will do a ton of damage, but is also more gear dependent than a physical melee character. This is all just little balance things to take into consideration when deciding what to play.
As a melee character, you really want to be as tanky as possible. Paired with the mana cost mechanics of going for slow, but hard hitting physical attacks, or quick cleave shots, you get to the point where you can easily sustain your mana, and run two or even three % reservation based auras. As a melee character, you don't want to skip Purity and Determination, and Vitality would help as well. In case you are playing a physical character, Hatred is another great option (but on top of Purity and Determination, not instead!), as it fits great in the whole one-shot-kill theme you want to achieve. And of course, you SHOULD be using Endurance Charges. Endurance Charges help far far too much to skip them, but most people dislike them and consider them annoying.


The build you are asking about is really not optimal for good endgame results. You want to go for something more along the lines of this. This would make for a really strong Ground Slam build which would work well in endgame (tip: at endgame you would use Blood Magic support gems on skills, and use up the whole mana pool for auras!). I only used 108 points because 120 is out of reach for the majority of players. Even 108 means reaching level 90, which takes quite some time.
Life is tough... but it is tougher if you're stupid.
WOW thank you again for all the helpful advice. Good thing i started posting or else I could have really wrecked up my build. This passive tree is very complicated and clearly I haven't quite learnt how to optimize passive points. I have a bit of respeccing to do but its not too bad. Does this work well with Leap Slam as well because that is the main skill I use for clearing/escaping etc. I am going for the solo style of play. Thanks for the tip about the Blood Magic support gems, I really didn't know they were in here and it kind of makes me regret taking Blood Magic at all. Again thanks for the help. Wish me luck with my build
umm..basically your questions are answered. just some tips on my opinion.
if you dont wanna be instakilled, stack more hp>ele resist>armor(eva) from the node, chaos resist sometimes works really well (in merc -60% all resist, you will need these)

dont waste too many points into dmg nodes early on, feels good in normal difficulty but you will suffer in the mid game and late game.you cant do dmg when you are dead, also -5% and -15% exp in cruel and merc if you are killed.

Grace aura is nice if you have taken iron reflexes.

focus on the defensive stats on the gears hp>(chaos)ele resist>armor, and better take the weapon with % increase in phy dmg and attack speed

if you have nice life regen already, you might need some defensive flask like granite flask, better with suffix of iron skin(% + Armor), reflexes(eva),heat(dispel frozen) etc. or prefix with seething(66%,instant recover),bubbling.

bring a decoy totem with you, if you need something to safe your beautiful face when you are in dangerous situation.

hope my tips can help
Last edited by roozia29 on Mar 31, 2013, 11:37:21 PM
Thank you for the tips roozia29 I definately need to do some respeccing but I'll get there eventually xD. Yeah the chaos damage sounds crazy with that -60% resist on merciless.

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