Are melee really that bad off?

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Thomasmgp wrote:

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thepmrc wrote:

Play a ranged for now, I think things will get spicier for melee over the next month for sure.

Hope its soon cause I hate kiting.

Then just don't kite. Get that delicious Point Black Keystone and "facetank" them!

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Tygerwoody wrote:

BTW. Those new support gems will do 0 to help melee classes for surviving imo.

Glacial hammer - multistrike - ele prolif, with breath of rime :)
perma freeze.......I hope.

Melee is not as bad as people think, I have 3 duelists over level 60, 2 of those are melee. None of them rely on charges (endurance, frenzy) to succeed. My 3rd Duelist is the guy I play the most at the moment, he is a 1H + Shield spec and he is yet to die at all during play (currently level 63 in Merciless Act 3).

I farmed maps for a while with my bow spec level 75 duelist and I have to say I found it boring, yes ranged have it easier due to not having to worry about the big physical hitters. That does not make melee bad, you just have to be sensible.

You need to be aware of what debuffs are on you, if you are facing viper strike mobs, retreat a bit if the stacks get to 3 or more. If you have puncture on you, for god sake don't move. I would advise ranged for your first character until you have learned what each monster can do. Melee relies on you being more aware but for me that makes the game 300 times more enjoyable and interesting.

There are some very lacklustre melee skills and some that are too dangerous to use due to desync problems (I wouldn't dream of using cyclone/whirling blades/leap slam as primary skills, some people do use them and that's up to them).

The major problem with survival is projectile damage.

Right now, 1 range mob can do the damage of 5-10 melee mobs regardless of resists and armour.

To make matters worse, a bower can tank just as well as two handers but with all the utilities.

This is gamebreaking especially for new guys who started off with melee.


A projectile defense aura limited to melee weapons users is badly needed.

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FireAndPetrol wrote:

The major problem with survival is projectile damage.

Right now, 1 range mob can do the damage of 5-10 melee mobs regardless of resists and armour.

To make matters worse, a bower can tank just as well as two handers but with all the utilities.

This is gamebreaking especially for new guys who started off with melee.


A projectile defense aura limited to melee weapons users is badly needed.

Just made another Marauder and going to see how it goes. Yea some of those quests in Act 2 were just full of casters especially dungeons. Even my Ranger had trouble sometimes and was always 2-3 levels higher than everything. I usually had to just spam poison arrow and run and let the DoT kill everything as they walked through it. Do they honestly expect me to charge in as a Marauder and win against those same mobs? I wont even make it to the mobs to even think about doing a single point of damage, let alone killing anything with his 4 friends nuking away. Its just suicide.

Oh well thank God for instant join public games. "Oh you have 4 Witches?.../Join"

Monsters hit hard no matter what, if you're in melee you're getting hit for THOUSANDS of damage no matter what kind of mitigation.

Unless you are using molten shell+arctic armor+iron reflexes+granites+ etc, you'll be getting hit for too much damage.

It's all done to using damage output with powerful melee skills like cleave and one hitting enemies so they never hit you.

I have only played melee in PoE since closed beta, never actually played a caster/ranged class before. Always been a melee dude in games, currently lvl 85 in hc playing heavy strike/leap, and I must say that melees are very gear dependant.

I dont use any endurance charges cus im leaping, makes me take less dmg as I can jump in and out of dangerous stuff. Heavy strike at 0.34 sec attack time yellow/boss monsters doesnt last long, cus of insane dmg+knockback, which also helps me take less dmg from them.

in my opinion it is much more fun to play melee, being in the frontline, than staying behind doors and shooting.

Once they fixed the "De-sync" issues, it will be a LOT easier to play melee. Most of the time i die when playing melee is due to syncing issues, really ruins the game.

I think armor is lacking too. I know its working the way they intended it but its just kinda useless imo. I am actually getting reayd to work on a casting maurader with life and energy shield. just to see how it works. Just an experiement.

I play a melee (currently lvl 58) and ohko an entire group of enemies (~1/3 of screen) with 1 attack (omg AoE and no, no Leap Slam/Cleave/Ground Slam/whatever, I am basically in the enemy's face when I do my attack), provided they don't have any resistance, then I need 2 attacks :D

But I don't have much life, no armor, no evade and -res (except fire^^) lol. So I would say melee is definately playable (imagine if I had defense lol). But Merciless can be tricky to play :D

That said, I don't think melee is truly in a bad spot, you can get the job done. If you compare ranged to melee now... then ofc everyone whines because ranged has too many advantages. But I like being melee and looking totally awesome (Marauder) so I don't care :)