Are melee really that bad off?

TL;DR: Melee is balanced and fun to play. Though I enjoy tankier builds, i feel that is the goal of being melee. Allowing your ranged players to blast away from a distance.

As a level 66 Duelist I am @ ~75% elemental resist (no chaos resist yet) and ~75% armor without a flask popped. This is achieved through gear, 5 endurance charges (soon to be 6 :D ), and 3 auras (Determination, Vitality, and Grace).

After using my granite flask i'm sitting at elemental resist cap (80%) and armor cap (90%)


And for additional help with fire mobs..


To make this all come together, i have 3.2k hp, ~1.6k dps sweep, ~3.5k dps double strike, ~5% hp regen per second, and ~6% life leech (more w/ warlords mark up). Note that these numbers are from memory and probably inaccurate, I tried to underestimate some.

When soloing I can blood rage w/o loosing any hp, allowing me to smash my way through docks (merciless) with ease.

However, If i let my guard down and let endurance drop off or run into a pack of fire mobs w/o any flask charges left its not easy to survive (yes i play default).

In the end, i think that these tankier builds allow melee to focus on getting more dps oriented gear (despite the need for some additional resist of course). The way i look at it, my build allows me to survive, my gear allows me to destroy things. Upgrade your gear and you'll destroy stuff faster without the need to make alterations to your build. At least for me, this allows for the easy swapping of skills and weapons. It feels good to not be stuck to a single set of skills/supports all the time. Although I admit I tend to fall back to my default sweep/ds if things dont work out :P

Edit: My current build if you're curious.

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thepmrc wrote:

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Thomasmgp wrote:

So basically if I was hoping to play a ground slam Marauder like a D3 HoTA Barb and just faceroll through high level maps with no effort, thats not going to happen?

lol. you are not going to faceroll through high level maps with no effort on ANY character. This aint D3. You can get characters to the point where it feels like faceroll, but if you let your guard down you will die.

While maybe isn't faceroll, I havn't done any mad mod with problems. It's usually the rangers QQin' about map mods from my experienece. Have yet to reroll any map with chaos orbs ;3

"Are melee really that bad off?"
No.

Just need to work a little harder for it, but so far I got the best killing speeds with melee. I guess it all depends on your playstyle.

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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.

The unique shield that doubles your armor vs projectiles is very cheap and not beyond the means of most players, i've yet to take much damage from projectile users at all. You can also get some defensive bonuses from your skill tree if you don't want to use a shield. An aura would be nice though to fill the gap dual wielding leaves defensively.

This is what i have on my lvl 76 HC duelist atm.
Items:


All the items are pretty bad except the belt and maybe the rapier.

With 6k-ish dps on cleave, 12k armour(49k with granite up), 83% all res(soon to be 85%), 300 hp/s im clearing 70ish maps quite easily without any restrictions on map mods, everything is doable altought i tend to avoid - max res like most ppl. In the next couple of lvls ill probably get unwavering stance or static blows or more HP, havent decided yet. For higher lvl maps ill probably need to start using enduring cry, but atm i dont have any need for it.

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Avitori wrote:

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thepmrc wrote:

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Thomasmgp wrote:

So basically if I was hoping to play a ground slam Marauder like a D3 HoTA Barb and just faceroll through high level maps with no effort, thats not going to happen?

lol. you are not going to faceroll through high level maps with no effort on ANY character. This aint D3. You can get characters to the point where it feels like faceroll, but if you let your guard down you will die.

While maybe isn't faceroll, I havn't done any mad mod with problems. It's usually the rangers QQin' about map mods from my experienece. Have yet to reroll any map with chaos orbs ;3

How many maps have you done? Typically the mods are less important than the random monsters as far as difficulty.However, do a map with -25 max resists and enemies do 100% extra damage as lightning with a bunch of flicker strikers and rhoas. You will die. A lot.

I do every map mod except -max resists and blood magic on my ranger. I pretty much steam roll everything too, but if I let my guard down I will get killed by a pack of charging rhoas or a nasty corridor with undying alchemists, or a group of champ undying grapplers. Difficulty spikes are good.

From my playtime so far and being career melee here's my experiences. I don't view them as problems, but more along the lines of requirements.

1. You have to get a minimum of 8 nodes of life bonus plus get life on every piece of gear.

2. You need 75 percent minimum resist all.

3. Melee feels slow and unresponsive until you get your attack speed below .70.

4. You cannot hybrid your damage at all. You must spec into fire, cold, physical, etc.

5. Mixing your armour types will further reduce your performance in melee.

6. Up to level 25 you feel like a god with any spec since mobs don't hit hard until major bosses. After that point, if you did not build with the above criteria. You will find yourself hitting resurrect, staring at the welcome to default doormat, or both.

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DorenAlexander wrote:

4. You cannot hybrid your damage at all. You must spec into fire, cold, physical, etc.

Completely disagree. My ele cleave does all (yes including physical, a lot) and I am raping the place. Physical added in there means elemental resistance and reflect don't bother me at all. Still dishing out 12k Dual Strike / 8k Cleave with ease atm.

Since you can pretty much make any class do what you want and customize them to your heart's content with the way skill nodes are set up is there an advantage of going melee with one class like say a Duelist over say a Marauder?

do a rhoa charger vulnerability map and then come back saying melee is viable.

of course you can survive with 9 endurance charges and alike but that's just tedious gameplay.