Neon asked for a brief summery of melee's biggest problems w/ simple suggetions

Sorry its not in Bingo format but here goes.

1. "how can melee be useful in a game this fast"?

IMO: Give melee the design space/identity of Tanky bossing single target scalability that mines currently dominate and melee is arguably the weakest use case for.

(Same way it works in Diablo 2 BTW with Fury/frenzy and Paladin Smite that are used for Uber farming torches.)


2. Melee has poor DPS "uptime" due to gap closing and higher danger near bosses (need to move more often)

Solution: give burst DPS opportunities and Make melee DOT more of a thing and bleed and Ignite less bad.

(Currently all the best DOT's in the game are spells, and the best bleeds are arguably done with a Bow. also give Melee "Hamstring" (ensnaring arrow))


3. Melee is intrinsically slower and needs to gap cross and pays a higher price to root in place for animations (which seem slower than spells)

Solution: speed up initial animations add "channeling" melee skills where you HOLD DOWN ATTACK while still moving and release to execute the skill (I'd love if you make it a single target focused support gem for strikes call it "Concerted Strike support" also could make more melee skills "attack while moving" or reduce the interruption or rooting.


4. Negative attack speed multiplier makes melee skills feel bad by default and require "obligatory" speed investment to get back to baseline of "feels okayish". (example kill hillock with a Templar)

Solution IMO just remove it, or speed up the initial swing animation of most melee skills (but not subsequent swings) to achieve a "feels okayish" first swing baseline instead of "feels like slow motion" (Templar vs hillock).

(Also #3 and #4 are multiplicative disadvantages, they create a negative feedback loop)

5. Melee totems feel like obligatory non choices Neon has already suggested baking these buffs into the playstyle (I think we can all agree this is a great solution)


6. Melee scaling is dramatically worse than Spells, and has Randomness of weapons and extra opportunity costs (accuracy, low base damage, gap closing, extra vulnerability) Best case Melee weapons are often more than half the base of a spell

IMO Melee due to the massive extra defensive and eHP necessity should be easier to scale than it currently is.


7. Fortify: inconsistent defense with lots of passive tree opportunity cost. Terrible for poison, bleed ignite cyclone and many others.

solution: melee skills give 5 fortify per hit up to 20 fortify, active spell skills remove all fortify.



8. Accuracy is too much of an opportunity cost and hampers Melee's scaling and defensive investment. Spells have no such problem, Ranged attacks generally out scale melee or out "mechanical advantage" (screen wide clear).

Solution: give melee accuracy a small damage benefit baked into Melee, maybe a small amount of % damage like Smite in D2.

9. Using warcrys feels Obligatory, they feel bad to use and warcry piano'ing (WoW rotation) is even worse.

Yelling at someone should not root you in place. Opportunities that aren't about yelling at the enemy should be created as alternative damage buffs IMO.



10. Melee opportunity costs (juice) are too high for the effect (not worth squeeze).

just look at Ben_ beating ubers in a couple days then watch Alkaizer take 25 minutes to Boneshatter Uber Sirus to death vs any Ben_ kill. Consider Quin69 taking 2 months for 7 out of 7 with an "ethical melee build" vs How long Ben takes with Spells and ranged skills (DD Toxic rain etc.).

Ask Ben and Alk what they think. I have clips BTW if you want to hear the most expert POE players tell you their opinions. TL;DR a lot can just be done by improving the scaling to be more competitive with spells.

Ben on melee vs spells
https://clips.twitch.tv/SullenNiceLemurBudBlast-QFxASbq0fCSrh0OS
On mechanical and mathematical advantage
https://clips.twitch.tv/QuaintSlickTortoiseOhMyDog-wyBsaINKgaJpWcIX

My Alk clips seem to be gone but they're basically the same exact feedback, he was talking about why he feels forced to play Spectral Helix (pre nerf) every new league and how Boneshatter LS or MS feel like the only viable melee skills.

If you asked me before the patch notes I could come up with something. I just really don't have it in me anymore. I mean the new ele hit gem doesn't even have a melee tag. Its not worth the time to think about it anymore.

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alhazred70 wrote:

1. "how can melee be useful in a game this fast"? + 7. Fortify: inconsistent defense with lots of passive tree opportunity cost. Terrible for poison, bleed ignite cyclone and many others.

IMO: Give melee the design space/identity of Tanky bossing single target scalability that mines currently dominate and melee is arguably the weakest use case for.

the issue with melee's defences comes from the fact that melee and non melee has access to all defenses and can choose to spec into them with no penalty.

in older games, devs like blizz just slapped all melee classes with a 30% damage reduction on all melee classes.

in "classless" modern games like POE, this is not possible. thus to me theres only a few ways to buff up melee's defences in meaningful ways

- whenever a player attacks an enemy with a "melee" skill NEARBY (maybe 1-2 metres) they gain fortify. no need for any support gems. just make it inherent.

- make fortify stacks build up faster, giving flat amounts per hit (2handers get double this amount) but can gain more stacks if you hit certain damage thresholds. to prevent abuse, fortify stacks drop off quickly if there are no enemies nearby. this rewards getting into combat.

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alhazred70 wrote:

2. Melee has poor DPS "uptime" due to gap closing and higher danger near bosses (need to move more often)

Solution: give burst DPS opportunities and Make melee DOT more of a thing and bleed and Ignite less bad.

(Currently all the best DOT's in the game are spells, and the best bleeds are arguably done with a Bow. also give Melee "Hamstring" (ensnaring arrow))

GGG DID do something along the lines of burst damage via supports like shockwave.

do you know what i find bloody ironic? GGG actually solved this issue but not for melee. UNLEASH support is exactly what melee players need to unload their damage in their short time frame.

melee needs their own version of unleash to function passively without the need of support gem so that whenever the player is not actively firing of a melee attack, they gain stacks of "meleeash" (yeah lame but watever), each stack grants the player damage buffs per stack on 2 handers for their next attack OR speed buffs for a duration per stack for everyone else.

torchlight infinite actually has a "demolish" mechanic where every 1-3 seconds their next melee attack is empowered, this mechanic is built into certain skills they have so players dont need to worry about socketing any supports, thos some supports actually improve/modify the demolish effect.

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alhazred70 wrote:

3. Melee is intrinsically slower and needs to gap cross and pays a higher price to root in place for animations (which seem slower than spells)

Solution: speed up initial animations add "channeling" melee skills where you HOLD DOWN ATTACK while still moving and release to execute the skill (I'd love if you make it a single target focused support gem for strikes call it "Concerted Strike support" also could make more melee skills "attack while moving" or reduce the interruption or rooting.

i think it would change POE too much in order to make it happen. it would be cool if we could manually charge huge ass hits like monster hunter greatsword or change the behaviour of strikes into chanelling skills if the attack is prolonged.
[/quote]

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alhazred70 wrote:

4. Negative attack speed multiplier makes melee skills feel bad by default and require "obligatory" speed investment to get back to baseline of "feels okayish". (example kill hillock with a Templar)

Solution IMO just remove it, or speed up the initial swing animation of most melee skills (but not subsequent swings) to achieve a "feels okayish" first swing baseline instead of "feels like slow motion" (Templar vs hillock).

(Also #3 and #4 are multiplicative disadvantages, they create a negative feedback loop)

agreed.

to be very specific, player ROTATION needs to be sped up a huge lot too. playing the game "properly" in sanctum, i quickly learned that using a slow 2 hander, if i ran past an enemy and clicked to attack them, the attack would start but because of the slow ass rotation speed, i dont actually face the enemy by the time the animation peaks. causing me to attack the air. whiffing. damn unsatisfying.

when you say speed up initial animations, i would say, the "hit" portion of an attack needs to happen. animation loops have a starting/anticipation, attack/hit and followthru/cooldown portion. the way i see how GGG did it is the attack/hit portion is balanced right down in the middle of the animation.

to improve this, the starting portion needs to be sped up so that that attack/hit portion fires off faster and the followthru can be longer. this allows players to hit and cancel out from the followthru allowing them to reposition themselves while the "attack is no longer on cooldown". essentially letting melee players effectively attack with precision. this is how most MOBAs implement melee. it is a SOLVED issue, just up to GGG to implement

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alhazred70 wrote:

5. Melee totems feel like obligatory non choices Neon has already suggested baking these buffs into the playstyle (I think we can all agree this is a great solution)

to be honest i dont know why we dont have more player buffs like blood rage.

"

alhazred70 wrote:

6. Melee scaling is dramatically worse than Spells, and has Randomness of weapons and extra opportunity costs (accuracy, low base damage, gap closing, extra vulnerability) Best case Melee weapons are often more than half the base of a spell

IMO Melee due to the massive extra defensive and eHP necessity should be easier to scale than it currently is.

we havent even started talking about 2handers lol but yeah.

"

alhazred70 wrote:

8. Accuracy is too much of an opportunity cost and hampers Melee's scaling and defensive investment. Spells have no such problem, Ranged attacks generally out scale melee or out "mechanical advantage" (screen wide clear).

Solution: give melee accuracy a small damage benefit baked into Melee, maybe a small amount of % damage like Smite in D2.

i feel that accuracy should remain as it is without any damage bonus BUT due to the nature of melee, accuracy requirement should be much lower. its easier to swing a hammer at a nearby ball, but throwing the hammer at a ball even a small distance away should be difficult. melee SHOULD take accuracy as a concern but it shoudlnt be AS MUCH of a concern compared to ranged characters. i would say melee accuracy should be buffed.

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alhazred70 wrote:

9. Using warcrys feels Obligatory, they feel bad to use and warcry piano'ing (WoW rotation) is even worse.

Yelling at someone should not root you in place. Opportunities that aren't about yelling at the enemy should be created as alternative damage buffs IMO.

there is an easy fix. make warcries instant. for sure it breaks immersion but players literally dont have time to warcry in the heat of combat. the only way to make non instant warcries feel good is if upon warcrying, the enemies are pushed back/stunned or player gains temp armor/ehp etc. else the cost of not attacking an enemy in order to warcry is high. its different from cursing as cursers or markers are expected to have a range in between them and the enemy while criers are expected to be near the enemy.

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alhazred70 wrote:

10. Melee opportunity costs (juice) are too high for the effect (not worth squeeze).

just look at Ben_ beating ubers in a couple days then watch Alkaizer take 25 minutes to Boneshatter Uber Sirus to death vs any Ben_ kill. Consider Quin69 taking 2 months for 7 out of 7 with an "ethical melee build" vs How long Ben takes with Spells and ranged skills (DD Toxic rain etc.).

Ask Ben and Alk what they think. I have clips BTW if you want to hear the most expert POE players tell you their opinions. TL;DR a lot can just be done by improving the scaling to be more competitive with spells.

many ppl shit on quin for zdps builds. but he actually is one of the best poe players in the world. back in exilecon, he intentionally chose melee with heavy strike. where his zdps meme was born. ironically i respect him for that as he highlighted how HARD the game is when playing melee.

other suggestions and notes:

1. some arpgs reward melee by having procs trigger more often, where procs are lowered on any non melee skill. for example 30% chance to bleed on melee attack vs 15% chance to bleed on ranged attack.

2. DONT STOP the player. stun/roots/freezes are SIMPLY UNFUN. players are forced to spec into avoidance/immunities or find a way to deal with them. ranged characters may have less need to deal with them but it becomes crucial for melee as theyre in the heat of combat.

in torchlight infinite most of the time players can get SLOWED. but not entirely frozen. instead of being stunned, they get knocked back. it can get annoying but getting knocked back pushes the player out of harms way AND allows time for the player to recover. i would say players being stunned and frozen are an archaic mechanic. but that said i dont expect GGG to change this behaviour.

3.mobility being baked into melee skills is SO DAMN GOOD in poe 2. i remember once upon a time when i played an MMORPG. i was pvping a dude. i was melee, he was ranged. he kept shooting arrows, i COULD NOT REACH HIM. our movespeed was matched. if only i had a "charge attack" that dashes me right into him. but nope i didnt have any. so i frustratingly chased him without being able to actually close the distance. my opponent actually toyed with me and actually stopped. so i got up to him and executed my melee attack. as a 2hander my attack was molasses slow. by the time the attack was getting midway, he simply started running away and i just whiffed.

interestingly GGG also SOLVED this issue already. consecrated path teleports you to the enemy if theyre close enough and with a short cooldown.

more melee skills need this, also they should not share the movement tag, but instead get a new "melee dash" tag.

this is actually implemented in wolcen where all melee skills benefit from a dash attack. if you get close enough, the player will dash to the enemy and strike them. dash attacks actually get a damage bonus too. but have a short cooldown to prevent abuse.

Since they are asking for melee problems I am posting here.

Shrines that give knockback brick melee strike builds unless they are flicker strike.

You can remove the knockback shrine buff by hand, but in combat this could get you killed and it is bad quality of life to do this annoying thing every map for shrine users.

You can fix this by adding 1 atlas passive that says block shrines that give knockback. Or there could be an atlas passive that allows knockback from shrines to be reversed.

Either of these 2 fixes would make shrines much better on melee and shrines are something that help weaker builds (melee is weaker) compete with other builds.

Also base strike range is quite pathetic and requires investment to make it work. If you raised the base strike range then the build with work without investment.

Make the plus strike range bonuses all double, but cap strike range if you scared of cheesy strike range builds.

I really see no reason to make it so much investment to make a build even work, other than you guys are scared of cheesy strike range builds which can be blocked with range caps.

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killodoggy wrote:

You can fix this by adding 1 atlas passive that says block shrines that give knockback. Or there could be an atlas passive that allows knockback from shrines to be reversed.

actually i think the atlas should not interact with the player directly this way.

instead we need a new keystone "knockback direction is reversed" eats up a passive point to get but if its that big of a deal, you'd definitely want it.

on a separate note, i'm still waiting for an atlas passive to disable shrines altogether.

immune/immortal shrines tend to kill my flickerstriker when i flick into em. i wont say this is a melee issue but a gameplay issue.

knockback for melee is not entirely bad. as it works good with bleed. but i do understand that it can make melee feel bad when you keep knocking the enemy away.

it does kill me that Unleash support is a spell support, this happened at the same time that they buffed spells base damage from around double to in some cases nearly triple the base dmg of a melee weapon.

Unleash would be a mechanically huge support for a melee style.

But so would bleed and ignite. Or built in DOT's like so many Spells have.

Melee has almost no DOT skills. Static strike is 3s of limpness, Bladersotrm is okayish if you've never played cold DOT. Rage Vortex's T-gem should be the default behavour IMO.

There's SO MUCH ROOM for T-gems that have DOT like behavours or Ailment synergies and so few of them do or are usable. Delayed EQ is powerful but a pure meme build to try and actually play.

Speaking of T-gems... Melee has dramatically fewer of them than Spells or ranged and they just completely ignored melee (as is tradition) with this new handful. Even going out of their way to remove melee from Ele hit's tags for honestly no possible explanation I can imagine except someone just forgot it has a melee tag.

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killodoggy wrote:

Since they are asking for melee problems I am posting here.

Shrines that give knockback brick melee strike builds unless they are flicker strike.

You can remove the knockback shrine buff by hand, but in combat this could get you killed and it is bad quality of life to do this annoying thing every map for shrine users.

You can fix this by adding 1 atlas passive that says block shrines that give knockback. Or there could be an atlas passive that allows knockback from shrines to be reversed.

Either of these 2 fixes would make shrines much better on melee and shrines are something that help weaker builds (melee is weaker) compete with other builds.

Also base strike range is quite pathetic and requires investment to make it work. If you raised the base strike range then the build with work without investment.

Make the plus strike range bonuses all double, but cap strike range if you scared of cheesy strike range builds.

I really see no reason to make it so much investment to make a build even work, other than you guys are scared of cheesy strike range builds which can be blocked with range caps.

Knockback really blows for melee that needs very specific positioning to shotgun, (old lightning strike, there are other skills) I think TOTA was the only time where knockback was desired. At this point they could add a node that converts %chance to knockback into %chance to deal quad damage or something. that would make fending a better node, make heavy strike better, and let players choose if they want knockback for whatever reason.

I think my largest issue with melee (and attack skills in general) is that it is so dependent on weapons and the game just can't craft the kind of weapons players want to use in a reasonable timeframe or amount of currency. A spell user can spend like 5 lab runs qualitying gems for the recipe, then slap a regal on it and get way better odds than essence spamming a phys essence. Crafting spell weapons feels much easier at any rate.

And you are 100% right that strike range feels too close to enemies most of the time. the tincture that gave base strike range was a godsend for me in affliction.

Also attacks really care about the base item, where spells can use an any base really as long as it can roll the mods they want. If they want to add an orb to the game, lets get one that randomizes the base, so like a driftwood axe could reroll into a despot ax, that kind of thing. if it was common, like a glassblower orb, then it wouldn't really matter if it was random.

just my thoughts.

my biggest issue with melee is that GGG pretends that they care while in reality they dont give a


this alone makes all our feedback moot.

delete melee from the game already, stop pretending

Call to Arms situation is perfect example of what GGG does:

they 'know' melee is shit. they know casters are better. what they do? give the 'melee only' bonus to melee and TAKE IT AWAY from melee

like.. seriously, it is just outrageous at this point and can no longer be explained by lack of foresight or whatever. it is deliberate and malicious. i just wonder why they do it instead of simply deleting what is already dead

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alhazred70 wrote:

7. Fortify: inconsistent defense with lots of passive tree opportunity cost. Terrible for poison, bleed ignite cyclone and many others.

solution: melee skills give 5 fortify per hit up to 20 fortify, active spell skills remove all fortify.

That will mean every movementskill or guardskill activation will remove fortify, you sure that's a good idea?