How's melee going?

Feels nice!

"

Draegnarrr wrote:

Moved from that to a one with nothing...

Doing Hollow Palm too, but a classic Cycloner. Is it as fun as it is squishy, and not really doable for you HCSSF guys. But I'm working towards getting it to either 78% attack block or 65/65 - can't decide what's best on top of my 100% spell suppression.

Anyhow, Hollow Palm is fun with Kalandra reflections.

I love it.

I'm trying to avoid abusing the usual skill gems and builds this time around.

I used to be like, "oh wow melee is fun," when all I was doing was using herald skills and their AoE effects to annihilate everything. I had to bonk things with smite occasionally but in hindsight it didn't feel like a melee build at all.

So I have a few rules for myself when doing melee builds now.

- No herald skill gems.
- No 'melee' skills that are effectively ranged skills.
- No offensive AoE skills beyond travel skills and Melee Splash Support.
- No minions, except maybe an emotional support golem.

Now I have to actually use some brain cells, since the game is no longer playing itself and killing 90% of the enemies for me, and so far it's very enjoyable.

"

BlakeDrapeta wrote:

I love it.

I'm trying to avoid abusing the usual skill gems and builds this time around.

I used to be like, "oh wow melee is fun," when all I was doing was using herald skills and their AoE effects to annihilate everything. I had to bonk things with smite occasionally but in hindsight it didn't feel like a melee build at all.

So I have a few rules for myself when doing melee builds now.

- No herald skill gems.
- No 'melee' skills that are effectively ranged skills.
- No offensive AoE skills beyond travel skills and Melee Splash Support.
- No minions, except maybe an emotional support golem.

Now I have to actually use some brain cells, since the game is no longer playing itself and killing 90% of the enemies for me, and so far it's very enjoyable.

welcome to "tru melee" experience.

its much better now. could be even better but it will do exile. it will do.

With a LL Ball Lightning of Orbiting Hierophant (cylone) at 1 div +/- i'm cleaning all T16.
I guess it's "ok tier" but maybe the meta build do better than this.
I have seen some people play "bleed melee build" with op dps.. but really squishy.
I will try to rise my dps at 45m dps and 22k shield for try T17 ^,^
The melees are not in good condition but it is slightly better.

My Big Hit Ice Crash inquisitor doing quite alright tbh
A few upgrade here and there and I can push out more DMG
The only problem right now is Fast Regen ES monster, Block (big MOFO), and Tough Ward base Monster. I'm looking for a way to overcome these monster but still didn't see how I can do it.

Leveling overall is great Especially Early game and on Late game, in Mid game where your skill didn't Scale too much yet can still be a problem for someone that didn't used to Melee type just yet.

Overall, it's quite good TBH, more build variety that isn't a Pew Pew or Swoosh Swoosh.

"

hereatha wrote:

With a LL Ball Lightning of Orbiting Hierophant (cylone) at 1 div +/- i'm cleaning all T16.
I guess it's "ok tier" but maybe the meta build do better than this.
I have seen some people play "bleed melee build" with op dps.. but really squishy.
I will try to rise my dps at 45m dps and 22k shield for try T17 ^,^
The melees are not in good condition but it is slightly better.

one way of seeing it is GGG gave melee more dps so they can focus on other things such as defences. but the way things are, its still better if you can oblitarate all opposition before they become a problem rather than dealing with defences which dont matter when the enemie's mods align a certain way.

Been playing my Bleed Eviscerate Gladiator since league start, got all 4 voidstones.

I use Lacerate when Retaliate is not active, and Glacial Shield Swipe with Maim support for CC and apply maim.

He is extremely tanky (apart from big dots) and damage is actually pretty good.

Tip: Activate Bleed tincture on tougher mobs / bosses to apply fat bleeds.

Things completed:

Simulacrum - 15/15 Waves
Shaper / Elder
Uber Elder
Sirus
Maven - bad at mechanics, keeps making puddles throughout the stage lol but managed to defeat after a few portals
T17 - big robot boss
T16 / guardians is easy mode now.

Elemental and Chaos resist cap
80 attack block / 78 spell block / 80 spell suppression + lucky.

Freeze immune (pantheon), Shorter ignite (pantheon), Shock Immune (tempest shield), Poison immune (armour/evasion mastery), corrupted blood immune (jewel), semi-bleed immune (flask trigger on bleed)

Opted to not go with versatile combatant, invested in gear + tree instead to maximise block. Paired with % life recover on block shield, you're practically un-killable by mob swarms.

When fighting Kosis in simulacrum I'd rather have a bunch of mobs hitting me and heal me from behind lol.

Bleed might not be for everyone but I like the ability to apply the bleed then have the opportunity to move around while it does damage if needed.

Have not tried ubers yet but since it's a dot build i guess it won't be best for it.

All in all I personally enjoyed the Glad this league and will continue investing into him further as there are still things for me to upgrade.

I'm not happy with the current state of the game, nerfing loot by at least 100%, stripping base rewards out of stuff and tying it all to scarabs, but ya...

I'm enjoying the heck out of Shield Crush Slayer. Just got my Weapon Master Flesh and Flame and switched to Varunastra. GG mode, tanky fast boi. 8 frenzy /endurance charges, 20% instant leech, over leech, about 60/40 Glancing blows, 20k armour without flasks, suppress capped, 5APS with Shield Crush. 12-20 mill dps depending on stance ( pinnacle boss). Last time I played Shield Crush was Jugg and I wasnt all that thrilled with it. This is goooood.

I started as bleed Glad. It's as bad as it ever was and Lacerate is terrible. Noped out after getting 4 watch stones with him.

"

Xyel wrote:

I'm curious how melee is going for those who went for it.


Myself, I started with wild strike warden, dual wield swords.

I toyed around with retaliation skills, and they were great until I started reliably freezing enemies, and well, frozen enemies don't trigger retaliation + some bosses almost don't attack, so while I had a lot of fun with swordstorm, it got axed at right about white maps.

The build still progressed fine to red-maps, at which point I had to face the reality that with warden, no tinctures = no damage, so I had to go full tinctures, and thus Avatar of the Wilds went in the trash bin (it was a lot of fun until then though).

The build hit kind of a wall at t16s though, where too many map mods brick the survival aspect (-block? death. -spell suppression? death. -aura effect? death. -max resists? death. -enemies resist ailments? death. -enemies cannot be slowed? death.).

I would have probably survived that alone, but what got me was how bad being actually melee was in fights against multiple bosses (I love using Maven's extra boss summoning), where it's nearly impossible to dodge everything when there're 3-4 bosses spamming stuff all at once.

So, wild strike went into the trash bin, and I respecced into 'melee' - lightning strike, with pretty much the same build.

That one is working great so far.

I decided on boneshatter. Honestly, it hits harder. But as a Jugg, it feels squishier than previous seasons. Can't put my finger on it, I used a similar build to one I used a few seasons ago when they juiced boneshatter, raising it from the ashes. I tried using the transfigured boneshatter, I forget it's name, but it took too much life away, made t16 scary at times. So the standard boneshatter seems to be the sweet spot for me.

Still, in seasons past with similar decent gear, suppression at 75%, along with ailments defence at 75%, I was a walking tank in previous seasons, compared to this seasons feeling... I'm not as beefy as I thought it would be. Phys def capped, and all. I must be missing something...