How's melee going?

Check poe ninja builds and see for yourself how is it going.
Currently its either ice trap or hexblast. Not even tornado shot or other stuff anymore. Just these two are top 1 skills used

Amazing state.

Running around with a 1 div axe and already farming t17s.

Cant wait to see how fast things can get with some investment in the character.

what melee build to do with this budget? everyone always tell me molten strike zenith or something? is it good?

Started as Sunder Zerker, pivoted into Groundslam of Earthshaking which turned out to be kinda meta it seems.

It was one of the smoothest league starts I had so far and I almost didn't upgrade my gear at all from starting white maps to clearing T16s, which is crazy.
Got 3 Void Stones and working on Uber Elder Fragments now, still running a 5Link main setup and 4link autoexertion. The potential is still huge and the defenses are pretty solid aswell. I feel that I'm more reliant on flasks right now, because the steady armor bonus from Determination is missing, but it's getting better with well rolled items on the new bases.

Overall really enjoying melee this league. Also the rage rework feels amazing on zerker.

yesterday someone was giving out a free maven carry.

after getting her orb.

i decided to get the other 2 orbs myself. i had already got the invite for the eater, farmed a little bit to get the exarch.

i had been putting them off to wait till i got stronger

surprisingly i took them down fast.

not super fast but noticeably faster than before.

for starters my dps was much higher now compared to previous leagues.

one major change is i also focused on getting expeditions end early (all damage can freeze).

in the current patch freeze has been buffed against pinnacles/bosses, where their effect has been increased.

i believe this helped me a great deal as the boss attacks were much slower. i was dodging attacks with better ease and consistency. previously i would eat 1-2 exarch melee swipes every 3-6 attacks. this time i evaded then ALL.

i m outperforming all my past leagues melee experiences by a good margin.

i am ENJOYING melee earlier and thus enjoying the game a great deal more.

in contrast, i had to push my gear/level etc to a very high standard before i started to actually "enjoy melee experience".

right now i m achieving so much/having so much with 5 links.

previously the way i felt was "damn i cant wait to get my 6th link so that i can get my dps at a decent/better state".

now the vibe is "fuck melee feels so good, once i get my 6th slot, i m going to have even more fun".

"

exsea wrote:

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.

That depends on what content you are running.

Sure, T16 maps have always been like that. That's one of the reasons why so many people are complaining about "one shots", because with enough DPS, you don't need good defenses. But when you actually meet situations where defenses are needed, you don't have them - and you're dead.

But there IS content in the game that requires defenses.

"

Phrazz wrote:

"

exsea wrote:

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.

That depends on what content you are running.

Sure, T16 maps have always been like that. That's one of the reasons why so many people are complaining about "one shots", because with enough DPS, you don't need good defenses. But when you actually meet situations where defenses are needed, you don't have them - and you're dead.

But there IS content in the game that requires defenses.

yeap. typically i block such content or never run em.

ultimatum comes to mind.

Improved a lot for me.

I never really used totems because of the clunkiness to cast them + they weren't "thematically correct" for my build anyway.

So I gained a lot of dps + more tankiness from endurance charges.

Had to adjust a bit to fix the mana cost, but it's nothing dramatic.

Still, I didn't like the buff to end charges. I don't like when so much tankiness is behind an "optional" build mechanic like end charges of fortify.

What if I want to make a melee build that doesn't use end charges?

Ofc it would be "wrong" according to the min/max philosophy, but arpgs are also about experimenting something new, rerolling, trying different things while also not feeling very weak.

Even baking more tankyness into the small ascendancy points of marauder, templar, duelist and shadow would have been better and more consistent.

Something along the lines of: New Keystone at the bottom left corner of the passive tree with "You take 30% less damage -- 40% less attack speed with bows and 40% less spell damage" would also have been better.

Started out Sweep Gladiator as that was first characters in 3.15-3.17

It's not good, Warstaves which have block are useless for Gladiator.
At least in 3.15 I can get 75/75 block.

Block is great ONLY if you use shield.

I also play lacerate.

Overall, it's just bad. The loss of 20% more physical ascendency is painful to swallow.

Bleed sucks, since aggravate can be found in tree, the ascendency felt pointless.

Retaliate is great, but again, limited by weapon type, which sucks. 2H or warstaves stuck with a single Retal, or the Cry. Basically Gladiator are almost forced to play Axe + Shield.


Switched to Champion.

Banner is awful as F. The Ascendency, Cluster and Masteries doesn't work well AT ALL. Perfidy is a necessity, but it's a dead armor due to poor life and defense.


Overall, Melee felt awful and freaking PIANO.

-Retaliate
-Warcry
-Tincture
-Banner

Every single thing are conditional or have short window. It's awful

Mana is horrible, it doesn't go well with attack speed making Dual Wielding Glad into a much more horrible state.


Overexert + Rage is the real Winner.

Pretty good. I don't know how much melee it is with aoe that blows up the whole screen, but it has certainly made builds possible that weren't before, which is good. I'm playing ice crash, no way I using this skill in the previous league. Seems more balanced now with some of the build types, there are sill people playing non-melee builds which is good.