So Kripparian says melee "sucks" in late game...
" I touched on that before but there's nothing preventing you from using End Cry on a ranged char. The range isn't so small that you actually need to be in melee, sure closer than full range, but if you make a high health high regen blood magic caster, it's not like being slightly closer to get end charges is an issue, and it's still safer than actually being in melee range. The only real advantage to melee are the very few shock nova mobs, since shock nova does no dmg in melee range. I guess Vaal's rocks too but by being in melee range you also open yourself to his smash which doesn't happen when ranged, so it's a tradeoff if anything. None of the abilities that require melee range make a difference. Some abilities will favor being in melee range, like enduring cry, but they don't force you into melee range, simply to be closer. An example of a potential fix would be a support gem that only works on melee attacks and that applies a debuff to the mob hit by the attack that reduces their dmg/attack speed/something similar. Very similar to Blind actually other than blind working on ranged attacks and not being entirely reliable. Now that support gem would become "essential" for melees, so a few more options would need to be added to at least offer a small choice, but currently there is no advantage to being melee over being ranged, at all. Both the kill speed and survivability are lower, when comparing comparable builds(not glass canon ranged to tanky melee but simply tanky range to tanky melee). Edit: Oh and to be clear, I don't think the discussion is about viability. Melees are viable, there is no question about that at all. The matter is efficiency. While it's doable, there is no reason other than personnal taste or wanting challenge to make a character melee over making it ranged. That's all it's about, Melees are perfectly capable of clearing any and all content(in the limits of the reasonable, some map mods are stupid, melee or ranged). Melee is perfectly fine in that regard, but it's also absolutely worse than ranged, even if not by too much. That's why I don't think it's a high priority issue, just an issue to fix eventually by adding more melee skills and more melee supports. Last edited by PyrosEien on Jan 18, 2013, 8:12:01 PM
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" If you are using end cry, on a ranged, you are basically nullifying the fact that you are ranged, and wasting time that would be better spent, defensively, turning the nearest red dot into a pin cushion. The issue is not one dimension, that I agree. However the issue is that the devs have customized and limited the possible options by a rather large degree, due to what has already been done, and the aims already stated. I am slightly and kind of in favor of a skill, aura or keystone that passively converts a resource, like armor or HP, into an applicable damage sink. Maybe some kind of "Crushing weight" type mechanic, that creates some kind of increased phys damage based on armor. | |
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Melee has always been completely underpowered, there has never been a case in PoE's entire existence that melee wasn't underpowered compared to range. Casters in particular have always completely dominated melee (particularly the tried and true CI/Freezing Pulse based builds) when it comes to survivability and clearing speeds.
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Around vendor patch and for like 2 patches after it melees were badly overpowered. I played slamming marauder those times. Well it was a lil bit more then a year ago so things changes. The funny thing was that before it the poison rangers were completly op and were smashed to ground with nerfs. Didnt play recently so cannot say much about now but you can have an insight how things can change in one patch. I wouldnt be really worried about melees. In the last interview with gamestop (from this week) i haerd from Chris that just after obt they will look into class balancing and what skills can be added to support builds. We all have to still wait for obt patch notes and then probably a month further :)
i got my beta key from Icoblablubb - vielen danke !!! the first (and only?) 6 linked blue sox on magic armor in beta :P Last edited by prodiii on Jan 19, 2013, 7:49:15 AM
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" There was ONE specific build that melees were 'op' and yet still couldn't clear as fast nor with the same survivability as a CI / Cold Witch which is basically the staple money making character. |
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" CI/FP witches also start out so much weaker then GS, it's almost amusing. GS looks like this -, CI looks like this, /. Also, as I said, range will always be more efficient, as they can dump their dps into killing more mobs faster. The issue with melee, is they are basically unkillable if they so desire, but there is no efficient applicable sink that can equate to kill speed. The funny part is, I don't remember any race (Besides totems) that had semi-serious competitors, where the ladder was not at least 60% melee. | |
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Meh well ima still be melee as I find it more fun, Besides arent there changes to melee n stuff that are gonna be released come OB?
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" To be completely honest, the only real fixes likely to show, is the addition of new melee-centric gems, which in all honesty, is all melee needs. (Keystones would be a nice addition aswell, but those would be much harder to balance) | |
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Give us whirlwind, a ton of life leech and little tornados that we magically crap out ^_-
D3 mode engaged <.<. | |
" As entertaining as that was/is, what melee really needs is an AoE-esque gem, attached to flicker. (A melee BR user that can 1 shot the white mobs, chaining flicker together, clears so fast it's almost astonishing. I would argue it's as fast, if not faster then some ranged characters, issue being that you can't employ said strat to clear blues) |
