Are Lightning Strike and Ground Slam the only viable melee abilites?

Hi there, I'm a new player excited to try out PoE. As one of the millions sorely disappointed by D3, when I recently found out about this game, I eagerly started reading and watching anything I could find. As I type, the patcher is running, but has been for an hour and has not yet reached 50%. So here I sit, reading builds on the forum.

I like melee. It fits my style. I despise "pet" classes in all games - no clue why, it simply is what it is. So I will be making a Marauder as my first (and likely second) character.

Reading through build after build on these forums, I see that EVERY SINGLE ONE is built around either Lightning Strike or Ground Slam. Is there truly no other effective ability to build around? If not, I have to say that Grinding Gear Games really needs to step up and offer some variety. The core appeal of this game is the "flexibility," which I put in quotes because there seems to be none.

I would LOVE to be shown that I am incorrect. So, please, disabuse me of any incorrect notions!

I don't know if it's viable but in closed beta I ran a leap slam build pretty far. I plan to start the same thing once my client is patched.

I'm actually interested in this as well.

I'm rolling my moving "mountain hidden avalanche" build myself, but I always liked using Leap + Sweep with heavy strike

I also used the molten armor gem + anger and warlords mark

Anyone has a talent build around this 2 abilities?

Sadly, you are going to find that at present ranged abilities > melee, which is why so many melee classes end up with Bows( melee lol), lightning and/or ground slam, all typically paired with life leech. Further there are a number of mobs that reflect physical damage back at the attacker, and these cause mayhem with melee builds as they all do some measure of physical damage. In a system where there is no real tanking and even melee end up kiting, ranged attacks just give you so much more room to work with and increase survivability ten fold.

Frankly, its a shit state of affairs and completely unbalanced, I got so fed up with god damn blue sparkles in every group, that I stopped running in groups all together.

Yes, I am exaggerating a little, but honestly, melee are second class citizens and its depressing.

I miss the old no cooldown Flicker Strike. Was good for 2handed marauder.