Why Spectral Throw has a place in the game, unlike what many whiners say

You will only see naive/inexperienced people running a build thinking it's the best clearing in the game - and being melee. It has been that way since the earliest hack n slashes i can remember and for good reason.

If the best ranged aoe builds killed the monsters so slow, that the best melee builds could target down the whole screen in the same time - then the game would simply be less fun to play for everything except melee. Hack n' slashes are primarily balanced around ranged aoeing builds for that reason. The gameplay would be around 5+ times slower than it is now, if it were the case, far from an ideal gaming experience.

There is more to it than simply monsters having enough hp, and ranged builds having sufficiently reduced damage.

It is also in great part a matter of damage potential. What sort of damage levels do builds start out with, what sort of damage levels can they achieve, and what sort of damage is normal?

For the dream balance you all want to be true, then it is a strict requirement that everything is balanced around top geared-level, and people playing the toughest content. If not, then simply gearing above what the balance was made for will once again make ranged aoe clear everything before melee have time to lands hits on everything.

You do not want the game to be balanced around the top-gear level as that would make it extremely slow and boring lower gear levels. It is also so that in path of exile there is a gigantic leap between low gear levels, mid very-powerful-gear and the top godly-gear. The whole game would be balanced around something which very few people out of the player base would ever get to experience, and so for everyone else that run normal gear levels, the game would be much worse.

That is why forever ranged > melee.
I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all.
Last edited by Crackmonster on Jul 13, 2014, 8:35:51 AM
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Gobla wrote:
The assumption that ranged > melee is simply utterly hilarious and wrong.

It's all a matter of balance. It's incredibly easy to make it so melee > ranged (like making double strike do 500% weapon damage, see if anyone uses ranged then). It's incredibly easy to make it so ranged > melee, the situation we have now.

Ranged isn't inherently superior to melee. That's only true in the current balance situation. There's countless other ways this game could've been balanced to make melee > ranged.

Unfortunately the hard part is finding situation where melee ~= ranged. The solution to that however isn't to stop trying, it's to simply get as close as possible even if you won't ever reach it.


500% won't do much, it's the AoE, the whole screen cleared in a second, not even a 42395832423% DS would compare.

However, in the current trash monster pack supremacy, small but numerous hits prevail.
Lower the amount of monsters, increase their hp, so chain/AoE/pierce/splash/etc. will not be mandatory.

But yes I do agree with you on this, ranged aren't inherently superior to melee. Just like RogueMage said, put Point Blank on every ranged skill and observe.
While i agree with you that this is part of a bigger balance issue,concerning melee vs ranged and AoE vs single target, spectral throw is substancially superior to all the skills you mentioned.Sure they all have similar clear speed,with propably uber wanders taking the edge on crap mobs due to chain,spectral throw offers 1)Better survivability 2) infinetely better mobility due to whirling blades plus 1 bilion % attack speed from blood rage 3)INFINETELY better performance vs Bosses,no comparison here at all.
Daggers deal too much damage,because you are supposed to be taking hits while you are attacking with them,something that doesnt happen with spectral throw.Lowlife in general is too powerfull,when you are using a ranged attack,even with the same currency investment on a CI or life based build.On melee lowlife and CI can be balanced with similar cost of gear.

Plus i do not think to point out how absurd is to take the advantages of the monstrours DPS of melee weapons,plus their mobility skills and put them on a ranged situation.It is clear that this shifts the imbalance between ranged and melee even further.Your points seem to just nake a case for removing spectral throw.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/417287 - Poutsos Flicker Nuke Shadow
Last edited by Poutsos on Jul 13, 2014, 8:48:21 AM
Spectral takes the cake when it comes to bosses, hands down, at least from what i have seen thus far, tho maybe a wander with a 4L singletarget frenzy would be better due to longer freezes.

I actually ran into a wander the other day who moved faster than my spectral thrower would ever with her whirling blades, and yes i pretty much cannot get more attack speed on it, he was using regular walk. Enhance level 4 arctic armour. He talked about things like picking up good movement speed nodes, for clear speed. Think he was sitting on 209k aoe powersiphon.

You can barely touch that build, and his movement is more reliable.

Then there is the fact that if i remove my seraph weapon effect from my spectral throw, people stop being jelly. It's so visual in their face that they immediately enrage with jellyness when they see it in action. I've even been kicked directly in maps once i started killing because it is so visual.

-Poutsos when you talk about daggers doing too much damage because you were supposed to take damage when using which you don't with spectral throw - there are two parts of that. 1 is that daggers are just a bit more powerful than everything else, and two, that spectral throw allows that with every melee weapon.

I agree lowlife is too powerful, i think bloodrage needs to take a nerf for one, degen also based on some ES and attack speed/leech increase lower. Spectral throw per hit at lvl 21 deals what, 66% base damage. That could take a nerf to 56%. I think those two changes are the most important around. Maybe some more nerfs to critical multiplier overall would be beneficial too, to reduce dagger power.

Honestly i think, before you start nerfing spectral throw, you need to start nerfing wander it's more OP, it's simply OP to the point it's not fun killing the whole screen in 1 second when solo, and a few seconds in groups, consistently.
I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all.
Last edited by Crackmonster on Jul 13, 2014, 9:04:25 AM
Melee = good for bosses generally.
Well IMO daggers have the best most interesting weapon passives in the tree,followed closely by claws.I do not think they should be nerfed,i just think that other weapons desperately need some creativity and better passives.Crit is definetely overpowered on ranged,however at this state of the game,on melee resolute technic+aegis aurora still has the edge.
Now while i do agree that wanders are the closest thing to spectral throw,as in overall performance,spectral throw DOES have the edge.Many of my godly geared friends have respeced from wanders to ST,especially at the current state of the game where a huge money making effort is based on farming uber atziri,where ST with wanders are not even comparable.
Blood rage is definetely too powerfull.The damage effectiveness of ST is alright,the problem lies on the fact that it hits multiple times the target.The right thing to do is to remove the pierce thing and the retrieve.You just throw,hits the monster and thats it.Of course chain should not work with it as well.My 2 cents.
I still beleive that GGG's desicion to buff melee was to make it ranged is one of the stupidest to date.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/417287 - Poutsos Flicker Nuke Shadow
I don't think dagger nodes should get fucked, i only thing crit multiplier should be reduced a bit more overall, and daggers/wands tend to benefit the most.

"
The damage effectiveness of ST is alright,the problem lies in the fact that it hits multiple times the target.The right thing to do is to remove the pierce thing and the retrieve.You just throw,hits the monster and thats it.Of course chain should not work with it as well.My 2 cents.


I like the originality of the idea, but with all due respect, that would butcher the skill. You'll be able to kill more with melee splash than that, it be just as useless as cleave or any other of the melee skills in the true-endgame. You'd at minimum need for chain to work, but then you just have a new skill that works exactly like bows do now, except you use melee weapons.

Maybe projectile speed shouldn't give it more distance, but rather just execute faster, but i think honestly if it is too powerful, then straightforwardly reducing its base damage multiplier a little is the way to go.
I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all.
Last edited by Crackmonster on Jul 13, 2014, 9:30:02 AM
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tinko92 wrote:
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Gobla wrote:
The assumption that ranged > melee is simply utterly hilarious and wrong.

It's all a matter of balance. It's incredibly easy to make it so melee > ranged (like making double strike do 500% weapon damage, see if anyone uses ranged then). It's incredibly easy to make it so ranged > melee, the situation we have now.

Ranged isn't inherently superior to melee. That's only true in the current balance situation. There's countless other ways this game could've been balanced to make melee > ranged.

Unfortunately the hard part is finding situation where melee ~= ranged. The solution to that however isn't to stop trying, it's to simply get as close as possible even if you won't ever reach it.


500% won't do much, it's the AoE, the whole screen cleared in a second, not even a 42395832423% DS would compare.

However, in the current trash monster pack supremacy, small but numerous hits prevail.
Lower the amount of monsters, increase their hp, so chain/AoE/pierce/splash/etc. will not be mandatory.

But yes I do agree with you on this, ranged aren't inherently superior to melee. Just like RogueMage said, put Point Blank on every ranged skill and observe.


I'd personally go for a different, even more realistic solution.

Bows are currently among the fastest weapons available, which really makes absolutely no sense considering the amount of extra movement involved in firing an arrow from a quiver with a bow.

I'd rather go with making bows, wands and spells slow. Really, really slow. So slow that no amount of attack speed with ever make them compare to melee weapons. Additionally, add a large amount of less attack speed to ranged melee skill gems (Spectral Throw, Lightning Strike, Ground Slam and such).

No real nerf to damage would be needed, they could keep mostly the same DPS but it would be dealt in many fewer but bigger hits.

This would do several things.

- Weakness to interrupts, get stunned and you lose your current attack and have to try again. This would actually make ranged attacks do a lot worse in melee range, as it should be.
- Less advantage against trash, they'd be dealing with a lot of overkill damage meaning melee has a much greater window for walking up and picking targets.
- A much more equal challenge in positioning for ranged attacks that's much more on par with melee. You can't just wildly attack, you have to take care where you're standing or be stuck in an attack animation, just like melee has to take care not to get surrounded.
My vision for a better PoE: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/863780
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Crackmonster wrote:
I don't think dagger nodes should get fucked, i only thing crit multiplier should be reduced a bit more overall, and daggers/wands tend to benefit the most.

"
The damage effectiveness of ST is alright,the problem lies in the fact that it hits multiple times the target.The right thing to do is to remove the pierce thing and the retrieve.You just throw,hits the monster and thats it.Of course chain should not work with it as well.My 2 cents.


I like the originality of the idea, but with all due respect, that would butcher the skill. You'll be able to kill more with melee splash than that, it be just as useless as cleave or any other of the melee skills in the true-endgame. You'd at minimum need for chain to work, but then you just have a new skill that works exactly like bows do now, except you use melee weapons.

Maybe projectile speed shouldn't give it more distance, but rather just execute faster, but i think honestly if it is too powerful, then straightforwardly reducing its base damage multiplier a little is the way to go.


And that's a bad thing why?after all it is a ranged attack from a MELEE weapon.Melee attacks should be better with melee weapons,period.This could be more like a support skill.Anyway,i don't care either way.Eah one to his opnion.GGG succesfully balancing seems as imposible as today argentina pulling a '86.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/417287 - Poutsos Flicker Nuke Shadow
Because that would make it inefficient in true-endgame, at least now something with a melee weapon works well. I'd say that's a good thing.
I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all.

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