Difference between melee and range builds.

@ScrotieMcB

In terms of d3 back then and d3 now its very much 2 different games.

The reason why DH was viewed as the most efficient is because they could collect more gold then any other class. Considering the fact that gold = items, gem recipes and other useful things it was quite important to have gold.

Barb with the whirlwind ability was strong as hell, but lets not forget the other brokenness of builds that excised back then either. Life on death gave wizards the ability to cast hydra multiple times, each time giving life equal to as many hydras they could cast. Wizards also had critical mass, which at the time was the only way to reduce the cooldowns, with specific thresholds and builds you could keep the whole screen basically perma frozen.

I think one of the biggest differences between d3 and poe is the ability to logout. Granted this has changed or pseudo changed with d3 giving all classes a "cheat death" like function. But that means that the game is balanced around more controlled damage over time rather then having to add in 1 shot abilities. The other difference is poe's difficulty comes from different map mods, in conjunction with monster affixes, where d3's is now just mob HP\damage scaling with more focus on monster affixes.

Even if the fact of the matter is WW barb was the fastest that doesn't really even address any part of the differences or the fact that no ARPG has been able to make the game completely balanced it always favors something over another.

The other question is could he have done his run on another class and achieved the same thing in about the same time, we may never know the answer to that. Just because someone who spends a significant amount of playtime doing 1 thing doesn't necessarily mean it couldnt or wouldnt be faster to do it with something else.

"

goetzjam wrote:

Even if the fact of the matter is WW barb was the fastest that doesn't really even address any part of the differences or the fact that no ARPG has been able to make the game completely balanced it always favors something over another.

And no ARPG ever will. Balance is an illusion. By that I don't mean balance is nonexistent, I literally mean it's an illusion, illusions are things which exist. In this case, a useful one, because although all good puzzles have an answer, balance obscures that answer and makes finding the answer fun.

You're right about the genre conventions, however. People who play melee are used to be masochists by now. Fast mobile AoE ranged is the typical answer and players are shocked and even outraged if it isn't (and DH was D3's best class, perhaps still is, desire Barb's valiant attempt and popularity). So there's this question of who actually wants balance and who would prefer status quo.

But I think Barb being really, really close was a good thing. I feel designers shouldn't try to know the answer to their own puzzle in this case; instead, make it closer than they can figure, then hand solving it over to the community.

But that type of closeness cannot occur if you
1. Give range to mobile AoE,
2. Give mobility to ranged AoE, or
3. Give AoE to mobile ranged.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

goetzjam wrote:

Even if the fact of the matter is WW barb was the fastest that doesn't really even address any part of the differences or the fact that no ARPG has been able to make the game completely balanced it always favors something over another.

And no ARPG ever will. Balance is an illusion. By that I don't mean balance is nonexistent, I literally mean it's an illusion, illusions are things which exist. In this case, a useful one, because although all good puzzles have an answer, balance obscures that answer and makes finding the answer fun.

You're right about the genre conventions, however. People who play melee are used to be masochists by now. Fast mobile AoE ranged is the typical answer and players are shocked and even outraged if it isn't (and DH was D3's best class, perhaps still is, desire Barb's valiant attempt and popularity). So there's this question of who actually wants balance and who would prefer status quo.

But I think Barb being really, really close was a good thing. I feel designers shouldn't try to know the answer to their own puzzle in this case; instead, make it closer than they can figure, then hand solving it over to the community.

But that type of closeness cannot occur if you
1. Give range to mobile AoE,
2. Give mobility to ranged AoE, or
3. Give AoE to mobile ranged.

D3's best class varies season to season now, if you want to say whats the class that has been "the best the most or the longest" perhaps then that is up for debate.



In terms of barb being close being good thing I think that is kinda funny considering the ability most like one of the top builds just basically got destroyed in PoE (cyclone). So obviously GGG doesn't give 2 shits about trying to balance melee in general, but rather individual skills as seen by popularity.


The puzzle when it was a far simpler thing to put together (aka games that limit skills to classes and other limitations) was never solved, we can know for sure when the puzzle is much more complicated its literally unsolveable.

I actually had a discussion with a PoE player that is play D3 right now with me, I absolutely cannot stand playing ranged characters really in d3, yet I basically can't stand playing melee in PoE, with the exception that was cyclone.

Sure there's a few things PoE can learn from D3 (and a LOT D3 can learn from PoE), anything/one can learn something from something else but it is a bit hard to compare the two to be honest. While they are very similar games in terms of gameplay, PoE is far more complex, there are just so many more stats in PoE compared to D3.

D3 for scaling basically comes down to DPS, from your weapon (for all classes) and a couple of other stats. PoE though has SO much to consider when you get into elemental damage, flat damage, accuracy, crit multiplier, your weapon, the skill you are using and all the other crazy amounts of calculations from the tree. Not to mention PoE leads to issues where ranged/melee/casting are never defined, like Frost Blades, CoC Cyclone, Mjolner etc.

With that said it means it's pretty hard to mimic balance decisions from D3 and we saw this first hand with Fortify being used on all sorts of builds unintended for it. PoE has ultimate freedom with building where as D3 doesn't, so it's easy to put Fortify-like mechanics on Monks/Barbs because it is not like they can used Demon Hunter abilities. If you want to solve that issue you have to make really complex changes and exceptions to mechanics, the best example I can think of in PoE is how they changed abilities to function less effectively in PVP. The game has to be smart in knowing that you are doing X, so Y happens. Heavy Strike is more deserving of Fortify than Frost Blades for eg (i think frost blades procs fortify??)

I'd like more love for non crit builds with scaling though, Controlled Destruction was a bit of a disaster.

It's just going to have to come to a case by case basis if balance is to happen. That's SO much work though.

I like the idea of limiting the range of projectiles though, I haven't played D3 for a while but I'm pretty sure you couldn't shoot that far away?? I remember in the early days you still couldn't use distance to the advantage you can in PoE though. I think DH very early was OP for reasons other than being able to shoot at a distance, I think defensive abilities played a big role in that and DH's was one of the best if I'm not mistaken.

But I dunno, when I got the expansion and played for the second time after the launch the game felt far too easy for me to really care about any balance, it's basically Torchlight at this point.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Melee can be more efficient than ranged, because range isn't everything. AoE and mobility are also important. But if you design a game so ranged has the same or better access to AoE and mobility, melee can't compete.

Absolutely right, also must add some points: defense, aoe, mechanic, leech, auto dodge (acrobatics), etc same for both melee and ranged... it's awful wrong and should be changed!

"

TreeOfDead wrote:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Melee can be more efficient than ranged, because range isn't everything. AoE and mobility are also important. But if you design a game so ranged has the same or better access to AoE and mobility, melee can't compete.

Absolutely right, also must add some points: defense, aoe, mechanic, leech, auto dodge (acrobatics), etc same for both melee and ranged... it's awful wrong and should be changed!

Actually, what matters here is clear speed, and just clear speed.

That isn't to say those things do not effect clear speed. Defenses and leech, for example, are functionally mobility; they reduce the need to kite threats, because you can just withstand them. (If you do not kite them and you cannot withstand them, you die, which really fucks up your clear speed.) However, defenses are irrelevant completely in situations where kiting is irrelevant (ex: enemies all die before they ever reach you). Thus, defenses can increase your clearspeed, and are good to that end.

So as an example of this, there could be an ARPG where players could choose a tanky short-range character, or a high mobility ranged character. If you also give the high mobility ranged character lots of AoE, they're going to be able to kill everything before it reaches them, and never have to kite. As soon as that happens, the tankiness of the short-range character is wasted. So you'd have to limit the AoE of the mobile ranged character, so they actually have to kite, so the short-range tankiness could actually be relevant in a comparison between the two.

Now let's add a character with range and AoE, but both low mobility and tankiness. This character just destroys the short-range tanky character straight-up, because although the AoE might compete with the movespeed of the mobile ranged character, the short-range character wouldn't have any way to convert that tankiness to mobility, and would be straight-up worse than the ranged AoE character. You'd need movespeed on the short-ranged character in this situation.

Now if you had ranged/good-AoE/glass/low-mobility, shortranged-AoE/tanky/medium-mobility, and ranged/poor-AoE/glass/highmobility, that might work out okay.

I am sorry if someone mentioned this already, but bladefall and all the other "op" spells are being offered as a reward at lvl 28, their melee counterparts for that lvl are cyclone, ice crash and dominating blow. If we exclude the last one the other two are the best melee skills for leveling.

I think GGG made that distinction on purpose and already knows which skills are strong and which are not. Maybe they thought that some skills should be stepping stones until you reach the "op" ones. At the moment there are only two "op" melee skills for leveling. In the future i am sure they plan to add more melee ones to those lvl28 rewards.

"

goetzjam wrote:

Some defense boost would be nice.

You mean like fortify that melee got in 2.0?

Maybe add 2-5 all res to fortify? That would be very nice.
Level 1- 2 all res, Level 20 - 4 all res, Level 21 or 22 or 23 5 all res.

After following this post a long time now and reading all the problems and suggestions from players i think i know the solution to the problem now.

All PoE content which is currently in the game favours ranged builds and put melee into a significant disadvantage (farming/mechanics/efficiancy/build cost).
If GGG would add some content to the game where ranged builds are in a significant disadvantage over melee builds which is impacting enough to the economy as well and add some generel punishing mechanics to ranged for regular maping (new monsters + new mechanics that only affect ranged builds), melee would suddenly be a lot more attractive to play.

If there was content that only melee can do efficiantly many (not all) problems would get solved by itself.

Imagine a Zone/Boss where ranged basically stands no chance except with high end gear and well executed gameplay it would be doable for ranged too (similar to Ueber Atziri for true melee non coc builds - it is possible to do but it is really hard and usually not worth the effort and the risk)

The reward form this Zone/Boss should be something special you can't get otherwise with some RNG elements included to have the incentive to do it over and over again (i really like the idea with the enchantments comming in Acendancy with the labyrinth - maybe some unique powerfull hard to obtain enchantments). An other thing would be special gear bases you can't obtain otherwise and which can be crafted.


If GGG would be able to balance the melee vs ranged problem the economy would also get better for everyone (especially newer players) - at this time only very specific gear for casters and ranged builds is selling and it usually costs a lot. Good melee gear on the other hand is dirty cheap at the same time. If melee was played as much as ranged builds more gear would be traded by players which keeps the leagues alive much longer - think about it for a moment.

Achieving "balance" between melee vs ranged could benefit the game a lot. It might be a lot of work to achieve that goal but the possible reward is also a big and great one.

"

nuub wrote:

"

goetzjam wrote:

Some defense boost would be nice.

You mean like fortify that melee got in 2.0?

Maybe add 2-5 all res to fortify? That would be very nice.
Level 1- 2 all res, Level 20 - 4 all res, Level 21 or 22 or 23 5 all res.

You realize that fortify does also decrease spell "hits"?


There simply isn't anyway to give JUST melee those additional max res, they tried in the tree, that failed miserably. As shown with fortify that still doesn't prevent anyone that can use or weapon swaps.

Again unless Poe limits the abilities you can do based on the class you select they can NEVER give melee something just for them because someone will find a way to use it. One of PoE's greatest strengths is the flexibility of the tree, classes and abilities, it also has shown to be one of its greatest weaknesses in terms of this melee vs ranged argument.

"

Actually, what matters here is clear speed, and just clear speed.

Because all people care is to copy their favorite streamers and complete their build in a week or two. There is a very good reason why this game since 2.0 has actually taken a turn for the worst because people simply cant slow the fuck down and enjoy the ride, instead they complain when they cant go at the same pace as others.

"

If GGG would add some content to the game where ranged builds are in a significant disadvantage over melee builds which is impacting enough to the economy as well and add some generel punishing mechanics to ranged for regular maping (new monsters + new mechanics that only affect ranged builds), melee would suddenly be a lot more attractive to play.

I mean have you played the game at all? This is such an ignorant suggestion you must not know of any of the mobs in the game that were added in act 3 and even some in act 4 that will destroy ranged builds in certain circumstances.

"

Achieving "balance" between melee vs ranged could benefit the game a lot. It might be a lot of work to achieve that goal but the possible reward is also a big and great one.

Bullshit, have you read any part of this discussion you would have known its not possible to achieve what you want with the design of PoE they would have to fundamentally change core design features of the game if they EVEN CARED about achieving something NO OTHER ARPG HAS EVER DONE.



So I'll wrap up likely my contributions to this thread with STOP COMPLAINING and just play the game. Melee has gotten multiple improvements over time and all we see every single patch is "melee sucks" well how about you make a better freaking build then? How about you stop comparing the size of your penis to the next guy? How about you worry about the main aspect that this game SHOULD be instilling in you, which is to make a good build that can complete as much of the game as you want to. (also wait for ascendancy because we know that will be massive changes and further discussion in regards to the current state of the game is quite useless)