GGG, hates Marauders & melee? Juggernaut sucks, Berserker is retarded; now Chieftain is a totem

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Exactly, any class absolutely better as ranged or caster or even totems, but not as melee.

FTFY

This isn't really a Marauder issue, so much as a global melee issue. And to be perfectly honest, if you're expecting Marauder-specific buffs to single-handedly fix melee, then you're either short-sighted or selfish.

They could have buffed the hell out of melee ascendancy classes and then restrict the buffs to melee only. See my suggestion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/46mlaa/ggg_heres_how_to_make_melee_str_competitive_post/. I'll re-post it here on the official forums later today prob

Yea, the marauder is really bad. So boring and generic. Nothing interesting.

Didn't read the whole tread, I'm just gonna leave these thoughts here to be lost in the stream of consciousness.


The ultimate root of the whole melee-ranged divide is opportunity cost. Ranged characters can engage enemies from whereever they like, while melee characters have to be right next to enemies. This has quite a few implications in the current state of the game:

- enemies with no ranged attacks/spells
- volatile blood
- bearers
- fracturing
- bond of chaos
- ground effects

These things, among others, have a much higher impact on the melee playstyle than they do on ranged. What's worse, melee builds aren't any better at dealing with these than ranged ones, since most of it is non-physical, non-attack damage. Currently, melee's only real advantage over ranged is easier access to armor and block on the tree, but then you have all these extra sources of danger that completely ignore armor and block. The only way to get away from it is to go ranged, and it's not like your DPS or clearspeed takes a hit from doing so.


In short, melee need something to offset the inherent risk of going melee. I guess that could be a higher offensive potential compared to ranged, but I'd rather them get more defenses over ranged. Not just armor/block, they have plenty of that already, but things like max resists, DoT resistance, etc.

But how to implement melee only defensive buffs that can't be used by ranged chars?
Fortify is easily usable as a caster for example. They would need to find a way to help melees, but only melees.

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Caliginosus wrote:

But how to implement melee only defensive buffs that can't be used by ranged chars?
Fortify is easily usable as a caster for example. They would need to find a way to help melees, but only melees.

• Threshold Nodes
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• Implicit properties on melee skills
• "On Melee Hit" Ascendancy Talents
• Enemies within X units grant Y Ascendancy Talents (and only while they're within range)

Honestly I think threshold nodes would open up a veritable wealth of design space where GGG would be able to make a determination of an exile's stats and playstyle then grant the talent(s) they deem appropriate.

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Caliginosus wrote:

But how to implement melee only defensive buffs that can't be used by ranged chars?
Fortify is easily usable as a caster for example. They would need to find a way to help melees, but only melees.

A lot of people suggested fortify be lost if you cast a spell, that way you can't benefit from it by using a dagger and whirling blades (which people saw coming a mile away, pretty sure some even pointed it out).

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Caliginosus wrote:

But how to implement melee only defensive buffs that can't be used by ranged chars?
Fortify is easily usable as a caster for example. They would need to find a way to help melees, but only melees.

Do it like they did with Blunt Instrument and By the Blade notables: Add defensive bonuses to melee specific skill nodes. Start with notables only and see how that changes the game. Then maybe expand on minor melee nodes if necessary.

A ranged build won't go through melee specific nodes just for that bit of additional defence, but a melee character will fully benefit from that addition.

Also, I'd increase the damage output for single target aim locked melee attacks to make them more significant for single target damage against bosses and similar. Melee splash would then need a higher damage penalty to compensate. Attacks that can be used both ranged and melee would probably need a separated bonus for melee damage.

Thanks you two, both sounds good.

For the purposes of this post, when I say "melee" that's shorthand for "short ranged," including short-ranged bow stuff and excluding long-range melee like Reave.

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suszterpatt wrote:

The ultimate root of the whole melee-ranged divide is opportunity cost. Ranged characters can engage enemies from whereever they like, while melee characters have to be right next to enemies. This has quite a few implications in the current state of the game:

- enemies with no ranged attacks/spells
- volatile blood
- bearers
- fracturing
- bond of chaos
- ground effects

Bold parts true, but defense is not the problem.

Imagine none of those mechanics existed. Just to really paint the picture, imagine that enemies in this game weren't even proper enemies, but more appropriately targets - they presented absolutely zero danger, and the sole objective was to kill them as fast as possible. A target range, if you will.

Now layer skills over this. There are a few possibilities here:
1. Usually, ranged has better skills, because longer range is better than shorter range, all other things being equal. So historically, most games in the genre have given ranged better skills. This means melee is worse at the target range.
2. Although it takes conscious effort, it is possible for melee to do as well or better at the target range. For example, if ranged skills do not have access to AoE mechanics, but melee does, melee might clear faster than ranged because it can take groups out at once, while ranged saves time avoiding unnecessary movement but needs to shoot down targets individually.
3. You could try to tune with damage but in most ARPGs player damage is open-ended, so trying to balance with damage only means ranged becomes more expensive to gear, not better for endgame play.

Now, onto this target range we now want to layer threats.
1. If ranged clears the target range faster than melee - as is genre tradition - then the usual answer is to create threats which are intimidating to ranged but barely threatening to melee. Because this is virtually impossible on the enemy end, this is normally done on the character end, making "melee" traditionally synonymous with "tanky." This, however, has always been a bum deal, as reward in ARPGs is tied to clearspeed (loot on kill, XP on kill); ranged still traditionally wins.
2. However, it doesn't need to be that way. As mentioned earlier, it is possible for melee to have the superior target range clearspeed, at which point it actually makes good sense for enemies to be more dangerous to them than they are to ranged.

I don't think the problem is solved by making melee tankier, I actually think it's cool to have anti-melee threats when tuned properly, the only thing that bothers me about PoE is that ranged is so firmly established as the only meta choice that the whole game is balanced around blowing up whole screens of mobs, at long range, with a mouse click. Ranged has way too much access to AoE when a slower, more deliberate ranged approach would give melee a chance.

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suszterpatt wrote:

Didn't read the whole tread, I'm just gonna leave these thoughts here to be lost in the stream of consciousness.


The ultimate root of the whole melee-ranged divide is opportunity cost. Ranged characters can engage enemies from whereever they like, while melee characters have to be right next to enemies. This has quite a few implications in the current state of the game:

- enemies with no ranged attacks/spells
- volatile blood
- bearers
- fracturing
- bond of chaos
- ground effects

These things, among others, have a much higher impact on the melee playstyle than they do on ranged. What's worse, melee builds aren't any better at dealing with these than ranged ones, since most of it is non-physical, non-attack damage. Currently, melee's only real advantage over ranged is easier access to armor and block on the tree, but then you have all these extra sources of danger that completely ignore armor and block. The only way to get away from it is to go ranged, and it's not like your DPS or clearspeed takes a hit from doing so.


In short, melee need something to offset the inherent risk of going melee. I guess that could be a higher offensive potential compared to ranged, but I'd rather them get more defenses over ranged. Not just armor/block, they have plenty of that already, but things like max resists, DoT resistance, etc.

+1

I was think the same, that what's needed for a long time ago. Also i don't think melee's got enough of armour/block, not plenty at all: bcs you need to sacrifice half of your DPS and life (plus life quality node like movement speed and mana cost or leech node). So not enough even armor/block/leech to make it decent (not good, but just decent).

There should be node like +Max res; +DOT res; slow res; more life; etc.

But that's dream... GGG love to make ranged and coc broken, not melee.