Melee Balance. With 600 upvotes, I think this deserves a little attention from GGG

I think its just that some of melee attack skills feel more like support gems than the actual skills

Maybe melee needs some kind of system where you can merge a few melee attack skills into one or something like this, let those skills be supports they basically are anyway, maybe add things like trigger melee attack skill on attack/block/hit and so on

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X_Hero wrote:

I think its just that some of melee attack skills feel more like support gems than the actual skills

Maybe melee needs some kind of system where you can merge a few melee attack skills into one or something like this, let those skills be supports they basically are anyway, maybe add things like trigger melee attack skill on attack/block/hit and so on

We have this in PoE already.
Vengeance is melee attack triggered when hit.
Riposte and Reckoning are melee attacks triggered when you block.
Are they good? No, because they need too many links to be useful. The link system in PoE strongly favours one-skill spam.

Think about what melee would look like if it had never ever been nerfed......
Still wouldn't be where it needs to be gg.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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X_Hero wrote:

I think its just that some of melee attack skills feel more like support gems than the actual skills

Maybe melee needs some kind of system where you can merge a few melee attack skills into one or something like this, let those skills be supports they basically are anyway, maybe add things like trigger melee attack skill on attack/block/hit and so on

We have this in PoE already.
Vengeance is melee attack triggered when hit.
Riposte and Reckoning are melee attacks triggered when you block.
Are they good? No, because they need too many links to be useful. The link system in PoE strongly favours one-skill spam.

I actually disagree and think that all of the melee trigger gems are good. Think about it, if the game is a one skill spam, what do you need all those extra sockets for a melee build for?

2 for hatred\ash.

cwdt setup can use a 4 socket. If you don't care about applying a curse yourself you can put your vaal skill in that setup.

so that leaves at least 1, 4 link open for a counter attack setup, more if your running 1 hander+shield, the only time you are "low" on sockets as a melee is if your using BOR or like kaoms heart.


However these don't make melee good, they just are a bonus to the playstyle, if you aren't using them then your likely missing out on free benefits like additional leech, endurance charge on MS things or whatever extra utility you want to get out of it.

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goetzjam wrote:

I actually disagree and think that all of the melee trigger gems are good. Think about it, if the game is a one skill spam, what do you need all those extra sockets for a melee build for?

For supporting that single skill, usually.
Mana reservation skill just increase your stats, that's why you use them. Same for 2/3 Warcries, Blood Rage, etc. CWDT allows to automatically cast curse (=debuff enemies) or trigger IC some a bit of added survivability. Sometimes you spend your links for movement skills (like WB). But everything just rorates around that 1-skill spam, at least, for majority of builds (and all top-tier ones)

Oh, and look at my Slayer from Perandus. He barely manages to use Vengeance/Riposte without any links... There are so many useful skills in PoE, and so few sockets to put those skills into.

I like melee. I play melee. I may be a fool, but I am a happy one. :D

Is there any chance of the melee fixes promised for 2.0.0 making it into the 2.4.0 patch?

Melee atacks should spawn tigers of fire, as projectiles that also apply poison, and at the end of their movement erupt into a volcanic discharge with increased pierceing chance based on the monsters remaining life. And if the monster is left with less than 10% life a random element super galaxy nova dealing splash damange apperars and based on the dexterity may move randomly for a few seconds, which time can be increased by spending frenzy charges.

Mabe this would appeal to GGG. As it may well fit their ideaa of melee.

Reading this whole thread, I see a couple of issues with the framing of the question "what's wrong with melee?"

Firstly, you start off with Team Facebash that says "If I can't attain LA+GMP+Chain-level clearspeed with my non-multistrike Vigilant Strike build, then melee is being oppressed"

Sorry to tell you, sunshine, but you will NEVER, EVER be able to click-a-monster-to-kill-it fast enough to keep up with arrows, even WITHOUT GMP and chain. Ever since Medieval times, archers have been the quick killers. Your sword-swingers are basically there to keep the enemy sword-swingers engaged long enough to get them killed by your archers, and meanwhile you go for the enemy archers with your assassins.

Then you've got Team Smash Everything that is perfectly happy with skills like Earthquake, Sunder, Reave, Flicker Strike, Frost Blades, Molten Strike, etc. They fill a role not-dissimilar from that of male magic users in the Wheel of Time books. They use the elements in combination with a hands-on skill to wreck the enemy.

This is where melee needs to go, (See or else section below) Either ALL single target melee skills should be removed, in order to END the QQ from Team Facebash.

Team Facebash doesn't understand that they are WILLINGLY taking on the role of a meatshield, and then they want to complain when the addition of melee splash doesn't give them the clearspeed of Barrage-CoC-Ice Nova-Cold Snap

OR ELSE

Make party play more rewarding than solo play. Increase XP semi-proportionally with Mob HP. Double the number of uses for each portal when you're in a party mapping. Give the meatshields a chance to play out their chosen role without being penalized for it.

But, it's hard to let go of that "we can't have too many portals in a map.... Players might haul too much loot out!" mentality. Yeah i can see if we had too many chaos in circulation, we might be in a situation where people start chaos spamming to craft GG items, and we Just. Cant. Have. That.