Why Fortify isn't the answer

What if every melee hit increased the duration of current fortify by 0.2 seconds or something? (still the same 5 sec maximum duration). Would make it much more pleasant to use. You'll still have to refresh it upon relocating but running it on ground slam or whatever wouldn't break the combat pacing, jump in with leap slam linked to fortify and begin using your normal melee attacks, no need to recast slam every few seconds as long as you're still engaged.

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666lol666 wrote:

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LSN wrote:

In the world I play in, when eg. playing hard mods like -max res or vuln + twinned or whatever else you pick to do to help your map pool and have some challenge, it is not even so much about the dmg loss but you as well lose leech (insta leech), lose control like e.g. freeze or stun, etc. You wanna keep your leech and control stuff all the time up and the damage as well.

In high level play and in HC imo it is no option for most builds to have foritify not in main attack.

Come on, I run yolo alch & vaal corrupted maps all day long just to get more maps:

Spoiler

Sadly down to t11-t13 right now. :/

Some of the maps are not even identified when I run them and I use shield-charge, faster attacks, fortify all the time so please spare me the drama. All the chars I'm playing right now are l91-95 so believe it or not I really would hate to die because of the stupid XP-penalty. And for alt-f4 core I don't give a fuck and I'm pretty sure ggg doesn't give a fuck too.

I am not sure what you talk about. Your map pool or what? Not everyone is a solo softcore player. In group play and in hc the main attack without fortify is alot less viable than in your solo softcore experience cause then bosses not necessarily die within a few seconds, depending on the group of course.

Why are you even arguing against improvements for melee? Are you sick?

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666lol666 wrote:

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dyneol wrote:

Any build "works" in standard.

If you had a single high level char you would know that after about lvl. 87 dying is not an option anymore and after reaching about lvl. 92 a standard char need to have as much survivability than a alt-f4-core char.

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dyneol wrote:

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HoloPaladin wrote:

than why you cant level to 80+?

Not everyone can put 24/7 into games. Also, I only play HC. Also, you wot m8 ?

Seriously? Joined april 2012, can not put 24/7 into games? It takes about 2-3 days to reach the level of your highest char so 24/7 for 4,5 years maybe is a little exaggeration. ;o)

Leagues are temporary. Also, why the fuck are we discuss my play style now ?

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LSN wrote:

Why are you even arguing against improvements for melee? Are you sick?

I'm not against improvements for melee, in fact there are tons of possible improvements for melee right now but fortify is perfect as it is now.

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In group play and in hc the main attack without fortify is alot less viable than in your solo softcore experience cause then bosses not necessarily die within a few seconds, depending on the group of course.

Not sure if you are serious? For every partymember after the first a monster gains only 60% more life but the party get 100% additional dps. So in a 6 man party the monsters only have 400% life but the party has 600% dmg and of course that is only true if we forget about all the other synergies a party usually has to offer therefore in reality it is more like monsters have 400% life and the party has >1000% dmg. So because it's easier it is less viable? Please explain to me why the main attack without fortify is a lot less viable in a group than while playing solo?

The actual gameplay of an ARPG, like all action games, is telegraphing, reacting to telegraphs, positioning, and the scope of your moves.

Therefore, things like skill range, how long the skill takes to perform, movement speed, and the number of enemies effected by one action are always going to be far more important than things like damage dealt and received. The former category decides how you play; the latter merely decides how hard hits are.

You simply can't give one category of builds unlimited range, AoE, and attack speed, and then try to balance that out by giving better defenses to another category which is denied range and AoE. You already gave that first category the best defense possible: their enemies are vanquished in the blink of an eye.

Clearspeed balance is a prerequisite for defensive balance.

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666lol666 wrote:

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

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666lol666 wrote:

Ähm, what? You don't use fortify in your main gemsetup, Use something like shield charge, faster attacks, fortify or wirling blades to apply the buff in a seperate 3l. ^^

Re-read his post, he already said that that requires you to disengage your main attack in order to apply the buff if you do have Fortify associated with a different skill. ie: Your DPS has to stop/drastically reduce periodically if it isn't as a part of your main attack setup.

Every 5 seconds you loose about 0,2 seconds that's only 4% dmg loss you cannot compare that to linking this shit to your main attack. In fact if you use EQ or BV you will not even notice a difference in dmg.

1) Ranged characters don't have to frequently temporarily switch to a different skill to get a flat defense buff.

2) It's micromanagement that ranged characters don't have to deal with. They have other things to micromanage of course but nothing as frequent as Fortify demands.

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

How about instead of a separate Fortify support gem, just apply the mod to the melee attack gems?

Would have been the right thing to do but they didnt. Id rather they just remove fortify and decrease monster damage instead, that way everyone gets benefits and they dont have to balance around casters/range whining that they dont get to use it anymore (when they never should have been able to in the first place).

Of course lowering damage output would be the ideal solution but the complexity of rebalancing range around that is pretty big and if you don't rebalance ranged characters around it then the discrepancy between ranged and melee characters remains unchanged (You've only improved survivability for melee). Giving melee skills a flat 20% defense buff would improve survivability for melee while also lowering the discrepancy between Melee and Ranged characters.

Ranged charackters also don't have to push a button every few seconds to get a frenzy or power charge such as with endurance charges. Now you probably gonna tell stories about linking endurance charge on melee stun on you movement skill.

You haven't understood that this is not about what in theory is possible or can work but about what is efficient. Melee is unefficient already by default. Having to use movement skill constantly during fights to get the fortify is even more so. There is nothing to debate about, you don't understand anything, strictly speaking you are a noob that enjoys being unefficent and argues for it.

And this is about relative efficiency in particular compared to what else is there.

And don't come with curse on hit stuff. Even melee needs that for other charges than endurance charges to at least try to close the gap to ranged.

A very good and pretty much underused option is "Phase Run"

You can avoid a lot of stuff with Phase Run especialy with the shaper you can distract balls if you have a golem or totems using phaserun during his slam will make him target those and its a slight dmg boost melee physical dmg and a good movespeed boost.

Especialy for Totembro builds you can use phase run and get a full benefit from it while the totem gain a more multiplier to dmg

Many melee skills dont need a 6l for dps, and many dont sacrifice dps by using fortify. Cyclone is a perfect example.

The problem here is demand for dps over balance. Thats an issue of the player not wanting to play the game correctly and is the reason so few players make it to end game mapping. There is such thing as too much dps and to low defense. Its the players job to find a perfect balance. If a mob has 20k hp and you hit for 80k, you have wasted dps that is only beneficial on bosses. Less dps means it might take slightly longer but that also means you are less likely to die.