Melee builds are complete trash

You pointed shit.


Just because you quote some text doesn't mean it's an argument (you either can't read/understand what's written properly or you got some heavier issues on your hand). We can read what's in the quote box. And there was nothing related to your countless baseless assumption, because apparently that's all you're capable of.


Also cut the crap about fallacies... I mean, look who's talking, the worst possible person lmao


You're like a made-up character from some cartoon.

Vaal Pact needs to work with only melee attacks. ES regen could use some buffing as well.

During your selfless discussion here, I have little personal update that can have some use in light of topic.

Long long time I played self-funded-self-disigned ultra-shitty melee (typical "noobish") marouder. Most bosses above today tier 10-11 beaten crap out of me. It was so hard and demoralizing, that I dropped game at some point.

Several weeks ago, friend of mine just presented me with almost complete gear for maxblock eq gladiator, worth 30-35 ex (may be more, real good stuff).

And I must tell you - this is another story (even with not completly leveled char)! I can survive/win shit I never almost dared to fight.

So, gear and clear well done build matter. Even in hands of unskilled casual like me. May I dont kill shaper or uber atziri, but atleast im not bag for beating in 95% of game content.

"

tinko92 wrote:

"

sofocle10000 wrote:

The 1 handed weapon buff is noticeable, and gave me confidence that GGG might be on to something regarding "improving" melee.

I didn't put that in those two "buffs".

It is a step forward, but it's still only swords that got buffed properly. And even that's not enough because the real problem isn't that melee weapons have slightly lower DPS so that's why melee sucks.
That alone won't do much, if anything in the greater picture. But it's still better than the MS buff and "this is a buff" from earlier.


In the end, everybody, including the devs are on the same page regarding the power of melee in PoE. Everybody except the best melee player ever called Snorkle and a couple of other forum hipsters that are trying to look smart. Pathetic.

My mace got boosted from 398 DPS to a whooping 468 DPS and if that isn't a sizeable buff, I don't know what the hell is - the perfect pDPS rolled mace from poe.trade got buffed 100 flat pDPS and now reaches 600 pDPS in a one handed weapon.

Heck, even the physical focused Doryiani's Catalyst received a 20 pDPS boost, from 317 to 337. It is sizeable.

This buff should actually make higher than 400 pDPS one handed weapons more easily available so you close the gap between 350 pDPS one handed weapons that were reliably found, towards the >400 pDPS values that were scarcer before.

We're discussing improvements not PR fluffs so don't account for those trolling actions that GGG underwent before please.

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Peterlerock wrote:

It's been answered countless times:
Melee cannot compete in xp/hour races. It can beat all content, but even with BiS gear and even if you never die, you still cannot run a shaped strand in 10 seconds, so you'll lose that race.

To me that sounds like melee is weak then. I'm struggling to see how you can justify otherwise.

So where exactly is melee's strength? More survivability? Nah. More damage? Nah.

So why would you play melee?

And ladder is not just about clearspeed, it's also about survivability. You can have the fastest clearing build but if your survivability is poor - it will weaken your whole build.

That's the problem with melee - your survivability and single target damage AND clearspeed in general are all going to be lower.

That's why no one is bothering to play with melee - there are far easier and more efficient builds that can generate the same strength at a cheaper cost.

"

And still you don't want to answer why there are hardly any melee builds on HC ladder every league

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

we just talked about that in the post above the one you just made, saying the same thing thats been said previously in this and all the other threads.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

yeah pretty much, if you want to race through content, power level, then spells are almost always the choice because of base damage coming from gem level. Its not exclusive to melee its all attacks that suffer from not being considered viable for ladder pushing in the vast majority of cases. ...

Youre gonna believe what you want to believe, read what you want to read.

Believe what I want to believe? You know it's interesting seeing you guys try and rationalize this out.

Ok, so they are "attacks" which is why no one is playing them? That's strange - because there are MANY Spectral Throw builds on both ladders.

In fact, out of the first 600 characters for each league - Spectral Throw is THE 1st and 2nd most used skill in Legacy and HC Legacy resp.

Yup, it even beats the spells.

Looks to me that "its all attacks that suffer" is not really the right answer here.

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sidtherat wrote:

or just limit any and all 'leech' to 'melee radius'

suddenly pretty much every idiotic scenario is removed from the game

+++++++++++++

I'd also put Point Blank on every projectile and restrict crit to attacks, but if I could only pick one draconian edict, banning non-melee leech would be it.

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Ceryneian wrote:

Ok, so they are "attacks" which is why no one is playing them?

yeah, because people dont want to rely on getting a good rare weapon to progress, listen to hc ladder pushers talk about why they use spells, theyve been saying the same thing for 4 years.

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Ceryneian wrote:

That's strange - because there are MANY Spectral Throw builds on both ladders.

"

sidtherat wrote:

at more 'meta' level the issue is as follows:


'In current state of the game, what is the reason for a competetively-focused player to pick melee build?'



these builds - by GGG design - have worse clear speed potential (thus generate less money per time invested)
AND
are more risky (as in - they have to interact with risk while non-melee characters can completely sidestep it - offscreen, prolif, you name it). this makes certain bosses a 'no go' zones unless certain defense/sustain thresholds are met (imagine Chimera fight - you cannot 'outplay' her smoke phase - you have sustain to survive it or not. there is NO WAY 3k buffer build can beat her reliably. it is a simple stat check + luck check because you might die if he hides in the last cloud)


for me it boils down to this:

defences are separated from melee/spell/archer archetype choice. so why should i use melee when i can have similar AR/EV/life (or ES rather because why life) as an archer?

GGG simply forgot to create a reason for melee players to play melee other than fun. but this game is a multiplayer competitive game with little place for 'fun' as a build choice option (if you want to buy yourself some good gears and gamble for relics)

Honestly, I feel they need to actually take a second and do a balance pass on melee skills; This is something they've been avoiding for a long time, and the fact that almost half of melee skills are essentially trash that get discarded in favor of new ones is pretty telling.

They need to take the skills THEMSELVES and bake in extra survivability into them, not add them as Support gems; I know that GGG has a big hard on for their support gem system solving everything, but, while cool, it can't solve EVERYTHING.
They've tried to bandaid fix this with some Jewels, like Cleave and heavy strike's gems giving fortify and more damage, but honestly, that stuff needs to be baked in instead.
Ones that are semi-ranged or almost okay, like earthquake, would be only adjusted a little or left as is, while "In your enemies face to work" ones would be massively given defensive stats.



Basically, they should go through, step by step, evaluation the risk/reward of certain gems, and massively buff the melee ones that require close range combat.

For example, Heavy strike and vigilant strike should be merged together-- Heavy strike, from level 10 onward, should provide Fortify, no questions asked, as a baked in attribute. Similarly, cleave should have its Threashold gem baked into it-- give it a % chance to give fortify on hit that increases as you level up so its not OP at level 1 (Like 5% at level 1, 100% at level 20). Maybe give Sweep life on hit automatically baked into it so it has a defensive stat (and not "knocks enemies back on hit. Freaking lol. it has its use for things like hedgemony's era, but past that... yeah, its not nearly enough for a dedicated aoe skill). Ect. for other melee skills that require you fighting close range (Static strike, molten strike, ect.)


Pretty much, it cannot be just done with a blanket "melee tag" buff, like how the fortify support attempted, or something like them making a blanket change such as "melee skills have double life leech"-- there's way too many "Melee" skills that are actually Ranged skills in this game. Each gem, ONE BY ONE, must be evaluated by GGG and buffed up based on whether or not it IS melee (as in, do you have to get in close to fight, actually close, or is this just you hitting the ground and casting a spell with your weapon?)

Damm, brother (OP), my heart is with you trully, deeply, absolutely.
I play only energy shield, which is a shame because now there are many cool looking life items...

BUFF THE HELL OUT OF LIFE AND MELEE AND DO IT NOW.

3.0 or gtfo.

Games balanced around broken ES EHP.

I was getting wiped in critical, -max, extra cold map T13s on a character with 6.6k life in one hit off many magic monsters, god forbid i get hit by legacy of zeal or similar in those kinds of maps.

You cant even have fun as melee anymore, you just really cant. I logged in the other day to play, changed my character up, did a sick brain rattler build by it was all for nothing because the games balancing issues.



I even rolled BIS 5 off colors on this fucking mace just for it. Ive been playing melee every league, all the time since CB and im at the point now where i dont even want to log in to play, thats how bad the balancing has gotten.

Ive made threads, big threads, going into further detail as to whats wrong with melee and the game currently, its all fallen on deaf ears really. Its really fucking disappointing. If nothing changes significantly with melee in 3.0 im probably done.