Regarding Melee Buffs - Introduce a Melee Physical Damage Aura

I'd rather see something more designed similar to anger i.e.

reserve 50% mana

adds x-y physical damage to attacks

adds x-y physical damage to spells

This would really open the doors to a lot of interesting builds for next patch.

I say keep it simple and toss it in to see how people deal with it.

Something like 25-45% more phys dmg to attacks seems quite broken in the sense that it basically makes an aura like hatred completely obsolete. Nobody would ever use that gem again, and I'm not a fan of introducing skills which make other skills void.

With that said, most people probably WOULD use the phys aura over hatred in almost all instances if it was introduced, so I suppose what I just said was a moot point...

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ironstove wrote:

I'd rather see something more designed similar to anger i.e.

reserve 50% mana

adds x-y physical damage to attacks

adds x-y physical damage to spells

This would really open the doors to a lot of interesting builds for next patch.

I say keep it simple and toss it in to see how people deal with it.

Something like 25-45% more phys dmg to attacks seems quite broken in the sense that it basically makes an aura like hatred completely obsolete. Nobody would ever use that gem again, and I'm not a fan of introducing skills which make other skills void.

With that said, most people probably WOULD use the phys aura over hatred in almost all instances if it was introduced, so I suppose what I just said was a moot point...

Neah, an 20-30 up to 40-60 physical damage to attacks/spells, while reducing heavily elemental and chaos damage (at least for 50% less, if not 75%), would not make Hatred, HoA, HoI obsolete entirely, as 50% mana reservation does have a big impact...

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Frankenberry wrote:

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astraph wrote:

Several support gems passives abilities are melee/spell/projectile etc specific. Even fortify which was supposed to be melee exclusive has been abused by every ranged build on the horizon. Considering that melee has been underpowered since closed beta, an exclusive aura does not seem inappropriate at all

There is not a single aura that purely benefits one play style. Support gems are different because usually we have counterparts for each playstyle.

For instance Physical Projectile Attack Damage and Melee Physical Damage is basically the same support gem. Just with two different colours to make things easier for projectile builds (usually focused on green gems) and melee (red gems).

But if you took a gem like Concentrated effect, Damage on Full Life or Physical to Lightning and said "this is now only for Spells, Projectiles or Melee" you would limit build diversity quite a bit.

This used to be Melee Damage on Full Life since forever until 3.0. Count another benefit melee used to have being added to all builds.

As for the other suggestion, yeah adding flat physical could also work, possibly with less reservation depending on how powerfull it will be. As for hatred, this aura is obviously intented for brutality users for the most part. Going hybrid elemental (or pure) can already buff your damage through the roof (and your defenses for the most part). However COMBINING this with hatred would possibly be OP, thus the reduction/removal of ele/chaos damage.

Adding flat physical damage on an aura won't work very well in PoE. The marginal benefit for flat added damage is much greater for builds with a fairly small flat damage vs. builds with high flat damage (also Facebreaker and Doomfletch Prism makes this impossible to balance). This is not the case with added flat elemental damage since those builds first and foremost scale of gems so it's an even playing field for different kinds of builds. Therefore the two kinds of damage are not the same in this regard.

So why is basically impossible to make a good added flat aura (besides Doomfletch Prism / Facebreaker)? Well consider the percentage increased damage for a 2-hander build with very high flat phys damage vs. a dual wielding build with fairly low initial damage (for instance dual wielding Dreamfeather).

The added flat phys wouldn't add much to the 2H version because this type of build already has a high flat phys while it's much much stronger with the dual wielding version. In other words the marginal benefit is drastically higher in builds that uses weapons with low initial flat phys.

So basically an aura like that would further screw over well rolled physical rares and 2H builds. So it's a bad idea for this reasons because it simply does not align well with the overall design of the game. I mean - take a look at chance to bleed. It's in a weird place because it's so godly for Doomfletch Prism builds. On the other hand it's not really needed for several "bleed builds" using items like Atziri's Disfavour. The kind of builds it's actually "meant" for xD

And just for the record: I am not saying a more multiplier physical damage aura is a bad idea. I am saying A) It's not cool if it's only for melee and B) Added Flat phys won't work.

My original AND prefered idea is More Physical Damage with added buffed fortify and not flat physical damage. I think it works better. But i really do think that it should be melee ony. Not just melee only, CLOSED RANGED melee only. Why? Because Bows or wanders really do not need it, melee is already extremelly underpowred and yeah IT DOES fit the game because the melee physical ONLY with the exclusion of elemental damage is ALREADY a melee only thing.

I would much rather have a flat melee phys damage aura. Having additional Multiplier to already existing dmg overkill is a bit too much.
having aura which could subsidize lack of good jewelery or end game weapon could increase some diversity into melee, as it could actually enable or enhance some luck luster weapons to be used in late game.


edit: another argument against flat multiplier is that if it would be multiplicative bonus, it would make it basically a mandatory "must have" aura, completely discarding other types of aura setups.

Also having it as flat, Facebreakers dream!

Remember, it prevents ele damage

ye, about that.. i think that idea has no chance for success

Currently there is no Aura that some some negative property, so disabling ELE dmg by Aura is unreasonable and from design perspective stupid thing to do. (especially if it could disable in party play other members of your party who do ele melee)

Actually by producing multiple auras, by splitting the properties would be smarter.
Regarding the Fortify buff - i see this as reasonable request as enhancement of Determination aura, rather than having it as part of some offensive option. Stacking Fortify bonuses might be however a bit of overkill.

If GGG would implement some "melee specific" aura, it would probably required as counter balance to present something similar for ranged or even spells.
In that case, probably some multi mod aura, imilar to Anger or Wrath, mainly Wrath, which gives different bonuses to attacks and spells.

TLDR, Phys dmg aura would be much welcomed.

Yeah, anything for melee specific would be great for me. I am just making suggestions. My train of thought about a % more physical + buffed fortify with the exclusion of ele damage goes like that:

1) GGG since 3.0 made clear that wants melee physical to be a thing and to not be relied on ele damage scaling. They added Brutality, Ruthless, Chance to Bleed and Maim, all which scale physical melee damage. Especially Brutality which gives the biggest bonus but prevents ele damage.

2) However going pure physical you lose the ability to use Atziri's Promise, Taste of Hate and Vinktars among other things, which do not only boost your damage insanely, but ALSO your survivability --> Thus Fortify. Buffed fortify to counter the fact that everyone already uses regular fortify for free.

3) % vs Flat goes to the fact that everybody nowdays either uses a unique weapon for its unique properties, or just flat out craft a crap one with just high attack speed, because it is very easy to just add flat phys, flat ele, or % ele through gear, making the damage on weapons obsolete. We need something to reward well rolled rares, and even high base damage vs attack speed. Yeah we do have Starforge or Disfavour but thats it.

4) Not preventing ele damage/chaos damage can result in really broken interactions with flasks other auras.

5) As a pure physical build your only offensive options in terms of auras currently is Haste which sucks ass.

6) I certainly do not want this to be abused by ranged skills, just because they have the "melee" tag on them :D, thus the close range thing.

7) Close Ranged melee has been underpowered since closed beta and it desperately needs a buff.


As i said though i am just making suggestions. Anything that buffs melee, and/or pure physical scaling is fine with me.