GGG on Balancing Melee

From my PoV:

Weapons:
- the droprate for high pdps melee weapons is junk, that needs to improve significantly
- multimod crafting should be and stay enabled again
- seriously, how many ppl have a ~200-~300% physical damage weapon - most of the mfers just ignore rare weapons completely)??


it's too hard to get life and damage nodes:
- resolute technique is just crap without adding a MORE damage multiplier and limiting it to attacks
- getting accuracy + crit rate eats up nodes
- getting melee damage/faster attack eats up nodes
- increased melee range is relatively hard to come by
- I wonder who really uses the bloodmagic keystone...


Gems with negative habits, while on ranged+spells there is no such thing:
- you cannot use bloodlust directly without triggering bleed elsewhere - just remove that mod
- brutality is mostly useless - there isn't a good phys only aura (except for herald of purity but that's low), on ranged and spells - remove the no chaos/elemental mods!
- ruthless, multistrike have been disabled for cyclone (ok, granted, that'll be a channeling skill soon(tm), but still...)
- punishment needs to be triggered by monsters which makes it hard to see a point there, except for maybe boss fights

Step 1: eliminate fake melee; just make those ranged.
Step 2: limit melee to bladed weapons
Step 3: give melee killing bonuses for being close
Step 4: give melee defenses and attack skills that level with my character.

Make me feel like I'm in a Frank Frazetta painting while playing!!!

Melee damage area by ranged attack skills known as "pseudo melee" should be separated from total damage area.

I propose the following new specifications:
- Those skills have two kinds of damage area that applies melee tag and not.
- The area that applies melee tag is limited within weapon range.

If melee will be extremely buffed without making such changes, 3.7 will be just pseudo melee league.

Glacial Hammer fotm inc

They way Double Strikes levels up, has to become the norm. Most melee skills need a flat portion of damage each level. This will lower the idiotic gear requirement for a lot of melee skills, while at the same time give the player an actual damage boost each time they level up, like spell builds do.

They also have to buff and implement defensive stats on most (all?) weapon specific nodes on the tree, so that they'll only be buff to melee builds. This won't only be a direct buff, but an indirect buff in form of freeing up passive points. This change is a no-brainer in my eyes, and should've been done a long time ago.

These are all band aid solutions, though - as to "fix melee" (or #meleetoo, os others have called it) requires fundamental mechanical changes. These changes won't come. Ever.

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Exile009 wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

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Boem wrote:

And that's why Mathil's so highly regarded. Such piercing insight. I am in awe.

50% banana, don't forget.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : he is regarded highly because of his game-skill btw. Making all builds end-game viable by means of personal skill is noteworthy and i am sure GGG apreciate that.

He makes glass builds and uses them in end-game, which isn't something all players can do.

The point was that he didn't think melee needed some overly complicated solution revolving around melee identity or defensive archetypes or any of the stuff you guys are discussing here. As far as he was concerned, it was merely a question of tweaking some numbers up.

No doubt Mathil knows his PoE math and is such a highly skilled player that he can make just about any skill work in the endgame (at least to low 90s). But a straight up buff of the real melee skills (not the quasi-melee ones that have a large AoE effect) won't work in PoE: Speed Racer. That thinking just cements my thoughts expressed in other melee threads that doing a straight up stat buff on single target melee skills will relegate the role of melee as a party boss killer only or in solo play as a 2nd build we'll go to for the end of map boss. I'll run 2 builds in parallel, my fast AoE mob clearing build and then at the end map boss switch over to the melee exile to tank that boss. I'll have to start out with a fast leveling skill with the goal of respec-ing over to the melee skill after I get into yellow/red maps (assuming I can get any to drop).

Maybe that's what GGG will want us to have to do, run 2 exiles together to complete our atlas. Not liking the fact that keeping the melee build leveled same as the AoE clearing build will slow me down even more than I already am as a casual player. Hmm... Chris said he wished he could slow players racing to 100 so fast. If the end map boss health is buffed again and thus a very high DPS melee build is needed to kill it (which will be a slower build to level up) + our regular fast mob clearing build then overall the race to 100 should take longer and satisfy Chris's goal without major nerfing of any AoE skills (which will piss off many racers). Clever, or am I giving GGG too much credit?

To balance melee you must nerf the shit outta spells/bow.


No joke and no one likes to hear this, especially speed freeks who need 2 ex an hour in drops.

But melee's meme is not clearing 2 screens in a pico second like those. would look retarded like much of melee already do (flurry for example)

Basically I'd leave melee as is and nerf spells and bows 75% acrross board.


Then melee has ultimate power with limitations. Other clear better but weaklings DPS wise.

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Arrowneous wrote:

Spoiler

No doubt Mathil knows his PoE math and is such a highly skilled player that he can make just about any skill work in the endgame (at least to low 90s). But a straight up buff of the real melee skills (not the quasi-melee ones that have a large AoE effect) won't work in PoE: Speed Racer. That thinking just cements my thoughts expressed in other melee threads that doing a straight up stat buff on single target melee skills will relegate the role of melee as a party boss killer only or in solo play as a 2nd build we'll go to for the end of map boss. I'll run 2 builds in parallel, my fast AoE mob clearing build and then at the end map boss switch over to the melee exile to tank that boss. I'll have to start out with a fast leveling skill with the goal of respec-ing over to the melee skill after I get into yellow/red maps (assuming I can get any to drop).

Maybe that's what GGG will want us to have to do, run 2 exiles together to complete our atlas. Not liking the fact that keeping the melee build leveled same as the AoE clearing build will slow me down even more than I already am as a casual player. Hmm... Chris said he wished he could slow players racing to 100 so fast. If the end map boss health is buffed again and thus a very high DPS melee build is needed to kill it (which will be a slower build to level up) + our regular fast mob clearing build then overall the race to 100 should take longer and satisfy Chris's goal without major nerfing of any AoE skills (which will piss off many racers). Clever, or am I giving GGG too much credit?

You give them too much credit.

The real problem of the MELEE (and I mean namelocking melee skill that hit monsters in a <16 radius) is that it has no purpose. Relegating MELEE as the "THICC BOSS KILLER" would remedy that, and actually grant a purpose to those characters. That is as needed, if not more, than number adjustments regarding damage for skills and items, mechanic adjustments like making REAL MELEE LEECH better or buffing melee nodes with improved survivability on the tree.

Besides, a <16 radius MELEE skill should have the opportunity to be the "top dog" regarding damage in PoE, simply because cast/ranged playstyles already manage AoE/multiple projectiles "speed clearing" AND "bossing" (looking at you Winter Orb abomination >.< ) so "efficiently".

And melee can also be made to FEEL SATISFYING, as long as it's relegated to a >1 button playstyle. Make "combos" a thing, and you instantly could get players to use various skills (aka have "threshold jewel" be SPECIAL and make them allow USEFUL INTERACTIONS between melee skills at least, or at first, so have Frenzy grant a further chance to get ailments on the enemy if it was hit with a "melee skill that applies ailments" RECENTLY, and get all "melee skills" a chance to "echo" if they hit an enemy hit by Frenzy RECENTLY, or you know any "reasonable" combination that would be FUN, make sense, and feel IMPACTFUL without being necessarily a "moar flat out BONUS")...

Regardless, they will at least "improve" various aspects when 3.7 hits, and we should carefully wait to see if they finally "hit the mark" or "completely neglect it, while not even attempting to hit it". They finally promised the "mythical MELEE rework" so they actually have to "improve" that playstyle. Due to their recent "capabilities", they have a 90% chance to "mess it up" and remove all REAL MELEE skills from PoE, and only a 10% chance to actually make it PROPERLY FEEL IMPACTFUL AND SATISFYING.

I like their odds either way, because in the first case they will not be able to hide behind the "melee" tag any longer, and would have to concede that in the current "speed meta", they had to "improve" REAL MELEE by slapping AoE/projectiles and allow a full screen reach at least (and de facto REMOVING IT FROM THE GAME) OR actually grant REAL MELEE a GODDAMN PURPOSE, even if niche... Melee needs to be "the best there is at what it does" AT LEAST ONCE...

PS: Also worth to mention, melee would instantly be more rewarding if they removed OFFSCREENING and at least adjusted mana cost for casted skills, so the more damage you make with those, the more mana it will take, while also removing all those freebies on CoC/CwC/CwDT/CoH etc.