GGG on Balancing Melee

The most "dangerous" change was the mirage archer and auto spells like "frozen orb". You just run and auto attack.

This is ridiculous. GGG are against auto pick items, but are pro auto attack skills. Can't see why.

This was the last nail in the melee coffin.

I only play melee characters, got used to it, this is what I find enjoyable.

But, I found few low level things for a ranger, so I decided to try my hand at caustic arrow. Oh boy I never run through acts so fast in my life (well I can kill stuff while running now). Nor I ever bothered to change my bow from Silverbranch. Something I can't even dream of with melee characters that need better gear every 10-20 levels.

These spells and attacks scale as you level, meaning every few levels you get a better weapon. With melee, that scale your base weapon, you HAVE to find a better one, or else you will do shit damage. This makes it even more difficult for melee. Not to mention the close proximity to mobs force you not only to upgrade your weapon, to limit "the exposure" time to danger, but to be able to tank few hits (bigger life pool and eva\armour or block).

If they want to force people to work on defense and realize that they cannot go full restarted on damage, white mobs should change fundamentally.
White mobs, are extremely outdated. take for example, zombies that come out of the ground, or the stone golems that "assemble" themselves slowly. You kill them before they can even attack you. Skellies are slow. Other creatures are weak. White mobs usually kill you only if you make a huge mistake, like opening a box that revive them. or that they die and explode.

If those creatures could teleport onto you, or be very agile that can close the rage very fast, people will start dying. Forcing them to slow down and think on defense. But when people die too much, they bitch so GGG do nothing about it. Then when you say "slow the fuck down please", they say "git gud". ah, the irony.

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Ghai wrote:

The most "dangerous" change was the mirage archer and auto spells like "frozen orb". You just run and auto attack.

This is ridiculous. GGG are against auto pick items, but are pro auto attack skills. Can't see why.

This was the last nail in the melee coffin.

Melee was never going to compete with speedclear builds; it is fundamentally limited by low range and low AoE and if those were changed then melee combat wouldn't be melee anymore (no, Tectonic Slam is not melee even if GGG say it is). It's safe to assume that melee players want the experience of close-ranged combat where you trade hits with mobs and sustain yourself; this is how melee works in almost all games. Melee should be the tankiest archetype, the king of killing hard bosses and hardcore mode. It is currently neither of those things because it has no better defenses than Occultist and is VERY vulnerable to random oneshots.

There is only one solution to melee - buff the fuck out of its survivability. If I wanted to hold left click with a braindead build that plays itself I would just make a bow or totem/trap/mine build. Melee is about close quarter, low range combat. I hope the balancing team decide to sit down and play a melee-focused game at some point, because their decisions indicate they haven't an inkling of a clue what melee is supposed to look like.

If you can one shot everything as a ranged why would you risk going into melee to one shot mobs there instead?

For ranged and melee to be a meaningful choice stuff just needs more health in general. Only then can you have trade offs between melee/range/pseudo range.

Everything is a one shot simulator right now. It's my one gripe with the game right now, stuff has too little health when you are lvl 80+ with ok gear specially white mobs. I wish they would fight back and you have to fight them too.

Its the one and only area D3 got it pretty nice i feel, you actually have to spend time fighting stuff instead of plowing through areas just to get to the boss where you have to spend a little time.

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Essem wrote:

Its the one and only area D3 got it pretty nice i feel, you actually have to spend time fighting stuff instead of plowing through areas just to get to the boss where you have to spend a little time.

This.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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Essem wrote:

Its the one and only area D3 got it pretty nice i feel, you actually have to spend time fighting stuff instead of plowing through areas just to get to the boss where you have to spend a little time.

This.

They kinda did this with the Syndicate members, and...the response has been less than encouraging.

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Exile009 wrote:

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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Essem wrote:

Its the one and only area D3 got it pretty nice i feel, you actually have to spend time fighting stuff instead of plowing through areas just to get to the boss where you have to spend a little time.

This.

They kinda did this with the Syndicate members, and...the response has been less than encouraging.

Well the issue is that these mobs that do take time to kill can kill you in one hit and its beneath 30 mobs with skill effects going everywhere.

I am looking forward to 3.7.0 then :)

dont need, anyone can make decent build and kill uber elder, plz try more and cry less

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trezorzetto wrote:

dont need, anyone can make decent build and kill uber elder, plz try more and cry less

By using the same cookie-cutter build template with a very small selection of active skill gems from a huge pool.

PoE problem isn't that the balance is bad, its that there is no balance at all.

Every league i try to make some unique good melee build and they always end up cookie cutter skeleton meta build in the end, cuz majority of stuff just don't work even if you drop massive amounts of currency and stuff on it.

There are simply too many forced requirements in the support gem and passive tree and gear stats that the game design demands, leaving very little in the way of customization.

In the end, the only choice you have is some unique uniques(see majority of uniques aren't even uniques in this game) and the active skill gem you use.


Dominus said best:

"Choice is an illusion, exile"

Oh well in 3.6 i can atleast pretend im some holy smash melee user with that new shockwave holy "Purifying Flame" spell. Granted its not weak as hell.

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very small selection

bro i can use any melee skill and kill all bosses(on my champion), maybe uber elder (shaper no problem), this is not small selection for me, i make on 3 characters melee scion, jugger and champion,(all 3 fine) i dont get u guys, for real