instead of 3.9 bow rework we should get a 3.9 melee rework 2.0

Or make Bows and Wands able to use Cyclone LololOlOLOlol

Or make Melee weapons able to use barrage as a strike barrage LOLOLOLLO0l

simple question:

what is the melee's niche in this game?

clear? durability? coverage? ease of gearing? scaling? cost-effectiveness?


right now - with over 60 90+ characters, half of them being melee or 'melee' i cannot name a single 'selling point' this entire archetype has.

the cons on the other hand are numerous:

- forced close proximity to bosses/dangers you are not allowed to tank
- bull.. post-death effects (delve..)
- NAMELOCK (this is technical problem - modern games can handle namelock fine, POE is ancient technology in comparison)
- stand-to-deal damage. bleeding kinda nullifies this. being able to kite and 'offscreen' dangerous stuff was the strongest Cyclone selling point. it kinda STILL is.
- junk damage values on most skills resulting in 10ex melee build being barely comparable to 1ex caster (not mentioning summoner)
- outdated, degenerative reliance on attack speed making DW >> 2h and Foils >> all. all because not only damage relies on attack speed but mobility and fluidity as well.


3.7 rework was a disaster. skill reworks (+cold damage to chilled enemies on glacial hammer.. lol) were mostly useless. applying ENORMOUS attack speed penalty just killed skills like Lacerate.

multistrike got hit because pretty much all ascendancies have genering 10% more speed node (WTF?!?)

you can make some builds work - but the key here is 'some'. DW crit foils? maybe. 2h mace? not rly. 2h non-crit mace? forget about it.

will they fix it? no. because why would they? 5% playerbase plays melee - what big company cares about 5% when they can appease 95%?

melee is junk and will remain junk. until competition comes and shows that melee can be at least good at something that is.

yea melee sucks

Yes, Melee suck.
I played only Melee. Then I did a Totembuild. (Divine Ire Giraffe Totem Build). It was like cheating compared to melee.
6 Totems - 500k DPS per Totem and even more.
Cost of that Build? Dirty cheap. The fusings for the 6l Soulmantle are the most expensive part. And I even didnt try to hard.

But imo Melee has a big selling point
It has a very fun Gameplay.
But to weak and to expensive compared to Minions / Bows / Casters / Mines ...
And the leveling experience is awful.

coming back in for round 2

melee is a joke

I miss the old melee days where people had stat sticks and what not

Now I cant even play a weak melee build because multistrike feels like poop and animation canceling ecks dee

nty revert asap

"

sidtherat wrote:

simple question:

what is the melee's niche in this game?

clear? durability? coverage? ease of gearing? scaling? cost-effectiveness?

you forgot the ability to use HEAVY STRIKE most fun and well balanced skill in history of arpg since Diablo1 or even ever. Placing knokback on a single target HtH range attack is most brilliant idea ever.

Melee is gucci just be yourself. Before 3.8 it lacked damage, now it doesnt. Just give it a try.

"

MasterTBC wrote:

Or make Bows and Wands able to use Cyclone LololOlOLOlol

I've wanted this really bad for bows, it'd be the Median XL Barrage, which is badass.

"

MasterTBC wrote:

Or make Melee weapons able to use barrage as a strike barrage LOLOLOLLO0l

I'm sure they're saving that for when they add pole arms.

"

The_Human_Tornado wrote:

Melee is gucci just be yourself. Before 3.8 it lacked damage, now it doesnt. Just give it a try.

care to elaborate?

what changes suddenly made melee deal damage comparable to things like Divine Ire, Winter Orb, Vortex or Elemental Hit? not mentioning Tornado Shot or CoCS? summoners play their own game right now.


the 'buffs' and 'reworks' of melee skills were cosmetic at best and pathetic at worst. they gave (mostly irrelevant junk) with one hand while taking away with the other. most melee skills lost 20-30% base attack speed to compensate foe the 'buffs'

flat ELEMENTAL damage added to skills? way to achieve nothing - lightning strike, glacial bummer, infernal blow.. all got totally garbage elemental flat that made it pretty damn impossible to scale them fully. great design.


what changed was the passive tree with LOTS of crit put everywhere (playing non-crit melee is still a grave mistake) and impale being just dumb "DOUBLE YOUR DAMAGE, press here!"


melee doesnt exist in a void. there is a competition around. what competition loses to melee in damage?

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

The problem with melee is the game. Characters have become to powerful to bother with things like selecting a target. The only fix for melee is a new game. 4.0 might be that game, but I doubt it.

It's a little more complicated than that, but I agree.

The problem with melee is that there's really not much it can do to keep up with the game's power creep. Bow/Caster builds continue to become stronger and as a result, GGG had to buff mobs. Instead of nerfing the OP builds and keeping them all at equal or similar strengths, they opted to make enemies more capable of 1shotting you. It doesn't do much to casters/bows, because they can just kite things until they're dead. Melee doesn't have that luxury, they have to do the opposite and rush towards the 1shot clusterfuck. In regards to risk/reward, melee has the highest risk, but no equivalent reward. Hell, melee can't even fight most modern bosses, because they all have a telegraphed slam which forces them to run away and then reengage.

What melee needs in order to compete with every other build, at this point, is to make them stand out as the overall "tank" playstyle. Buff Fortify to give it significantly increased effects on non-minion, non-mobility melee attacks, pile on the extra armor nodes in the strength area of the passive tree, or make them situational where cumulative melee hits grant extra armor per strike. Make some life leech require melee attacks. Add melee guard skills that gives a high damage reduction from all sources and has a duration which increases for every melee attack.

It's either that or actually nerf fucking everything else so melee isn't lagging behind. This is what I'd prefer, but let's be real, my opinion is far smaller than the average braindead player who'd rather blitz through maps at lightning speeds while melting entire screens with next to no worries about getting killed.