How would you improve melee playstyle

My thoughts:

1. I play SSF (in Standard) as a level 97 Champion with Smite as my attack (conversion to lightning, penetration, Multistrike, etc.), using Kitava's Feast.

2. I use Resolute Technique (I prefer knowing I always hit—it feels better), and Life Leech (it seems to be the only way to quickly recover life).

3. I'm currently at about 7.5K life, and only because I took every life node and use Kaom's Heart.

4. All of my elemental resistances, as well as chaos, are overmaxed.

5. I don't like constantly hitting different buttons in order to coordinate everything. In general, I far prefer running up to something and face-tanking it. Although I certainly don't mind kiting something, the gymnastics of playing the keyboard like a piano in order to constantly use flasks or switch weapons or gems is not only something I don't enjoy, but something I'm bad at. (I've completed the Eternal Labyrinth, but hate its complicated trap navigation for this reason; I have no problem with Merciless, but it's mostly boring. Eternal, on the other hand, is frustrating.)

6. According to POB, my current DPS is a measly 130K; this is in comparison to all of the much higher numbers I see being mentioned. At one point I had it up to 170K, but at the expense of some defence. I'm patient, so I don't mind taking time to whittle something down. I should mention that's my DPS without me having to do anything. It obviously goes up to some degree with the use of flasks or other things.

I've got past the fourth instances of Baran and Al-Hezmin, and am currently stuck on the fourth instance of Veritania. Most of the time, I can run around and survive; occasionally, I'll miss some kind of mechanic and get one-shot. But I've only tried against her twice so far.

Even though I do less damage with Multistrike than I would with a different gem, the higher attack speed feeds into Life Leech, making me more survivable. Also, the game simply feels better to me with it. I've tried having higher DPS with lower attack speed, and it never feels as good. Always hitting and having targets automatically selected for me (which end up almost always being the ones I want targeted anyway) is ideal.

I've briefly tried Cyclone and Blade Flurry in the past, but they just haven't appealed to me. (Regardless of actual damage, I didn't find them as fun.)

I've seen several pieces of equipment I could use to improve my character, but, being SSF, it's a waiting game to see if I ever get any of it.

In general, I really enjoy how the game has worked for me over the years. I've liked slowly improving my character and getting better at each aspect. Something tells me that if I simply bought the best equipment out there, and just copied somebody else's build, all for the sake of being invincible and invulnerable in a couple of hours, I would not enjoy my time playing nearly as much as I have already.

I read all of the reports of people who are getting 1M+ DPS, but I find it difficult to believe I could achieve anything like that without having to give up several of the aspects of the game that appeal to me.

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LTSmash0 wrote:

Make flicker a support gem.

Just imagining it gives me a boner.

I think you could learn a little more about the game and create good builds, instead of complaining, after all who knows how to play in 2 days using melee "ZDPS according to you, just cyclone is possible to use" on HARDCORE, kill sirus lvl8... so yeah, stop

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Aynix wrote:

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LTSmash0 wrote:

Make flicker a support gem.

Just imagining it gives me a boner...all the way over there *points 3 screens away at some zombies milling about in an abandoned warehouse*.

Change fortify to a bubble like setup that works in 2 ways - any damage coming into the bubble from outside is reduced by xx, and any damage going out of the bubble is also reduced by xx. With this, the only way to really use it is with "proper" melee skills, as in the ones where you need to smack mobs in the face.

Either that, or remove the damage going out penalty, but give you a 100% less spell and projectile damage modifier.

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trezorzetto wrote:

I think you could learn a little more about the game and create good builds, instead of complaining, after all who knows how to play in 2 days using melee "ZDPS according to you, just cyclone is possible to use" on HARDCORE, kill sirus lvl8... so yeah, stop

So your suggestion is melee is fine as is.

But its more of a question I think about whether melee is balanced against other classes and playstyles.

Maybe it shouldnt be, its like a hardmode class?

let the character move while he uses melee skills
problem solved

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Sintactical wrote:

Even though I do less damage with Multistrike than I would with a different gem

Believe it or not, a lvl 20 multistrike multiplies your DPS by 1.58.

Close Combat Support only rather than add attack speed to janky travel skills add 20% more action speed for a few seconds after the skill is used. Make it so it can't support movement skills. Bandaid successfully applied - melee is good again.

1- A huge Increase in the scaling of dps for melee Skills (globally) to make it stronger than rangers, due to it being more at the risk of dying to AOE mess.

2- Adding a new stat to the game that strictly gives more defense for any melee skill user. (A swordsman needs stronger defensive armour/defensive skills than an archer). (Armour is a terrible stat in this game)

These two were from the top of my head.

Edit : Or as the others have said , nerf the range skills globally.