For me, Archmage kills caster- and Warcries kill melee-diversity.

"

TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

All in all, Heavy Strike feels bad, it's boring, it's annoying, plain and simple garbage that no one has any reason to play ever.

Sometimes I'm curious if they genuinely think that the skill will be broken or something if it can knock enemies back but not out of range, like sweep. Guess we'll never know.

"

frostzor27 wrote:

Well if you consider one death dying repeatedly...

"

frostzor27 wrote:

Yeah GGG, the stars aligned for me again... Thanks for me third death at level 98. White Grand Heist, no damage mods (der it's white), no mobs around, all flasks up, full ES, Bone Armour. My ES didn't move a point during the whole heist. AG with garb, so no crit. Did I mentioned fortify from AG as well?

Think that one is covered.

"

frostzor27 wrote:

Guess you can't counter argument me you started personal attacks. Are you trying to be Baharoth 2.0 on me? Because even him has better arguments than you. And also attacks personally better than you.

It is difficult to counter a non-existent point, which is why I asked you to clarify the following:

"

frostzor27 wrote:

"

sidtherat wrote:

@sid

If I need to put tons of aspd I will lack defenses, or hp, and we are in the same problem.

Melee skills in majority are worse than anything else because you need to either go full offense to make them work or you can be very defensive but will take aeons to kill stuff, in a game designed to kill things faster and faster each patch.

Spells on the other hand you just put a 6l setup and you are done, you can go full defensive in tree and run around things and they die. For 100x less investment.

For me, this only shows that you don't have a clue about melee or spell skills. There is nothing inherently wrong or broken about melee builds. There are plenty of melee skills which work perfectly fine and can scale towards end game. There are also lots of easily accessible and strong defensive mechanisms available on the bottom left and right areas of the tree, that won't limit your offensive potential. The only defensive layer which requires a bit more investment is block...which is fair enough.

The discussion in this thread has moved beyond the absurd and obviously incorrect points in the OP, to a discussion about certain melee skills needing some love.

"

BrettLee wrote:

kid

I don't think you understand the concept of "repeated". In the era of Google, I'm pretty sure you can find yourself. Or no, judging your comprehension skills.

Also you can assume as much as you want, you are still very far away from my knowledge, judging by your melee characters, one being cyclone, other ground slam, other flicker. That said enough for me.

Next time I DO want to see someone with really consistent argumentation, not personal attacks. Baharoth does that, and I respect.

Anyway, exercise in futility discussing with you. Please do us a favor and ignore me and all my posts. I have enough fans already.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

2nd kid

Are you his alt account? You seen to have the same problems of comprehension. Twins? I already got that challenge.

Anyway, exercise in futility discussing with you. Please do us a favor and ignore me and all my posts. I have enough fans already.

"

TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

So, I was tempted to test a little Heavy Strike.

I've used it on one of my chars with modifications and 2 corrupted threshold jewels for additional 40% to deal DD.

In short, Heavy Strike is utter garbage.

In PoB HS can achieve similar dps numbers as Blade Flurry which was impressive at the glance until you try it.
Knockback is absolute deal breaker. Aside it's terrible to play with it cuts your damage to ~50% of what you could deal if there wasn't a stupid knockback.

How it looks like vs map boss you can see here. Terrible.
https://youtu.be/gkREdcJAUKw?t=4

Things are considerably better vs Conquerors, because they are knockback immune.
https://youtu.be/gfqfLtt4k6g

Still, you have to be in point blank range or it's gone. Damage somehow doesn't feel good as from Blade Flurry probably because of inconsistency of DD proc and Ruthless hit proc.

Original char (Blade Flurry) with same PoB dps numbers as Heavy Strike in videos above.
https://youtu.be/Q99wfik9kHc
(I had Eternal Youth allocated by mistake)


All in all, Heavy Strike feels bad, it's boring, it's annoying, plain and simple garbage that no one has any reason to play ever.

"Experience wins!" - Vinderi the Dismantler.

@frostzor: smh...

again you call attention to your [Removed by Support]. I will block you, because just like you say, [Removed by Support]

I did what you asked for shits and giggles because clearly its YOU that needs a lesson: google "repeatedly" = over and over again / frequently. You claim in this thread to have had ONE death and yet IN YOUR OWN WORDS you say "THREE deaths" in the other thread. That is the definition of repeatedly dying. More than once. I can't believe its taken 3 back and forths and you STILL don't get that.

"You are still very far away from my knowledge": whenever ANYONE says some dumb shit like that [Removed by Support]. [Removed by Support] any actual argument in both this thread and the other linked thread.

There is such a thing as deleting old characters to make room for new ones, or just deleting characters you don't play anymore. I'm not saying Brett has done that cuz he only joined in 2019. But you joined in 2018 so don't go spouting off that you have a vast amount of knowledge. I'm not discounting the experience and knowledge you DO have, but in the PoE world you are still on the newer end. Not a noob, but certainly not with the experience to back up your shitty arguments, false language, and personal unwarranted attacks with no actual substance backing them up.

To go back to your original contribution to this thread:
"Melee skills in majority are worse than anything else because you need to either go full offense to make them work or you can be very defensive but will take aeons to kill stuff"

This is just factually and operationally wrong. and you defended it simply with "playing". [Removed by Support]

However, to try and steer back to the OP's original point:

"Archmage kills caster": I disagree, there are tons of other options besides going archmage and you get plenty of dps, clear, defenses etc.

"Warcries kill melee-diversity": Warcries only enhance existing melee builds. Thats like saying "Ancestral Totems" kill melee diversity. It's only a support, not usually a build-enabling aspect. Except in the case of General's Cry.

All of our other digressions on specific skill issues is entirely separate from the original complaint lol

@torstein: thanks for that. It's been a while since my HS build. I never really had a problem with the knockback but at the same time I have already mentioned I am not a zoom zoom player most of the time so the lag from the knockback never bothered me.

It can also be said that HS deficiencies have only really been highlighted now after the introduction of the Call of Steel abuse. And the problem is still "new". Historically GGG doesn't do what they consider "major" tweaks until the next league. But they do regularly TRY to update skills, just a few need love and haven't seen the love in a long long time.

All of the arguments that have been made comparing HS to ground slam could have been made about all the slams before their massive rework recently. It's just a pattern of buffing and changing, while highlighting other unexpected discrepancies.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

Thats like saying "Ancestral Totems" kill melee diversity.

Takes me back, really disliked the addition of melee totems. In the misty past when the game was slower and melee skills didn't have this kind of coverage there was a benefit to building for attacks and spells at the same time so you can have a spell totem for extra firepower. When we got melee totems that reason vanished, as flimsy as it already got by that point, can't beat extra firepower that scales off the same thing you're already doing, in addition to giving you a pretty nice buff.

Kinda funny how that was never really a thing in a game with freeform character building, the closest we got was comk before it got killed, and the best we have now are death knight hybrids. Guess there just isn't much to gain, the usual reason to add spells to melee in other games is better coverage, long cooldown nukes and utility, and neither is really a reason to go off the beaten path in PoE, everything is kinda the same.

Not sure about melee, but Archmage introduced a major flaw into the calculation when it comes to Ignite builds - how to build them with least amount of effort for good performance.
I would not even call it as an "option" or another way to go.

- I can go regular ignite build scaling, fire damage, multipliers etc

- Or I can go Archmage ignite and do 3 times more damage while having nothing else to think about as Archmage itself dictates how to build the build

The scaling calculation is as twisted in the same way as poison got "DESTROYED" by Replica Alberon's Warpath str scaling.

But it is kinda same story when it comes to Indigon Agnostic build, it's a straight forward choice that is overall great, both offensively and defensively while relying on many uniques -> no need to be bothered with RNG based crafting system.

Maybe all and all it is not a horrible "tool", but it increases the problem of counterintuitive systems and often times a fake choice for a build archetype.