Melee is fucking Awful!

The title explains it!

ofttimes the way to true enlightenment is fraught with suffering.

LoL

The one melee character that I played was tedious and not fun to play. Calling it fucking awful would be fair in my opinion.

The Raider I'm playing right now is fun though. First time playing this build so I can't compare it to previous leagues.

Strike Skills are pretty awful outside Double Strike but what this game calls melee (using mid-range spells with weapons) isn't really bad.

Melee might actually be in a better place this league than previous since most melee builds can become immune to elemental alignments far easier than others. Any Duelist can grab Crystal Skin for 6 passives. Marauder has to try harder. Raider is the easiest.

Melee just has some dumb staples like Off-hand Savior or Slams, Abysus, Shields late game.
The new Elemental sword they added in Heist was a nice bit of fresh air but otherwise melee kinda just has an itemization issue more than play style issue.

ye my double striker felt fine.... ignoring the fact how broken it was against bosses before they nerfed a certain weapon combination ;)

If you are not very careful with damage mitigation it will be very, very, [...] very, hard.

Agree for the most part only because lack of screen wide clears that some of them can't achieve or just the abyssmal weapon values you're going to have to work with. Most gems only have at most 250% attack damage effectiveness so even with a 300 damage weapon your getting like 700 base dmg and spells break 2k base damage inherent? Just got to level spell gems up vs always looking at melee weapons as they matter more. Anyways there are some fun melee skills despite these weaknesses. My top 10 Melee skills i've at least had fun with.

Bladestorm
Earthshatter
Frost Blades
Infernal Blow
Dominating Blow
Lacerate
Wild Strike
Molten Strike(Old OP Version)
Elemental Hit
Tectonic Slam

Honorable Mention
CYCLONE

Blade Flurry - Can't comment never played. But looks channeled. So move into melee range and then get going. While friends blast whole screen while your setting up? Wish you stayed on the move like cyclone in a neat animation of some Naruto 8 tails swords flying through air.
Bladestorm - Loved this one after Bleed buff with Crimson dance Gladiator
Boneshatter - Stop hitting yourself.
Chain Hook - BAD feeling
Cleave - Need threshold jewel for AREA? BORING
Consecrated Path - Slam with teleport and healing ground. Meh
Cyclone - ONE ABOVE ALL OTHERS....as far a gem support tags. USUALLY. Attacks 3x as fast with half your weapon.
Dominating Blow - Had fun with helm enchant and impale minions. Good mix of melee and minions. Minions aide clear
Double Strike - OK but Boring strike skill.
Dual Strike - God this skill did turn me off of Melee for a time. Boring downward animation.
Earthquake - Ok ground shakes. SLOW SLAM then aftershock applying good ailments.
Earthshatter - HAD FUN with Exert Warcrys. Fun interactice skill
Elemental Hit - So if you convert all the dmg of this gem it has the highest base damage. Kind of silly. Works with any weapon
Flicker Strike - Slow to start but then Zoomer Epilepsy. Strike skill though makes it start bad
Frost Blades - OOHHHH Freezing Chaining speedy FUN!
Glacial Hammer - looks fun but has to use slow base weapons.
Ground Slam - Spiky close proximity Slam. looks cool?
Heavy Strike - Don't do this to your self.
Ice Crash - Not sure if i know this one. 70% attack speed nerf but 280% attack/added multiplier. True to its name slow and wrecky
Infernal Blow - Ok this is a strike skill but it has a fire explosion for clear. And oh what a satisfying sound. One of the better strike skills?
Lacerate - Strong double bleed big screen swipes. Approved!
Leap Slam - This is top 2 movement skill. Its just OP
Lightning Strike - This is lightning version of Frost Blades. Has Projectiles. Do something with them to clear
Molten Strike - A classic. Visually appealing. Highly scalable. Strike skill though. Terrible clear now with less proj?
Peforate - Vlad the impalers skill. Physical version of frost blades but more uppy instead of outty with projectiles
Pestilent Strike - Good poison. Lots of poisons. Strike skill gonna have to proliferate the poison for clear. Felt strong when built
Puncture - Auto bleed with only assassin weapons. Used in assailum helm for big bleed snipe i guess
Reave - Bigger and bigger swiping. Seen it go screen wide. Looked/felt boring
Shield Crush - Let me get back to you on this. Just realized it was melee and now i have ideas
Smite - Strike skill with added lightning bolt from above. Looks and sounds cool. Prob not great clear
Static Strike - zapping melee. Not great
Sunder - Slow slam shockwaves
Sweep - boring
Tectonic Slam - OH pretty red fun with Endurance Charges. Great slam!
Vigilant strike - find some other way to fortify
Viper strike - high chance to poison STRIKE skill. Probably worse than cobra or pestilent
Wild Strike - OH the threshold jewels make this a fun one to dial in 1 element. I tried lightning and this chain cleared 2 screens away. Liked it alot but doesn't have great values. Need gear.

Ones ill probably never touch again due to being too MELEE-EY:
Cleave
Dual Strike
Heavy Strike
Vigilant Strike
Sweep
Reave

I assumed that this thread was talking about melee this 3.15 release specifically? If so which of those (if any) melee builds have you verified in 3.15?

That's what happens when they nerf every melee support gem into the ground just for S+G. Didn't expect anything else.

I played a Heavy Strike/Cleave combo Slayer through the Acts and really enjoyed it. Then I went back to Standard and have been playing my Reave max block glad and Frost bolts Raider using up all my red maps and odd opportunities left undone.

I only play melee. My most fun builds are:
Cleave
Reave
Frost bolts (not quite melee, but lots of fun)
Heavy Strike

I never liked the way cyclone played.