Big problems with true melee skills

I would be okay with gem swapping for splash/ancestrall call and doing less damage than legit aoe/range do and having to tank a few hits due to having to hit mobs a few more times until they are dead.

Now come the buts.

But single target should be proportionally more than those aoe/range skills. It isnt.

But also there should be less monsters on screen shitting damage in my direction, as current defensive advantages of melee are nowhere near enough to be able to tank all that extra incoming damage due to clearing longer due to having lower clear damage.

Its a mess really.

Dual strike was in an ok spot in 3.15 for a max blocking glad either with dual maces or mace and foil with two well rolled cluster Jewels with Quick and Deadly.

It was my go to melee build, and I really enjoyed it with gradual item progression on SSF, until 3.16 when they gutted Gladiator block, removed the Gemini cluster, and overall increased the skill point cost of the build meaning you couldn't afford the cluster jewels, on top of which they nerfed melee attack speed and damage on the tree.

I tried doing it on a Raider, but the extra investment trying to get spell suppression or 75% spell doge as well as enough evasion, or block was just too extreme, and I gave up after two weeks.

Double strike with a shield is still doable I think with enough investment, but this game is unplayable for melees without a shield at the moment unless you have really high investment.

Until they fix that and roll back the map mod weighting changes they made in 3.16, I have no interest in playing.

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Xzorn wrote:

There's some dumpster fires like Heavy Strike but there's also good strike skills. Ones that are so good I'm often confused at the community's thought process at strike skills being dead.

Dual Strike, Heavy Strike, Glacial Hammer, Frenzy, Infernal Blow - Stay away.

Most the others are fine and ones like Double Strike / Wild Strike are exceptional.

Viper Strike is because Pestilence Strike is just better.

The main issue I take with "true" melee is how confined it is. If you DW. You're using Abysus and Savior. Not even a choice. Otherwise you're using a Shield + 1H. That's about it.

Paradoxica is nearly a must for any 1h build. The issue I have is that gems are easy as pie. All you have to do is level them and they do substantial damage while melee you must have a 5-20 ex weapon to do the same damage as you can with an LVL 20 spell gem and an 80 chaos wand. I've been playing PoE as my main game for the last 9 months and I have yet to get a single good weapon drop viable for end game while I have had many wands. Even worse a good 2h weapon, what a joke. Even if you did get one, the chance of it being 6 link or making a 6 link is far more expensive than a good wand.

There are very few builds I know of that can do substantial damage with a cheap weapon, Bleed builds that use Jack the Axe and Generals Cry build can do ok under the right conditions.

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Valkaneer wrote:

Paradoxica is nearly a must for any 1h build. The issue I have is that gems are easy as pie. All you have to do is level them and they do substantial damage while melee you must have a 5-20 ex weapon to do the same damage as you can with an LVL 20 spell gem and an 80 chaos wand. I've been playing PoE as my main game for the last 9 months and I have yet to get a single good weapon drop viable for end game while I have had many wands. Even worse a good 2h weapon, what a joke. Even if you did get one, the chance of it being 6 link or making a 6 link is far more expensive than a good wand.

There are very few builds I know of that can do substantial damage with a cheap weapon, Bleed builds that use Jack the Axe and Generals Cry build can do ok under the right conditions.

Since seeing the Conq maps I've become concerned with DW even more. If Savior isn't cheap like it's been. DW will be finally dead and this whole game will be bows and 1h + shield.

Boring as hell if you ask me.

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Xzorn wrote:

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Valkaneer wrote:

Paradoxica is nearly a must for any 1h build. The issue I have is that gems are easy as pie. All you have to do is level them and they do substantial damage while melee you must have a 5-20 ex weapon to do the same damage as you can with an LVL 20 spell gem and an 80 chaos wand. I've been playing PoE as my main game for the last 9 months and I have yet to get a single good weapon drop viable for end game while I have had many wands. Even worse a good 2h weapon, what a joke. Even if you did get one, the chance of it being 6 link or making a 6 link is far more expensive than a good wand.

There are very few builds I know of that can do substantial damage with a cheap weapon, Bleed builds that use Jack the Axe and Generals Cry build can do ok under the right conditions.

Since seeing the Conq maps I've become concerned with DW even more. If Savior isn't cheap like it's been. DW will be finally dead and this whole game will be bows and 1h + shield.

Boring as hell if you ask me.

Ya even my Jack the Axe build was a 1h+shield Bleed build. The only other builds are very expensive like the Sweep build. But you need a 2h 6 link staff that's going to cost more than 20 ex alone. For that price, you can roll your own bow for about 10 ex and do outrageous damage with a corrupted blood bow build.

IMO GGG has a severe bias for caster builds. It's so much cheaper to get a working caster build going, and you don't have to stand in 1 shot range nearly as much. I had a Dex stacking "One With Nothing" build a few Leagues back, it did amazing damage, but I also got WTF one shot often too. The amount of currency it would have taken to get that build to the level of a vortex build would be crazy expensive.