so who is 'brave' enough to play melee in 3.17 (LOL)

I don't think melee is fine just for reference i'd have buffed the shit out of the worse clearing strikes when they did the slam rework, I do usually make a melee build work each league but my version of acceptable DPS is quite low to compensate for trying to make them tanky too.

for HC strikes are extremely tough to use effectively because their existing performance is held up by a few items and a general glass cannon playstyle (as you listed really)

They could at least make kitava's feast drop regularly so I can double corrupt it until I get a 7l/8l :p

Swords are privileged to the point that you have to get Axe mastery to get lazy Rage generation from sword hits :)

The biggest melee losers for 1H are actually maces and daggers as the skills bound to these weapon types can be used with alternatives with better masteries, better implicits, better attack speed / crit roll bases etc.

It's a sad meme that best melee attacks are ranged attacks.

I must admit I laughed a lot while reading Cleave changes. And after reading the rest, I think I will play melee Champion with bow.

Static Strike Felt legitimately good to play for a while but take that with a grain of salt I'm still kind of on a leave of absence

A bit late here, but I've really no idea what's with their fascination with taking a dump on melee.

I'm genuinely not sure how some snot throwing mage giving everyone a mild cold is somehow more powerful than decorating the wall with the enemies' breakfast and possibly their brains.

I mean, this is an ARPG - a role playing game at its core, yet our role playing makes hitting people with a massive f* off sword resemble tickling someone with an al dente noodle.

It just doesn't make sense.

out of boredom, ive tried to find a 'melee leaguestarter' guide for 3.17

legit, there is none.

there havent been a melee leaguestarter since ice age (and somehow it is 'ok'. GGG never acknowledged it is a damn problem). it goes deeper - there were no melee league-farmers and melee end-gamers neither

i wonder why 400pdps weapon is 10ex (good, fast, crit 400pdps, not some 1h mace noone gives a f.. about) yet spells deal 2500 BASE damage on lvl 20 gem with no gear

anyone cares to explain that mystery?

"

sidtherat wrote:

out of boredom, ive tried to find a 'melee leaguestarter' guide for 3.17

legit, there is none.

there havent been a melee leaguestarter since ice age (and somehow it is 'ok'. GGG never acknowledged it is a damn problem). it goes deeper - there were no melee league-farmers and melee end-gamers neither

i wonder why 400pdps weapon is 10ex (good, fast, crit 400pdps, not some 1h mace noone gives a f.. about) yet spells deal 2500 BASE damage on lvl 20 gem with no gear

anyone cares to explain that mystery?

they cost like that because of scarcity, not many ppl investing currency to craft top tier melee items
in the past when bow build was the meta, wands and staves targeting spells were much more expensive than today's
that's why most of melee builds targets uniques like paradoxica, saviour, pillar and so on

talking now about what i think: it is all about creativity, GGG isn't that much creative when creating melee and sometimes they stretch by a lot of what "melee" is, just look at rage vortex, it is classified as melee but the behavior of the skill is way more like a spell than anything else. another example is frostblades (they are good for starters) -> works much more like a bow skill...without a bow ofc
in the spell department, GGG has much more flexibility to innovate in anything they want: explosions, beams, flying cats and so on

if you are a true fan of meleeing, i recommend to play other games like grim dawn, which has a complete different system for melee called WPS which special melee skills are proc'ed not matter how hit the mobs, but the game isn't as deep or diverse at build-making as poe.

have you tried using earthbreaker support? is kinda fun with some melee like consecrated path, and cheap too...then again it is not a "pure melee" it is a totem build in the end

"

sidtherat wrote:

i wonder why 400pdps weapon is 10ex (good, fast, crit 400pdps, not some 1h mace noone gives a f.. about) yet spells deal 2500 BASE damage on lvl 20 gem with no gear

anyone cares to explain that mystery?

That's because playing melee makes you inherently tougher and more mobile, enemies rarely have abilities that kill you at close range with little to no cue, abilities are fun, not clunky at all and they feel powerful, support gems are friggin ballerz and playing a melee character makes you virtually irresistible to the opposite sex. Oh, wait...

bump

As a player who up until and included 3.15 played between 350 to 400 hours each league who's preferred style of play was SSF Phys Melee I've gone to less than 30 hours played in 3.16 and 3.17, and I won't bother playing this league at all.

This is purely down to the the complete demolition of melee from both a damage and a defensive point of view.

The opportunity cost to build what was was just about a competitive build with really good gear(as far as SSF goes) from 3.15 to 3.16 came in at about 20 skill points.

3.17 was even worse.

From a health point of view, destroying melee is the best thing that could have happened to me though, as my RSI and arthritis pain are now just a dim memory.

I'll keep checking out patch notes each league in the forlorn hope GGG might actually realise how bad they've screwed Melee up, but I really have very little confidence that they know what they're doing when it comes to melee balance and gameplay.

"

sidtherat wrote:

melee is barely usable in 3.16 due to various reasons.

melee got 3.15 'buff' to compensate for support gem butchering
still sucked

and now spells get the same buff?

like wtf? what is happening there.

is there a single reason to play melee when both bows and casters just got 60% more damage out of the blue?

and you remove Glacial Hammer's splash? without Cast on Crit there is actually ZERO reason to play any melee skill in the game, ZERO. just remove it altogether please, it is ok to be first ARPG without melee

If you enjoy playing melee, then play melee.
If you build it correctly you can still easily clear all content in the game.

Does melee builds need buffs? Yes.
Are they unplayable? No.
Most melee skills are worse than other archetypes because they're melee.
It's kinda like in real life where a rifle would be superior to a sword.

Sure, melee is bottom of the foodchain. But it's far from as unplayable as you guys make it be. Correctly done melee builds also breezes through all content and become immortal with 100+ million dps in high budget gear.