melee's problem IS damage - 1h mace glacial hammer example

I would like to be wrong, but it seems that significant part of build spectrum simply doesnt have enough scaling options (or these options try to scale a VERY low base) to be successful

Right now melee's problems can be summed up with:
- melee playstyle (Mathil's: https://youtu.be/8D17lccg154?t=858)
- damage is garbage UNLESS you use one of the few crutch setups (paradoxica, abyssus, saviour, STR/DEX stacking) or have a 5th percentile weapon (unavailable for 99.9% players)

Recently ive build a 1h Glacial Hammer Glad for lol-max block setup. Pastebin at the bottom.

after naturally progressing and not really giving much thought i landed with like 250k dps on a 6L with 350dps 1h mace. aka 'worse than caster with no gear' performance

i got into POB and tried to maximise this setup:

- 60/50 block with Gladiator
- this mace:

- this chest:


and no matter how ive tried - crit, non crit, RT, pure cold, added fire, trinity, whatever - it never got into 1m+ territory.

(please, no 'just use Brutus Lead Sprinkler, +crit chest, trinity' - it is not the point. i know how to build a BLS char and know that it works)


anyone up for a challenge? wanna see why so many people think 'melee is garbage'? try to make this setup into.. 1.5m dps (no flasks, sirus, only realistic buffs).

because there being FEW setups that work - paradoxica, shield skills, impale stacking abyssus whatever, bleeds - doesnt make melee 'ok'. and it is pretty interesting that out of all playstyles it is self-cast that got 50% more damage (when it needs fluidity, not damage)

biggest issues with melee's damage?

- atrocious damage effectiveness on SOME skills. Spectral Helix can shotgun, has 110% attack speed and 250% effectiveness? Glacial Hammer hits once for 250% (and has some irrelevant flat cold to lol-compensate. 1/3hp cull doesnt work on unique enemies btw). how this makes any sense?
- weapon makes 80-90% of the damage. other sources hardly contribute anything and are mostly used to enable the build (accuracy) not to boost it (9-15phys / 40% ele on ring.. cmon. phys is <2% more, 40% increased is <5% because you already have 500%+ from other sources)
- no scaling vectors. melee skills dont scale from levels, the added damage is almost irrelevant, melee auras/skills are not impactful (and you run out of hotkeys), you cannot layer damage - your totems die easily and they hardly contribute (excluding their buffs, thats why Panopticon is almost mandatory anoint)

then there is the problem with melee special things:
- stun is bugged since 3.15 and hardly works. GGG forgot to scale the stun threshold yet bumped bosses hp significantly
- +AOE on mace nodes is.. for who exactly?
- comparing sword and mace nodes is sickening. no wonder nobody plays maces when the difference is this big
- oh and Warlord's Mark is hot garbage vs bosses due to stun being broken. so you have to juggle TWO marks..


anyway, anyone for the challenge? wanna build 1,5m glacial hammer 'max' block Glad? because .7m is NOT enough for current game. there were runnic monsters i had to simply skip, bosses + consecrated ground, life as ES, maven heal.. game is NOT playable with this dps.

my pastebin: https://pastebin.com/KkYATQrr. yes, it is 4.5k HP, yes, it pretty much never dies to anything but 'searing burning ground' or DoT in general. Flagellant's Amethyst flask solves chaos res issues.

2h slams are only viable melee that doesn't use abyssus and paradoxica.

I guess elemental damage claws are not considered melee?

Not if you are using lightning strike or frost blades with them..

Right. Also flicker strike - teleporting around can't be considered true melee. You are not walking up to a mob and hitting it with a big stick after all.

only auto attack can be considered true melee try again guys

I'm playing some Lightning Strike this league and it is definitely not what anyone who had never played PoE would consider a melee skill. I'm firing projectiles to kill enemies offscreen, I'm fighting bosses from a distance, and I'm using my range advantage to kite dangerous foes around without letting them hit me.

Trying to say that a skill is a melee skill just because you use it while holding a melee weapon is some of the most egregious pedantry I've ever seen in my entire life. And what's worse... you guys aren't even right.

Here's a clearly spelled out definition which comes from the Dungeons and Dragons official rulebook, and is thus the ultimate authority on what "melee combat" is. After all, DnD is the entire reason why we CALL hand-to-hand combat "melee" in the first place. It's literally the source of the term in gamer culture, because the dictionary definition of melee is just a confused or disorganized brawl, the way it's used in the title of "Super Smash Bros Melee."

"A melee weapon is used to attack targets within 5 feet of you."

So there's your answer, forever. A melee attack, skill, or weapon requires, by the literal definition of the term, 5 feet or less reach from player to target. It requires you to be within immediate hand-to-hand range of the thing you are attacking. So, no, Lightning Strike and Frost Blades are no more melee than Tornado Shot is, which literally anyone with eyes and an ounce of common sense would know at a glance.

And on that note, can we be done with the lazy low effort trollposts now? Because literally everyone in this thread knew what Sid meant from the title alone. Would you call a summoner a melee build because it was holding a staff? No? Obviously not? Then why in the world would you try this same level of doublethink nonsense for what are functionally, technically, and literally ranged attacks?

Eh, we just have to wait until Lightning Strike gets nerfed to the ground, then it will become melee again. Just like what happened to Molten Strike.

Here you go man:

https://pastebin.com/HuzqwBW2

thank you.

some changes you made i had to revert (ancestral cry excludes multistrike and i use it to clear, fortify support is needed to take '-10% DoT damage fortify mastery - DoTs are what kills this build. despite 4500HP it does 6+modded T16 safely) but i really like your pathing to ranger side, will re-do my build.

edit: oh, the mana wont work, that Lifetap was there for a reason (sadly). didnt have rings with all that AND spare prefix. but still, a really neat improvement, thank you again

still, 1.5m is kinda lame ceiling for a build. i wonder if i could make a better caster from that Glad using the same 60/50 block and chest