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

sry u mean defence?

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sidtherat wrote:

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

Not sure if you saw but I changed the pob shortly after posting. The new one keeps Lifetap so you should be good. Also, I didn't max out the Frostbreath or anything, just default pob setting, so you can easily get a better one since they are cheap.

Kaltenhalt gives amazing damage but I didn't want to swap it in since your shield has a lot of armour. If you can get a rare shield that has the Crusader prefix "1% increased damage per 1% chance to block" along with other stuff you might want, that would be good damage too.

Finally, if you had more stats, the Skitterbots can be leveled higher. It's a minor difference in damage at best, so I didn't do it.

Surrender is really hard to beat, all-in-one package. it is really, really difficult to outdo it in practice

I wanted to try this (legacy..) setup:

Crystal Vault: 20phys as cold, 30fire as cold
Avian Twins Talisman: 50fire as cold (or 50lightning as cold
Purity of Ice: +5max cold res
Helmet: %phys as cold
Shield:

Kaltensoul: +5max cold res. 20fire as cold. extra damage
OR
rare with: 5% recover on block, +3max cold res, avoid cold damage from hits


had to drop it all because no defences will help when the damage is too low. POE is not a game for zdps builds.

I understand your point about melee being in a bad spot right now, but I'm not entirely sure your build is the example to prove it.

Glacial Hammer block Glad for 60/50 block ? Why? .. Just Why?
Zero synergy between Glad and Glacial hammer.
You can get 50/50 block on any other ascendancy on bottom half of the tree with much better overall mitigation/damage/recovery... Raider will give you same AS/MS as challenger charges, + elemental damage synergy, spell suppression and 50% ailment immunity as well as easy access to block nodes to get 50/50. Extra evasion makes up for the missing block chance... what possesses you to go Glad?


Glad block nodes are only worth going if you try and go for 85/90% attack block with either spell suppression or dodge and all the reduced crit you can get.. but you still get destroyed on a large number of bosses who primarily use spells.

Glad is good at very little these days. Bleed builds .. if you can get enough scaling, and phys damage builds. But to make them work endgame you still need high investment and a 450pdps weapon.

a 350pdps weapon hasn't been good enough for endgame for a long time now... up to T12/13 maybe, but T16 and endgame bosses .. no.

Getting a basic 420 pdps weapon is not that hard even on SSF via Essence/Harvest spam + multimod, or alt spam+Aug+regal+multimod.

It's not particularly hard to make a much better build using Glacial Hammer but his parameters were Glad and 60/50 block so that's what I rolled with.

I personally don't think damage itself is the issue with melee. There's a lot of issues (single target, close range, etc.) but I don't think pure damage is one of them when built right. While spells are often said to be much stronger it is equally challenging to put together a spell build with this kind of dps AND defenses on this price level of gear. With melee it's easy to see the price in the gear pieces but with spells, that price tag shifts to expensive awakened gems. Yes you can get those for melee too but with the exception of Multistrike, the others aren't nearly as impactful for melee as they are for spells.

A spell build CAN get high dps on a low budget but not if that spell build also wants to be a tank, which is what this character is (and why this character is harder to scale damage.)

reason? because it is an option and while it needs not to be 'OP' it still should 'work' - because why not? and right now, even with the slightly better tree the poster above me generously supplied - i still think it 'doesnt work'.

this build is already more invested in my self-cast Eye of Winter that trivializes endgame despite 'EoW not being self-cast friendly and having garbage single-target without Hydrosphere trick'. GGG absof..lutely overdid the self-cast damage buff. it is beyond ridiculous right now. self-cast needed fluidity, not damage. self-cast still feels garbage to play unless you get +50% cast speed with a fast spell. but the damage is just grotesque

to the melee..

maces have GARBAGE nodes. compare what you get on any other weapon type - maces 'trick' is stun and aoe. stun is bugged for over 7 months now, nobody cares. AOE.. large %increase on small base does not impress me

then there is the prospect of 'how to scale 1h non-crit elemental build?' (non-crit because maces have TERRIBLE crit nodes, all over the tree) into the same ceiling 'good' builds have. i have no idea. the simple answer is 'just buy 500pdps 1h mace'.. cool. there are 4 IN THE LEAGUE right now. FOUR. oh and no, it is NOT easy to craft phys weapons. you confuse that with caster gear when +1 gem, cast speed and some random garbage is endgame-viable weapon. phys weapon REQUIRES 4 affixes (with insanely bad weighting) to reach 500pdps. heck, 400pdps on a slow base is HARD due to ways how GGG promotes fast bases with how their flat phys is added. maces are slow..

360 -> 500 brings the build from 1.5m to 2.5m. hardly an achievement.


i just want to question GGG's logic here. 350pdps 'is not endgame viable' nowadays? how is right that i can do endgame with lvl 18 spell and garbage self crafted +1 wand? access to scaling and base damage is completely f.. right now. it has never been worse than today. and the absolutely worst case scenario: 1h CLASSIC (aka: non paradoxica, saviour, abyssus, str/dex/int stack etc crutches) melee. esp maces but axes arent much better.

'ele claw lightning strike' doesnt make it any less true

You've probably hit the nail right on the head there... you can make viable melee builds using those limited mechanics you mentioned, therefore melee skills are balanced around that.

This is clearly terrible design. Plus you could expect some superior damage scaling for mechanically limited 'true' melee skills to offset the inherant danger.

I also don't think arguing that building tankiness into melee characters should come at an expense of damage, as it is necessary to be able to engage with the game.

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brushmonkey wrote:

You've probably hit the nail right on the head there... you can make viable melee builds using those limited mechanics you mentioned, therefore melee skills are balanced around that.

This is clearly terrible design. Plus you could expect some superior damage scaling for mechanically limited 'true' melee skills to offset the inherant danger.

I also don't think arguing that building tankiness into melee characters should come at an expense of damage, as it is necessary to be able to engage with the game.

This is basically what im saying for years. But this league clearly went the Harry Potter caster way despite melee being in the gutter and dire need of buffs after the global slaughter fest nerfs to all gems that lowered the waterlevel of viability.

/s Oh well we still have Lightning Strike i guess /s.

i think the best way to increase the damage of melee builds is to go gem by gem and vastly increase the flat damage granted per gem level if it really is an upfront skill and give it a smaller buff if its a clear the packs from offscreen abomination. not the deals % of base damage scaler, but the actual x-x flat added damage per gem level.


attacks are still too gear dependant and i think given melee skills range from heavy strike up to stuff that basically functions like a bow its better to work skill by skill and help players feel confident to level a melee skill not knowing if they will get a good weapon soon enough on reaching maps.

you dont want to end gear reliance and just turn them into spells, but closing the gap slightly would be good for the game.



the base damage on spells now is insane. i think its kind of telling that added flat damage gems are obviously balanced around spells and for them to be competitive with normal more damage supports in that role the values on them are so high that even when you have a 500-600+ pdps 1h weapon using an elemental strike skill an added flat damage gem is often the strongest support you can put on. even 3xd t1 phys rolls with 30% quality and then flat phys on rings and amulet and gloves + the flat damage from ur gem doesnt put the base damage high enough that theres better things to put on other than yet more flat base damage thats been balanced around spells.




just put more damage on the gems themselves, that was really good addition to the attack gems, lean into it more.

added damage is a good way, to finally make +1/2 melee gems not a meme stat (yada yada Ele Hit, i know, i know)

but i fear GGG might stick to their weird and unnecessary 'theme'ing where Glacial Hammer gets added COLD damage (on a phys->cold converted skill) to screw with the scaling and build options

right now this added cold is not very important but once you double it (so it contributes ~1/3rd of total output) then the only sensible way of scaling 'phys->cold' converted skill is to forget about all '%inc/more phys damage' option and pick only cold/elemental/attack ones.

knowing how the tree is laid out right now (most nodes in 'marauder area' are 'physical damage with X') - it is a serious kick into build flexibility. while Templar is the 'Glacial man' of choice and his nodes fit rather well, there are still lots of duds you have to pick unless you go for cold clusters from the start (that is not very feasible as tree nodes provide masteries). it just makes matters harder for no gameplay reason - grasping vines of build planning

Same story with Infernal Blow and Lightning Strike.



another problem is: some of these buffs need to be HUGE. GGG wont ever do that. remember the erroneous Cleave 'buff' in patch notes? for a moment it had 340% damage effectiveness. and you know what? it still sucked.
GGG simply doesnt understand that some skills are complete garbage stat/playstyle wise, they believe it is about mob mentality or whatever. to make Cleave 'good' it needs 350% EASILY, if not more. it is a fun skill to play mechanically, no 'rework' is needed. it simply needs fton of damage, no sugercoating.


then there is the archaic and frankly backwards idea that some skills are 'starter' and do not deserve to be good. by chance it applies only to melee skills. this theory should go.