How to Fix Strike Melee by a 20 League Veteran of Everything Melee - KissMeQuick( me)

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Baharoth15 wrote:

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Orbaal wrote:

The real question from my PoV is, why do pure singletargt skills even exist right now, if there is no demand for them?

I'd suspect the demand is there. It's just that the demand is found among a target group you are unlikely to find here or on reddit.

Maybe my wording was wrong here.
I wasnt talking about players demanding a plastyle, I was talking about content requiring/rewarding a singletarget setup.
Its just not needed at any point in the game. AoE setups will do just fine.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

From a competitive point of view i'd agree, most strike skills as well as single target skills in general have no place in this game. Even if you go through the loops needed to make a strike skill feel good, by the time you are through with it it's no longer really a melee skill.

Yes, thanks.
Thats my point and been the entire time. Again, maybe my wording/phrasing/whatever was off. Fair enough.
What I was trying to say the entire time is just that. Why pick a singletarget, only to repurpose it as AoE skill and sink outrages amounts of time/currency to get there, if the result is a generic AoE clear ability with melee tag?
Why not pick a skill like that right away? Its not like those didnt exist and thats been my point the entire time.

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sidtherat wrote:

wrong

if you go trough the loop and give it damage - players who like to play it (like i used to do - i havent played this game in 3 months) will find a way and enjoy themselves

nobody ever tried to boost the damage - all i read is 'it wont work'. just give it a one f.. try.

Heavy Strike and Ground Slam are less than 10% apart vs singletarget while Ground Slam is obviously WAY stronger mechanically

See above statement.
Dmg buffs would allow less investment into dmg on the tree obviously.
Meaning the investment into AoE conversion is less painful and thus the skill itself becomes more competitive in an AoE environment.
That much I do understand.

What I dont understand is why singletarget skills need a dmg, so they can be converted into AoE skills. I do ofc understand that this is what it takes to survive in PoE but thats not my point.
Why wouldnt you simply pick any melee skill with a sufficient AoE component, skipping the conversion nonsense and go from there?

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sidtherat wrote:

Heavy Strike and Ground Slam are less than 10% apart vs singletarget while Ground Slam is obviously WAY stronger mechanically

This is why I disagree on the "its a numerical issue", as in "dmg buffs are needed", stance. What you really want is a mechanical change from singletarget to AoE because AoE is simply WAY stronger and not just that, its mandatory to survive.
Its not the numbers, its the mechanics.

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sidtherat wrote:

well.. 'better damage' means 'better defences'.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

Won't fix core issue with melee and they would never do it.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

So the best balanced option for melee is to make them more resilient. For that, defenses for melee focused characters should be buffed by at least 40-50% on all fronts. More armour, more Fortification, life on hit. It's the trade off for not being able to hit 3 screens away, but also boosting damage uptime as we could stay closer more and not get one shot as easily.

Also, not investing into defenses so you can one shot everything is exactly what they don't want.

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sidtherat wrote:

same stuff with the literal damage uptime: Sirus is one jumpy mofo, with 5-10sec windows every now and then. the higher your damage, the faster that fight goes -> the less risk you die

Yet, ranged experience the same thing, the difference being they need to reallocate position less often. For melee to reallocate we need to get closer, but doing so a lot of the time means we need to take damage. Increase resilience and that problem is mitigated instantly. Also, good luck spending mirrors to be able to one shot everything before they start attacking. Also, not investing into defenses so you can one shot everything is exactly what they don't want.

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sidtherat wrote:

it is all about the damage.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

Won't fix core issue with melee and they would never do it.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

So the best balanced option for melee is to make them more resilient. For that, defenses for melee focused characters should be buffed by at least 40-50% on all fronts. More armour, more Fortification, life on hit. It's the trade off for not being able to hit 3 screens away, but also boosting damage uptime as we could stay closer more and not get one shot as easily.

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sidtherat wrote:

it is rarely about AOE. picking melee you kinda know it is going to be small (and some skills like Sweep/EQ/Reave have a very solid AOE, even strikes with +range can feel perfectly fine).
but if your strike build requires so much passive investment that you need to cut into %life nodes - there is a f.. problem

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

Increasing AoE would fix the "melee" part of melee, but then it would really be melee, would it?

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sidtherat wrote:

Heavy Strike and Ground Slam are less than 10% apart vs singletarget while Ground Slam is obviously WAY stronger mechanically

Personally, i despise both not because of damage, but because Heavy strike pushes things away so much so that you lose dps if you hit fast enough, and you need the jewels for Ground Slam or it's too narrow. Also, the best melee skills alredy try to imitate ranged by having a good AoE spread, but they are around the character or projectiles. More reason to give melee players more innate defenses to counteract being melee.

Summary: You people really refuse to read everything, don't you?

Increasing damage won't fix uptime nor Fortification being useless if you can't hit. Increase resilience and uptime will increase, increasing damage. After they fix that, increasing discrepancies of skills that do indeed deal less damage for no good reason is acceptable.

you guys want to tell others what they should like

both of you

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Why wouldnt you simply pick any melee skill with a sufficient AoE component, skipping the conversion nonsense and go from there?

because i like to play Cleave? because i like the playstyle of Heavy Strike?
stop bringing liking etc into that - if someone likes this playstyle, respect that and try to not enforce your likes/dislikes. following the 'why wouldnt' route we should all play ONE build


right now melee in general and quite a few specific skills in melee department deals LAUGHABLE damage compared to others. try not to mentally divide them into AOE/single targets. Ground Slam with Conc.effect and in Blood Stance is pretty tiny, hardly screen wide behemoth - and you need to get close anyway for real deeps. Heavy Strike with +20 range can almost offscreen. step out of the 'single/AOE' box - it has been long recycled

resilience is a matter of investment. items are class-agnostic, supports/auras are class-agnostic, heck - even ascendancies are open to most playstyles. the only thing that differentiates melee and non-melee is the main skill. everything else is more or less common across all archetypes.
you cannot boost passives because melee cannot pick them up anyway - there are no points left after youve spend 60% of your tree on damage. typical melee builds spend A LOT more passives on damage (to reach the same level) than casters. there is hardly any case when picking damage gives you defence (STR stacking.. gee, maybe thats why it is so strong? who would have thought. same with AR stacking builds).

if the only place of difference is the skill used - change HAS to apply there. otherwise any change to 'melee defences' will end up in the same place Fortify ended.

ergo - skills have to change, in a drastic way.

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Also, not investing into defenses so you can one shot everything is exactly what they don't want.

melee never was in that position. EVER. the most broken melee builds - these with mirrors and mirrors of gear hardly match what regular league caster with converted spell can do. long gone are times when melee had top deeps at top end. LONG gone.


and i do not give a f.. about AOE. if i want to play Cleave i know what im signing for. i just expect that skill to give me a chance of killing endgame stuff with the same gear i can do with Spectral Helix.

right now it is not the case. reason is simple - Spectral Helix deals between 2 and 4 times more actual damage than Cleave with the exact same gear (that is ignoring Nightblade). how is that not a numbers issue?

btw - have you both tried end-endgame in this modern POE? because i seriously cannot understand the question why do we need single target damage. because endgame bosses shred trough all defences and kill you anyway if you mis-dodge and most of them have soft-enrage timers that make prolonged fights significantly riskier than short ones. unless you want to just casually farm non-deli T16 sure, but 60% deli Kosis in a +life map with ganky mods - you REALLY want that single target, now.

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sidtherat wrote:

you guys want to tell others what they should like

Sounds exactly like what you're trying to do.

All this moaning about how spells are great but always forgetting the heavy mana cost attached to them, something melee has zero issues with.

I also seriously doubt you have done any end-game content. Pick any build without defenses, bad AoE and try to do wave 30 Simulacrum, it will spit you out faster than you can dps because ranged monsters kill you like a joke.

Go to a t16 100% delirium fully turbo juiced and all these notions of doubled dps are utterly useless to the cheer numbers of monsters that can hit you from across the screen before you can even get to them.

You just seem like all the other casual players that want dps to one shot everything with budget gear, die trying to tank everything and then complain about not having damage. Give melee the defenses they deserve for being in close combat and none of your useless measures will need to be implemented.

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sidtherat wrote:

you guys want to tell others what they should like

both of you

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Why wouldnt you simply pick any melee skill with a sufficient AoE component, skipping the conversion nonsense and go from there?

because i like to play Cleave? because i like the playstyle of Heavy Strike?
stop bringing liking etc into that - if someone likes this playstyle, respect that and try to not enforce your likes/dislikes.

Im not telling anybody what to do or not to do. I couldnt care less.
I was asking a simple question, thats all.


The question in itself is justified.
You could pick a skill thats designed to do what you want do or try to force a skill into something its not designed to do.

Since this game and especially endgame is all about efficiency, its pretty clear which option is more likely to yield the desired results. Hence the question.

I think +2 radius to cleave is more then enough buff, melee already strong.

Just a naive idea. A skill that changes from defensive mode to attacking mode might make melee more viable. Like you rise a shield and you are almost invulnerable to any front attack. Also a skill to target an enemy and jumps or charge to the target to close combat wherever it is.

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B00b wrote:

Just a naive idea. A skill that changes from defensive mode to attacking mode might make melee more viable. Like you rise a shield and you are almost invulnerable to any front attack. Also a skill to target an enemy and jumps or charge to the target to close combat wherever it is.

Without GGG changing their design philosophy, spellcasters would just socket a Strike gem in another socket and enjoy being invincible.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

Give melee the defenses they deserve for being in close combat and none of your useless measures will need to be implemented.

you became hostile and rude pretty quickly

ill respond in a kind way: there is NO WAY to increase defences for melee only. GGG tried - Fortify - failed so hard that you could sense shockwaves on the moon. in fact till today Champion archers/wanders/CASTERS make it a laughing point

they will not ever repeat that mistake


you cannot do it with gear - anyone can use anything. the moment you somehow tie that to main hand weapon - youll see casters running with 2h axes if it is strong enough
you cannot do it with passives - summoners used to spend 20 travel nodes just to get Call to Arms. summoners COULD AFFORD to waste 20 passives just for that! because they have enough damage already. melee lol
you cannot do it with skills - molten shell, enduring cry, blood and sand tried that before. it is either ubiquitous and everyone uses that or so lame that noone bothers
you cannot do it with 'attack effect' like maim - maim sucks as a defensive mechanic and once it becomes good, casters will just use spectral helix from time to time


you sound as if that was simple - try it, present some ideas how to make melee tanky that i wont be able to immediately use with caster/coc and end up with better damage and defences

the only way is to tie changes to main skills and even that is going to be enormously difficult to make un-abusable (remember Vigilant Strike + Vigil?)

the only real, viable and realistic way is to free build resources by pumping skill damage (and evening out idiotic damage disparities between skills). any gear slot melee builds can stop using for damage can and will be used for defences

do that - and youll see people actually playing melee, even the shit skills. because right now melee for non-nolifers tops at few m damage and garbage defences. same money can buy a pinacle-capable CoC FR or any other nice clear-bossing caster build. same money, less effort, better results and way, way easier gearing

oh and once more:

- Wild Strike. fun skill. absolutely reeks if you start with phys weapon, becomes pretty good with attr stacker. why? there is no phys weapon in the game that can match even mid-level attr stacker (even without recombos).

it is all about damage but continue with grandiose ideas of making melee-only defences better. once i return to this game ill be sure to steal them and use on my casters, it always ends up this way

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sidtherat wrote:

you guys want to tell others what they should like

both of you

btw - have you both tried end-endgame in this modern POE?

Yeah, i'm the rude and hostile one. But as for what it's worth, only reinforces how casual and narrow minded in you are in this topic.
And again:

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

You just seem like all the other casual players that want dps to one shot everything with budget gear, die trying to tank everything and then complain about not having damage. Give melee the defenses they deserve for being in close combat and none of your useless measures will need to be implemented.

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sidtherat wrote:

waiting for your ideas then, so far - ZERO. if you are so sure of it - i hope you base it on something, dont you?

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

Flesh and Stone is a good example to be reworked for melee benefit, if in sand stance take less damage from far targets, meanwhile on blood stance take less damage from close targets(maimed is pretty meme, tbh). Fortification could also go to 30 naturally, with increased duration as you mentioned, as it's dependable of being close and hitting, as it's useless otherwise.

If you actually read what people post, you'd see it was in the first post i've made.

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sidtherat wrote:

(Divergent) Boneshatter - with 20-30trauma stacks + Mantra of Flames deals around.. 10 times the damage of any other strike skill. and thats why it is played. because YOU can make it work as you please. it is still a clunky strike skill, has 'bad' clear compared to full screen ignites or whatnot.
but it works because you can make it work

Also the grandest irony is Boneshatter, people stacking literal 80-90% physical reduction to get 500 stacks of trauma so they can actually do damage; to which the amount of reflected damage they take WITHOUT INVESTING IN DEFENSES would be enough to deplete 3-4 life bars without that amount of physical reduction. So yeah, literal waste of my time trying to rationalize more defenses = more uptime = more damage to a simple minded individual.

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wizardlulz wrote:

AdRonZh3Ro 's that UPTIME and defenses is a meat and potatoes philosophy for melee. MORE damage is great but giving melee an identity of survival rather than just brute competing with spell clear . i want to be a fighter and be a tanky boi not just feel ' equal' with spells and their damage as in clear and still be glass to all the deadly close range punishing mechanics.

Exactly what I'm trying to convey, thank you for not being stubborn and narrow minded. Melee is close combat and being tanky enough to endure it. They want to "fix" melee by simply ignoring it's complexities and just mow everything down. I just hope GGG is not stupid enough to adhere to that and instead focus on the true identity of melee, resilience and surviability.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

It's honestly amazing how hypocritical and two faced people are in regards to this. Anyway, i am through, just skimming through some peoples posts here hurts my sanity.

Well, yeah.