How to Fix Strike Melee by a 20 League Veteran of Everything Melee - KissMeQuick( me)
|
waiting for your ideas then, so far - ZERO. if you are so sure of it - i hope you base it on something, dont you?
|
|
|
Strike skills have no good reason to not be implicit splash damage in a small radius. Not cleave radius obviously, not lacerate radius but a smaller splash damage value to delete the melee splash gem which should have been done years ago.
Defenses for melee need to be much better than ranged. Uptime is the big problem with strike skills and even others like lacerate that require uptime standing still. The ways to fix this is to make melee a harder target. A flat phys/magic damage reduction to melee builds would go a long way to making them more desirable. The question obviously is what level of investment should negate the consequences of being in melee range? It cannot be possible for melee to just stand next to a boss the entire time and ignore mechanics. So a fully built melee with defenses in mind should be able to handle random hits better than ranged. Just not enough to ignore them completely. I'm a fan of just flatly buffing melee specs 25% less phys, 25% less damage taken. See if that allows for more uptime. The oneshot nature of the game has to be revisited. It's not possible to just avoid everything as melee like ranged. Melee will always be hit at some point. |
|
|
From the fact that fortification was 4 seconds only you can see that GGG hates melee.
I mean its not 6 seconds, not 5 seconds but 4 seconds. It is designed in a way melee cannot rely on it and shortest interruptions make you lose the buff so you get hit harder by surprise. I bet each compareable effect for ranged guys or ES guys instead of life would have been 10 seconds by default at the date of introduction. But cause it is melee/life they put it 4 seconds. Its not enough to make melee walk slow, take more damage, get stunned more often, and all the other effect while ranged guys stand there like a tank without the ability to be hit with double HP than melee/life and 10 times clear speed. I bet PoE gameplay will soon be pick ranged guy, walk into middle of map, hit left mouse button 3-4 times, walk back to exit as map is cleared. And while the game is in that state, some guys at GGG still enforce 4 seconds fortification time and start arguments about it breaking stuff when put to 5 or 6 seconds instead of 4. You gotta look at it from that angle guys. Last edited by LSN#3878 on Aug 17, 2022, 10:05:45 PM
| |
|
i really do appreciate reading sidtherats's feedback because as a melee only spammer i can see these issues.
before my opinion wasn't in favor for a damage boost but a mechanics one ( block chance reduction , life / ES reduction , degen , and on hit effects that brick builds . but after sometime i started to come to terms that a damage buff would help. (still i feel helping mechanics to make melee more viable would be great too ) but im also torn with 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. Orbaal 's argument about why even bothering with melee single target. this is where i feel GGG is digging a hole they cant get out. its kinda why i feel they gave up on melee for PoE 1 for the traditional melee skills . there is no solid solution without an entire overhaul. to my melee brothers hold your wallet until actual melee is addressed
lol |
|
" ive seen that and discarded it as too naive because of: " you want to give melee more defences with a mana reservation skill? We did that before - blind aura from Flesh and Stone. It was good - EVERYONE used that. now it is bad - nobody gives a fu... your idea is the exact same scenario - thus i deemed it naive and moved on. - who has better access to aura effect/reservation? CASTERS. melee realistically has ONE cluster, pretty meh one at that - who can spare reservation slot? CASTERS. just because they deal more damage inherently and do not need to stack every damage reservation there is (unlike melee). melee has low mana thus flat-cost auras take higher % of your reservation budget. unlike most CASTERS that hardly can notice Clarity reservation if you make Flesh and Stone strong enough for melee to consider, every CASTER/summoner and most likely archer is going to use it as well. because it is simply easier for them to fit in auras we have been there before, strange you forgot it so quickly Fortify.. make it too good (and 30 is already close, %less damage taken is a very delicate stat) and everyone will make effort to use one. not to mention that current - shit - state of Fortify for melee is a result of precisely that. Fortify ignoring DOTs is a big problem BTW. changing that might actually help A LOT. but again - make Fortify too strong - we will have 50%+ Champions (mostly wanders, spell-slingers, summoners, then casters and finally melee) one final time: DAMAGE buff is not there to actually buff resulting damage. it is there to free up build resources that right now HAVE to be invested into damage because inherently melee damage values are simply dogshit my 2 last serious builds before hiatus were 1h Stun Heavy Strike and Shock Nova. first one used 55 damage passives (including unavoidable travel nodes - plenty of these in south-west part of the tree), the second - 30. they performed similarly in endgame and used - i think - similar level of gear with some exceptions. my record breaker is self-cast Forbidden Rite that used.. 9 passives for damage (some might argue that 2 recoup clusters should also count - fine, it is 17 then) with disparities like these melee simply cannot afford defences from passives 15 passives buys you lots and lots of defences. melee cannot spend them that way because right now you HAVE TO reach certain damage output threshold. even if you stand still and tank everything (simulating 100% damage mitigation) - you HAVE TO deal enough damage to not fail timed content and/or life regen mobs/bosses making 'melee more tanky' is IMPOSSIBLE in this game as is - the only way is to allow melee players to actually spend more on defences. right now they have less 'build money' to do so. and the only non-abusable part of the build equation is the main skill. everything else can immediately be stolen by other archetypes and improved (casters not only can steal your Flesh and Stone but they actually have higher aura %effect so they get MORE from 'melee only' mechanic than you!) ps. Flesh and Stone is not aura, but i hope people get the gist of it Last edited by sidtherat#1310 on Aug 18, 2022, 2:49:25 AM
|
|
" no worries, the forums is all about discussion. you're participating and thats good. the discussion of "melee is bad" is normally brought up by salty melee players who really find melee in a hugely bad place where a spell user can kill uber elder shaper in under 5 minutes while being under level 30 with time to dance around and gloat while "melee noobs" at level 90 might not even be able to clear the encounter. usually whenever anyone who says melee is good tends to have a strong bias against this claim. usually they will have a lot of things to say like, oh you just need to know the attack patterns, oh you need better defences. etc. and some would use meta skills to say melee is good. i would say, the top 10 worst spell/ranged skills would still be better than the top 20 worst melee skills. i m just throwing random numbers i m pretty certain this would be true. simply for the fact that spells and ranged skills are usually built in a way that allows them to kite. without even looking at the numbers. think of the process involved in fighting bosses, ranged/spells vs melee. almost all melee strike skills are at a huge advantage where they cant "hit a button and run a while" from their current position. no, they have to get into closer range. all risk low reward. one would argue "but oh, it's easier to dodge projectile attacks from closer range". ranged characters can do that too. let me ask you, if you're fighting uber sirus with a strike skill and sirus summons a vortex RIGHT UNDER YOUR FEET. what do you do? GTFO is the correct answer, and what does sirus do? stay in the vortex. if your weapon range isnt far enough. good luck walking around doing 0 damage. as for heavy strike and why i chose it. it's quite simple really, if you want to make an entire community shut up. you need to prove to them that things are possible in the worst circumstance available. also, 2handed heavy strike is a good reference to how GGG is treating melee. heavy strike's design show that it's heavily meant for 2 handed play, yet even with GGG's tweaking over the years it simply isnt good enough. i dont see anyone complaining about the state of spells of ranged attacks and i dont see these 2 playstyles being anywhere close to how bad melee is at this point. why i dont compare a toptier melee vs a toptier spell is something i highlighted before. there are a few toptier melee then theres a sharp drop where most of the melee skills become shit. whereas there are many toptier spells, many "not bad spells", many "average spells" and etc before reaching "some bad spells". talking about 2handed, based on your statement, going 2 hand is a bad move. so can i say going melee is a bad move too? going strike is a bad move too? they're mechanically disadvantaged greatly vs kiting playstyles. [Removed by Support]
|
|
|
I never thought I'd agree with Kiss_me_quick so completely.
Basic concept to me is this, Melee needs to hit harder and tank more hits - more of a high risk high reward since the necessity of proximity to deal damage severely reduces their mobility, and given the recent state of things, there's a reason most were stacking armor and auras (not melee but almost everything). My current hollow palm impale cyclone hits reasonable damage but despite some layered defenses (some armor, 100% spell supp, res), he's still very prone to falling over in an instant. Given the mechanics for the latter end bosses, you don't always have the luxury of refilling flasks and some mechanics force you to take damage in poor positions for the sake of later in the fight. Yep, totally over league play.
|
|
|
I think the topics been covered to death tbh, not saying I disagree but we've had this thread more than once a league for years, good suggestions, reasoning and discussion but they just don't take any action.
Most melee changes GGG have made while i've been playing have fallen into one of two categories, worse or baseline movement. The ones they've gotten right are usually not even related to melee specifically, fortify, defensive buffs, guard skills were/are all used by all archetypes anyway. Fortify was pretty much removed for everyone due to this so even that ones gone. Good : Fort(originally), Guard, Armour buff, Spell Supp, only melee specific i'd put in here is + strike targets being more accessible. Net Zero : Almost every damage buff done to melee for years only keeps them at their bad baseline. Bad : Animations, stat sticking, fort rework, strike range rework, newer passives, Flesh&Stone, endgame defensive requirement creep, unique weps gutting. Basically what i'm trying to say is aside from the slam patch Melee has gotten the same or worse every league for as long as i've been playing. GGG are absolutely hopeless at this particular part of their combat dynamic and they always buff incredibly cautiously while nerfing chain mechanics because other archetypes are using them. Its kinda sad and just wasted potential really. I will say Boneshatter is the best designed strike skill and shows they can actually get it right if they want to. Last edited by Draegnarrr#2823 on Aug 18, 2022, 7:28:29 AM
|
|
|
To be honest to make the new Strike category of melee skills worthwhile they must provide extraordinary effects that other fake melee skills dont.
Otherwise why even bother introducing a new category when you waste 1-2 supports to make them feel the same as other projective/ranged "melee" skills and achieving nothing new that would warrant sich an intruduction of new nametag. Make these one enemy target-lock abilities feel good vs bosses & named enemies. And when i mean good, feel like really strong buffs/debuffs from the current pools of mods that exists or new ones tailored to strike-skills with maybe an additional effect depending on damage type. Also wanted to mention and in regard to PoE patch 4.0. Having multiple 6L setups will be normal from then on with the new gem link system so we maybe should view these strike skills not only as mere damage skills like in 1.0 but give them a new place to co-exist with other skills. Masterpiece of 3.16 lore "A mysterious figure appears out of nowhere, trying to escape from something you can't see. She hands you a rusty-looking device called the Blood Crucible and urges you to implant it into your body." Only usable with Ethanol Flasks Last edited by gandhar0#5532 on Aug 18, 2022, 7:47:39 AM
|
|
" True, because you can slap spell on totems, traps and brands. Thats usually better because standing still to cast or charge a skill up too risky. " The toptier melee skill are almost exclusively ele conversion based and go crit as well. There is simply nothing available to support phys based builds to the same degree as Trinity and Nightblade do. Not going this route will almost guaranteed yield significantly worse results. Its not just the supports. Crit has always been the strongest scaling method, thats hardly newsworthy. However you also get access to ele pen, spell suppression and speed, if you go for the right side of the tree. Good synergy all around, especially in softcore. " There is just one melee skill Im aware off right now, thats benefitting enough from going 2h to make it worth it and thats Boneshatter. But thats largely due to the skill itself providing flat phys dmf, a dmg multiplier, AoE clear and a defensive layer due to stuns. This sweet package is carrying Boneshatter hard. I cant provide THE solution to all issues melee is facing, I dont think anyone can. I also dont think buffing the weapon base dmg is the solution because it would only buff ele conversion builds, which are already much stronger than pure phys builds as mentioned above. I also dont think messing with the skillgems themselves is the right way to handle this, because I highly doubt is doable without ruining their current playstyle or identity. To me Boneshatter IS the new Heavy Strike. I think this is the way GGG should explore more. Develop good melee skills suitable for modern PoE and also provide pure phys support that cant be converted to ele or chaos. While this would buff melee overall, it would also leave the old and frankly outdated melee skills in the dust, which isnt desireable for obvious reasons. However those skills got introduced when we were facing about 6 trashmobs and 1 rare similtaniously on the screen. You could just walk up to them, 1shot the trashmobs and then wail away at the rare dude for 1-2 mins straight, while kiting whatever the rare does. Now we are facing 10x more mobs simultaniously, you´ve got no idea whats going on and simply have to kill entire packs as quickly as possible. Thats not what the old melee skills are designed to do. They simply cant pull this off without outrageous investment. That is the core issue as far as Im concerned and I dont know how to fix that other than replacing those skills with more modern versions or slowing the game down by factor 10 or something like that, which is going to cause a riot. Latter is not an option for GGG, so replacing those skills or hoping PoE2´s better animation system somehow fixes this would be the way to go I guess. But what do I know... ^^ |
|
