Ben_ on why POE1 melee doesn't need POE2 animation to "save melee"
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Just wait till you see the upcoming patch notes
Because I'm betting we are gonna see a ton of nerfs |
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" but you're just wrong and this tiresome endless narrative of how "melee can never be good because its melee" is just a cop out at best, or a subjective "you problem" that people constantly want to push as an objective intrinsic and unsolvable problem at worst. POE has, and has had, many melee/melee adjacent skills that were/are fun, scaled well, worked well and in many cases because they were the best melee skills: got nerfed because they were among the only melee skills anyone would use. STOP with the narratives that defy reality. MANY games do melee well, Lost Ark, D2 (killing ubers with a single target weapon swing or shield slam for example being top uber bossers), D3, EVEN yes I'm about to say it: Diablo 4 out of 10. Barb and Druid melee are two of the best things to use in that game. In fact POE almost always has a few skills that are good, usually right before they get nerfed (calling it now, Boneshatter nerfs incoming despite being one of the only good melee skills, because this is classic GGG behavior). Lets look at some: A lot of melee before they made the negative attack speed multi and made it all feel terrible Bleed before they gutted the Elder influence mod. Slams before they gutted seismic Sunder before they gutted sunder, re-worked 4 times and ALMOST is a good skill again now if you don't mind outrunning your own melee attacks. Molten Strike before and during and after a million nerfs. Lightning Strike (yes because its basically ranged) Spec Helix (I know its an attack but it was (is) good mechanically and is VERY MELEE Cyclone (pre impale nerfs and pre "physical resistance overwhelm" mechanics. Very melee. EQ bleed (its still useble tbh but its just not very competitive while everyone else is doing 10's of millions and dot capping with spells/traps/mines that have built in DOT's and etc. Yes this sometimes involves making the melee a little less "intimately melee" or giving the melee some mechanical advantage. "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" (which BTW is what GGG always did when they would say "melee is fixed in POE2 because of animations, until then there's not much we can do" Pandering to players who don't want consequences for their mistakes is a perfect description of what went fundamentally wrong with D3 and 4. If they wanted mindless mobile game time waster gameplay they sure did make some perplexing choices and marketing statements for 6 fucking years. Last edited by alhazred70#2994 on Aug 6, 2023, 4:19:06 PM
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" Great and creative idea that also helps them achieve that "asymetric dual wield" design space they've been trying to get anyone to use for 10 years (since the Rigwald weapon days at least) Also re movement: I also don't want in build pathing on skills, this POE2 thing tyhey are proud of and being held up as the great fixer of melee in POE2 is not only not going to work, its going to be HATED. The first time your skill paths you into a slam you were out of you know and understand the fatal error in the idea of "automatic gap closing". Neon's on stage trying to get that guy to stop using "shift to attack in place" meanwhile my man is just ignoring him and killing the boss. Game designers who think their designs are awesome "if only the players will play correctly"... I've spent a life gaming as a hobby it never works. Pandering to players who don't want consequences for their mistakes is a perfect description of what went fundamentally wrong with D3 and 4.
If they wanted mindless mobile game time waster gameplay they sure did make some perplexing choices and marketing statements for 6 fucking years. |
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" The ironic part of all this, even during the times where those skills you listed were at the top, people were still bitching about melee 24/7. When slams were on top (and they only really were in SSFHC races) people were complaining it's too clunky, when lightning strike was on top it was "lol just a spell with weapon scaling" Similar stuff with Molten Strike and Cyclone. Helix isn't melee in any way, at least not more than RF. If Sunder ever became good people would just go with "lol it's a ranged skill nonsense". I mean with VC this league Molte Strike and Splitting Steel were borderline busted, did anyone play them? No. Even if GGG went and buffed melee, maybe it would be a bit better in your eyes but for it to be viewed as "not bad", nevermind good by a decent chunk of the community? No way in hell that will ever happen. Way too many idiots who couldn't make a melee build work if their lives depended on it blaming the archetype for their incompetence. I certainly wouldn't mind melee getting some buffs, even if it's just numerical stuff but if you think it's going to accomplish much in the grand scheme of things you are just delusional. Molten Strike literally had 100% more damage this league and it's usage hardly changed at all. And Molten Strike is among the best skill mechanical wise. If we talk about stuff like Heavy Strike they could quitupple it's base damage and nobody is going to bother with it. |
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" But this is precisely the point. It's not a numbers game for many of the faulty melee skills. Its a mechanics game. You contradict your own post right here. I have made MANY melee builds in the past. I've enjoyed them. It isn't just the nerfs to the skills over the years that has made melee a problem: it is also the buffs to enemies, enemy density, and enemy mechanics. ANY melee skill that does not have some kind of ranged component to it is almost immediately shit, regardless of how much damage it does. And THAT is a problem with the entire archetype. Look at all the examples that defenders of melee keep providing: cyclone, boneshatter, helix, flicker strike, lightning strike, certain slams, molten strike: these all have one glaringly obvious commonality, that they can clear from a distance beyond the initial hit. This is the MOST important aspect of melee skills when attempting to create a melee build nowadays: how far away from the enemies can I stay while still attacking? Damage is totally meaningless if I can only attack a tiny portion of enemies at a time, in a distance that leaves me susceptible to endless ground effects, on-death effects, and 100s of hits per second. Even if I could survive all that, it would still be a SLOW SLOW build. I LOVE molten strike, I LVOE cyclone. I make a cyclone build every single league. But that doesn't stop me from recognizing the terrible state that melee is in. PoE 2 has a good fix for this with the fluidity of motion in melee skill use. That is desperately needed in PoE 1. Instead of more melee skills that are really just pseudo-ranged skills, we need melee skills that allow the character itself to cover more ground, like flicker strike. Last edited by jsuslak313#7615 on Aug 7, 2023, 2:52:06 AM
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" I'm not sure why you responded with that...I was agreeing with your whole main point lol. Your entire original post as well as Ben's video describe how dps isn't the problem...its the mechanics. Last edited by jsuslak313#7615 on Aug 7, 2023, 3:02:53 AM
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agree or not, Boneshatter is GOOD thus melee can be. Its literally empirical proof.
If you mean to say that Auto attack and Heavy strike with no strike range/splash/ancestors can ever be good, well okay, I still disagree* but its besides the point; thats not what anyone is asking for. (*see single target strikes in D2 which are commonly the better Uber slayers, like Frenzy Barb, Sunder Paladins etc.) Pandering to players who don't want consequences for their mistakes is a perfect description of what went fundamentally wrong with D3 and 4. If they wanted mindless mobile game time waster gameplay they sure did make some perplexing choices and marketing statements for 6 fucking years. Last edited by alhazred70#2994 on Aug 7, 2023, 3:09:05 AM
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" I never said it's a numbers game though? I mean for some skills, maybe, like Frostblades or Wildstrike. But for the most part it's mechanics. That's what i said in my post as well. |
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" I didn't disagree with or address the rest of your post so why would I quote it? Melee does need to feel good; I suggested removing the terrible negative attack speed multiplier which is the biggest immediate culprit and is low hanging fruit. You said Melee can never be good, I disagree. Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot because I don't agree with the idea that it can never be good? All too often people make that type of statement to try and dismiss the idea, often they say this right before they say its impossible for melee to be good because its inherently more dangerous. If you weren't going in that direction then I apologize its just a very common thing to have to wade through in these arguments. I never said its a mechanical or a numeric only problem. Its, one the other or a bit of both in many cases. Ben's clip sets the context for my comments. Because he's such a well respected and accomplished POE player it makes sense to highlight his views. Ben's take is much like mine. There's plenty besides Animation that can put melee in a better place. The low hanging fruit that GGG just doesn't seem to acknowledge or they are blind to. To be sure animation improvements could help, but they aren't low hanging fruit and apparently wont happen. Pandering to players who don't want consequences for their mistakes is a perfect description of what went fundamentally wrong with D3 and 4. If they wanted mindless mobile game time waster gameplay they sure did make some perplexing choices and marketing statements for 6 fucking years. Last edited by alhazred70#2994 on Aug 7, 2023, 3:42:55 AM
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The GGG solution: "We heard you Boneshatter is the only played melee skill because of its damage so we make all Strike skills Boneshatter"
Source: https://twitter.com/pathofexile/status/1688297392502927360 Last edited by zzang#1847 on Aug 7, 2023, 3:44:31 AM
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