Melee vs Ranged - Possible Sollution

This has been discussed in various threads, more or less, but here I try to go more specific into it.

Currently, Melee has the following issues:
- Faces more potential damage than ranged due to its higher likelyhood to be hit by more than 1 projectile from a multiple projectile attack
- Inevitably tanks melee damage
- Often has to choose between stopping dealing damage or standing on top of AoE to continue dealing damage
- Despite the range disadvantage, doesn't really have a meaningful damage advantage
- Is also inferior in terms of AoE
- ES almost never recharges due to frequent incoming hits.

This means in order to try and have the same chances to stay alive in melee, than ranged do from afar, you must invest alot more into survivability.

Here is what I believe, a reasonable sollution (all suggested values are placeholders):
#1 - Create a new base mechanic (does not require Passive). Call it Instinct, Uncanny, Furor, whatever you want - let's call it Balls of Steel.
#2 - Balls of Steel Stacks up to 3 times, increases movement speed and reduces all damage taken by 5% (including Chaos Damage).
#3 - Balls of Steel loses 1 Stack every 5 seconds
#4 - Your melee hits grant 1 Stack and reset the countdown to 5 sec - this would be a Baseline Mechanic, not a Keystone.
#5 - Your melee crits increase the Stack cap to 4 for 10 sec, grant 2 Stacks and reset the countdown to 5 sec - this could be a Keystone.
#6 - Your melee hits also reduce your Energy Shield Cooldown by an amount of seconds equal to your weapon attack delay (inverse of weapon speed).
Note: 1.5 speed means 0,6(6) delay. 0.8 speed means 1.25 delay.

Example:
Let's imagine I have #5 - keystone or otherwise.

0 sec
I hit my enemy with a melee attack
Now I have 1 Balls of Steel for 5 sec
I move 5% faster and take 5% less damage.

3 sec
2 seconds for Balls of Steel to lose 1 stack
I crit my enemy with a melee attack
The Balls of Steel cap is increased to 4 for 10 sec
Now I have 3 Balls of Steel for 5 sec
I move 15% faster and take 15% less damage.

6 sec
I move away to dodge incoming attacks and/or use ranged Skills

8 sec
I lose 1 Stack of Balls of Steel
Now I have 2 Balls of Steel for 5 sec
5 seconds until the Balls of Steel cap to return to 3
I move 10% faster and take 10% less damage.

10 sec
3 seconds until the Balls of Steel cap to return to 3
3 sec for Balls of Steel to lose 1 stack
I hit my enemy with a melee attack
Now I have 3 Balls of Steel for 5 sec
I move 15% faster and take 15% less damage.

11 sec
2 seconds until the Balls of Steel cap to return to 3
4 sec for Balls of Steel to lose 1 stack
I crit my enemy with a melee attack
Balls of Steel cap remains at 4 for 10 sec
Now I have 4 Balls of Steel for 5 sec
I move 20% faster and take 20% less damage.
---

I hope this was clear enough.

"

#2 - Balls of Steel Stacks up to 3 times, and each Stack increases your survival stats by 5%.

I would change this to 5% flat damage reduction from any attack, and allow it to stack up to 6 times. A variation of this design would raise the DR value, but constraint it to melee attacks.

It's not perfectly clear to me that these % are exactly appropriate. I'm not pulling them out of thin air, however: 30% flat DR is what D3 used for melee to good effect.

--C

The problem with your idea is that it further devalues Evasion, because everytime you Evade an attack, you are wasting the Damage Reduction.
This makes Energy Shield, Armor and Health even better than they are now.

My suggestion raises everything equally, except health, so that all survival stats retain their usefulness, and health actually loses some of its superiority.

"

The problem with your idea is that it further devalues (is wasted on) Evasion, because every move you Evade isn't taking advantage of the Damage Reduction, in turn making Energy Shield, Armor and Health even better than they are now.

I don't follow this. Evasion based users can hit to trigger the DR, and evasion based users, while seldom hit, need the DR especially alot when they finally are hit.

--C

I am saying that everytime an Evasion user isn't hit, he isn't benefitting from the DR; it's not doing anything; it's wasted.

On the other hand, Energy Shield and/or Armor users ALWAYS benefit from the DR.

I'm not saying it's useless to Evasion users.
It's simply much better for Health, Energy Shield and Armor stackers.

The stats that scale best with your idea are as follows:
#1 - Life Regen
#2 - Life Leech
#3 - Health
#4 - Energy Shield
#5 - Armor
#6 - Evasion
---

My idea is actually pretty straightforward - everything except Health is buffed.

I simply forgot Resistances.
The value and the cap should also be buffed.

5/10/15/20% multiplicative increase to your current Resistances and the their base Cap.
This means 78,75% -> 82,50% -> 86,25% -> 90% Max Resistance.

"

I am saying that everytime an Evasion user isn't hit, he isn't benefitting from the DR; it's not doing anything; it's wasted.

That's obvious, but I don't understand why it matters. In both cases, each melee type takes (up to) 30% less damage than they would have otherwise. To wit: in fact the end result itself is identical.

--C

"

Courageous wrote:

"

I am saying that everytime an Evasion user isn't hit, he isn't benefitting from the DR; it's not doing anything; it's wasted.

That's obvious, but I don't understand why it matters. In both cases, each melee type takes (up to) 30% less damage than they would have otherwise. To wit: in fact the end result itself is identical.

--C

Yeah, I just did some math and you're right :P

I would keep it at 5% DR per stack, 3 stacks by default, and up to 4 stacks if you are a crit user - because melee crit users need to invest alot into Accuracy and Crit Chance/Multiplier, having ALOT less passive skills to distribute in survivability comparing to a Resolute Technique user.

I have edited the initial Suggestion.

Now that we've agreed on the maths, and we're communicating, you can see that I was basically agreeing with what you are saying, but simplifying it.

Regarding our discussion on Status Ailments, I had offered a subtly different approach. The subtlety is that the Wounded status ailment actually provides a group benefit for damage reduction. It does so at the expense of only reducing damage for wounded mobs, though.

I really can't say which of these approaches I prefer. Imagining a situation where a ranged and melee player work together, with the melee player getting in and slowing the mobs down so the ranged can snipe them does have a certain appeal. This reminds me of monk/demon-hunter pairings in D3, which were absolutely, fundamentally stellar combos. Quite fun, although you'd need more mechanics in this game to make that kinda thing really soar.

--C

Bump.

we already have such a buff (endurance charges) however meeles should have an "easy" way of getting those (right now its the same for both,maybe add a support gem for 33-50% chance to get 1 every meele attack)

right now enduring cry is far to mandatory for hardcore(lategame)

ofc this wouldnt solve the whole meele problem but "fixing" that with even more stacks ? i realy dislike that idea