Close the gap between melee and range

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BrecMadak wrote:

Let's get real fellas, the real gap occurs mainly cause of there are not enough "varied" monsters that would keep ranged class overwhelmed unlike successfully done in Diablo I/II; Winged Fiends, Spitting Terrors to be seen in Diablo, and Fetishes, Willowisps, Wraiths and Venom Lords from Diablo II.

Diablo I/II was much more responsive in regards to monsters' behaviours, thus when we have a mud slow combat speed in PoE, this even gives much more edge to ranged builds than ever.

PoE doesn't have immunes currently, or at least very high resistant monsters, even a resistance aura merely gives +35% more resistance, very insufficient !

Also projectiles from monsters travels so slowly that its like monsters are decrepified, actually all the monsters are as if under the effect of that curse.

For all these very important reasons there will always be a very big gap between melee and ranged builds unless it is fixed.

I enjoyed the reminders of some of the more evil critters from D2/LoD. A lot. I do anticipate all sorts of interesting monsters from the GGGang -- and keep in mind we only have two acts so far. You cited creatures not only from several acts of D2, but also its predecessor. I think it'd be folly to believe that GGG is anywhere near done with the bestiary of Wraeclast.

Regarding 'immunes': GGG are very much against the concept of elemental immunities, and for good reason -- the Skilldrasil encourages single-element pursuit in terms of character development. So I'd say that that is not an option, not 'currently', hopefully not ever.

That said, I am still displeased with the overall prevalence of elemental damage, be it melee, archery or magic. The relatively recent 20% reduction across the board really didn't do much at all there.

I'm not sure what you're on about regarding slow projectiles: Vaal constructs anyone? You CAN dodge some of the projectiles but most will connect without whirling blades to lunge out of the way. This is, of course, assuming you aren't some sort of crazy twitch-gamer. I'm certainly not, and I don't want to see that become a requisite for any ARPG. I don't mind a little reflex action (rolling in Gw2 is great!) but let's save the intense don't-blink-twitch-twitch-twitch style of play for the upper echelons of the ARPG's difficulty, yes?

Regarding the actual gap -- seriously? No ARPG to date has truly closed that gap simply because it cannot be closed. The reality of a ranged player in a game where surviving is the key is superior survivability over someone who wades into the fray. I dislike archers in these games -- I think they deal far too much damage for realism's sake, shoot too fast and get too many pretty toys. HOWEVER I concede that this isn't reality and plinking things to death at an ungodly speed can be a lot of fun.

So can wading into the fray.

Were I a min/max player and utterly unconcerned with the idea of 'fun' or 'quirky builds' or 'being different', I'd play an archer in every game I can. And once I learned the range game, I'd switch the higher firepower of a caster and pretty much stop there.

This seems dismissive of the melee classes, and in a way it is. After all, most 'solutions' to the melee problem are some iteration of 'you *are* the projectile, and once you hit, you are a vicious DoT', which is an amusing way to look at it.

Oh, and to the OP: Every single class in GW2 has some form of ranged capacity. I was very impressed with how innovative ArenaNet have been with each class' take on various weapons. A warrior can hurl a greatsword, from memory, whereas a Mesmer turns the greatsword into a focus for her arcane energy. Moreover, each character gets two distinct play styles via weapon-switching (or one style with four elements, if you're an elementalist), so I don't think is a worthy point of comparison to PoE. Also, MMO vs ARPG. Let's not go there either. Because MMOs typically have an even bigger gap between ranged and melee -- so many deaths in DAoC's frontier at the hands of unseen rangers taught me that.

In short, immunities aren't the answer, neither is twitch-gaming in response to ranged monsters. My only possible solution, and it's not much of one, would be to somehow accurately simulate how little damage real archery does compared to melee. And I'm pretty sure that'd be game-breaking, so...yeah. This is less a problem for PoE specifically in my eyes than an overall flaw in gaming in general. What is it they say about knives and gunfights?

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viruz87 wrote:

While the melee character still has to get in range so there is a delay in how much damage can do in a 2 second period.

Not entirely true. There are great mobility skills in PoE: Shield Charge, Whirling Blades, Flicker Strike, those are dex based.

Shield Charge is not just for damage but great to get out of hairy situations. If your health is very low it's probably safer to use one of those skills and then activate a potion then the other way around.

As a I said before, a new player doesn't know what skill gems are available until a long while, and can feel like the game is unbalanced/unfair. That's something that's less of an issue in other ARPGs where you can at least see what will be coming when you level and you can spend the points.

For example on this board I rarely see Fire Trap mentioned, yet it's a great AOE damage skill for melees. I'd be pretty sad with out it :/

Perhaps we just need a little more AOE damage options.

Witches are at an advantage here able to use the best blue gems in combination with totems, whereas DEX based classes have traps that seem to have been designed mostly for the bow ranger for slowing down enemies. Exception is Fire Trap which has been almost mandatory for my melee ranger...

How about making range take more time, aiming to do high damage? Then switching position as melee closes in.
With a larger perceptorial area and further range.

Ranges main priority is keeping range so aimed shots can be made and crowds handled.

Once inside melee, everyone would need to adhere to that. A range also needs to melee or escape.


The camera set now could be melee to short range, further out would be medium range and even further would be long.
It could be a seamless zoom based on enemys proximity.

So the game would force vision depending on enemys proximity.
When nothings about, the area of vision is large, while in close melee, not much can be seen but the immidiate surroundings.

This kind of camera setting would solve issues with camera handling.

To further deal with awareness there should be pointers on the edges of the screen marking threats.
Minimap should also help displaying enemy movements.


Make the game more about movement and planning.
Melee might wanna archer against difficult enemys, same as range wanna melee easy ones, since it will be faster.
More flexibility.

I believe the solutions lie in the functions, not the damage calculations.

With one exception, it's not about calculations. I think "Point Blank" is going to give a lot of advantage to ranged in PvP.