Huntress is the evidence that you just don't know how to make a good melee archetype

"

Utukka#5444 wrote:

Think of D2 how fun it was with a Zeal Paladin fully surrounded just chopping away or Barbarian leaping into entire packs and whirlwinding around.

Nearly impossible with the current system.

All nodes are available to all classes, so even if they baked impressive tankiness into say, Warrior or future Marauder ascensions, nothing prevents you from taking said ascension nodes and then making a detour towards top left/top rigth, grabbing ES, minion or elemental nodes. Without restricting gear to certain classes and ascensions, you can't make a "tanky Warrior" without simultaneously allowing players to create a "tanky tactical nuke" with the benefits of both. They'd have to redesign the entire passive tree, introduce nodes that completely cripple the "screen nuke" gameplay after taking survivability nodes AND manage to preserve some choice diversity at the same time so that classes aren't one-trick ponies.

I just don't see it happening at all, not with how hard GGG is pursuing that "vision" of theirs.

The main problem for me is melee damage and uptime in general. I really couldnt care less if all I did was attack one monster at a time but when both clear and dps are horrible then why even try. My sorcerer has so many stacking buffs and pretty much 100% damage uptime. A totem that instantly dies doesnt compare lol. Melee really needs a redesign, deal way more damage for how the gameplay is. Also the rollslam is fine but we lack simpler heavy hitting melee skills.

I don't generally play trade to begin with.

If you have any competitive nature, which i dont believe you do in poe at least. (not that there is anything wrong with that)
You are forced to use a good build.

That is the context of anything i will say. Gauntlet is the best game mode this game has to offer. To me, when i think about balancing of maces. I would like gauntlet to be playable with maces. Assuming we have a gauntlet in poe2. I couldn't care any less about what happens with sctrade, but if maces isn't comparable in speed at least at the 50th percentile in sctrade then gauntlet is going to require you to never rip to compete.

Honestly without gauntlet i probably would have quit poe1 a long time ago as its fairly stale. Settlers was a huge step forward for melee, mostly carried by the mace enchant for the build i played. Its just a shame it lasted like 12 years.

I share your opinion.

After watching the video, I think I already know what everyone will play - throwing a spear with chain lightning + HoW.

And I like the title that says "Archetype", this would be worth discussing. What is the role and place of melee combat in the game? Having found out this, we can not just say that "this is bad", but declare: "this is bad, but if you achieve this, it will become better."

Melee combat doesn't exist in real life. Destroy the enemy from a distance more effectively. It doesn't matter what makes a hole in you.

In the warhammer universe, melee combat was explained by the fact that "certain shields" do not block melee combat, and therefore melee combat is necessary. It just has more damage.

But there are too many enemies in PoE. Number of enemies - Experience - Loot -Map size - Running speed - Camera range. All these things are connected. Yes, I believe that there should be SIGNIFICANTLY fewer enemies, but I'm afraid that by offering this I'm asking for the impossible.

So what should melee combat represent?

I can stand in one place and destroy enemies at a distance of several screens around me. Why should I give up on this?
- Loot? - melee combat is more profitable
- Experience? - melee combat is more profitable
- Safety? - melee gives protection (as in Doom, where you restore resources in melee; and by the way, also in Roboquest)
- Even faster clearing speed? - I poke one with my sword, 50 foes die around.

What should compete with ranged combat?

I don't get how Blizzard can do melee and do it very well all day long yet GGG can't seem to make one right in 10 years. Every once in a while they get a single build right, but damn it's so ridiculous.

Then to say they're not going to fix the biggest problem for the weakest class? Kripparian and all the big number crunchers were very clear on how worthless armor is.

How dumb is it to add hundreds of gems and items to the game when they can't even get the most basic pillar of defense right for melee?

i got 3500 hrs in poe1 and 750 hrs in poe2.. i loved poe1 for the theory crafting and build diversity but the gameplay was never all that interesting.. poe2 i fell in love with..fighting thru the campaign was bliss.. then i got to the end game, started blowing up the screen and it was just poe1 again and i died a little inside :( lol..i love poe1 for what it is but i was really hoping for combat that felt more.. involved? from poe2 and it looked like that was what we were getting.. but 4 months later, huntress comes in and its just more poe1.. kinda sad but it is what it is i guess

"

Xenobius2501#1140 wrote:

"

Utukka#5444 wrote:

Think of D2 how fun it was with a Zeal Paladin fully surrounded just chopping away or Barbarian leaping into entire packs and whirlwinding around.

Nearly impossible with the current system.

All nodes are available to all classes, so even if they baked impressive tankiness into say, Warrior or future Marauder ascensions, nothing prevents you from taking said ascension nodes and then making a detour towards top left/top rigth, grabbing ES, minion or elemental nodes. Without restricting gear to certain classes and ascensions, you can't make a "tanky Warrior" without simultaneously allowing players to create a "tanky tactical nuke" with the benefits of both. They'd have to redesign the entire passive tree, introduce nodes that completely cripple the "screen nuke" gameplay after taking survivability nodes AND manage to preserve some choice diversity at the same time so that classes aren't one-trick ponies.

I just don't see it happening at all, not with how hard GGG is pursuing that "vision" of theirs.

I think you would have to do a mixture of things under their current system for it to work.

1) I would have strength provide more life than it currently does. Have minions/ranged/spell gems require more int/dex to help offset strength stacking ranged.
2) I would have "melee" Ascendancies buff defenses a little more. Nothing insane, just meant to contribute to being more tanky without all casters grabbing it.
3) I would attach small defense bonuses to melee damage passives and slow bump up the defensive ones that are already there.
4) Perhaps have melee skills/support gems also buff defenses as well as offense. Similar to how Frenzy worked in D2 but for defenses.

Would need to come from lots of different sources to keep build diversity.

I don't want to trigger ppl...

but srsly... how can a melee build be different than swing an axe, sword or stick a dagger?

beyond that, a fix by ppl saying would be making melee skills adds some plus def....
Also... you cant have it all, it needs to be balanced...

Would you play some immortal 10k dps character?

"

GatoPreto1718#7829 wrote:

I don't want to trigger ppl...

but srsly... how can a melee build be different than swing an axe, sword or stick a dagger?

beyond that, a fix by ppl saying would be making melee skills adds some plus def....
Also... you cant have it all, it needs to be balanced...

Would you play some immortal 10k dps character?

They can feel fairly different honestly.

Paladin vs Barbarian vs Assassin melee all felt pretty different in D2. The variance of mobility skills vs actual attacks vs charge ups vs war cries vs auras etc..

Grim Dawn did damn good as well for characters feeling different.

Diablo 4 Rogue melee vs Barbarian when I played felt quite different as well.

How you manage their defenses can make them feel very different as well such as skills like "Ground Stomp". Movement skills being huge as well.

"

Utukka#5444 wrote:

"

GatoPreto1718#7829 wrote:

I don't want to trigger ppl...

but srsly... how can a melee build be different than swing an axe, sword or stick a dagger?

beyond that, a fix by ppl saying would be making melee skills adds some plus def....
Also... you cant have it all, it needs to be balanced...

Would you play some immortal 10k dps character?

They can feel fairly different honestly.

Paladin vs Barbarian vs Assassin melee all felt pretty different in D2. The variance of mobility skills vs actual attacks vs charge ups vs war cries vs auras etc..

Grim Dawn did damn good as well for characters feeling different.

Diablo 4 Rogue melee vs Barbarian when I played felt quite different as well.

How you manage their defenses can make them feel very different as well such as skills like "Ground Stomp". Movement skills being huge as well.

GGG can't even make a simple melee defensive tool like Fortify work for melee; proper melee just isn't going to happen.
Melee is broken because you get overwhelmed too easily in melee and GGG can't figure out how to build melee defenses that ranged builds can't abuse and can't balance monster damage to make interesting encounters that last more than 0.5 seconds.