patch 11.0 and melee

DS/Cyclone duelist here. Yes, the patch increased my dps by a bit, but did not help at all for survivability. In fact certain map affixes seem more difficult post patch (such as extra elemental damage, due to reduced max resists I suppose?). I thought this patch was supposed to make melee more on par with ranged in terms of survivability, but my ranged witch still facerolls almost every map affix while my duelist still has essentially the same problems he had before.

Very disappointed with this patch so far. Melee still suck.

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twilothunder0 wrote:

DS/Cyclone duelist here. Yes, the patch increased my dps by a bit, but did not help at all for survivability. In fact certain map affixes seem more difficult post patch (such as extra elemental damage, due to reduced max resists I suppose?). I thought this patch was supposed to make melee more on par with ranged in terms of survivability, but my ranged witch still facerolls almost every map affix while my duelist still has essentially the same problems he had before.

Very disappointed with this patch so far. Melee still suck.

Your dps is a part of your suvivability. Kill them fast enough (also stun works wonderfully) to keep them from damaging you.

Ranged will always have higher survivability than melee, due to the ability to physically "dodge" attacks by avoiding projectiles/AoE effects.

The important question is: who has fastest clear speed given optimal play? (I.e. you don't die to bad reflexes as melee).

I'll consider updating POE tonight,Starting a new Leap Slam/Heavey Strike (optional shield charge) build from scratch (not twinked) and see how it performs.

I'll pretty much know by normal piety if I want to continue into later difficulties with these changes.

Or.....I'll continue to wait for custom leagues with no item drop/trade rules. lol

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mazul wrote:

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twilothunder0 wrote:

DS/Cyclone duelist here. Yes, the patch increased my dps by a bit, but did not help at all for survivability. In fact certain map affixes seem more difficult post patch (such as extra elemental damage, due to reduced max resists I suppose?). I thought this patch was supposed to make melee more on par with ranged in terms of survivability, but my ranged witch still facerolls almost every map affix while my duelist still has essentially the same problems he had before.

Very disappointed with this patch so far. Melee still suck.

Your dps is a part of your suvivability. Kill them fast enough (also stun works wonderfully) to keep them from damaging you.

Ranged will always have higher survivability than melee, due to the ability to physically "dodge" attacks by avoiding projectiles/AoE effects.

The important question is: who has fastest clear speed given optimal play? (I.e. you don't die to bad reflexes as melee).

Don't kill em too fast ...if your eyesight is as bad as mine you could easily end up wtfpwning yourself on reflect. lol

Mazul you have obvious lack of information about mechanics of this game.
Ranged survive better not because of evading hits,but because less likely to be hit in general,and not only.There is a huge topic about that.
Clearing speed means nothing for a melee surrounded by screen of mobs.Survivability does it all,but there wasn't and still isn't survivability.Melee never lacked on dmg,even before that ridiculous patch.
What I see now is that pure melee is terribly unplayable.It went from bad to worse.And now I feel bad about pure eva/dodge melee players,they may just delete their characters asap.

I had made 2 melee characters when I first started, one was a 1hander/board tank char, his dps is too low and I cant really kill anything decently with him so I shelved him, nothing changed here no suprise.

But to my defence, I thought merciless games would have public games. I made him with group partying in maps in mind. All the public games in merciless are littered by "WTS or WTB" traders and currency sellers that dont use the trade chat or forums to sell their gear.

Did not expect for there to be 0 public games in merciless and 30 games of sellers.

The other was 2hander physical damage, first build was crit (no resolute); simply not enough skill points to go around for him for accuracy, crit, defense, hp etc, I did not have best in slot gear. You can try if you're super rich and can afford the best items for a physical damage melee crit build.

I respecced out, got resolute technique, and saved alot of SP that didnt need accuracy after respec.

But the problem I found after that was survivability and being regulated to 2handed maces only. Ground slam doesnt work with 2h axes or swords, you have to use a totem to aoe dps if you want, or int spells and dump decoy totem. With so many mobs in merc, you topple over in 2 seconds without distractions like a decoy.


My other issue was melee splash gem and desync. Melee splash gem isnt a true "aoe", it just splash damages the mobs in front of your char, not at the side of your char, or behind.

Coupled with desync, you really feel desync as a melee char having to click on a mob and run to it to do damage, you are usually hitting nothing. Which means no splash damage being done, no leech being done, and the mob you clicked might not be there. OR, the mob you clicked decided to run around the huge mob pack, and you are chasing one white mob around 20 mobs getting hit with no damage being done. Mobs try to surround you to cover all your hit boxes, if the mob you clicked cant get to you because of another mob, it winds up running around in circles to get to your hitbox. If you clicked on one of the mobs that couldnt get to your hitbox, you will be chasing it in circles initially while you are getting hit, expecting to leech and splash damage but you do nothing. Some mobs just naturally hit you once, and run away half a screen.

I would like my melee char if melee splash gem was a true aoe gem that splashed around your character, to the sides of him and behind. I would like it if even if you miss or hit an area where mob isnt there (desync), you still do melee splash damage. Would like it if you could ground slam with 2h axes and swords and not be stuck with mace. You are not a weapons expert if you go melee physical damage, there are no "barbarians" in this game that are masters of 2handed weaponry. You need to spec into axes/swords/maces and "pick" your weapon, unlike wands, spell damage, bows, and ranged users.

My 2 cents.

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torturo wrote:

Mazul you have obvious lack of information about mechanics of this game.
Ranged survive better not because of evading hits,but because less likely to be hit,and not only.There is a huge topic about that.
Clearing speed means nothing for a melee surrounded by screen of mobs.Survivability does it all,but there wasn't and still isn't survivability.Melee never lacked on dmg,even before that ridiculous patch.
What I see now is that pure melee is terribly unplayable.It went from bad to worse.And now I feel bad about pure eva/dodge melee players,they may just delete their characters asap.

Many physical-based melee builds lacked damage compared to the top dps builds in the game. You need to break 30k AoE dps with good gear before you can state they didn't lack damage.

The only two melee builds which were able to dps properly was Ele-Cleave and super-geared Physical-cleave. Physical cleave got buffed along with a bunch of other physical builds, that's great. Ele cleave got nerfed: that's ok too.


I've played ele cleave until lv81 solo and in group, all map mods and all maps up to lv74. I've died many times and most of the times it was either to not playing skilled enough or lag when I play on my older computer (yes I have several computers and no they are not at same location). Several desync deaths as well, but those have decreased to being non-existent the more experienced I get to get a spider sense for desync.

It can go several days without dying and there are days when I faceroll even the hardest of mods without any effort. Naturally I've learnt: to not play when I am tired unless I want to risk dying and to be focused on playing and not being distracted by other things.

The only death I have trouble avoiding without lowering my clearing speed signficantely is the 6+ blue mobs flicker striking you at same time. There are of course ways to handle that: set decoy totem, then kill them very quickly with your dps before totem dies.

All other mods and mobs are doable unless you for some reason play badly.

For instance to deal with pack of projectile-shooters: pop quicksalver flask to easily avoid 99% of the shots and then flank them from the side. With high enough damage, you'll easily either kill them or permastun them. If the archers have some form of attack speed buff, then use granite flask. This works even if the map has "+99% elemental damage" mod and "-% magic resist" mod.

high life RF got nerfed hard

i think high life RF build need a buff, not a big nerf that can make it useless, why?
because this build was already unpopular build compared to LA ranger, FP, low life RF, ROA, ground slam marauder, dual totem spark, dual totem ice spear, ele cleave, EB templar, LS CI/templar, and other build that we know are very popluar, and why is high life RF unpopular?

1.u need rise of the phoenix shield, all regen node + elemntal adaptation, and lv 20 purity + vitality to sustain RF without losing life, and achieving lv 20 purity is not easy, u must be lv 80+ to make it lv 20

2.high life RF build have a high risk like all other melee build, because RF ring of fire without inc.aoe support gem is really tiny, so u must always face to face with monster in order to kill them

3.high life RF user can killed instantly when enemy cast curse like flammibility or elemntal weakness

4.RF gem cant be linked with other support gem EXCEPT inc. area of effect, just that one support gem only, this make it less powerfull compared to other skill gem, especially when u want to farm rarity, because IIR and IIQ gem also not work with RF

5.inc burning damage from gem or passive node do increase ur RF damage, but it will also increase the damage U TAKE per second

6.early game before u can maintain RF, u must popping ruby flask all the time in order to survive

7.late game when u have rise of the phoenix, all regen node and EA, and lv20 purity+vitality, finally u can sustain RF, even when all of that is done, high life RF DPS is LOW compared to other build, because its do damage based on 50% of ur max LIFE, so example u have 5k life at lv 80, so u just do 2.5k damage MAX, because u must also calculate enemy fire resist, so if enemy have 50% fire resist, u just do 1.25k DPS, that is REALLY LOW compared to other build at that level

8.thats why its really needed RF to be always-on skill, because if its not (like before rise of phoenix is introduced), high life RF build must struggle when PARTY because they NEED to kill in order to sustain the "popping ruby flask ritual", but that was not an easy task because RF DPS is LOW compared to other build, its become worsen with upcoming new patch that nerfing life node and EA, if that nerf was really happen, high life RF build is officially dead because they must do that popping ruby flask ritual again, this time its harder because lower life mean lower survivability and lower damage

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grubworm wrote:

This patch was no help to melee. It hurt melee with the less life nerf.
Did you even test this with a melee build? Was hoping to try the new league with a melee build but not going to happen.
I had hopes but very let down.

So you are telling me you alrdy tested a malee build with the new patch ?

Seems legit.

Mazul , I got your point.Btw I already have a high lvl phys cleaver and I know the pros and cons,I know how to control it.What I say is that problem with survivability remains and what is worse,it deepens.What I say I'd already tested it ingame and may state that this character is almost unplayable now,even though dps raised to the skies.
What this patch brought is pain in the ass and nothing creative.I don't know why they even implemented it.It's a joke.They could just keep it as it is,reworking AR/eva formulas and slightly lowering rhoa and shield charge bursts,and mby a bit dmg of all monsters in general,that was absolutely enough.
I am starting to wonder if devs play their own game at all.