Melee Balance. With 600 upvotes, I think this deserves a little attention from GGG

• Are enemies kiteable? Take ranged and never get hit.
• Enemies do massive damage spikes? Only bother with enough defense to survive ONE hit, then use massive leech/insta-heal flasks to simply refill before the next hit.
• Enemies reflect damage? Simply go chaos damage.
• Success is getting the most loot/EXP per hour? Best go AoE and massive hits to clear as fast as possible.

• In melee range, you're not able to kite ANYTHING, so you're going to be taking hits.
• Damage spikes are gonna be bigger because when you get hit, it's going to be from more sources, and with less time in-between.
• Melee doesn't have a truly viable and accessible chaos damage option; you're going to be doing reflectable damage. The best you can manage is to be pure physical, and build lots of armour and leech to counter it.
• Melee skills tend to very consistently be the slowest-clearing. Even with Multistrike, a lot of basic melee skills will hit... 3 targets per use, and melee splash won't give them that much radius. Meanwhile any projectile hits FIVE targets with GMP, (and GMP's quality gives it +10% attack/cast speed...) and worse off... Melee often has poor access to crit, too, unless you're just going for CoC.

• Bow Skills: 10-1 multi-single. (Barrage, Blast Rain, Caustic Arrow, Explosive Arrow, Ice Shot, Lightning Arrow, Rain of Arrows, Shrapnel Shot, Split Arrow, Tornado Shot, vs... Burning Arrow.)
• Melee Skills: 17-7 (Cleave, Cyclone, Double Strike, Earthquake, Frost Blades, Ground Slam, Ice Crash, Infernal Blow, Leap Slam, Lightning Strike, Molten Strike, Reave, Shield Charge, Static Strike, Sunder, Sweep, Wild Strike vs. Dual Strike, Dominating Blow, Flicker Strike, Glacial Hammer, Heavy Strike, Vigilant Strike, and Viper Strike.)
• Spells: 32-1 (Arc, Arctic Breath, Ball Lightning, Blade Vortex, Bladefall, Cold Snap, Contagion, Desecrate, Discharge, Ethereal Knives, Fireball, Firestorm, Flame Surge, Flameblast, Freezing Pulse, Frost Bomb, Frost Wall, Frostbolt, Glacial Cascade, Ice Nova, Ice Spear, Incinerate, Lightning Tendrils, Magma Orb, Molten Shell, Orb of Storms, Righteous Fire, Shock Nova, Spark, Storm Call, Vortex, Wither, vs... Just Essence Drain)

"

ACGIFT написал:

Yeah, the core issue is that, well... Because the game gives the best results for taking the "easy" route, it is, in effect, PUNISHING players for not taking it. That pretty much describes what creates EVERY single meta this game has ever had:

• Are enemies kiteable? Take ranged and never get hit.
• Enemies do massive damage spikes? Only bother with enough defense to survive ONE hit, then use massive leech/insta-heal flasks to simply refill before the next hit.
• Enemies reflect damage? Simply go chaos damage.
• Success is getting the most loot/EXP per hour? Best go AoE and massive hits to clear as fast as possible.

The list is almost countless, but that highlights a few core ones. Melee falls short on pretty much all fronts, though:

• In melee range, you're not able to kite ANYTHING, so you're going to be taking hits.
• Damage spikes are gonna be bigger because when you get hit, it's going to be from more sources, and with less time in-between.
• Melee doesn't have a truly viable and accessible chaos damage option; you're going to be doing reflectable damage. The best you can manage is to be pure physical, and build lots of armour and leech to counter it.
• Melee skills tend to very consistently be the slowest-clearing. Even with Multistrike, a lot of basic melee skills will hit... 3 targets per use, and melee splash won't give them that much radius. Meanwhile any projectile hits FIVE targets with GMP, (and GMP's quality gives it +10% attack/cast speed...) and worse off... Melee often has poor access to crit, too, unless you're just going for CoC.

Those damage/clearing problems are actually very widespread, yes. Most OTHER games that try balancing it usually give melee the advantage of having the AoE, while ranged is often limited to a single target per hit. Yet, bizarrely, in PoE it's just the opposite: you have Glacial Hammer vs. Tornado Shot or Spark or Lightning Arrow.

Actually, let's take a look at it... I'll split it into "Bow skills," "Melee Skills" and "Spells," to compare just how many are "single-hit" vs. "inherently multi-hit." (I'll leave out Elemental Hit, Frenzy, and Puncture; as those are usable close to universally between melee and ranged, as well as Totem, movement, and trap/mine skills)

• Bow Skills: 10-1 multi-single. (Barrage, Blast Rain, Caustic Arrow, Explosive Arrow, Ice Shot, Lightning Arrow, Rain of Arrows, Shrapnel Shot, Split Arrow, Tornado Shot, vs... Burning Arrow.)
• Melee Skills: 17-7 (Cleave, Cyclone, Double Strike, Earthquake, Frost Blades, Ground Slam, Ice Crash, Infernal Blow, Leap Slam, Lightning Strike, Molten Strike, Reave, Shield Charge, Static Strike, Sunder, Sweep, Wild Strike vs. Dual Strike, Dominating Blow, Flicker Strike, Glacial Hammer, Heavy Strike, Vigilant Strike, and Viper Strike.)
• Spells: 32-1 (Arc, Arctic Breath, Ball Lightning, Blade Vortex, Bladefall, Cold Snap, Contagion, Desecrate, Discharge, Ethereal Knives, Fireball, Firestorm, Flame Surge, Flameblast, Freezing Pulse, Frost Bomb, Frost Wall, Frostbolt, Glacial Cascade, Ice Nova, Ice Spear, Incinerate, Lightning Tendrils, Magma Orb, Molten Shell, Orb of Storms, Righteous Fire, Shock Nova, Spark, Storm Call, Vortex, Wither, vs... Just Essence Drain)

That actually makes it pretty clear that, while AoE and multi-hit are the overall focus, I DID have to stretch a bit more on the "multi-hit" melees, counting things like double-strike (which just splits its hits between TWO targets) and Infernal Blow. (which only hits other targets AFTER the death of the first) And a lot of the range is a lot weaker, too.

"

Aim_Deep написал:

The Main problem with melee is just like channel casters (e.g. lame surge or freeze pulse) is you cant DPS on the move but its even worse because its at close range. The most successful builds do DPS on the move.

Whether traps you lay out and move from danger.
Range you shoot and move (kite).
Cast/shoot and move and DOT effects take place while moving like Essence drain orPA.
Summoners of all types who move while minions/totems do work.
etc.

The other 10% of builds do enormous DPS and instant leech through all damage incoming. CoC/mjolnir Discharges, VMS, mirror weapon melee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWARpUTydyQ

Most Melee (and channel casters) do not do enough DPS to do the later.

The problem I have with just buffing melee is its fine relative to content. As video shows uber is possible with good gear. It's not fine relative to spells/range. Thats a different issue.

"

Perq написал:

Yup. I wrote it in there, and I'll wrote it here again - I think the main problem is amount of MORE DAMAGE supports. It is not longer about playing with mechanics - its about stacking damage. And when one type of builds can stack more of those, you need to balance the game around it, meaning everything else will be left in the cold. :V

Solution: Rework new MORE DAMAGE supports, so they are mechanics based and not simply DPS boosters, and balance the game accordingly.

"

IlyaK1986 написал:

"

Aim_Deep написал:

The Main problem with melee is just like channel casters (e.g. lame surge or freeze pulse) is you cant DPS on the move but its even worse because its at close range. The most successful builds do DPS on the move.

Whether traps you lay out and move from danger.
Range you shoot and move (kite).
Cast/shoot and move and DOT effects take place while moving like Essence drain orPA.
Summoners of all types who move while minions/totems do work.
etc.

The other 10% of builds do enormous DPS and instant leech through all damage incoming. CoC/mjolnir Discharges, VMS, mirror weapon melee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWARpUTydyQ

Most Melee (and channel casters) do not do enough DPS to do the later.

The problem I have with just buffing melee is its fine relative to content. As video shows uber is possible with good gear. It's not fine relative to spells/range. Thats a different issue.

Except you're stationary when laying traps. You're stationary when you're shooting.

You can also DPS on the move with Cyclone. You can DPS on the move with earthquake. You can kite with reave. Sounds like you're just using bad skills. After all, there's a reason archers don't use burning arrow.