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

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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.

More damage supports are an issue often, but even melee builds, that can use powerful supports, can be slow and clunky.
The main issue there is that melee skills have by far shorter range and smaller AoE, than ranged skills. So even when melee skill do around the same DPS, they are far inferior, because their range and AoE are much smaller.
Certain latest "melee" skills (Earthquake & Sunder namely) can actually compete with ranged skills, others just should be brought in-line with them. For example, Sweep and Earthquake are almost similar, except Earthquake deals 2-3 times more DPS.
I like Earthquake, and its mechanics perfectly fits my Slayer build (not just raw power), but i'd like to see other melee skills buffed, so they can compete with it.

Double-dip is the problem too, which makes (already top-tier) ranged build even more powerful. I remember times, where PoE didnt have this double-dipping shit. Then, in one patch, GGG announced "improvements" to ignite, which is fact started an era of double-dipping. Even then, with non-stacking Ignite, certain OP builds (Flameblast namely) started dominating PoE.
And implementing STACKING poison was the most dumb feature GGG ever made since that time! I just wonder, if they are really SO BAD with math, that they couldnt predict OPness of that shit?

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Tin_Foil_Hat написал:

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sidtherat написал:

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IlyaK1986 написал:

Suck it up, and play Earthquake (a better semi-RANGED build).

FTFY

Double fixed.

Triple-fixed.
Although Earthquake kills from range, at least, it cant offscreen enemies, like many "true ranged skills" like LA.

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Tin_Foil_Hat написал:

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sidtherat написал:

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IlyaK1986 написал:

Suck it up, and play Earthquake (a better RANGED build).

FTFY

Double fixed.

See, now you're just twisting things.

I'm asking you, for a clear description of what you mean "melee". Yes, I'm deliberately rules lawyering you to show you that what you're whining about is a collection of outdated and bad skills that, should they have been completely removed from the game, would basically change nothing.

So, again:

Melee tag + dependent on weapon: Earthquake, Sunder, Reave, Ground Slam, Lightning Strike, Flicker (aka Oro Flicker/Hyaon's Flicker).

Close-range playstyle: CoC cyclone, Blade Vortex.

Apparently, neither of the above are sufficiently melee for you. I linked you to a guide whose one point was to say "hey, melee can get absurd damage scaling also", and the point was that with a fraction of that, you could have a lot more defense and have a more balanced build.

All I've seen from you is ad-hominem attacks, and very few proposals from anyone besides "nerf everything until namelocking melee has a place in the game!", which just isn't happening.

Conc effect was released deliberately so that AoE casters had a way to do single-target damage. So was blast rain. Frost wall + pierce with lightning arrow and kinetic blast exist for that purpose also.

And here's the thing...

Even if you somehow made the old namelocking skills be competitive for trash clear by offering them away to clear trash, say, by giving melee splash a larger radius and an even bigger damage penalty, odds are, people would still cry, because "oh, now every melee skill is Earthquake".

It honestly sounds like ARPGs just aren't the game-type for you. If you want every encounter to be a challenging fight that requires top-tier single-target damage, you should probably go and play Dark Souls or some other different game type altogether.

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MortalKombat3 написал:

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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.

More damage supports are an issue often, but even melee builds, that can use powerful supports, can be slow and clunky.
The main issue there is that melee skills have by far shorter range and smaller AoE, than ranged skills. So even when melee skill do around the same DPS, they are far inferior, because their range and AoE are much smaller.
Certain latest "melee" skills (Earthquake & Sunder namely) can actually compete with ranged skills, others just should be brought in-line with them. For example, Sweep and Earthquake are almost similar, except Earthquake deals 2-3 times more DPS.
I like Earthquake, and its mechanics perfectly fits my Slayer build (not just raw power), but i'd like to see other melee skills buffed, so they can compete with it.

Double-dip is the problem too, which makes (already top-tier) ranged build even more powerful. I remember times, where PoE didnt have this double-dipping shit. Then, in one patch, GGG announced "improvements" to ignite, which is fact started an era of double-dipping. Even then, with non-stacking Ignite, certain OP builds (Flameblast namely) started dominating PoE.
And implementing STACKING poison was the most dumb feature GGG ever made since that time! I just wonder, if they are really SO BAD with math, that they couldnt predict OPness of that shit?

Although Earthquake kills from range, at least, it cant offscreen enemies, like many "true ranged skills" like LA.

Okay, so people are complaining that melee has shorter range and AoE, and when someone says "so play earthquake", they say "but that's semi-ranged".

So where do we draw the line? At what point is melee still melee and at what point is it "semi-ranged"?

Diablo 2 was always about AoE clear. The only reason that single-target boss-killing melee builds (EG smiters, frenzy barbs, kicksins), with all their fancy runewords (breath of the dying, last wish, beast, grief, etc.) even had a place (remotely) in the game was that you had Uber Diablo and Uber Tristram, who dropped Annihilus and Hellfire Torch gems, respectively, and couldn't just be mechanics-cheesed (ahem, bladefall miners vs. Uber Atziri). Furthermore, the reward from the fight was very good, and the difficulty of the fight came not from simply obtaining the parts (run keys, get guaranteed organ drops, get to uber tristram), but because the fight, in and of itself, was hard as hell, and required a dedicated build.

If melee (aka not EQ melee, but "attack the monster with melee skills") is to have a place in this game, the reward structure from killing bosses needs to be vastly improved. As it currently stands, killing bosses just isn't rewarding. Oh, you cleared twinned core? Here's a pile of utter trash rares.

Imagine, for a second, that every ilvl 83 rare sold for 1 chaos identified or 2 chaos unidentified. Doesn't matter what it is. I think you'd have a lot more builds dedicated to farming wealth by killing tough mobs that way.

Still, it'd simply mean that pseudo-melee skills would still be competitive with actual melee skills, and some people here don't want that, either.

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IlyaK1986 написал:

If melee (aka not EQ melee, but "attack the monster with melee skills") is to have a place in this game, the reward structure from killing bosses needs to be vastly improved. As it currently stands, killing bosses just isn't rewarding. Oh, you cleared twinned core? Here's a pile of utter trash rares.

I agree on that completely, there is too small reward for killing bosses, and many boss encounters still favour AoE. Also, certain AoE skills just out-perform single-target ones (aka Blast Rain outperforms burning arrow, etc), and that shouldnt be, if you want to have some sort of balance!

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MortalKombat3 написал:

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IlyaK1986 написал:

If melee (aka not EQ melee, but "attack the monster with melee skills") is to have a place in this game, the reward structure from killing bosses needs to be vastly improved. As it currently stands, killing bosses just isn't rewarding. Oh, you cleared twinned core? Here's a pile of utter trash rares.

I agree on that completely, there is too small reward for killing bosses, and many boss encounters still favour AoE. Also, certain AoE skills just out-perform single-target ones (aka Blast Rain outperforms burning arrow, etc), and that shouldnt be, if you want to have some sort of balance!

Blast rain is pretty terrible as far as AoE goes, though. It's a single-target skill you can scale with conc effect, more or less.

Also not sure how many boss encounters "favor" AoE so much as some AoE is essential (Atziri's heal phase).

You think melee is bad ? Play a Spectre / Zombie summoner for a week and come back here lol .

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IlyaK1986 написал:

Blast rain is pretty terrible as far as AoE goes, though. It's a single-target skill you can scale with conc effect, more or less.

Terrible compared to what? To LA, that can clear packs 2 screens away due to overlap from many hits?
Blast Rain is a good AoE skill.
It just doesnt fit well into current "powercreep" meta, where you face hundreds of low-HP mobs against you all the time, and want to kill them offscreen if possible.
If it's a single-target skill, it shouldnt have any AoE at all.

solution is very easy:

remove " cannot cause bleeding" from bloodlust.
modify " melee physical damage " to " melee damage"
same for melee on full life.

OR
introduce " Added physical damage " like 200-350 physical flat damage to melee attacks"

Problem solved. melee is more than viable again.

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tr1gg3r3d написал:

solution is very easy:

remove " cannot cause bleeding" from bloodlust.
modify " melee physical damage " to " melee damage"
same for melee on full life.

OR
introduce " Added physical damage " like 200-350 physical flat damage to melee attacks"

Problem solved. melee is more than viable again.

Nope - it just takes the MORE DAMAŻE Supports cancer to the melee. It doesn't solve any problems. :V

Yes, melee will be viable, but it will be as binary as any range is - you either take 5 moer damaże, or do no damage.
This is boring, power-creep meta, I'd love to see gone - not developed further.

Also, forcing melee to always use elemental damage is not a good move - why does Marauder/Duelist, who wants to have zero connections to elemental/spell/magic damage, has to take Add Fire, WED, and other MORE DAMAŻE crap? Because this what such changes would lead to.

We need less of those gems, and more gems that are utility/mechanics - GMP, LMP, Pierce, Burns/Shocks/Freeze, Stun, AoE, Chain, Proliferation, Onslaught, Charges, Leech, Regeneration, Curses, Multistrike (altho this one falls a little into DPS category, it has its drawback - hitting random monsters), damage conversion (without huge bonuses, only for sake of conversion).
We have so many mechanics to chose from, yet all those MORE DAMAŻE bricks flattens the game to the most basic - big DPS numbers.

Because, when you think about it, melee is not the only one affected - summoners got hit by those gems too (or more precisely, lack of their own gems). Yes, you can fuck around with elemental hitting specters, that use spells, but this only shows that there is a problem, as you cannot do anything that can do well, if you cannot make use of the MOAR gems.

To me, it shows kind of similarity to Path of Life Nodes problem - wild scaling. If you weren't focusing your build around getting shitton of Life Nodes, you were fucked. When they softened the curve a little bit, by adding more base life, you still CAN get a lot of life, just like you used to, but you can spend a lot less, and still get decent amounts, meaning there is a real choice now.
Same goes here - more damage gems scale soooooo000o0o0o0o0 goddamn wildly, that there is never a consideration of not takin them. You either take them, or you're fucked.
Not sure if similar way of solving it would help, tho, as melee still has too little choice, and many other problems.

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IlyaK1986 написал:

Your bias is showing.

Pray tell, what bias? I am honestly baffled at what "bias" you assume I have. Is it to a specific class or playstyle? (which'd be baffling given I've done pretty much everything save for Cast on Cancer, which I won't touch out of principle)

Also, it is ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS to quote a massive, thought-out post in its entirety so that you can reply with just a couple of brief one-line retorts. I think everyone would appreciate it if you'd learn about trimming a quoted post to just the relevant parts.

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IlyaK1986 написал:

"Are enemies kiteable?" Ah yes, so kill the ones that you can kite, but when you can't kite them, because their arena is tiny and their techniques cover huge chunks of it, what then? You're screwed.

And how many arenas are tiny enough that kiting is impossible in? None that matter. A few map bosses are in rooms small enough you can't just kite them around, and those maps, coincidentally, are frequently skipped. (Pit, Dungeon, Graveyard, etc.)

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IlyaK1986 написал:

"Does the enemy do spike damage? Then get enough defense to survive one hit and leech back up!" Far easier said than done. I believe Malachai's traps do something around 6k damage? I wonder how your squishy archer will handle one Core Malachai, let alone two. Hey, she can survive a one-shot, correct?

It's easily enough done. Enough that it is a fundamental basic part of learning to play the endgame.

And my squishy archer? She handles it just fine. Core Malachai's fire traps? They do 4156-6234 fire damage; notice I said FIRE, which means resists apply to reduce that.

She doesn't die because her 4k life (with pretty much no direct mitigation behind it) is enough to soak a single hit, and she has (currently) some 35k evasion and 66% dodge/spell dodge. She gets hit so infrequently that she has plenty of time to leech and/or flask.

And if you can't do enough DPS to leech back to full in a couple of seconds, then there's something fatally wrong with your build, and it might be time to reroll.

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IlyaK1986 написал:

Enemies reflect damage? Okay, physical? Equip a physical to lightning gem. Or block it. Or laugh at it with armor. If you're still paranoid, equip hrimsorrow gloves. There. You cut reflect by 75%, and you can leech/block/armor the rest. Don't need chaos at all.

A LOT of melee builds already do chiefly elemental damage... Simply because the gems make it THAT much more favorable to not deal pure physical for ANYTHING. (as I notice you've tossed added fire damage on both your bladefall and EK builds)

To say nothing of how the bulk of attacks convert some to elemental, anyway. WED mods and the WED gem ensure that maximizing DPS on your attacks pretty much guarantees you'll be dealing chiefly elemental damage.

And sure, "there's resists!" but do the math: on red-tier maps reflect 18% of damage. And how much resistances should you be expected to have? 75%. (just telling everyone to go low-life so they can run buffed purity auras just isn't gonna cut it) That means you're taking 4.5% of the damage back after your resists... When typically you'll leech 2%. That means you're degenning from attacking faster than the rate you'd normally recover from leeching in a NON-reflect map!

I mean, seriously, have you asked around AT ALL why people recommend chaos damage builds? Have you not paid ANY ATTENTION to all the map rotations advertised that always say "NO REFLECT"?

No one's gonna buy your argument that reflect isn't a big deal.

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IlyaK1986 написал:

Success is getting the most loot/exp per hour? Is it? What are you farming that loot and exp for? To do what? To stroke your epeen? To show off your level 100? Whoopty doo, you have a level 100 glass vacuum cleaner that splatters when it's stuck in a small room with anything that can fight back. Want a cookie? Can't speak for you, but for me, success is killing the toughest enemies in the game. Twin core, hall of grandmasters, atziri, vaal temple, etc.

And how do you kill the toughest enemies? By:

• Getting to the highest levels and getting the best gear (better farm that quick)
• Killing the boss before they can have a chance to reach you. Quicker clears bypass a LOT of mechanics. If a boss is dead, it can't harm you.

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IlyaK1986 написал:

Here's the thing--range is more survivable in many cases--but in those few cases that will prove lethal to a ranger, a max block character can survive it very feasibly.

And in most of the cases that rangers handle that stuff fine? That's completely out of the question for a blocking melee to handle. I would know because I have one of those. (and managed, somehow, to get him to level 91)