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

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MortalKombat3 написал:

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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.

Yes exactly compared to LA.

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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.

I never understood the restriction on bloodlust, its not like causing bleeding is that easy of a thing to do, as far as I know only really one GG endgame unique comes with that mod, which is atziri axe. This would also be a nice buff to the sword playstyle given the fact that the tree has a chance to bleed on the big wheel.

Its already conditional, don't see why it has to have 2 conditions or a condition and a restriction if you will.

In addition this will allow some builds to scale more on the phys side, then conversion side and better deal with things like elemental reflect.


There are other changes that could be made, melee phys damage to melee damage will help scale the elemental melee builds, but won't make that big of a difference for melee phys builds, in terms of another gem that needs adjusting, fortify is one. Currently its very lucklaster to use as a main support, despite the fact that it was considered the "fix" for melee in 2.0.



I don't like added flat physical. Like dude fucking facebreakers LOL.


Not only that it encourages fast attackspeed instead of the 2 hander playstyle which is "THE" melee build.




As for the remarks that someone said to reduce the damage ranged and spells do by 50%, that isn't really going to make melee that much better, certain ones that are in a good spot now will proportionally be that much better, but the melee splash style abilities and some of the "older" skills will still very much be niche and unused, you can't solve one problem by creating a whole lot more.


People like this game being a faster pace game, the proof can be found looking as far back as the old prolif builds. Its gotten worst to some extent with vaal skills and interactions as well as whirling blades, but it overall isn't THAT fast. If anything is too fast its the item acquisition due to rarity, which GGG is addressing a bit on the top end.

if melee is 'ok' and there is no inherent problem with its efficiency - why there are pretty much NO melee builds in top 100 of the ladders? because people are stubborn and they do not know what they are doing? or maybe because melee is shit and people that want to 'win' in this game know that and are not touching it (you can stain yourself) since like 1.0?


imagine a contest: 100k USD prize for least time ('played', so you can sleep and rest - it is not a zombie-contest) needed to reach 100.

1000 participants, 100 USD entry fee co there are no casual players starting - all competetive-mind players. do you presume that ANYONE of these 1000 would select melee character? and if so - what makes you think so? (ofc trading etc all allowed)

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Casual_Ascent написал:

Can we get a PoE forum version of this for those of us allergic to reddit? Wouldn't mind checking it out. :)

Agree. Reddit is ugly and confusing.

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Severance2hBlade написал:

Giving melee more potent defences might be slightly more important than buffing melee damage. With more efficient defences you will make room for more damage potential.

Melee is significantly more vulnerable to 1-shoots where armor does nothing. So yes.

A significant STR BASED (and. or. with counterpast to prevent ranged classes to pick it) tree-skill can fix this.

Just as example:

Epic Resilience: inmortal call activates for 2s when you recieve a hit to DEAD, but only every 120 seconds.

It can be filtered with an notable node like: Deal 10% MORE melee damage and 30% LESS ranged damage.

No matter what u do you will end up using ele dmg on melee anyways, just think about auras like hatred, or heralds.

I think bloodlust should be really modified it would be a great gem , not like now where it's totally unworthy to use.

i still think the best solution would be an added physical flat damage gem, although i agree that it would be broken with facebreaker, so it could have some restriction like " cannot use while unarmed" or something.

i will explain why:

I have been playing melee for quite long time and honestly the main issue is that 95% of melee builds scale off the weapon's flat physical damage.

Crafting is pretty much dead because of the crazy wealth gate, even in temp leagues it's actually impossible because of lack of eternals , so good rare weapons do not exist at all.

the best you get in temp leagues is like a 180-200 average damage ( like 300pdps)

now compare that to any spell, let's say a physical spell: ethereal knives lvl 20: 459–688 which is 573 average damage.

that's like crazy fucking big difference: 200 average phys damage for 15exalted, vs 600 average phys damage for FREE!!!!!!

that, added with the fact that spells have LOTS of "more multiplier" gems makes it totally unbalanced.

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tr1gg3r3d написал:

No matter what u do you will end up using ele dmg on melee anyways, just think about auras like hatred, or heralds.

I think bloodlust should be really modified it would be a great gem , not like now where it's totally unworthy to use.

i still think the best solution would be an added physical flat damage gem, although i agree that it would be broken with facebreaker, so it could have some restriction like " cannot use while unarmed" or something.

i will explain why:

I have been playing melee for quite long time and honestly the main issue is that 95% of melee builds scale off the weapon's flat physical damage.

Crafting is pretty much dead because of the crazy wealth gate, even in temp leagues it's actually impossible because of lack of eternals , so good rare weapons do not exist at all.

the best you get in temp leagues is like a 180-200 average damage ( like 300pdps)

now compare that to any spell, let's say a physical spell: ethereal knives lvl 20: 459–688 which is 573 average damage.

that's like crazy fucking big difference: 200 average phys damage for 15exalted, vs 600 average phys damage for FREE!!!!!!

that, added with the fact that spells have LOTS of "more multiplier" gems makes it totally unbalanced.

The thing is unarmed is melee as well, which is why I prefer solutions that are all inclusive, not ones that exclude specific melee playstyles.


I think flat damage is absolutely not the way to go. You mention various things that are true about phys rolls and gear, but you neglect to mention you can get flat phys on many many pieces of gear and scale at least some portion of the damage thru things like wed or the phys damage implicit (which i know in the case of the belt works with spells)

Basically just look at a facebreaker build that gets flat phys and add those all together and I bet you come close to the ability to scale in terms of spells, its just this is a cost that people in temp leagues aren't usually willing to spend.

I'd prefer a solution that allows for melee to give literally no fucks about elemental damage reflect or ways to scale just the melee phys, rather then just adding strait power. Stuff like a flat phys melee damage gem would be DETRIMENTAL to 2 handed melee builds, unless it worked differently when you are 1 handed vs 2 handed, which I don't think they've done something like this ever.


In terms of melee vs others I really dislike it when people compare the raw ranges as if they were equal, they are not. Spells are rather limited, especially physical spells on how they can be scaled outside of weapons and I guess spell damage shields. I think part of the issue is people are expecting melee to work better without the investment into the supporting cast, but the issue goes further then this.


Melee at one point actually had more advantages or at least physical attacks did, compared to now. Things like leech on gear is now not as important as you can get leech on the tree, from enchantments, from flask, from warlords. Stuff like the nerf to the rustic+whetstone recipe, all have an effect.

Still the issues with melee that have plagued the playstyle, specifically the way you actually attack mobs feels "bad" the fact that there are single target skills in this game that require SACRIFICE in order for them to actually be good, well quite frankly it stinks.

One of the statements I always find somewhat funny is the statement Chris made regarding melee in 2.0 about being "fixed" what they actually meant was every other league there will be one melee ability that is popular, but then we will nerf it.

Cyclone was fine in 2.0, it was popular but it is what melee skills should thrive to be. Something that people want to play. 2.0 nerfed the AoE of cyclone, which was fine because it required more moving to be able to clear. Then it was hit really hard in the next patch with the "single target" thing. Which you CAN mitigate but requires either an insane weapon (like atziri axe) or requires you to "cheese" it by never stopping in the first place, using mechanics like reverse knockback and flask to pull the mob with you to continue to damage it.

But even before that we saw icecrash was popular in the beta, there isn't a single skill that was popular in beta that wasn't either nerfed to irrelevance in beta or the next patch after 2.0.

Just think about it, split arrow, ice crash, cyclone, ball lightning, and likely a bunch more were "knee jerk" reactions from GGG to nerf what was good. I feel like the beta testing results simply "proved" that having a beta test without "forcing" people to play other skills just shows what people believe is good and the rest of the skills are "somewhat" left behind.

Thats not to say other stuff wasn't good, I'm sure they were but even things like the latern bearer things were nerfed, the revenents or whatever were nerfed as well, but I feel that one was more for the benefit of the player then to just nerf summoners.


I feel like this game has went from pushing creativity and cool design into how fast can I reach the finish line. I'm not sure how you really fix that by just nerfing the meta skills league after league or if its an issue that needs to be fixed, its more of just a statement about the state of the game. I've recently talked with one of the devs regarding a mechanic that I thought should or would be possible but isn't and I'm very happy that despite this being the crunch week he took some time to talk with me about the balance and design reasoning for it. This gives me hope looking forward as does the general idea that GGG follows what is best for the game overall.

Still melee needs some love ultimately, lets see if people have more ideas to contribute.

Short-range versus long-range balance in this game is a completely lost cause. Absolutely everything short-range can do - and virtually everything it could do - either doesn't matter or long-range can do it better. If short-range versus long-range balance is a deal-breaker for you, your only viable option is to wait out this game's life cycle, hope there is a sequel, and hope it doesn't fuck it up.

I would have thought fixing desync was a lost cause. We'll just have to wait and see if the care factor is even there for GGG.
Outlook very far from promising :'(

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ScrotieMcB написал:

Short-range versus long-range balance in this game is a completely lost cause. Absolutely everything short-range can do - and virtually everything it could do - either doesn't matter or long-range can do it better. If short-range versus long-range balance is a deal-breaker for you, your only viable option is to wait out this game's life cycle, hope there is a sequel, and hope it doesn't fuck it up.

Short-range can do things that long range can only dream of. Short range has some of the most immense DPS in existence. Short range has fantastic mobility, and amazing sustain. It also has max block.

Long range can do that with wands, maybe, and it'll be clunky and immobile. Meanwhile, whirling vortex/coc discharge.

So far, the only thing that melee apologists have maybe a decent point on is that it's hard as hell to get a good weapon.

Want to know why melee caster is so much more playable than melee attacker?

Because you don't need a god-tier caster dagger to actually play a caster build, and because spell damage weapon modifiers are global, rather than local in nature.

You have a spell dagger that leaves something to be desired? Don't worry, it's barely any skin off your back.

You have a shitty weapon as an attacker? GTFO.

And no, the game should not be balanced so that the only way to enjoy yourself is to have a mirror-worthy weapon and leave everyone else hating the game. However, that doesn't change the fact that attack builds are far more dependent on needing far more out of a specific slot of gear, one which will get exponentially more expensive as more pieces align in just the right fashion.

It's the reason why so many people played sorcs, necros, and later paladins in Diablo 2. It was the old joke "oh hey, you can solo hell naked". The same sort of concept applies here. Local vs. global.