The Litany of reasons that Melee sucks

Settle in or tune out, this is long, this represents a laundry list of frustrations about melee as a recent player to POE, a core gamer who started before Diablo 1 and played and seen it all, ARPG's FPS's MMO's Action, Strat, 4X games, Wargaming, you name it I'll tell you a classic from that sub genre I've played to death. So this is just another opinion yes, and probably the millionth Melee rant on this forum I'm going to guess. However I'd like to think I've got some background to lend it some gravity. So with that said GOGOGO...


The Litany of reasons that Melee sucks:
.) ES is far more effective mitigation for big boss hits than Armor or life
.) ES is far more abundant than life but far lower opportunity cost for non melee archetypes far MORE expensive to get for a Marauder or Duelist.
.) Armor is nearly useless against bosses, when you can one shot trash mobs this means armor is a bad opportunity cost
.) Melee have much lower effective DPS because:
* they must close the distance between them and the target while doing so = zero DPS
* Thrown weapons have identical base damage to a swung weapon
* Thrown weapons can have multiple copies and hit multiple times
* Bows can have similar base damage to a melee weapon
* Bows can have 6l and ALSO a quiver in the off hand
** Bosses one shot mechanics dictate runing away from the boss if you're Melee
** Bosses one shot mechanics do not force ranged to run away they are already away
** Bosses one shot mechanics do not force ranged to get close
*** ranged can "off screen" kill Bosses and reflect mobs Melee can never do this
**** many AOE skills have HIGHER base damage than melee weapons using single target skills this is a pretty huge design gaff
.) CI is WAY far away from Melee, but Zealots oath and Vaal Pact which are nice and close by ES all your ES shopping needs are nice and affordable for non melee's and nice and expensive for melee.
.) Life is nearly as abundant for Witch/Shadow as Duelist/Marauder making them more survivable as hybrids and arguably better choices for "melee" (if we loosely call BV Melee)
.) name lock is like having one hand tied behind your back because:
* you follow or auto-run back to the boss if you are thrown or moved. this is usually fatal (see: Izaro traps phase 3 being thrown into)
* you have to "break" the current cycle of animation to be able to do anything (heal, move) this is far more unforgiving in melee range than ranged, this is usually fatal
* you auto-run INTO projectiles the boss throws, when they teleport away, unless you instantly break away and the game keeps up with your input, this is usually fatal a Ranged character is never in the face of this boss has super fast animations that allow avoiding, and never need to run back to the boss
***** Particle spam in this game makes most bosses a nightmare to click on unless you HOLD THE BUTTON DOWN, doing so is usually fatal
.) melee is a solo only playstyle (due to the above but also many other reasons like running up to kill mobs that just got ranged to death while you were moving)
.) single target melee skills are woefully under powered when you compensate for "running back to the boss after avoiding the big hit" that ranged skills don't need to do in the first place.
.) Melee can not "off screen" mobs from perfect safety (hint make all off screen mobs immune to damage)
.) When lagging Melee are often screwed by the outcome, Ranged have a built in buffer that is much longer than most ping times, even a 1500ms lag spike is shorter than the time it takes for a mob to move within range of a ranged player, while a melee is already in range and probably surrounded.
.) Because ranged are 80-90% mitigating all forms of damage (by spending 80-90% of their time not near any of it) all ranged have 100% flat mitigation for that time. This would be like giving Melee 80% dodge at all times, with no down sides. No loss of DPS nothing to create a trade off or decision point.
.) Ranged mobs do not do nearly enough damage to ranged players because ranged players can stay distanced from them and keep half the pack from shooting them by moving.
.) melee take something like 5 to 10 times more projectile attacks because they must move closer to ranged mobs (making more ranged mobs able to attack them as they come on screen) they also do no DPS during this time. multiplying the amount of projectile hits they take by each extra mob that would have been killed by ranged players. In summery that's: more projectile attacks because of closing distance, more because of more mobs firing, and more because less of them are dead. Fair to say Melee are exposed to exponentially more ranged hits? I think so.

I would be scared to suggest how to overcome all this. The numbers could be insane... 250-350% more melee damage? Half all incoming damage as long as the last skill you used was namelock? Don't want to chase away all the go fast off screening ranged lovers, but some humble suggestions:


.) create a new "melee channeling support" skill gem, that only supports melee name lock skills: hold the button to channel "more %" damage % to all forms of damage done by the channeled melee (phys and elemental bleed etc.) this should do more total DPS fully compensating the time you're "holding" the channeled attack by a large margin this alleviates somewhat the need to repeatedly click the boss with a name lock skill substituting a big huge hit and it allows you to instantly "break" out of the namelock death spiral by releasing the channeled skill allowing you to do something else and not wait for a buffer of mouse clicks to clear.
.) give most bosses (all important ones) a way to suck in or immobilize ranged kiters, quicksand, binding chains, reverse knockback, Brutus' whip etc.
.) give most bosses dramatic damage mitigation the further away you are the less they take
.) make all mobs immune/protected by magic until on screen
.) quadruple the damage of single target single strike name lock skills remove this if splash damage, or Heralds are active. The idea here is to make them "big hit and move" skills for the best single target DPS. Melee should by far be the best single target, otherwise there's no point in accepting all the massive overwhelming downsides.
.) make Fortify an automatic buff you get when you have used a namelock skill and remove fortify instantly when a ranged/AOE attack is used
.)Double the effectiveness of armor against projectiles "if you have Fortify" add more nodes for fortify to increase it's effectiveness put them close to melee classes.
.) give tower shields the ability to have a 6l right now they are the weakest shield choice, giving only armor which is poor against bosses.
.) give Two handed melee weapons an off hand scabbard, or make Bows only able to have a 3l and give quivers sockets why ranged can have 2 6l similar base damage to melee AND an off hand item is just mind boggling. especially when coupled with all their other inherent playstyle advantages.

Most games I've played start having the "ranged uber meta" when ranged comes within about 2/3rds of the ACTUAL DPS (Actual means compensating for melee closing distance) of a melee. POE as far as I can see actually has Ranged being almost the same DPS as melee in a NON ACTUAL test (i.e. if you compare a melee who is already at the target with a ranged, instead of comparing a melee who needs to close the distance to the target), this is by itself impossibly unbalancing. This means that ranged is actually much higher DPS than melee, while having every other advantage and zero tradeoffs.

Que the TL:DR responses, the "git gud"'s the "you know you can hold down the don't move key" melee is only bad because UR stupid reply (and constantly need to release it to get within melee distance of the boss again, yeah tried that, this is not my first ARPG thanks) hostile ranged players who only care about their playstyle, and hostile ranged players who pretend to be melee focused so they can say "nothing wrong with melee mate" for the sake of creating FUD. Yes this is not my first game forum go 'round by a long shot.

Finally I will say that playing POE Melee as a "voluntary self challenge mode" is an option but even considering it this way (intentionally not choosing clearly superior choices like ranged or BV) it is highly frustrating experience playing such a wonderfully designed game with such a terribly designed disparity in playstles. I don't even care about skill balance. I love everything else about POE, the brilliant currency, Maps, end game, the API player run trade system (I've seen a dozen Auction houses they all suck compared to the personal interaction of poe.trade PS please no auction house lose a lot of flavor and interaction that way) the lore and combat action, the sound design, music, all awesome.

Melee is however really bad.

A lot of the points in your litany, while true, are simply repeating the same issue a different way. I'll sum it up into a cleaner TLDR version:

1) Melee has to close distance. This equates to time spent taking damage but not dealing it. This also makes melee less safe because, in getting in range of the enemy, the enemy is also in range of them.
2) Melee has a harder time tanking because two of their three preferred methods of damage mitigation, Life and Armor, are very weak compared to other available options - Energy Shield gives you a much larger buffer than Life and Armor does not protect against the blows you really want to be protected against. Better options (Block aside) are hard to get on melee characters, who start on the wrong side of the tree.
3) Ranged and caster characters get equal or better gear options. A one-handed fighter can have a 3L sword and a 3L shield, the same as any wand or dagger using caster, while a two-handed fighter has one 6L item to compare to an archer's 6L item and quiver.

And these bring us to our big reason.

4) The damage of a melee character is not significantly better than that of a ranged or caster character, nor does a melee character's survivability match the natural survivability advantage of being at range. In many cases these are worse. Thus, a ranged character can put out more damage faster and more safely than a melee character. There are no drawbacks.

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Trylobyte написал:

4) The damage of a melee character is not significantly better than that of a ranged or caster character, nor does a melee character's survivability match the natural survivability advantage of being at range. In many cases these are worse. Thus, a ranged character can put out more damage faster and more safely than a melee character. There are no drawbacks.

Buffing the damage is pointless, i mean they Can buff melee damage by 200% and it would still be mediocre becouse ranged Can already clear the área faster and safer.

My 2 cents on this:
Instead of tring to make melee catch up ranged tone down ranged to be on par with melee.

As a Rule of thumb damage should be inverce to range and aoe

imo the best solution is: NEVER nerf a fun playstyle, buff the bad ones to become fun too.

after that is said some other points:

"

.) create a new "melee channeling support" skill gem, that only supports melee name lock skills: hold the button to channel "more %" damage % to all forms of damage done by the channeled melee (phys and elemental bleed etc.) this should do more total DPS fully compensating the time you're "holding" the channeled attack by a large margin this alleviates somewhat the need to repeatedly click the boss with a name lock skill substituting a big huge hit and it allows you to instantly "break" out of the namelock death spiral by releasing the channeled skill allowing you to do something else and not wait for a buffer of mouse clicks to clear.

i like the idea, reminds me to the leg gem from diablo 3 "Bane of the Stricken" and it should be work like it: "Each attack you make against an enemy increases the damage it takes from your attacks by X%". so you can run away from the boss to protect urself from a skill and come into the fight again without loosing the bonus dmg

"

.) give most bosses (all important ones) a way to suck in or immobilize ranged kiters, quicksand, binding chains, reverse knockback, Brutus' whip etc.

this would be bad for melees too and as i said: never nerf, only buff

"

.) give most bosses dramatic damage mitigation the further away you are the less they take

this would shit on every ranged build,... same as above

"

.) make all mobs immune/protected by magic until on screen

this is a realy bad idea because think of this simple example: the is a monster at the right side of ur screen, u shoot at it and in the same seccond it goes out of the screen (1meter) and it dont get dmg. it comes back and goes away and so on, this would be a pain

"

.) quadruple the damage of single target single strike name lock skills remove this if splash damage, or Heralds are active. The idea here is to make them "big hit and move" skills for the best single target DPS. Melee should by far be the best single target, otherwise there's no point in accepting all the massive overwhelming downsides.

dont like this idea too. i mean the would make melees to force using 2 setups, one for clearing maps and one for killing single bosses :/

"

.) make Fortify an automatic buff you get when you have used a namelock skill and remove fortify instantly when a ranged/AOE attack is used

Thats exactly what melees need! but i would do it this way: Buff the player with Fortity if he recently hit a monster with a melee atack. and it should last for ~3sec. so u can run away from a big hit if u want and still have to chance to get not the full dmg of it. (even better would be if fortify would be permanent for melee classes like diablo but this is impossible with this skill gem system ;))

"

.)Double the effectiveness of armor against projectiles "if you have Fortify" add more nodes for fortify to increase it's effectiveness put them close to melee classes

seems legit

"

.) give tower shields the ability to have a 6l right now they are the weakest shield choice, giving only armor which is poor against bosses.

sounds nice

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.) give Two handed melee weapons an off hand scabbard, or make Bows only able to have a 3l and give quivers sockets why ranged can have 2 6l similar base damage to melee AND an off hand item is just mind boggling. especially when coupled with all their other inherent playstyle advantages.

as i said: never nerf ;) so another idea: give us a big Note in the passive tree near the marauder start to use 2Hand weapons in EACH hand at the same time (like diablo 2 ;))

2 alhazared70

Sorry to inform you, but don't expect any changes in near future...(even with new namelock patch)

There is no feedback and no open disscusion from ggg(5% balance team). Evering is Ok while they recive their money.


For the first time I play totem ranged bs in season hc instead of true melee. To be honest I doubt to create any new character: the main problem of melee - there are tons of mechanics that punishing melee( from simple phys skeleton attack with mods to instant DD) and only one that punishing ranged(prox. shield).

I really don't belive how stupid all boss fights are- Place totem-WB out. "Awesome design",
Give us more brutus chain, izaro teleports, dominus second form mods already.

Two years ago multistrike was an essential support for desinc issues, right now it is punishing melee even more.

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caboom написал:

Buffing the damage is pointless

No, it's not.
Buffing the damage would free up resources to put into much needed defenses. Also, depending on the skill I consciously choose not to do a map clear tool, but (e.g.) a boss killer instead - which right now is still inferior to projectiles because damage scaling is just as good while staying at a distance.
It's pretty clear that projectiles is better suited for map clearing. Doesn't mean that any melee skill has to shoot 360 projectiles.

I really don't get why melee weapon base damage isn't substantially higher than that of bows.

As to why Ghost Reaver,Chaos Innoculation and Vaal Pact are close to each other? It's another Melee Style Build, Mainly for Witches,Ranger,Scion and Shadow. Marauder,Templar,Duelist are kinda discouraged to go that Method since they have more than enough armor nodes near their sector.

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JeremiahLoh написал:

As to why Ghost Reaver,Chaos Innoculation and Vaal Pact are close to each other? It's another Melee Style Build, Mainly for Witches,Ranger,Scion and Shadow. Marauder,Templar,Duelist are kinda discouraged to go that Method since they have more than enough armor nodes near their sector.

Yes but armor is a bad investment, 1 for 1 passive points, almost every other form of mitigation is more valuable because armor fails against bosses.

Literally any points you spend on armor are better used traveling to get ES, or additional life nodes, Additional Endurance charges or the Fortify buffing nodes below duelist or all of the above. Having tested multiple scenarios with multiple failed melee builds I've decided that armor is a newb trap that's only good if you're struggling against the weak trash mobs whos damage it mitigates effectually.

I mean I'm currently trying to figure out how to respec a JUGGERNAUT into an ES hybrid Melee a class that gets gobs of Armor just to get to it's acendency notables.

How sad is a Jugg carrying a spirit shield and wearing a hubrus circlet lol.

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Trylobyte написал:

A lot of the points in your litany, while true, are simply repeating the same issue a different way. I'll sum it up into a cleaner TLDR version:

1) Melee has to close distance. This equates to time spent taking damage but not dealing it. This also makes melee less safe because, in getting in range of the enemy, the enemy is also in range of them.
2) Melee has a harder time tanking because two of their three preferred methods of damage mitigation, Life and Armor, are very weak compared to other available options - Energy Shield gives you a much larger buffer than Life and Armor does not protect against the blows you really want to be protected against. Better options (Block aside) are hard to get on melee characters, who start on the wrong side of the tree.
3) Ranged and caster characters get equal or better gear options. A one-handed fighter can have a 3L sword and a 3L shield, the same as any wand or dagger using caster, while a two-handed fighter has one 6L item to compare to an archer's 6L item and quiver.

And these bring us to our big reason.

4) The damage of a melee character is not significantly better than that of a ranged or caster character, nor does a melee character's survivability match the natural survivability advantage of being at range. In many cases these are worse. Thus, a ranged character can put out more damage faster and more safely than a melee character. There are no drawbacks.

Agree on all points but getting into the finer details was cathartic for me, and my post isn't only about informing GGG of things that are probably ubiquitous complaints (I expect from listening to podcasts, I am not in the minority as Melee is considered a running joke in this game.) . I'll be the first to admit I've made it harder on myself in many ways (stubborn like that, I'm trying to make Namelock work instead of just sticking with BV) trying to use Armor when my experiences so far should have told me to drop it, let alone multiple podcasts which have confirmed armor as a newb trap (no seriously all of them have talked about this recently, Ziggy D, Lioneyes watch, State of Exile (RIP) and the hilariously non try hard podcast all have gone over their experiences which mirror my own.

I actually am okay with melee being the games "hard mode" or challenge mode, that's fine. however judging from my current experience even if they made name lock skills about quadurple damage meleeing bosses would still be hard mode. just going from 80% avoidance of all incoming boss melee strikes from being ranged to 100% exposure would ensure that melee was still hard mode.

Right now it feels like "run into a f****** wall mode".