Think this is the only ARPG that melee is shit in.

Seeing posts trying to evaluate and provide analysis on the choices GGG have made with their balancing seems hilarious from my perspective. It's like people trying to provide mystical meaning to works of popular culture such as The Matrix movie series etc. - basically trying to find substance where there is none. The game is in its current state neither because it is difficult to balance, nor because GGG are listening to the community (because, by and large, they do whatever the heck they please). The game is in its current state because the people balancing it are completely out of touch with it. Just like most of us (me included, I find my fun more important than bragging rights) they do not play the game at the highest level, if at all. I doubt they are aware of anything, and I doubt they would become aware even if it was put right under their noses. In short, they are mostly incompetent, and that is the major reason for everything going wrong.

(If it wasn't clear, all of this pertains mainly to the balance team, as I do think that people in charge of things like assets, music and general environment, lore etc etc. are doing an exceptionally good job.)

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Sa_Re написал:

@topic: Yeah, probably.

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I_NO написал:

Grimdawn: Yeah there good
D3 shamefully: Yeah there good too
D2: Flawless
Torchlight I and II: Broken af

I'm just saying.

TQ: Melee builds are best
Sacred: Dunno

D1: Melee was pretty meh in PvM but far from being shit

Sacred they definitely are very strong.


D1 Warrior was legit, especially when fully geared.


The problem is that GGG's wacko ass balancing has come down to kill or be killed, where you're essentially playing a really advanced galaga at this point, especially against certain bosses.


And no, GGG's horrible balancing has nothing to do with 'power creep.' It just has everything to do with the balance team honestly either has no fucking clue what they are doing, or they are not working together and communicating very well to each other.

Actually melee being inferior is more of a thing on Isometric ARPGs, or clasic team based RPGs. On Third person/First Person RPGs melee is usually on par with ranged/casters or even superior.

- In Dark Souls (and all Souls series including Bloodborne) melee is on par with ranged/casters in PvE and usually better in PvP. Yeah, there are situations that being a caster can make certain sections of PvE easy mode, but at the same time, as pure caster you are going to have a very hard time on certain bosses.

- In the Witcher Series, melee is much stronger than caster/signs oriented build -as it should. Geralt is a swordman.

- In skyrim, the most broken playstyle if you go all in IS melee.

- In dragon's Dogma melee is definetely on par with casters, if not better

And yeah, in most isometric Diablo clones, while casters/ranged IS ultimately better, melee is definetely more viable. In PoE, the disparity between melee/ranged-caster characters is the worst i have ever seen in a game.

GGG dug themselves into a deep hole when it comes to melee balance, I doubt they know how or have the will to dig themselves out anytime soon.

Melee needs a clear and straight upside compared to ranged playstyles, but rather than that we see melee skills basically becoming ranged because they think that will solve the issue (slap AoE + ranged mechanics on melee skills).

Fortify was supposed to even the playing field, but that backfired horribly. And even with fortify taking melee hits in endgame is not survivable because when some mods align monster hit damage goes way too high for any melee character to survive (kiting becomes the best defense available).

I was hoping that during time GGG will balance their endgame by giving mosters interesting debuffs, crowd control skills and short buffs which make them stronger.

As much fun as I had playing melee in this game, it's being treated as the special kid on the block and the frustrations the playstyle can bring is not something I feel fine spending my free time on.


Also, I do not get why melee players can't get some more crowd control love. Yes I know stun is tied down to monster life and etc, but in most other ARPG's melee players tend to have a lot of crowd control skills in order to allow them to incapacitate monsters for a few seconds when an encounter becomes too dangerous.

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allbusiness написал:

The problem is that GGG's wacko ass balancing has come down to kill or be killed, where you're essentially playing a really advanced galaga at this point, especially against certain bosses.


And no, GGG's horrible balancing has nothing to do with 'power creep.' It just has everything to do with the balance team honestly either has no fucking clue what they are doing, or they are not working together and communicating very well to each other.

+1 this, i also think that GGG for some reason just dont want to make real balance, even if melee would has more power or unfair mechanic that still makes them takes always damage in every situations, as it should be. So why not make melee awesome and fun to play?

GGG has many really smart and awesome developers, but they dont want even think about adding some balancing to the game or not working together at all... or just hate melee and life.

After seeing how completely broken a lot of range builds get, I don't understand what they're afraid of for melee. Truly.

Unless they think that giving people the damage output and mitigation they feel they deserve would leave melee as boring, safe face tanking. But isn't that pretty much the goal of melee in ARPGs, to face tank?

+1 to this topic

my jugg 6,5 k 8 endur charges 31k armor ... max rezist .. i die like nothing even in t11 map.

not saying that even with 6L Atziri disf. vall axe my EQ dmg is maybe 5% from what i have seen BV or some other spells are doing.

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Narsilian написал:

my jugg 6,5 k 8 endur charges 31k armor ... max rezist .. i die like nothing even in t11 map.

Ok the balance is fucked and with the somewhat recent powercreep ranges outclass melees by like .... a lot, but with that much defenses, if you die that easily in a t11 map, maybe you are expecting to facetank stuff too much, t11 are honestly not that much of a big deal, but you need to be careful about some combinations at least, otherwise it would be boring.

( Also you have basically no block chances, this matters quite a bit, but well that's the build, but think that having no block change does reduce survivability significantly. ).

Now that may be because of the recent bug that makes some projectiles basically ignore armour too, that's also a possibility.

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Nenjin написал:

After seeing how completely broken a lot of range builds get, I don't understand what they're afraid of for melee. Truly.

Unless they think that giving people the damage output and mitigation they feel they deserve would leave melee as boring, safe face tanking. But isn't that pretty much the goal of melee in ARPGs, to face tank?

That's a question. Honestly even though the D3 barb is quite strong, I actually enjoy PoE Melee more. When I die in D3 it is a oneshot that isn't even avaible. Or I simply hit the wrong Riftboss. There isn't anything I could have done to avoid it, because it is basically a gearcheck. Besides that I just hit enemies all the time and it is very boring, strong, but boring.

When I play a melee in PoE he might be terrible, but even though a lot of the challanges for melee are unfair compaired to ranged chars, a lot of them are actually beatable. So while the performance is terrible and you are far more vulnerable it is a lot more fun. If the fix the targetting I will likely add a melee char to my char-portfolio again (right now I only have one Groundslam/Earthquake char).

I would still hope they make warcries instant and usable while attacking as a baseline thing, because this would help melees to smooth out gameplay even more.

I'm also not sure how Melee in D2 was flawless. A lot of enemies were incredible anti-melee (you had volatile blood basically on a baseline enemy + Iron maiden) and you could hardly keep up with the clear of amazons or sorcs.

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When I play a melee in PoE he might be terrible, but even though a lot of the challanges for melee are unfair compaired to ranged chars, a lot of them are actually beatable. So while the performance is terrible and you are far more vulnerable it is a lot more fun.

I actually agree. Seems like no matter how tanky you are, melee requires judgment, timing and movement. And that keeps me engaged.

I just don't like the feeling that you give up so much damage for survivability that STILL isn't enough to buy you time to react to some things. With better damage you're at less risk for a one shot because the fight is shorter but you're at a greater risk for a one-shot without that survivability....

This just feels like a paradox that ranged builds simply don't have to deal with.