This game is anti-melee

Every single monster ability and modifier is strictly anti-melee. I can only think of 1 modifier that is anti-ranged but everything else is anti-melee. Temporal bubble is anti-melee, trails of X is anti-melee, shade walker is anti-melee, even additional projectiles are anti-melee because you get shotgunned.

If GGG wants meaningful combat in this game, can you guys please try to come up with monster modifiers that isn't just a big fuck you to melee?

Takes a special person to keep playing melee in arpgs. Prolly just go make a spellcaster for your sanity's sake.

It is just very badly designed game. It wil ltake years to fine-tune.

I mostly play melee in all games including PoE but I quit after the Fortify changes in 2021. The first melee character I made was during Kalgur because Endurance changes are busted.

I've tried twice to play melee in PoE 2 and just dropped it within a few days. Besides all all rare mechanics begin anti-melee, mobs push you around constantly. It's just terrible.

GGG has a long history of just being unable to balance melee and that was when we couldn't strafe. There's very few melee stills that you can strafe while using. So good luck to them.

Melee player here, yes you might not have the best pick but you can still have a lot of fun. Plus as opposed to other games no archtype is truly bound to be melee... meaning you can still play all classes.

One way to improve that comes to my mind: Melee life leech could be more powerful than ranged leech.

I love melee in arpgs. There's something about the risk/reward of closing and creating distance that gives me a rush. I can feel the potential here in PoE2, but man oh man there are so many monster auras and damage zones and denial effects and temporal bubbles and little ground objects for your mobility tools to get stuck on.

Currently playing a calamity bear. I'm having a lot of fun with the play style, but I cannot see most of what is happening. What I *can* see, I can't tell if it's my own damage zone or one that'll kill me.

I think one piece of low hanging fruit that would make melee feel better is a friendly skill opacity slider. I'd love to be able to see more clearly when and where it's safe to jump in on an enemy, and when I have to get away.


PS rework Shade Walker. Nothing in the game is more anti-melee than that.