melee - the remaining issues
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so, the melee rework is here. what remains as a serious issue (some of that applies to all attacks)
1) phys weapons are of VERY limited viability a) crafting them sucks. without fractures it is horrendous currency sink, with fracture - only slightly less so. b) ceiling is LOWER than tri-elemental. 20% qual siege axe without aspd roll: 600pdps vs 730eledps. c) scaling vectors for elemental are much more powerful (negative resists, alt ailments, regular ailments) vs phys scalars (impale, at-most-zero phys reduction) d) intended GGG phys scaling (when you scale hit+bleed+impale) is TOO expensive thus impossible to get. Cruelty Support is a good gem but there is no valid justification for passive investment. e) since GGG introduced conversion, esp multi-stage conversion THE way of playing pretty much any phys spell is full conversion. same with phys attacks. f) Brutality is very weak gem for its drawback. 2) base damage for attacks coming from regular rare weapons (phys or ele) is just laughable compared to 'alternative' sources. a) STR/DEX/INT stacking is toxic to this game balance since its inception. back then the best of players stacked ~900 STR. nowadays 2000 is mid-budget. 2000 STR + Brutus Lead Sprinkler beats any, i repeat ANY, rare weapon ever created, twice. b) changes to ES bases elevated things like Ephemeral Edge or Energy Blade by 25%+ ON TOP of % changes for skills. and these mechanics DID NOT need any buffs c) rare weapons cannot compete while actually costing much more than these 'magic trick' alternatives. mostly because you craft one weapon with 4+ great rolls, but for 'stacker' you need just ONE great roll per item as everything is calculated from that. sure, %attr bases might cost some, but it is still not nearly comparable to cost of crafting 90%+ percentile weapon 3) most melee-centric uniques are pure untreated garbage. a) some of weapons badly reacted to %quality change (weapons with high flat phys and no %phys), some reacted favourable. there was no though put into refreshing them b) uniques from Prophecy are SORELY missed, they greatly covered leveling process and some were viable endgame novelties c) weapons like Paradoxica and Frostbreath completely eclipse their alternatives due to how they interact with sources of high flat damage and what doubling it means. In most builds 1c Frostbreath with beat 1 mir 6*T1 mace. why are the other uniques in the game? (DO NOT nerf Frostbreath, do something with items like Nebuloh. and most importantly - do something with CRAZY flat damage scaling from magic sources, it is silly nowadays) 4) most melee 'tricks' are a) much more work than caster equivalents b) while stronger, it is only paper strength because 'activation chain' is simply impractical Compare Frost Shield with BattleMages Cry (we want flat crit). - Frost Shield: 5 sec cooldown, requires ZERO passive investment, activates when you do your primary (spend mana), provides ~1.7 base crit for 10sec + some defensive property - Battlemages cry: 8 sec cooldown (or 5.6sec with 20 GCP), requires at least 3 passives in SPECIFIC LOCATION for duration (base is just 3.4sec), gives you variable output based on your opponents (or yet another passive investment to get min 10 power) in short while the power is comparable (both skills have other perks) the ease of use and investment required (brain power, passives, extra links - Urgent Orders are pretty much must-have for warcries) ARE NOT. Banners are yet another example. Their power is unquestionable. but to reach a point when you actually can have it up when needed you need A LOT of investment. 'warcry pump' requires 2-3warcries+Urgent Orders+Duration + passives for cooldown + banner cluster for mastery. then banner has to be linked to Duration and maybe AOE. thats ~8 sockets just to have an option to use your banner more than once per map. There is a recent theme where your main source of something is doing something completely different. (rage -> warcry pump, banners -> warcry pump). not only it looks bad, it also costs a lot. right now Im trying out Perfidy chest and even with that chest and Champion - my banner setup does not work without warcry pump. it is just dumb. meanwhile casters in worst case scenario cast Arcanist Brand.., archers have their manaforged arrows and summoners all the automation in the world 5) most melee passive clusters are artificially bloated (big retaliation/banner/warcry wheels are TERRIBLE passive-wise) and completely ignore the sad fact that 99% melee builds HAS to pick certain passives thus SEVERELY limiting use of anything that isnt close. 6) mana situation. life and mana GENERIC leech is absent from marauder section. a) picking blood magic is straight 30% less damage, so it is only last-last resort (or great option for people with poor math skills) b) elemental skill like Shield Crush of the Cheftain played on a Cheftain means mana flask till endgame. i dare anyone to try that (the damage is ok, go ignite) - mana sustain is absolutely tragic for SOME builds for no reason. there is no key here, im not trying to play 2h mace witch or something. i play red skill with red class - and it is actually revolting because there are no tools, esp during leveling. meanwhile regular Shield Crush - ezpz. WHY? 7) stun is still bad compared to freeze (albeit % increases helped here). stun should completely inactivate things like essence skills. right now it doesnt, thus making primary melee defence mechanic (that is actually pretty good, you can bonk 10 bosses at once at maven party) completely unreliable beacuse some things work and some doesnt. again - there is no reason here. 8) several 'melee' skills like Vulnerability have significant INT requirement. i think it doesnt work the other way around - and the sources of extra DEX/INT in marauder area (ignoring +30 nodes) are just bad. shadow has theoretical access to 50 STR in his area, Marauder only 40 INT. it is small but Last bumped on Aug 4, 2024, 5:49:54 PM
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1) No idea what this means. Are you saying elemental damage is more viable? It certainly rolls more often.
a) Crafting them is brain dead easy, reroll phys wait for phys X to X and phys/accuracy with whatever method you see fit. Finish off prefix with strong phys% from whatever source, veiled orb or bench craft... or you could prefix cannot be changed chance reroll phys harvest it if you REALLY want to... Can also fossil phys very easily with corroded/Jagged... Its as brain dead easy as old phys cold convert tornado shot spine bows. But easier since I dont need +proj... or any crit/crit multi If you had a fracture on either of these you could make any phys weapon you want. Thats why phys/acc high roll fracture is the most expensive of them all. Lowest % weight roll of the 3 phys rolls. Would make disgusting axe if I had a fracture on either phys x to x or phys/acc and it would be less than 10 div on prefix cannot be changed. All made within a week of the league, so its not like it took any "investment" or was "hard":
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    b) Dunno about ceiling, I dont think anything past 20-40m really matters at this point. Which phys is already hitting. Pretty sure people hitting higher than that as well. c) Sure, no exposure mechanics or negative resists but kind of going back to point b, its just overdamage at this point. Who cares that you can only do 100 vs 150m. d) not sure what this point means... seems to have multiple... e) conversion on phys skills? Theres conversion possibility on every skill. Theres an entire broken item at end game for it (original sin). Most conversion happens at that point too, dont really see an issue at the min/max ... going back to point B thing. Where its just unnecessary damage scaling, and probably not intended. But requires a lot of investment to even to get to that point, and its not necessary for any content so, eh why not. f) Massively disagree, and so does most phys users as ... its being used by nearly all of them this league. I swap my pulverize specifically for this, for single target damage. 2
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2) ??? Its not though. They just made all damage from weapons and base damage from them multiplicative. We are seeing this at all levels of the game.
Have you seen some of the crazy axes out there? Your weapon nearly dictates the majority of your entire dps on these builds. Scaling from other sources are not even close. a) stat stacking is not that popular early league. It requires a bit of investment and unreasonable crafts. Which is why you dont see them early league... b) not seeing that on ninja, not really that popular. I guess if its that great time will tell. c) eh back to point b in the previous number. Stat stackers? Or you talking about stacking something else? Stat stackers need multiple rolls on their entire gear to get their build even going. 3
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3) I mean you can say that about... any unique not just melee.
They are placeholders like most things. You just got done talking about how great ephemeral edge is as well... I cant count how many terrible bows there are or how many horrific wands there are... etc... 4
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4) I dont know why you are comparing frost shield with battlemages cry. These two skills dont even function similarly. Battle mages has two other functions as well that frost shield does not have.... they are completely different acting gems... youre just ignoring exertion here and battle mages ability to support as well...
Not a good comparison. Banners are yet another example.
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The only reason we are seeing this is because noone is running banners due to the false bias of two of them being horrendous and war banner being overlooked.
Fast attacking builds wouldnt need a warcry setup at all. It's just if they can fit them in. The meta just changed, so people are on the fence to even use them, or probably dont know how to use them, since its not automated anymore for them. With a warcry setup you dont need all this mumbojumbo that you have put here to have warbanner reliably for 12 seconds when you need it. 4 points for a banner cluster to get the master is perfectly fine. And 2 - 3 cries. You can even have them autoexerted if you want as well. Which goes to your minions being "all automated" You dont get to a minion build being all automated from the get go just fyi. I know that may seem like the case but its not. Its pretty much similar to what I am seeing with auto exertion. End game you get all the automation ability. Early you do not. Or you can auto exert from the start and do less damage. Something you CANT choose to do with minions. You have to get specific crafts to have offerings/curses and desecrate automated. 5
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opinion piece that ignores other archetypes that deal with the same issue. Everyone has to deal with this.
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Mana and life leech are right there next to the start...
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   If you needed more leech its literally on a jewel that you could alt spam. Or buy from trade for 5c with %damage and attack speed.
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 Takes no brains or investment to get leech early on... a) opinion piece on blood magic and its subsequent damage loss... not bothering.... b) tangent on another skill... with mana problems but no POB evidence... 7
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Stun mechanic needs updating. Freeze just got its update, hopefully this will next. Not necessary by any means, but would be nice
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yup need some int over here, and dex.
"Just goes to show your complete lack of knowledge on the matter. If you had any actual experience with melee" -Melee "Expert" Last edited by Mashgesture on Aug 4, 2024, 6:23:05 PM
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was going to create a topic but i may as well put it here since its part of what you said.
the increase in damage effectiveness was nice but the removal of flat damage was a mistake because flat phys damage was the only thing helping non stat stackers melee builds close the damage gap until they could get a good weapon. Really hope GGG reconsider this and add more sources of flat damage: Bloodthirst Support: buff the number to 3-4% herald of purity: replace "Buff grants (9-12)% more Physical Damage" with add "x" flat phys damage to attacks and spells of you and your minions self found league fan http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/324242/page/1 Last edited by caboom on Aug 4, 2024, 3:59:32 PM
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They left a lot of things out of the changes which were mostly responsible for some melee builds dying. Impale Support for instance wasn't changed. Brutality wasn't changed, Melee Phys still has -10% attack speed for no reason. Passives for increased effect of Impale are weak.
This is why Pure physical builds died in the first place. Not the skill multipliers. I remember in Heist League my Phys Impale Zerker could pump 61mil paper DPS. No stat stacking or other nonsense. Just easily attainable 100% Impale from passives and good gear. Speaking of Shadow. Moving one DW Block wheel doesn't make a difference. They have great bossing perks but normal auto attacks from mobs eat them alive. They also added all these DW Block wheels around Duelist. Far more than needed and neglected any Crit and also buffed shields for some reason. Base 50% block shields with 5% HP on block or Aegis Aurora. Where is the logic in that? By comparison they degraded the buffs they added. " Herald of Purity used to give +Phys. They nerf'd it to what it is now for no reason. "Never trust floating women." -Officer Kirac
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Very good post. In my opinion melee ranged characters pain points for way worse with the removal of a lot of phys to ele taken.
I would also like to add almost all unique weapons are unusable because of the removal of flat. Rare was always better, but the flat damage on gems made using a bad weapon less painful. Additional I would like to see more melee aoe and strike range on the tree. For some reason a lot of melee skills lost their physical tag so cluster jewels got a little stricter. Last edited by roundishcap on Aug 4, 2024, 5:17:10 PM
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Even with autoexertion the amount of buttons to press is staggering. Also I feel like melee has to invest a lot of passive points into solving stuff that casters fix with a simple ascendency choise or singular passive node click. Melee often has to "waste" in the range of 10 points just to solve one issue.
Yes we got more life on gear now, but we also have to click more nodes so we get less %life. I feel we ended up around where we were before the change. |
