Can we get a couple of changes to underused melee skills

Let me preface by saying I don't just want all melee to be generically op and I'm happy to see overpowered skills like VFoS getting nerfed, but another league where smite/earthshatter are easily the generically strongest strike/slam sounds pretty boring. (boneshatter may be up there for phys strikes)

While I'd love to see some of the honestly really bad skills get buffed. Stuff like sweep, bladestorm, earthquake, etc. I don't think these skills are gonna be magically competitive without either massive number changes or mechanical reworks.

I think it could be nice however to see some alleviation of some restriction on certain skills that might boost their power. Specifically I had some thoughts about Inferal Blow and Chain hook of Trarthus.

I think Infernal Blow is honestly a really good feeling skill even when its damage numbers aren't that competitive, but the dis-synergy with multistrike really hurts it. I think allowing repeats to apply the debuff to enemies, and yourself for the transfigured version would go a long way to making the skill feel better to play.

Chain hook of Trarthus has probably a few more issues given how incredibly clunky its hit and run gameplay feels. But by allowing addition chain applications to break previous chains it would make the skills far less clunky (though having to hit twice to deal damage would still feel clunky).

I don't think either of these changes would be gamebreaking, but I like to think that changes like these would go a long way in making more skills feel viable and less clunky overall. There are probably many other skills that could use small mechanical changes like this, but these are just two that were on my mind. Though I don't expect a large amount, if any, melee skills to be changed before launch. I just thought it would be nice to see a bit more of a shake-up for the bad skills.

Ill jump in:

melee skills that arent 'slams' or 'strikes' have little reason to be touched at all. Slams got Overexertion (80-100% more damage), strikes got Trauma, both have Ruthless etc

the remaining few skills, esp the simple ones, lack scaling vectors and simply cannot, due to math, compete


Some specifics:

- Cleave. regular cleave is most likely THE WORST skill in the game. get Vaal boost and you have a screen-wide terror of a skill. the problem is triggering the Vaal boost - 'culling a rare with Vaal skill activation'. sorry, it doesnt work, wouldnt work in POE2 even

- Sweep. some area, some damage, some knockback, no numbers, no scaling vectors. it used to have an Endurance Charge threshold gem, it should be baked in. give this skill SOMETHING because right now there is no reason to use it, ever

- Chain Hook. targeting is mechanically broken. and the animation speed does not scale with attack speed. 'gain rage on hit' is irrelevant after rage rework, needs replacing with something actually useful. or better make it a support gem

(non-melee)
- Spectral Helix. the rotation has to start where the cursor is. without it, this skill simply can miss an enemy that stands point-blank with the character. it is extremely unintuitive (D2 was MUCH slower than POE). fix the bouncing logic - right now you cannot predict in any way 'will the wall bounce?' also damage depending on SIZE of an enemy is kinda 'feels bad' decision

lol poe2 was supposed to fix melee.

but since that never happened, the next best thing is they buffed melee where melee did much more damage than before.

i think its about time that tru melee skills be buffed.

the best way to do this is for strike skills to have their BASE strike range increased by a huge lot.

similarly other melee skills can have their base aoe increased while reducing the effect of additional aoe increases.

case point: uber sirus.

his aoe degens are huge. he tends to stand inside them. or spawn them directly at your feet.

the idea of hitting the enemy with your weapon in his face in poe is horribly bad.

let all melee be ranged somewhat

I believed in the PoE 2 "we fix melee", "its just an animation issue" thing somewhat. Turned out either it was all flat lies or someone not capable enough balances melee against the game in general. There might be other reasons i do not see right now.

But after a decade of melee sucks feedback id say it is what is folks. Go spells or go broke.

Melee is this type of niche that can be played if you enjoy methodical slow paced combat and have fun this way. The job of killing mobs can be done its just way worse penalized gameplay. There are a few builds like vaal lightning strike zero vaal cost (std variant) that are an exception to this rule.

But i would not set any hopes that this kind of pattern ever balances it out.
State of PoE 2 melee is horribly bad btw.

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melee skills that arent 'slams' or 'strikes' have little reason to be touched at all. Slams got Overexertion (80-100% more damage), strikes got Trauma, both have Ruthless etc

100% agree and its a real shame because I think the non strike/slam melee skills are some of the more unique and interesting melee skills visual wise. They talked about sweep needing more than just a numbers buff in the Q&A after the reveal so hopefully they'll take a look at these skills soon, but I've been wanting to play a half decent sweep build since before 3.25 and its barely been touched so I'm probably not getting my hopes up. It would be nice to at least get a transfigured version of the skill though.

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zzang#1847 wrote:

I believed in the PoE 2 "we fix melee", "its just an animation issue" thing somewhat. Turned out either it was all flat lies or someone not capable enough balances melee against the game in general. There might be other reasons i do not see right now.

imho i will always say that poe2 started off in a state that gave me hope that melee could work.

with sufficient gear, i can basic attack mace melee all the campaign bosses. dancing around their attacks.

its real good.

but there are issues.

1. everything else was marginally better. and by a huge lot
2. all careful design considerations for melee went out the window at end game.

to fix melee in poe2 actually the best way was simply to make EVERYTHING ELSE worse so that melee was the baseline difficulty. then the game could be slower and more deliberate.

monk melee is actually good even if you took away all the spell like elements (aoe/projectiles). and i believe that is the best representation of tru-melee in any modern d-like. its fast, its mobile. its impactful.

mace got NOTHING from that. which to me is mindboggling design decision. for sure using quarterstaffs would technically mean you're more mobile than using a huge ass 100pound mace. but its simply so good that it makes me feel that i feel maces suck ass.

GGG CAN fix melee. they made the tough decision to split poe2 from poe1 to fix melee. i can see clearly they can. but they're not committing. why?

coz most poe enjoyers prefer blasting the screen into oblivion. its a financial suicide if they actually fixed melee and made everything worse/slow.

Short of making them broken there’s not much to do for anyone having an issue with current melee skills anymore.


Settlers already buffed everything about melee and the bottom/left of the tree


You just have to flat out not like playing it to be the problem now. Nothing numbers or mechanics wise is even wrong with them



Heavy strike user here so there really is no excuse for something like EQ or sweep or cleave for that matter

"

Short of making them broken there’s not much to do for anyone having an issue with current melee skills anymore.


Settlers already buffed everything about melee and the bottom/left of the tree


You just have to flat out not like playing it to be the problem now. Nothing numbers or mechanics wise is even wrong with them



Heavy strike user here so there really is no excuse for something like EQ or sweep or cleave for that matter

Congrats you play an underwhelming skill work, you can do the same with every skill in the game. But the power floor and ceiling will be lower than many other more powerful skills. This post has nothing to be with melee's power as a whole, but the difference in power with the archetype and making some underused skills more attractive.

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Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Short of making them broken there’s not much to do for anyone having an issue with current melee skills anymore.


Settlers already buffed everything about melee and the bottom/left of the tree


You just have to flat out not like playing it to be the problem now. Nothing numbers or mechanics wise is even wrong with them



Heavy strike user here so there really is no excuse for something like EQ or sweep or cleave for that matter

to give credit where due i do respect you for making it work and heavy strike is indeed good with it having double damage. its quite powerful to be honest.

but that said, mechanically melee in poe 1 is simply bad. theres more or less no consideration given towards melee.

for example uber sirus that i mentioned.

poe2 campaign bosses have very clear melee considerations for the most part, where i can actually take turns attacking each other and getting out of the way.

in poe1 theres so much we need to do if we want to make melee feel good. since you play heavy strike you should know how slow melee heavy strike is with a 2 hander when you start in the game. its possible to get stun/freeze locked before getting the swing in.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

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Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Short of making them broken there’s not much to do for anyone having an issue with current melee skills anymore.


Settlers already buffed everything about melee and the bottom/left of the tree


You just have to flat out not like playing it to be the problem now. Nothing numbers or mechanics wise is even wrong with them



Heavy strike user here so there really is no excuse for something like EQ or sweep or cleave for that matter

to give credit where due i do respect you for making it work and heavy strike is indeed good with it having double damage. its quite powerful to be honest.

but that said, mechanically melee in poe 1 is simply bad. theres more or less no consideration given towards melee.

for example uber sirus that i mentioned.

poe2 campaign bosses have very clear melee considerations for the most part, where i can actually take turns attacking each other and getting out of the way.

in poe1 theres so much we need to do if we want to make melee feel good. since you play heavy strike you should know how slow melee heavy strike is with a 2 hander when you start in the game. its possible to get stun/freeze locked before getting the swing in.

Ancestral call support takes care of that


If you really want to get creative sionnes