Melee Splash

Wonder how many cumulative hours they spent creating a gem that isn't worth one square in my 30 page inventory.

GS and cleave = more aoe, no need to waste many passives trying to increase the aoe and an extra support slot. How did this get past testing?

Melee splash = worst fail NZ

Well, I took my Elemental Cleave witch for a spin using Infernal Blow with Melee Splash, just to see how it is. It isn't as bad as all that. Without being geared or spec'd for it, it worked pretty well. The main thing being that my Ele Cleave build has 67% increased AoE (combined from talents and support gem).

I made a quick video of the test, just killing some guys on docks. I appologize for it being a little choppy, docks always lags me a bit, and when you add fraps to that it lags a lot:

Infernal Blow Melee Splash Test

The total area covered seems to be about the same as cleave, with an important caveat. Cleave's AoE is in an arc in front of you. Melee Splash's AoE is in a circle around the primary target. So while the total area covered is about the same, the fact that you generally approach a pack from the side means half of that area is "wasted" on the area behind you where there's no monsters.

I made a point of running straight into the middles of some packs in the video, to give a better sense of how it is working.

Of course cleave gets that area without a support, so you're essentially one support down thanks to melee splash (I had to take out weapon elemental for it, since I needed a red slot for melee splash).

If you're curious, here's the gear:


And here's the spec.

Obviously you can expect better results with a spec and gear tailored to infernal blow (just be sure it includes increased AoE nodes!)

Use skills that add stats of some sort. For damage it just sucks.

For example, dominating blow + spash = some op fun crazy stff

With Conc. Effect you got a decent boost for ur Heavy Strike or any other melee one-target hard hitter...

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sevenOfDiamonds wrote:

With Conc. Effect you got a decent boost for ur Heavy Strike or any other melee one-target hard hitter...

No you don't. You've just got Heavy Strike, with 20% less damage, and one fewer supports.

The primary hit isn't AoE and doesn't receive AoE bonuses. The splash is AoE and will get boosted by conc effect, but still won't be as powerful as heavy strike without the support (0.5*1.69 = 84.5% damage), and probably won't hit anything anyway, because the radius will be so tiny.

Thanks for the clarification.
Was under the impression that dmg would be "converted" to AoE dmg.

I wasn't impressed last night playing with this. Really only a little faster than clearing packs with a single target ability on its own. I don't have any aoe passives, but I expected it to be on par with something like cleave seeing as how it decreases damage more than cleave. for a physical build. Cleave is still superior by far.

Splash is really just too small, even with being in the middle of all the mobs, which in itself is a bad idea, not to mention targeting subsequent mobs is painful.

They have some serious work to do if they ever want to make melee on par with ranged. In fact melee should be better since it has to get up close and personal.

a massive disapointment.
the aoe range is one thing, yes its small, but i could live with that if the damage was decent.
remove the initial hit damage reduction change the splash to 20%.

the main issue is the stupid damage nerf, that means why bother using it.

why do they hate melee so much? ranged is better in every way imagine if chain had 50% less damage, thats how they treat melee.

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SEOINAGE wrote:

In fact melee should be better since it has to get up close and personal.

exactly. when you are right next to the enemies to do your damage then you should be doing more than a guy shooting from offscreen. i don't understand it.