How is this game playable in melee?

cant be balanced...

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Phrazz wrote:

Melee isn't in the best spot these days.....

These days? THESE DAYS? These days began in closed beta! lol

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666lol666 wrote:

"

Phrazz wrote:

Melee isn't in the best spot these days.....

These days? THESE DAYS? These days began in closed beta! lol

Nah, melee had some great times. I remember the melee AoE buffs in Legion, making especially Cyclone and Bladestorm beastly.

In Delirium too, when Cluster Jewels were the strongest, there were several very good melee builds. Sure, Cluster Jewels probably made other builds even stronger, but melee felt actually good to play.

And we "all" remember the time after Shaper/Elder were introduced, when we had the crazy stat sticks that more or less tripled our damage. Sure, stat sticks probably made other builds even stronger (mainly physical spells), but melee felt actually good to play.

Melee has been garbage for YEARS.

And its proof GGG stopped caring about the game since then..

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Phrazz wrote:

In Delirium too, when Cluster Jewels were the strongest, there were several very good melee builds. Sure, Cluster Jewels probably made other builds even stronger, but melee felt actually good to play.

And we "all" remember the time after Shaper/Elder were introduced, when we had the crazy stat sticks that more or less tripled our damage. Sure, stat sticks probably made other builds even stronger (mainly physical spells), but melee felt actually good to play.

As per usual when you raise the water level you start to see things swim. Only when you lower the water level you see whats left swimming.

What are we even defining as viable? Even the best builds are going to die every map with bad piloting, lag, taking bad mods, altars with bad downsides, etc unless you're juiced with mageblood/headhunter nonsense.

I can take a melee skill as a starter through the atlas just fine and kill pinnacles, not ubers, but I don't really mess with ubers on any build.

So again, what do we mean by the term viable these days? You can't say they don't work, because they do... :/

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Phrazz wrote:

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666lol666 wrote:

"

Phrazz wrote:

Melee isn't in the best spot these days.....

These days? THESE DAYS? These days began in closed beta! lol

Nah, melee had some great times. I remember the melee AoE buffs in Legion, making especially Cyclone and Bladestorm beastly.

In Delirium too, when Cluster Jewels were the strongest, there were several very good melee builds. Sure, Cluster Jewels probably made other builds even stronger, but melee felt actually good to play.

And we "all" remember the time after Shaper/Elder were introduced, when we had the crazy stat sticks that more or less tripled our damage. Sure, stat sticks probably made other builds even stronger (mainly physical spells), but melee felt actually good to play.

Such good points!

I remember getting my first mirrored stat stick from a guy who had a 10 ex fee because one of his rolls was T2. That was definitely one of the most fun times for melee. God, I miss it. My builds are MUCH more powerful now though. It's just so are the monsters, so the damage V survivability balance is completely different.

You're also right about melee going through many phases where it had many powerful builds. Remember when Blade Flurry first came out lol? What about CI Melee back pre 3.0 or when Mathil's Double Strike "the boys" builds where amazing too.

So many good Eras for melee and I think this could be a motivating factor in some people's perceptions that its current state is a little underwhelming. The people that say melee has always sucked are just frustrated and not thinking clearly. Or they're trolling to make people who want a better melee experience seem unhinged on purpose to derail the conversation.

A big point that I think is worth mentioning though:
- Do we remember back when only some builds could clear Uber Atziri? She was like a "wtf there's an uber version!?"
- In OG Diablo 2, only some builds could clear the uber content and this meant people just made several builds for different content. Sunder charms now mean pretty much everything can clear all content in D2R though so yeah.

Malformation Map Piety was for many builds something to avoid when mapping in a party because she would just 1 tap you. There used to be boss carry services for many of the end-game bosses because it didn't used to be "my build should be able to clear all content". Now, with even just getting all the voidstones your builds NEED to be able to fight all (non-uber) end-game bosses.

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Saf3tyhazard wrote:

What are we even defining as viable? Even the best builds are going to die every map with bad piloting, lag, taking bad mods, altars with bad downsides, etc unless you're juiced with mageblood/headhunter nonsense.

I can take a melee skill as a starter through the atlas just fine and kill pinnacles, not ubers, but I don't really mess with ubers on any build.

So again, what do we mean by the term viable these days? You can't say they don't work, because they do... :/

I think there are two core definitions going around

1) The absolute perspective where something is viable is if you can do all content with it.

2) The relative perspective where something is viable if it's close to the best builds/skills available in terms of performance.

The second one is a pretty vague since everyone has a different idea of what the "best builds/skills" are and how close in performance something has to be to be "viable".
The first one meanwhile is kinda pointless because every build/skill can do all content with enough budget.

So... yeah... any discussion involving the terms "viable" and "meta" is bound to be a mess where everyone is using the same terms with completely different meanings.

"

hmcg020 wrote:

Such good points!

I remember getting my first mirrored stat stick from a guy who had a 10 ex fee because one of his rolls was T2. That was definitely one of the most fun times for melee. God, I miss it. My builds are MUCH more powerful now though. It's just so are the monsters, so the damage V survivability balance is completely different.

You're also right about melee going through many phases where it had many powerful builds. Remember when Blade Flurry first came out lol? What about CI Melee back pre 3.0 or when Mathil's Double Strike "the boys" builds where amazing too.

So many good Eras for melee and I think this could be a motivating factor in some people's perceptions that its current state is a little underwhelming. The people that say melee has always sucked are just frustrated and not thinking clearly. Or they're trolling to make people who want a better melee experience seem unhinged on purpose to derail the conversation.

A big point that I think is worth mentioning though:
- Do we remember back when only some builds could clear Uber Atziri? She was like a "wtf there's an uber version!?"

Malformation Map Piety was for many builds something to avoid when mapping in a party because she would just 1 tap you. There used to be boss carry services for many of the end-game bosses because it didn't used to be "my build should be able to clear all content". Now, with even just getting all the voidstones your builds NEED to be able to fight all (non-uber) end-game bosses.

So here's a thought excercize.

If every era of the game's past gives you fond memories of viable/powerful melee skills (CI, instant leech, Savior, Legion Cyclone, Slams, Hateforge) ...why do we not think that Bonezone and Heatshiver aren't going to be this era's "yeah melee was good back then but now it sucks" reference 3-5 years from now?

Maybe it is and has always been overblown just how 'bad' 'melee' is. There has always been a melee skill or 3 in the meta, and if that doesn't seem like much remember its competing with bows, minions, trigger builds, totems, trap/mines, and hand cast. I feel like anyone from outside of PoE doing a statistical analysis wouldn't find evidence that matches the absolute outrage this issue is and has been given over the years. Yes, they might find a little lag, a little underrepresentation, maybe a little more cost and trade friction. But based on the community sentiment you'd think melee was full of gems that deal no damage and were literally unusable.

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innervation wrote:

So here's a thought excercize.

If every era of the game's past gives you fond memories of viable/powerful melee skills (CI, instant leech, Savior, Legion Cyclone, Slams, Hateforge) ...why do we not think that Bonezone and Heatshiver aren't going to be this era's "yeah melee was good back then but now it sucks" reference 3-5 years from now?

Maybe it is and has always been overblown just how 'bad' 'melee' is. There has always been a melee skill or 3 in the meta, and if that doesn't seem like much remember its competing with bows, minions, trigger builds, totems, trap/mines, and hand cast. I feel like anyone from outside of PoE doing a statistical analysis wouldn't find evidence that matches the absolute outrage this issue is and has been given over the years. Yes, they might find a little lag, a little underrepresentation, maybe a little more cost and trade friction. But based on the community sentiment you'd think melee was full of gems that deal no damage and were literally unusable.

You may be right, though I think you've overlooked valid concerns that are unique to melee and the prolonged existence of which's lead to the boil-over you're mentioning.