How is this game playable in melee?

But melee IS fine, its not just when you compare it to ranged options. In a world where melee skill can kill end game bosses in 0.1s there is no room for improvement in that regard. It will always be inferior, no mater what you do. Ranged characters can limit their defenses for longer and get more damage earlier because they can skip mechanics.

Im wondering how you want to fix that fundamental issue. Giving melee more damage is just stupid, its has plenty. Moving power from weapons to gems? Thats making a spell. Giving it more splash? Thats no longer melee. Easier access to defense? Ranged can use that too, and killing mobs is superior form of defense anyway. How do you want to tackle that?

PoE is not melee friendly by desing, you would have to throw 3/4ths of the game into the bin to fix that.

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kuciol wrote:

Im wondering how you want to fix that fundamental issue.

As the saying goes, the first step when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. The entire issue with melee is one of GGG's making, and it's not damage.

It's the huge list of terrible mechanics that have crept their way into the game as a way to "challenge" these characters.

Playing melee before you have the gear/build/level to wreck everything in one shot is a game of keeping your eye on the left hand corner of the screen to track what half-dozen or so debuffs you've been graced with for that particular encounter - which will surely be different next encounter, thank the not-AN modifiers for that -, getting out of the constant flood of ground degens as if you were a kid playing "the floor is lava", and "engaging" with the mechanics of the game.

Ranged skills just wreck shit from a distance, and solve all those problems by not being there in the first place, to not be subjected to all that nonsense.

There's really nothing to be done from the skills and players' point of view until GGG accepts it's time to revisit what the mobs are doing. The more "meaningful," "exciting," "engaging" mechanics they add, the more the game will favour ranged builds.

The game has moved away from "don't get hit, bro," and can now be best described as "don't be there, bro."

And as a note, in 3.20 I've once again built a melee Ice Crash tank that can facetank pinnacle bosses - I'm just not planning to upgrade to Uber bosses this league because I just can't bring myself to spend all that money and effort. But the difference between her and the Bane-wielding character I put together with what amounted to spare change is stark.

I've leaguestarted melee this league. It was essentially my first league start since Bestiary since i am mostly a standard player.

Went for a 2 handed elemental based slayer build aiming for Voidforge as my endgame weapon. Started with double strike but switched to frost blades during yellow maps because my new weapon had low added cold and i compensated for that with conversion. Could have switched back later but didn't bother.

Campaign was a breeze, fround my first "real" weapon in mid of act 2 which i used until act 8 at which point i bought a 800 total dps weapon for 3c which carried me to late yellow maps. Switched to banishing blade setup for 5c which i used until late red maps. Was way ahead of the power curve the entire time onetapping shit left and right. My build costed like 50c at this point. After 1 week i got my endgame gear i.e voidforge and the interrogation ending up at 7 mio dps for 6 div which was plenty to do all non uber endgame content. If i had waited a bit more i could have gotten the setup for 4 divs but i had the money so who cares. Quit the league a few days later because it was already boring doing regular content and upgrading for uber content would have been a hassle i wasn't interested in, i have my standard characters for that.

I don't know what ideas of "viable", "playable", "smooth" and "easy" people have in mind when using those words but i can without a spec of a doubt say that all those words describe my playexperience this league.

Melee players = higher testosterone
Higher testosterone = less likely to buy stash tabs and supporter packs
Less Likely to buy stash tabs and supporter packs = no money
No money = GGG don't care

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Walkiry wrote:

There's really nothing to be done from the skills and players' point of view until GGG accepts it's time to revisit what the mobs are doing. The more "meaningful," "exciting," "engaging" mechanics they add, the more the game will favour ranged builds.

The game has moved away from "don't get hit, bro," and can now be best described as "don't be there, bro."

So your solution for melee is to make game bland and boring. PoE got succesfull because it has 500 mobs on screen at any given time, that comes with a cost of melee always being inferior.

I see same names crying about melee for years and yet not a single one of them gave any hint of a solution. No matter what GGG does it will never be enough as long as PoE is well... PoE.

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kuciol wrote:

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Walkiry wrote:

There's really nothing to be done from the skills and players' point of view until GGG accepts it's time to revisit what the mobs are doing. The more "meaningful," "exciting," "engaging" mechanics they add, the more the game will favour ranged builds.

The game has moved away from "don't get hit, bro," and can now be best described as "don't be there, bro."

So your solution for melee is to make game bland and boring. PoE got succesfull because it has 500 mobs on screen at any given time, that comes with a cost of melee always being inferior.

I see same names crying about melee for years and yet not a single one of them gave any hint of a solution. No matter what GGG does it will never be enough as long as PoE is well... PoE.

D- for trolling, or F for reading comprehension, take your pick.

It's got nothing to do with the 500 mobs on the screen, but with the stupid mechanics that have been added to the game. Things that bypass the defences melee characters use to jump in the middle of those 500 mobs, "gotcha" mechanics that are irrelevant for ranged attack but deadly at melee, all of that.

"Don't get hit, bro" is an aspirational goal for melee defences. "Don't be there, bro" merely means don't play melee. The difference isn't even subtle. You can do the former without the latter, yet PoE has been adding an absolute ton of crap that pushes the latter as of late.

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Walkiry wrote:

It's got nothing to do with the 500 mobs on the screen, but with the stupid mechanics that have been added to the game. Things that bypass the defences melee characters use to jump in the middle of those 500 mobs, "gotcha" mechanics that are irrelevant for ranged attack but deadly at melee, all of that.

None of this is a problem when there is 3 mobs on the screen. It becomes a problem once there is 100 of them.

I asked you for a solution. Removing every single mechanic that can kill you is not one.

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kuciol wrote:

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Walkiry wrote:

It's got nothing to do with the 500 mobs on the screen, but with the stupid mechanics that have been added to the game. Things that bypass the defences melee characters use to jump in the middle of those 500 mobs, "gotcha" mechanics that are irrelevant for ranged attack but deadly at melee, all of that.

None of this is a problem when there is 3 mobs on the screen. It becomes a problem once there is 100 of them.

Nonsense. Ground degens don't stack, they'll apply equally under your feet whether there's one mob or 100 mobs, and same goes to many of the defense-bypass mechanics that have made the game worse for melee. It is precisely because they don't stack that they're so ridiculously overtuned individually.

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I asked you for a solution. Removing every single mechanic that can kill you is not one.

That's not what I'm proposing, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you're not just being disingenuous and want to have an actual discussion. And since you don't get it, I'll illustrate with an example.

On-death effects.

Take tarred ground. It's probably the simplest ground effect there is, all it does is slow your movement down. If you're melee, it's not a particularly big deal; you're *typically* not going to be moving about for survival while you're whacking away at the zombs. Of course it can be an impediment if you've gone in and bit more than you could chew, aggro some other mobs inadvertedly, and so on, but that's all. For ranged it's less of an issue, but if you're not careful as you fight, you can find yourself stepping into it, and being slowed with a low-defense ranged build can be more dangerous than if you're melee. We can argue which one is more affected, but overall both melee and ranged have some sort of threat from it, even if clearly low.

Compare and contrast with, say, burning ground. You kill a mob, and it drops burning ground where it dies. If you're ranged, it happens way over there. If you're melee, however, that's right under your feet, and it burns pretty hard. You either move, or have to tap into one of the limited options to be able to withstand it. Which doesn't sound as bad until you start looking at the other on-death ground crap the mobs will drop as you kill them (damage, ailments, you name it), which puts an enormous pressure on melee builds having an ever-expanding list of effect mitigation on them, or having to constantly move, whereas ranged just... isn't there.

(This, of course, is assuming you're not at the point of exploding whole screens in one swing; there's no need to discuss anything in those cases).

And it's not just having "damage on death" that's the problem. Porcupines, the delayed Circle of Doom, there's many examples of pre-existing on-death damage effects before the current on-death clown fiesta. The difference is, those effects are hits, which means they can be mitigated in the exact same way melee was already mitigating, well, melee damage in the first place. You can evade, you can block, you can recoup... And if they needed a bit more oomph, then by all means, but what they don't do is say "nope, your defense actually doesn't work here, better haul ass or you die."

And if you push even further, it's not even ground degens that are fundamentally a problem, it's how they're applied. While it is not universally loved, the arena management aspect of pinnacle fights such as Elder/Shaper or Maven, where you have to manage where you allow ground degens to be placed, aren't as stupid and reviled as the ridiculousness that was achieved at the height of ArchNemesis. And it does require management from both melee and ranged. Is it worse for melee? Arguably yes, but the difference is nowhere near the level of what we're experiencing in maps.

So, you asked for the solution? Stop adding mechanics that copy what games like Lost Ark and others do. "Gotta move from here ATTENTION CHECK!" is OK when carefully done in boss fights - which GGG has demonstrated before knows how to do. Having it everywhere as random modifiers on top of other random modifiers is just not working, and it's making the divide between melee and ranged worse. Stop bypassing mitigation for no reason, and specially stop doing it at the levels we're seeing today.

This is just ground degens, but there's others. Flamestrider, or whatever the F- it's called now. Get near it, instant autohit burning dot. If you're ranged, it's a "great" engaging mechanic, keep moving and don't get near it while you try to kill it! If you're melee, well... The game is filling with stuff like this, and it just doesn't fit.

Of course its about monster quantity. You wouldnt have any problem dodging one degen puddle when you clearly see it. Also many on death effects happen after a delay, those are more of a problem for ranged characters since They will run into them. Any mechanic is easier to dodge while you are at range so for melee to compete you would have to remove all od them. All you did here was complain about certain mechanics but you didnt explain how to fix the issue because as i said removing something is not a solution.

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kuciol wrote:

Of course its about monster quantity. You wouldnt have any problem dodging one degen puddle when you clearly see it. Also many on death effects happen after a delay, those are more of a problem for ranged characters since They will run into them. Any mechanic is easier to dodge while you are at range so for melee to compete you would have to remove all od them. All you did here was complain about certain mechanics but you didnt explain how to fix the issue because as i said removing something is not a solution.

Well, thanks for confirming that you were, indeed, just being disingenuous. Serves me right for thinking better of you I guess.

Have a wonderful life.