How is this game playable in melee?

Regarding sanctum, I think the non-sanctified relics should be added to to core pool as rare boss drops. A few good relics can make sanctum way easier, but the problem is, good relics drop mostly on floors 3 and 4.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

Man, I can't believe what I am reading.

Melee forced to go physical? Actually elemental damage claws used to be the prime melee build. And now you have buffed voidforge.

You have to use totems? Just once at the boss, wtf else you need them for?

Pressing buttons? Sure, if you enjoy yelling. I spend most of my time holding a single button down as a melee.

15 divines to make a melee build viable? There is always an extremely cheap melee build you can start with. It used to be Boneshatter and from what I see at the beginning of the league - it still is. Over 1 million DPS with Boneshatter on day 1.

For the vast majority of melee build you have 2 options. Scale physical, or scale physical and convert to an element.

Just recently we saw Trinity support being brought to the front and the triple element weapons.

As for Boneshatter, we all agree it's a good skill. But some players don't want to play Boneshatter every leages. So we ask for other skills to be as good as boneshatter.

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Igolac wrote:

For the vast majority of melee build you have 2 options. Scale physical, or scale physical and convert to an element.

Just recently we saw Trinity support being brought to the front and the triple element weapons.

While I agree that melee needs its buffs, this is just wrong. Even BEFORE they introduced Omniscience, tri-ele builds have - IMO - been vastly superior to physical builds. The 3.15 nerfs hit impale builds VERY hard, and since then, they have more or less been in a bad spot. Sure, some new jewel impale mods, Boneshatter and other things have made it better.

Nightblade/Elusive/Claw/tri-ele have been THE way to play melee the last 3-4 leagues. People actually enjoyed it, so they nerfed (gutted?) the two most popular melee skills AND Nightblade.

You hardly ever see physical/impale builds these days, outside of Boneshatter.

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As for Boneshatter, we all agree it's a good skill. But some players don't want to play Boneshatter every leages. So we ask for other skills to be as good as boneshatter.

This is my issue. Make all of the melee skills good from the start. Not gate their efficiency behind gear that 80% of players will never get. If I invest more into my melee than my spellcaster.. it should be better, not worse. Simple concept really, whether or not it's simple for the devs to do - I'm not sure.

Its not only Boneshatter. You can start with Flicker Strike fairly early - all you need is Terminus Est, which shouldn't be that expensive. Frost Blades and Shield Crush also do not require much investment to get going.

I'm only able to usually do the first room and have gotten no farther than three in on my Jugg shield crush char. The resolve mechanic is beyond unfun. It's unplayable with melee.

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ApocalypticTrick wrote:

It's unplayable with melee.

False

Dramatic to read some comments that playing is still possible with boneshatter , flicker strike and frost blades. only 3 skills. There are total 65 melee skills.
(by the way ,i dont think flicker strike and frost blades skills as melee skill)

For example there are 30 bow skills , about 10 of them are being used.

%90 of Chieftains and Champions are playing spell builds. Isn't it too stupid?

After killing meele builds , i selected to use Cyclone COC builds , but these builds also nerfed several times.

Boring, better to play last epoch.

By the way i tried Prismatic Burst this league , it is useless , only 8 players inside more than 20k are playing Prismatic Burst support, which is new league gem.

one more skipped season , bow/trap supporters , i suggest you to play CS AWP map. I will play Last Epoch

After doing the campaign on a melee raider, I must acknowledge that melee is so much worse than I thought it was that it isn't even funny. And that's with instaleech.

I mean, people liked to say elemental hit bow wasn't great for leveling. I played that last league, and the difference between leveling a melee ranger and a bow ranger is about as big of a difference between a mouse and an elephant.