If melee is so hard to design, why does Barbarian feel great in every single Diablo game?

I'm running through Acts as Titan now with shield charge, earthshatter, warcry and perfect strike. Kind of lacking "bonk" feels on swinging mace.
Lv.41 and I will be set hopefully.

1.2 aps weapon with martial tempo and onslaught helm is too much while I'm not using weapon often to hit directly so maybe I better go for stun (then "bonk").

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Puz#1322 wrote:

D2, D3, D4 all got the Barbarian right. Maybe it's the only thing they got right. I know "D4 bad," but they know how to build a melee class that feels good.

Not really. After LOD release melee in Diablo 2 was no use. On hell difficulty phys damage didn't work, almost every mob on hell had phys resistance or immunity.
Vanila D2 was great with good drop and tonns of valueble builds, but after some time your only option to start the game from zero was hammerdin or sorceress. Everything else sucked without uber gear.
This is the path of every online game: everything gets nerfed, and the game goes to downward path.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

but that aside, i've recently tried quarterstaff. even if we ignore the "projectile" skills, damn it's quite fast and responsive. has good aoe/clear and feel really fun as a melee option

tbh i m blown away at how fast the weapon feels. especially when the weapon makes the player dash towards enemies at a generous distance.

I think they purposefully put out the slowest and fastest weapons first, so that if those work (or they can patch them until they work), then anything in the middle should also function on a basic level (aka, not break the game).

From a player standpoint that doesn't seem obvious, but from a dev standpoint, that's exactly the way to do it. :D

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

this is the biggst prob with warrior, he ins't even melee, he is attacking the ground most of the time. that is not melee. melee should feel exacfly like what yu described monk. fast, responsive and connecting- this was done well with d2 frenzy barb and here with ice strike monk

its really sad that ggg made poe2 with melee in mind but still made the same mistakes they made in poe1.

warcries doing damage with knockback+high aoe

damaging totems

mace can even "cast projectiles". the hammer from the heavens is one of the "best" things melee can have which technically isnt even truly melee.

but all that is still minor compared to how we can scale attack speed with HoWaA.

the attack speed is so ridiculous. its back to poe1.

really hope ggg polishes melee/their game up nicely.

i feel like i ll take a break until things have improved.

I have mentioned elsewhere that melee in D3 is phenomenal. It was just so much fun.

I like almost everything about PoE better than D3, but I remember wondering why melee wasn't enjoyable in PoE1 and being really sad about the game being "all or nothing." In PoE2, the problem is even worse.

What is needed is sustain skills. Skills that leech a ton for X number of seconds, or give invulnerability for X number of seconds, and total invincibility frames on skills. The problem is partly gems and same-ey classes.

The closest we have is the "encases in jade" skill for the warbringer.

As much as I love PoE's aesthetic, I feel like with PoE2 I have completely decided that class-only skills was always better than the gem system. I love PoE, but I have to admit this to myself. I always felt builds were limited in PoE1 even despite the gems and skill tree. I really just long for something like D2 or Grim Dawn with a bit more options. Hell, even in theory, the D3 system for skills was cool.

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dynia6666#0969 wrote:

melee bad
also monk - most OP build in game lol

Monk is great at melee only if you glass-canon your way out of every fight while your 5 digit ES keep you alive . Melee in general ( tanking & retal ) goes against the core mechanics of this game .

Doing dmg while moving is the only way to play an arpg today. Due to this spin to win is far more superior to every other melee attack ever created. Vampire Survivor has made this mandatory.

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neosun#1001 wrote:

spin to win is far more superior to every other melee attack ever created.

I am not sure how GGG was ignorant enough to launch PoE2 without ANY "spin-to-win" skills for the Warrior at launch.

It's almost a requirement for ARPGs, but yet... nowhere to be found, and not on any horizon.

But they sure as hell made sure SPARK made it over...

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wesinhuman#4716 wrote:

What is needed is sustain skills.

I'm going to change the shape of your context intentionally without breaking this requirement.

This requirement is what makes "holding 1 button build" always inferior. It fills the "in between" moments most effectively, the perfect sustain skill.
-> "One shot" is a killer content for "H1B" build. "too much mobs", "mana issues" etc as well.
Edit: "One shot" -> "We don't even have to hold 1 button, just 1 click". This is the precise, logical consequence.

Slow everything
-> For now, let's assume we have hidden mod "players have screen wide Temporal Chain aura".

Let us move quickly
-> "H1B" achieved implicit "zoom zoom".

"ZZH1B" is now the most ideal build concept. We cannot deny our own requirement so let's make another shift.

"Hard code" each functionality to define exceptions/limitations strictly.
-> "Class-only Skill", "+X seconds to total attack time"
--> "Let us do the same like Monk", "It's BS. Remove delays"
---> GGGGG==;;°ω°)っ[ZZH1B]