Thoughts on melee and hardcore?

Hey guys, I'm a pretty big nublet when it comes to PoE.

Long time D2 and somewhat D3 player who only plays hardcore, and from my past experiences which made me quit the game was that melee was only really viable with a few tank specs, mostly going full on hp/resist nodes. That, or play caster.

Well, I want to play melee and had a lot of fun on my last Shadow whom I got to about 47, though I knew the build really wasn't going to last into late game.

Question is - are melee still in the same predicament?

I really enjoy doing melee dagger builds or even dual claw looks crazy fun with life leech, new passives, and energy shield leech. But are any of them viable or are they limited only to softcore?

Anyway, PoE community has always seemed to be a good one and I was hoping for any advice as the new seasons rounding the corner.

TLDR:

Are melee other than tank specs (hp/resist/2hand ranged) viable?

The safest "melee" builds are the ones that are not actually in melee range at all, only using melee weapons. Namely Spectral Throw and Lightning Strike.

The second safest melee builds are those that maximize stun, of which there's really only one variety around Templar/Marauder/Duelist that grabs the stun nodes on the tree and uses Ground Slam and Heavy Strike due to their innate stun threshold reduction.

The third safest melee builds are those that hit extremely quickly and rely on things like life gain on hit or Vaal Pact life leech. Stuff like dw cyclone, etc.

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"Tanks" don't really exist in PoE because of the huge damage at high levels. Outside of something like CI+IC+ElementalFlasks, nobody can become immune enough to afk.

There's big defensive multipliers in the form of overcapped resists, dodge, and block, but that's something that virtually every build is going to need to have.

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Overall I'd say yes, melee is still in mostly the same predicament it used to be in. The tree has changed significantly recently in reducing the relative power of life% nodes, but you'll still be finding yourself searching them out. Same with block.

The vast majority of characters at high levels do their damage at significant range (or via minions/totems/traps) for a reason.

melee is absolutely hc viable, in my sig is a guide to a very simple dual claw / caw + sword duelist that I leveled to 80+ completely self found in Beyond, which is arguably one of the hardest hardcore leagues to date, no deaths, not even close calls tbh, piece of cake. For the purpose of making the guide I leveled it to 80+ again self found in regular hc, neither character died, both were clearing mid level maps (the highest maps I had) pretty easymode farm style just on items I found and made using simple vendor crafting recipes. Its not even an op build its just as basic as it gets bread and butter melee stuff.

You can get in to maps and do well with simple, effective melee builds. Getting a melee character that does explosive 50k+ aoe dps that can tank hard rolled lvl78 maps is not so easy, for that you are going to need semi serious gears. I cant really talk for Marauder and Templar melees, I just look at that side of the tree and despair atm, but Rangers/Shadows/Duelists can make very effective hc viable melee characters. Esp with Claws, late game you can do amazing Sword and Dagger melee builds but for leveling Claws are so op with the Life On Hit implicit, they really are the best leveling 1 hander imo. Unless you have access to Mightflay knives which become the thing when you can put them on.

Ranged is always safer providing they specced the same amount of defenses, obviously, but if you are melee you should have a 3-4 link spec throw somewhere anyway, certainly while leveling.

To be honestly i would not recommend going melee as a first character in hc/new league. Better get something a bit safer, get some currency so u can buy decent lvling items. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm doing melee in the one week HC league and it's often very frustrating(u would wish u weren't ranged sometimes *_*).

Hardcore is about the challenge (or at least it's supposed to be).. what better challenge there is than to play melee in a hardcore league?

It is really never worth it to play melee in hardcore. I have experience with several 90+ HC chars on the ladder, and nobody at the top plays melee because it is simply inferior.

Due to the nature of getting smacked constantly, you must use two to three times as many passives on defense rather than offense. Even with this investment, you can still easily get instakilled by various mechanics.

In the end, you'll do half the damage and be two to three times as likely to die. Until it's revamped, you'll be better off with other builds.

Thanks all for the input.

I just like the feeling of some of the melee builds in this game but always felt as melee, I only sought life nodes and nothing "unique."

I'll give it a whirl as there are two sides of the spectrum, but I won't be holding my breath. Still, it seems to be in a better place than before.

Thanks all for the input.

I just like the feeling of some of the melee builds in this game but always felt as melee, I only sought life nodes and nothing "unique."

I'll give it a whirl as there are two sides of the spectrum, but I won't be holding my breath. Still, it seems to be in a better place than before.

True melee player, except for some brief adventures every one of my characters is melee. ->

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Squiberz a écrit :

Still, it seems to be in a better place than before.

Not too sure about that.

Melee's problems were always the same, and still are.

1. Range is better because of Range. Don't have to walk to monsters (save time), can shoot from safe distance (be safe).

2. In this game, melee doesn't get superior damage and/or superior tankability (like you should to compensate for 1.). Every playstyle can have the same tanking abilities.

3. Some of the most horrifying monster attacks only happen in melee range.

4. there's far too few monsters that counter range (only a couple quick "gap closers", only few monsters with proximity shield)

Now that shouldn't stop you if you want to melee.

Melee is still somewhat "viable" and you can play it even in HC, sure.

But it's weaker by nature, and doesn't get anything to compensate for this.

And every new HC temp league has some new, nasty, anti-melee tricks.

- In nemesis we had volatile mod which is strictly anti-melee (fortunately, not too dangerous most of the time).

- Not to mention some invader bosses like Bladeback Guardian.

- And after playing this last mixed league as a melee I'd say the annoyance level is up there with the best. You have the distinct pleasure of having beyonders spawn right on top of you with some pretty nasty anti-melee tricks like 'poisonous tar' or 'unrighteous flamesurge'. I mean really, who designs this shit?

So if you can stand playing ranged, do it, HC melee is recommended like sledding on your naked butt on a slope of rusty razorblades.