The Presumed 50th Post About Melee

I am a player of middling dedication; I have a ranger at 80 running waystones in the low teens without real difficulty and a Monk in the high 60s who is fresh out of the campaign. The difference in challenge level between playing a ranged character and playing a melee character is absurd.

I want to be absolutely clear that I am trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison here. Both characters came out of the campaign at approximately equal power levels in terms of their ability to survive boss fights and drop powerful enemies. Neither of them struggled through anything in the campaign.

In the Atlas of Worlds, however, that trend only continued for one of my characters--the Ranger. I'm having trouble getting through T1 Waystones with my Monk, typically because I run into some random rare who has poisonous plants and I get exploded before I notice that I'm in danger. And before everyone says things that don't pertain here, let me make a few things clear:

1. I understand that some of my Atlas Passives are making the game harder, but I don't have Deadly Evolution active yet, so at most I'm adding one or two rare monsters to each map.

2. I understand that there are probably YouTube videos I could watch to tell me how to build a Monk differently and play the game, but at least part of my point is that I never had to do anything of the sort with my Ranger. If melee is so difficult that you can't intuit a way to make a functional character who does it but ranged isn't, that only makes my point for me.

3. I also recognize that I could just change weapons; I've even thought about respeccing my Monk to go ranged. Again, though, that merely backs up my point about the inherent inferiority of melee combat.

4. Finally, I'm sure that there are some people out there tearing through the endgame with melee characters who have never noticed this problem at all. Good for them. My point is merely that melee is inherently more difficult and more punishing than ranged play. Period. I am not claiming that playing a melee character is impossible; I am only suggesting that the difference between fighting up close and fighting at range is stark, and there is little incentive to do the former.

I really enjoyed playing my monk through the campaign, and I like the feel of using quarterstaff skills in combat. The stuff he can do is cool, and many of those skills do tremendous damage. But none of that matters if I get killed in 2 out of every 3 maps I attempt; I will level up relatively slowly and only make Atlas progress with my Ranger. Again--both characters were equally viable in the Campaign, which runs up to level 64 or whatever, but only one of them was able to transfer that viability to Atlas runs at level 65.

I think the main issue is that the main opponents of Atlas maps are Rares; those are the guys you get most of your loot from, and those are the guys you need to hunt effectively to progress. But of the modifiers Rare monsters can have, the *only* one that adversely affects ranged characters is Proximal Tangibility, and since most mobs run toward you, that's a problem that usually fixes itself. Meanwhile, the number of auras and death effects and plants and fireballs and such that a Rare monster might have swirling around it is incredibly high, and a melee character has to wade through all of it to actually do damage in combat--and they do that damage while standing still.

I don't know the answer to this problem, but allowing melee characters to move and fight at the same time would probably help. Additionally or alternatively, melee weapons could come with built-in defensive bonuses so that you weren't as likely to be smoked in close proximity to a dangerous rare. Whatever the solution might be, it seems like *something* needs to be changed. Otherwise, half of the classes in your final release will be inherently less playable, less intuitive, and less fun.

Try 5000th post, it's not just you and it really actually SHOULD be apples for apples comparison in a game where they talk BS about balance all the time. Melee is a completely different experience. I've played both ascendencies into the 90s and fitted them out with the best gear a lot of div can buy. You need to make a specific as heck build to 1 shot bosses but the speed to map is digusting.

Stampede is underdone damage wise and requires multiple runs on packs - even with herald builds. I've maxed this out level wise with +3 gems, corrupt level 21 stampede etc and regardless in maps you never have a smooth clear like you do with a ranger or monk or gem or whatever else spamming spark or comets etc.

It's just done straight up badly. Shield charge shouldn't be a travel skill it has decent damage and should be a skill with a minimal or reusable cool down making it end game viable as a choosen skill. Stampede needs more dmg as a clearing tool. Rolling slam is just straight up fucking TERRIBLE 2.5 second default attack on a skill that scales off near maps and no one uses other than to clear the odd rare that stampede missed (again) or you drop HOTG one of the most uninspiring skills I've seen in a game.. yuck! Then the move speed penalties for armor and shield yet you can carry around a pirates sunken treasure chest full of extra items with no movespeed penalty? WTF GGG you're actually cooked!

Im with you bro, 1000s of melee lovers are also with you.

The difference between spark storm weaver and bone shatter titan are night and day as well. On one class I can spam a skill on certain maps and walk along collecting loot while virtually never being in harms way, on the other if I time a leap incorrectly I can be killed in midair by some kind of ground effect.

It's pretty wild actually. Finding new ways to die every day that don't make sense.

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Chef Ref 77#8129 a écrit :

The difference between spark storm weaver and bone shatter titan are night and day as well. On one class I can spam a skill on certain maps and walk along collecting loot while virtually never being in harms way, on the other if I time a leap incorrectly I can be killed in midair by some kind of ground effect.

It's pretty wild actually. Finding new ways to die every day that don't make sense.

I legit can't stand how they took boneshatter the arguably best melee skill in poe1 for full game clear and turned it into some half pie support skill for clearing packs of primed mobs, disgustingggg