Melee viability

[Primarch]

Is anything being done to address the viability of melee builds in greater rifts and other endgame content. I fully recognize that several melee builds are capable of destroying Deimos/Samuel/other top-tier endgame bosses but ranged/caster builds are overwhelmingly better equipped to handle most of said content by simply avoiding mechanics that melee specs are forced to contend with entirely. This disparity becomes even more blatant when playing builds like Hammerzon where you’re forced to stand still in melee range to deal “okay” dmg. Games like D3 mitigate this by adding a blanket damage reduction aura buff to melee classes (or. Monk/Barbarians) but I’m wondering if the MXL team is able to implement such a buff to specific trees. Have the devs considered this approach at all?

[PodolskyV]

If they add aura like that, some strong melee builds like werewolf druid would become even stronger. I'm playing ww dru now in SP, and with self found gear I can farm and kill bosses, done most lvl125 ubers and some lvl 130. I have one best in slot item though, it's a

Coldhunger

Coldhunger
Wolf Head (Sacred)
Defense: (1842 - 2082) to (1915 - 2165)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 500
Item Level: 105
4% Chance to cast level 40 Ice Lance on Striking
+(1 to 2) to Druid Skill Levels
Adds 13-38 Damage
Adds 30-35 Cold Damage
(14 to 17)% Life stolen per Hit
-(29 to 35)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(115 to 143)% Enhanced Defense
+(41 to 50) to Dexterity
+(41 to 50) to Vitality
Cold Resist +(30 to 50)%
Socketed (4)

, that ice lance procs carry content for the most part.

[Lowserwer]

Is anything being done to address the viability of melee builds in greater rifts and other endgame content. I fully recognize that several melee builds are capable of destroying Deimos/Samuel/other top-tier endgame bosses but I ranged/caster builds are overwhelmingly better equipped to handle most of said content by simply avoiding mechanics that melee specs are forced to contend with entirely. This disparity becomes even more blatant when playing builds like Hammerzon where you’re forced to stand still in melee range to deal dmg. Games like D3 mitigate this by adding a blanket damage reduction aura buff to melee classes (or. Monk/Barbarians). Have the devs considered this approach at all?

Totally agree, I currently playing HC on different classes and ranged seems much easier, even tho melee have some great defense possibilities. Was playing melee sorc, necro, druid, unholy paladin (which is still alive) and I can say that FIRE SORC (or, at this point, any kind of ranged character) can do things better 10 times, you just don't get too close to the enemy. But again, it's HC.

If they add aura like that, some strong melee builds like werewolf druid would become even stronger. I'm playing ww dru now in SP, and with self found gear I can farm and kill bosses, done most lvl125 ubers and some lvl 130. I have one best in slot item though, it's a

Coldhunger

Coldhunger
Wolf Head (Sacred)
Defense: (1842 - 2082) to (1915 - 2165)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 500
Item Level: 105
4% Chance to cast level 40 Ice Lance on Striking
+(1 to 2) to Druid Skill Levels
Adds 13-38 Damage
Adds 30-35 Cold Damage
(14 to 17)% Life stolen per Hit
-(29 to 35)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(115 to 143)% Enhanced Defense
+(41 to 50) to Dexterity
+(41 to 50) to Vitality
Cold Resist +(30 to 50)%
Socketed (4)

, that ice lance procs carry content for the most part.

If we talking about bosses - 125 ubers is not something unbeliveble hard. Except for, maybe, astrogna and spirit world (hate this one, btw). Astrogna is usually hard for melee, due to her skills, but can be done with hit&run tactics (did it on necro, unholy paladin, warcry barb, much much easier on ranged character) and spirit world... spirit world can go f himself. For once I found a video of a guy trying to take down Uldyssian in the wolf druid. It took him about 3h or so, was NOT fun to watch.
But main endgame is actually rifts, which can be done in melee, but the problem is - ranged are just better, why trying to move around corner when you have a way to destroy everything behind it? Why TP over gap when you can kill everything without even touching it? Etc etc.

[PodolskyV]

Is anything being done to address the viability of melee builds in greater rifts and other endgame content. I fully recognize that several melee builds are capable of destroying Deimos/Samuel/other top-tier endgame bosses but I ranged/caster builds are overwhelmingly better equipped to handle most of said content by simply avoiding mechanics that melee specs are forced to contend with entirely. This disparity becomes even more blatant when playing builds like Hammerzon where you’re forced to stand still in melee range to deal dmg. Games like D3 mitigate this by adding a blanket damage reduction aura buff to melee classes (or. Monk/Barbarians). Have the devs considered this approach at all?

Totally agree, I currently playing HC on different classes and ranged seems much easier, even tho melee have some great defense possibilities. Was playing melee sorc, necro, druid, unholy paladin (which is still alive) and I can say that FIRE SORC (or, at this point, any kind of ranged character) can do things better 10 times, you just don't get too close to the enemy. But again, it's HC.

If they add aura like that, some strong melee builds like werewolf druid would become even stronger. I'm playing ww dru now in SP, and with self found gear I can farm and kill bosses, done most lvl125 ubers and some lvl 130. I have one best in slot item though, it's a

Coldhunger

Coldhunger
Wolf Head (Sacred)
Defense: (1842 - 2082) to (1915 - 2165)
(Druid Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 500
Item Level: 105
4% Chance to cast level 40 Ice Lance on Striking
+(1 to 2) to Druid Skill Levels
Adds 13-38 Damage
Adds 30-35 Cold Damage
(14 to 17)% Life stolen per Hit
-(29 to 35)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
+(115 to 143)% Enhanced Defense
+(41 to 50) to Dexterity
+(41 to 50) to Vitality
Cold Resist +(30 to 50)%
Socketed (4)

, that ice lance procs carry content for the most part.

If we talking about bosses - 125 ubers is not something unbeliveble hard. Except for, maybe, astrogna and spirit world (hate this one, btw). Astrogna is usually hard for melee, due to her skills, but can be done with hit&run tactics (did it on necro, unholy paladin, warcry barb, much much easier on ranged character) and spirit world... spirit world can go f himself. For once I found a video of a guy trying to take down Uldyssian in the wolf druid. It took him about 3h or so, was NOT fun to watch.
But main endgame is actually rifts, which can be done in melee, but the problem is - ranged are just better, why trying to move around corner when you have a way to destroy everything behind it? Why TP over gap when you can kill everything without even touching it? Etc etc.

Btw i've done Astrogha, but it was tricky because twisted claw often destroys statues. And for me it's more comfortable to play a tanky melee than squishy ranged because of some mobs and bosses that has pounce-like abilities and I like to leap to foes faces and crush them. What about Uldissian you can kill him quick enough with werewolf if you got whole best in slot gear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgN6NAAHXUE&t=124s. I'm undergeared now, so I've spent very long time on him.

[Boban]

Yea, but the thing is many ranged builds are not that much squishier than melee ones. Sure, you probably won't have 1M def, but similiar life, resists, block, avoid, blinks, something about 200-300k def... those are easily obtainable for the most part. Plus you don't have to actually tank anything unless you fail to dodge it, you don't have to chase/cheese running enemies... melee is at a serious disadvantage here. Sure, it can be fun, but some things are literally impossible to do without certain gear checks, while ranged builds, at least on paper, can kite them for ages.

Not sure what solution would be perfect though, that aura OP suggested feels kinda cheesy to me, simply rising numbers are often not the greatest way to buff things in my opinion. What about adding more melee CC abilities in the game? That could add some depth in a gameplay, we would have to play around some cooldowns and skill switching.

[Lowserwer]

Btw i've done Astrogha, but it was tricky because twisted claw often destroys statues. And for me it's more comfortable to play a tanky melee than squishy ranged because of some mobs and bosses that has pounce-like abilities and I like to leap to foes faces and crush them. What about Uldissian you can kill him quick enough with werewolf if you got whole best in slot gear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgN6NAAHXUE&t=124s. I'm undergeared now, so I've spent very long time on him.

That's gonna be true with all this "BIS" gear, but again, some range characters don't need it and they scaling just fine, improving with each new item they gonna find. Let's face it - you can do range tank as well and it's gonna work even better. I love melee characters for their tank, I really love tanks. This is why on hardcore for me personally melee > range, but if truth be told - ranged character will always be in priority. For everything. It's easier to play for the most part and I feel it.

Also, you are talking about only werewolf, which is okay at farming, somewhat bad at bossing, have good tp (with 0 sec cd mind you), but if you look at other melee you probably not gonna find much more to them. Necromancer has good defence (def + block + avoid + phys-res (if you want to loose dps) ). Paladin imbalance as always, except, no, melee holy paladin is actually bad. Bear druid is nice, but still don't have enough dps for the later ubers (not talking about cherubim + 5400 str axe build, you don't have 1k tg for it XD ). Melee sorc? Before sigma was super nice, nowadays... I would say 50/50, still doing good dps tho Barb... two-handed axe just can't compete with great damage of the later ubers or rifts and one-handed variant died long time ago due to lack of dmg (still have one 115 on hardcore).

If we gonna speak about ranged characters - well, Sorc - lightning - great for farming, good dps with rock, have avoid and defence (cold + lightning), fire - hp, dps (143 lvl currently top playing on HC running mid-labs), Amazon - pretty squishy, that's true, but dishing out dps pretty great, and finding weapon is easy (sacred reflex bow, any quality, only craft is hard). And we can say it almost about all range build, except, maybe for fortress barb, never played it so don't know. There are some core items to different builds, but you, usually, don't need them so much to succeed, wherewith melee builds - you need them.

But again, it's just an opinion. Devs not looking into those kinds of posts on the forum. Nothing gonna be done and I guess this is okay. We still waiting on that 2.0 which can change everything.

[cnlnjzfjb]

Since 1.7 patch, physical melee bds are in a weak position in general at late game(not including relic stacking bds).
Spell casters and IED bds are better at late game(late game means 13+ labs, Samael and Deimoss).

[PodolskyV]

I don't have any problems with bosses maybe except Astrogha, because my ww single target dps is good, I have caped block chance and some life on attack.

Yea, but the thing is many ranged builds are not that much squishier than melee ones. Sure, you probably won't have 1M def, but similiar life, resists, block, avoid, blinks, something about 200-300k def... those are easily obtainable for the most part. Plus you don't have to actually tank anything unless you fail to dodge it, you don't have to chase/cheese running enemies... melee is at a serious disadvantage here. Sure, it can be fun, but some things are literally impossible to do without certain gear checks, while ranged builds, at least on paper, can kite them for ages.

Not sure what solution would be perfect though, that aura OP suggested feels kinda cheesy to me, simply rising numbers are often not the greatest way to buff things in my opinion. What about adding more melee CC abilities in the game? That could add some depth in a gameplay, we would have to play around some cooldowns and skill switching.

So give me please for example ranged build with 300k def, capped block, 10k life and 1k LaeK or other source of healing that would so effective. That would be interesting, maybe I would play it. What about aura even if devs would decide to implement it, they should make it exclusive for melee builds and not accessible with ranged weapons. Otherwise there would be new meta with dexterity bow-barbs oskill builds.


More CC for melee sounds good, but will it be that good depends on mechanics implemented ofc.

[Boban]

I don't have any problems with bosses maybe except Astrogha, because my ww single target dps is good, I have caped block chance and some life on attack.

Yea, but the thing is many ranged builds are not that much squishier than melee ones. Sure, you probably won't have 1M def, but similiar life, resists, block, avoid, blinks, something about 200-300k def... those are easily obtainable for the most part. Plus you don't have to actually tank anything unless you fail to dodge it, you don't have to chase/cheese running enemies... melee is at a serious disadvantage here. Sure, it can be fun, but some things are literally impossible to do without certain gear checks, while ranged builds, at least on paper, can kite them for ages.

Not sure what solution would be perfect though, that aura OP suggested feels kinda cheesy to me, simply rising numbers are often not the greatest way to buff things in my opinion. What about adding more melee CC abilities in the game? That could add some depth in a gameplay, we would have to play around some cooldowns and skill switching.

So give me please for example ranged build with 300k def, capped block, 10k life and 1k LaeK or other source of healing that would so effective. That would be interesting, maybe I would play it. What about aura even if devs would decide to implement it, they should make it exclusive for melee builds and not accessible with ranged weapons. Otherwise there would be new meta with dexterity bow-barbs oskill builds.


More CC for melee sounds good, but will it be that good depends on mechanics implemented ofc.

Well from the top of my dome, without block but avoid instead and way more hp + summons, fire druid or fire/cold sorc. Javazon (with block), although last(?) patch removed laek from the kit. Trap rat druid should also do the trick. Not to mention paladin because I don't ever play that retard, but he for sure fits in that category too.

[PodolskyV]

I forgot about avoid, my ww has 50% avoid too and what life sources your fire druid has, that isn't avaliable for ww dru? Maybe i'm just undergeared and can have more hp? Also my ww dru has more more mobility and maybe even more clearspeed.