Duelist is a dead class

According to the statistics on poestatistics.com Duelist class is the least playable class in both bloodline and torment leagues. Obviously people don't want to go with melee and choose "pewpew" classes where you don't have to come close to mobs and risk your life and just cast/shoot/throw etc.. I understand that coz I do it myself and I have never played as a melee(except for RF which doesn't really count as melee) simply because POE doesn't give me a good enough reason to do so. So is there anything that GGG will be doing to boost up Duelist skill tree and balance up classes so all classes are fun to play? Also, in my opinion, last flameblast nerf was not enough to get the players off the flameblast "needle" and I still see most of the players use that skill when I level up in parties. It'd be great to see more different mechanics used in game by players rather than flameblast/lightning tendrils all over the place. Just an opinion of mine.

There is no direct cure for this ailment you are describing.

Some things to consider

- desync, while this has been beaten to dead over numerous post's and rightfully so one can not disregard it as a major conflict issue when working with close range "point press" skills.

- efficiency overall, when you boil down poe to a min-max scenario, not having to walk over to mobs in order to finish them off yields the best results in this scenario.
And since PoE is still a grind-fest/loot-fest this min-max scenario is pretty much embedded in its existence.

- due to GGG inability to come up with good ways to put the focus on melee, they opted for the easy way out by introducing semi-melee skills (all melee with an AOE tag and spectral throw which was introduced when melee was on an all time low)
In turn this has created even more troubles then it solved solutions, since every major "melee only"-node is out of the question now, since it would be abused by semi-melee skills.

The duelist is a hard puzzle to solve imo, i am currently dedicating a thread to him and his MoM key-stone in feedback, which might if implemented correctly serve to give the duelist more identity, however in doing so it would also undermine the foundation of the duelist.(dex/str allegiance)

Arguably his real forté atm is dual wielding, together with the shadow. but due to the substantial nerfs to one of the main benefits of dual wielding (block vs 2-hand) i can understand the minimal participation of duelist's in the ladder atm.

I am really rooting for a workable MoM passive key-stone to give that duelist some of his identity and reason to be back.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit :

On-topic of flameblast/tendrils

These skills are balanced atm, they serve there purposes well and are hard-capped by gem level restrictions, i don't believe it is unusual to see at the start of a league a higher ratio of
spell-casters vs weapon based builds, this is just natural. Also this will shift in the middle of the league like it always does when people have farmed the needed materials to facilitate a melee build properly.

edit2:



Feel free to bump this, i am hoping this get's somehow noted by a GGG member in the right spot.

Nice thread man, I really hope Duelist class gets resurrected next big patch(maybe March?) In my opinion, this class could get nodes like life gain on hit/life leech so it s easier to sustain psyc reflect, perhaps break down some bigger clusters into smaller ones so there is more space to move on and give some armor/eva/resist nodes to this poor guy. MoM seems to be intentionally be there just to waste more points to get there from other classes since it is obviously not meant for Duelist class due to the lack of int/mana nodes. GGG did a great job resurrecting Templar class, I believe that can do same with Duelist class too.

Barring some new node added to make the Duelist start attractive, I can't really think of anything that will truly help the situation.

It's just at a bad split point. If you want HP, you pretty much have to go left. If you go 2H, there's no reason to go right for your DPS, and if you go projectile, no reason to go left. If you want to go dual wield, the only weapon that has some crossover between the two sides is swords. Beyond that, claws and daggers have many nodes located up and to the right, too far away to make the Duelist appealing. If you want hp, again, you've got to go toward Marauder land. If you don't, well, HP by another name (aka ES) is located too far away, and MoM doesn't really have the support it needs.

For Duelists to work, they'd need changes both defensively and offensively. Defensively, they need a reliable way to survive the overly high elemental and chaos burst damage you get in Merciless, but something that doesn't require them to travel into Marauder land. That doesn't exist. And offensively, you need more overlap between the two sides. It can't be 2h, axes, and maces to the left; projectiles, DW, daggers, and claws to the right.

What it amounts to is a limited selection of appealing builds, and most that can be done as well or better with a Marauder, Templar, Shadow, or Ranger start.

Duelist has the problem that their initial 5 nodes in the tree are either inefficient or just barely efficient nodes that you wouldn't take if they were elsewhere on the tree. All of the good nodes in the duelist tree can easily be picked up my ranger or marauder who have way better starting nodes, so you get the best of both worlds by not playing as a duelist.

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Recarius wrote:

Duelist has the problem that their initial 5 nodes in the tree are either inefficient or just barely efficient nodes that you wouldn't take if they were elsewhere on the tree. All of the good nodes in the duelist tree can easily be picked up my ranger or marauder who have way better starting nodes, so you get the best of both worlds by not playing as a duelist.

This _/\

There is literally no reason to go face to face with mobs. And the other type of builds can be done more effectively with other classes. It's a hard issue to solve.

Well i don't know if duelist is dead , i play two characters in torment :
my first a shadow dual claw viper strike/dual strike life leech with riposte+vengeance very awesome , love really claw so shadow seem best for that.

my second a duelist because needed of melee splash for my shadow but try a molten strike and love it , i made 3 for race and i had better result than before with ranger. Witch was good also don't know with this new skill tree.

The begin of duelist's nodes is perfect for physical skills melee like molten strike ( convert physical in fire )