Few words about Atlas, new league, nerf exp, prophecy, Melee, etc.

Regarding melee I just hope GGG will nerf Cyclone some more. That skill when used for non-CoC builds is way too opieop...

/s

I'm cleaning up house a bit in Std and ascending my old chars. Getting from EQ Jugg I was playing in Prophecy, to my old Cyclone facebreaker (from 1.1 or 1.2) was such a shock. The latter has become utter crap - extremely slow clear speed, 2 pixels of range, need to invest a ton into defenses... and you still can get oneshot by volatile blood in damage mod maps.

Roleplaying is currently the only reason to pick melee over pew pew bow / wand / CoC.

I find it strange that necro is better support than guardian. I didn't know this and assumed that people just played support guardian (meaning Templar isn't useless). Maybe its just a standard thing? people want the more DPS that the necro can give rather than the survivability the gaurdian gives?

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quzR wrote:

I find it strange that necro is better support than guardian. I didn't know this and assumed that people just played support guardian (meaning Templar isn't useless). Maybe its just a standard thing? people want the more DPS that the necro can give rather than the survivability the gaurdian gives?

Likely, although both Inquisitor and Hierophant have good uses as well. Hierophant is the better option for totems if you want damage and you can even still use spells yourself. And the Inquisitor offers a nice Crit Option on the other half of tree, not comparable to the assassin, but likely the best option if you want to go Crit with Totems. The thing is the area around the templer is also not that interesting compared to shadow, but then again a Shadow is a very unlikely option for a totem char.

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You never played CoC? Bcs it seems so from your msg, you never felt weak as melee? What maps and mods have you played? How fast you clear uber atziri? What map mods you think as hard, 3, 5, 10, 40?

Your first part either masochistic or you never felt how easy and strong CoC and other clear speed meta or bladefall mines.

Honestly, he is propably more right about that. He isn't comparing melee. He just said that melee is able to do thing in the game, there are likely a few things you have to be more careful about or are slower, but that is not something that makes melee bad. People look way too much at raw damage. Yes a Chaosstorm Trapper was able to throw one trap at almost any boss and he was gone. That is powerful... is it fun, not that much, the gameplay is actually quite boring, but effective.

The most important fixes are targetting with some of the melee skills, if you miss a bit your char swings into the air, couldn't he just autotarget an enemy if there is one? I also still feel that using Warcries while attacking (not while casting) should be possible. Every action that is possible while being silence should also allow Warcries to be used. Right now you have to stop cycloning to use a Warcry, which feels terrible. Improving such things wouldn't make melee that more powerful, but more fun to play.

And if Facebreaker builds can easily beat maps up to core it can't be that bad. They can even beat Uber, likely not on farm niveau, but that isn't really the point. The important thing is being able to do something and being engaged and considering that, Melee is propably in the best spot and it is mostly the other areas that have ways to just outright destroy most content. There are Spell or Ranged Attack builds that behave similar. They have clear weaknesses and don't oneshot just about everything. The builds we look at that destroy everything in seconds (and honestly, even melee has one of those builds now, not counting CoC Discharge, which is melee as well). If we look beyond those mechanics that allow oneshotting the screen there is a lot of healthy gameplay, however asking to move this gameplay up to the level of screen-clearing and boss oneshotting of those unhealthy parts doesn't do the game any good.

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SunL4D2 wrote:

What are you talking about?

Maps for rotation can become more expensive, as level was increased. Maps like gorge, plateau, springs, etc now much higher tier that means they will be rarer and more expensive to everyone.

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Moshe_of_Succubus wrote:

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TreeOfDead wrote:

Atlas of Worlds
Melee, as we saw in trailer and vids, will be utterly extremely bad: NO DPS, NO DEFENSE, NO CLEAR SPEED in same time, as always. If you not believe me, check trailer or vids from company that PR new expansion. Melee will be more dead then it now.

dat build...I think...no I know, dat build are terrible, chris cyclone is terrible, infernal blow too

I agree with many things that u said, I hope we can change GGG mind, they need look forum

Yeah melee in that vid was awful bad and show how bad and weak melee are in game even with BIS gear.
I also wish and hope it will be changed in 2.4

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Achilion wrote:

About that new nerfed exp is what made me play a lot lot lot less now. Just don't have the motivation to lvl with that crap exp rates as a solo player.

For rotation with infinite amounts of gorges is propably whatever anyway.

At first i plan to take a break from the game bcs of nerf exp, but decided to try it... and it was so bad, expensive and useless. After infinite rotation i feel empty and so tired from the game. Not sure why it was done? To slow down elite? They all get their 100 lvl as fast as it was before nerf exp... so whats point to nerf it? I dont know. Game become so time wasting and less fun after it.

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morbo wrote:

I'm cleaning up house a bit in Std and ascending my old chars. Getting from EQ Jugg I was playing in Prophecy, to my old Cyclone facebreaker (from 1.1 or 1.2) was such a shock. The latter has become utter crap - extremely slow clear speed, 2 pixels of range, need to invest a ton into defenses... and you still can get oneshot by volatile blood in damage mod maps.

100% agree with you, i also loved old cyclone even tho it was never Tier 1 build, as Coc or bladefall mines or blade vortex or spark.
Why cyclone should be nerf SO hard, while coc and other Tier 1 builds didnt get any nerf and only buffed few time in row? Why? Wheres logic?
Melee has no aoe or utterly shit pseudo aoe
Melee has no DPS compared to CoC, Mjolner, trap or mines bladefall, blade vortex or other Tier 1 skills.
Melee has no defense, yeah they can get decent phys reduction from 10 end charges, but only as one class - jugg. Even with 10 end charges any elemental or chaos dmg can easy kill melee.
Melee has slowest clear speed EVER! Any build faster then melee.
Melee has slowest movement speed, bcs left side tree has no ms node.

Why melee has no good side? Why nerf melee so hard? For what?

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Emphasy wrote:

Honestly, he is propably more right about that. He isn't comparing melee. He just said that melee is able to do thing in the game, there are likely a few things you have to be more careful about or are slower, but that is not something that makes melee bad.

With that logic you must say that elemental hit, dominating blow, vigilant strike, DD, DS and other dead skills that no one wanted/no one use also fine, viable and good? It seems so if you make it that way.

The only thing I got from this post is that you have overplayed the game. You are fed up with the game.
You are playing in Leagues and complain that you dont find the items you want?

If you compare PoE with D2 which is a natural thing to do. You could farm for half a year (MFing) and not get some of the items you wanted there.

The game is about trading also. You cannot play in a short league and expect to self-find all the rarest items in the game.

You complain about the exp loss. You dont even play HC. The exploss is fine.

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Ascendancy Classes.
Marauder (all), Duelist (all), Ranger (all), Witch (all), Assassin = super good, basically top tier classes.

Templar (all) classes super bad, every build can be done better then Templar (only good he has Inevitable Judgement node).
Support Guardian? Necromancer much better.
Totems Hierophant? Chieftain MUCH better!
Melee? HAHA, NO! Any marauder or duelist will be 500% more effective and better then templar melee.
Etc. Templar classes just utterly piece of shit!

Ascendant = good, but overnerfed IMO!

Saboteur and Trickster decent, but still weak if we compare to other classes and their ability.

I disagree with you on Templar Ascendancys. Let's have a look:

Inquisitor:
Can get tons of cast and attack speed for free with an easy condition to meet (using whirling blades or shield charge once and then cast a spell or, for melee/attack based, use flamedash once and then attack)
"Inevitable Judgement" is one of the most powerfull, most broken, Ascendancy passives in the game - it basically reads "deal true damage to all targets" if you can stack your crit high enough (which is doable with the right build).
The consecrated ground branch is flavourfull but doesn't fit the current clear speed meta
I would say Inquisitor is one of the strongest classes in the game right now.

Guardian:
Ever played a low life Guardian before? It feels nearly immortal and you can facetank 90% of all content with it if you want to go that route. Necromancer offers damage, attack and cast speed to your alies (which they usually already have more than enough) and Guardian offers great defences.

Let's say Guardian fits a defensive support role and Necromancer an offensive one - which is great imho.
Guardian isn't only capable of doing the support role - you can make some crazy tanky solo builds with it which i really enjoy - it isn't just a one trick pony like some other Ascendancys.

Hierophant:
I agree on Hierophant - there are some really niche builds which only a Hierophant can do but due to the lack of a build defining power creep notable (which almost all other ascendancys have) it will never be a tier 1 class to pick.

But for things like:
- cheap league starter (free 5l)
- Ancestral Warchief totems
- Aura totem support/utility class
- zero mana cost shinanigans builds
- wacky MoM tanks
- channeling skill user with permanent immortal call

it is a great pick.

Ascendent
Agree. Scion needs some build defining buffs in its choices and combinations. With the current tree and the power of the other classes, Scion will always be inferior regardless of skill to pick. Scion needs some unique stuff and combinations which no other class can do to shine.

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- channeling skill user with permanent immortal call

???

@OP, do you mean that levelling to 100 in Atlas will cost 40 000 chaos in your opinion?

Instead of fortify there should have been a few passive nodes with 10% more armour when using a mace, axe or sword or being unarmed. Fortify and damage reduction was a bad direction. You have to sacrifice options and invest in a new range of stats to become on par with ranged builds.

Also I agree with the aiming problem. It would be nice if the player attacks anyway and doesnt follow the monster around. It also would fix the increased range of melee weapons not working in practise.

If GGG would have balls they should change the AOE meta and nerf AOE spells to a point that it's a matter of gameplay to choose for AOE or single target instead of deliberately crippling yourself to unplayable if you choose to go single target.

Good points about 100, I pretty much figured that would be the case sadly early on. The fact that we can maintain the same speed across mapping it would have inevitably led to something like this.

Depressing to me that as a developer GGG could have taken a different stance than this "players enjoy a harder grind" bullshit.

Also hit me up for AoW :3