Physical Builds and Melee Builds are Not Good - Why and Suggestions

Hello,

I would like to make my bi annual suggestion to the game where I see problems as a veteran player of POE. The most glaring and obvious problem point being with physical and melee builds.

Problem:
Archnemesis monsters and new atlas passives have lead to maps being more deadly thus "requiring" defensive auras. (Purity of Elements, Defiance Banner, Grace, Determination)

While all bosses in the game are generally melee unfriendly, uber bosses are even more melee unfriendly, thus DPS uptime for melee builds is very low, thus melee builds need to have much more damage than normal builds to have the same effective DPS. This is partially achieved by running many of the "melee" auras that boost your damage substantially. (Pride, Herald of Purity, War/Dread Banner, Flesh and Stone + Maim, Precision, Blood and Sand)

Physical and Melee builds that want (have to) to run a combination of defensive and offensive auras to make their builds feel good or compete with other builds are very tight on number of sockets, thus having to run 1 or 2 enlightens in 1 or 2 different aura setups can't be done because they also need sockets for mobility skill, war cry, totems, etc.

Solution:
Put very strong reservation nodes behind weapon/melee mastery passives.

Example:
Two Hand Mastery - Pride, Herald of Purity, and Stance Skills have 30% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency.
Fortify Mastery - Grace and Determination have 30% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency.
Attack Mastery - Exceptional Gems are disabled. 20% increased Reservation Efficiency of Skills.
Impale Mastery - All Attack Skills are supported by Lifetap. -1000 Accuracy (So you can reserve 100% mana)


Additional Notes Outside of Mana Reservation:
1. Fortify stacks need to more consistent on bosses.
2. Sword/Axe/Mace Mastery - Totems are disabled. Deal 10% more Damage. (Frees up more gem sockets and gives more consistent damage from main skill.)
3. Remove the ramp-up time on Pride Aura. Adjust numbers accordingly. (Having to run in and out to dodge mechanics already hurts your effective DPS.)


Thanks for all you do.

I agree that something should be reviewed.
I like to play Molten Strike, Tectonic Slam, Lacerate, Frost Blades etc close-mid range build but it is really hard to keep DPS-ing in certain scenarios.

Ex: Storm Strider casting mirages when you try to kill it or dodging magma balls and then jumping back in to hit Magma Barrier mods.

yeah i agree, there only so many amount of gem slots and the majority of them have to be survival.

also wish the melee weren't so aura dependent. in diablo 2 paladins did auras and barbarians did war cries. now aura are mandatory, and to not use them kinda stagnates you.

determination is nice but if i dont use it by maps its night and day with survival.

Melee is bad for several leagues because there was always a compromisse: ranged skills and spells had great AoE, but lesser damage, while melee had better damage and bad AoE.

In these past leagues, buffs to ranged made them surpass melee in every way, and just reservation efficiency doesn't feel that it would be the right way to go.

Ranged in general needs to be nerfed instead of ever increasing the power creep. Make ranged have clear upsides and downsides, because right now, even if you have an absurdly high budget for melee, it would be better invested in ranged builds.

I agree that melee skills need Help or the best Caster aka DD and Seismic builds need nerfs. I disagree with the whole Mana Reservation/Aura thing.

Casters cant run every Aura they could benefit from either.

Thats not the Problem. You just run the strongest Auras aka Pride/Determ/Banner/Blood and Sand + x (can be Skitterbots/Purity of Elements/Tempest Shield whatever you prefer) and call it a day.

I dont like Grace on left Side Tree Builds. Its not Bad but without Ghost Dance not worth it imo.


Anyway Melee has bigger Problems than that.

The biggest one is that there is simply no really strong skill left compared to the best Caster skills.

Slams do dog damage for 2 Handed Builds and the amount of Points you need to put in Warcry nodes.
Shieldcrush and Boneshatter are ok. Actually very nice for Mapping but pretty Bad for Bossing cause the damage is low on fights with low uptime.
Every other Melee Skill is so Bad right now its not even worth mentioning.
LS is ok.. gets Strong with Omni... but thats more Omni than LS.
(Talking SSFHC fresh Start PoV)

"

Casters cant run every Aura they could benefit from either.

Casters don't want to run a lot of offensive auras. Melee do. That's the difference. And casters don't "need" to run all the defensive auras since they aren't (shouldn't) be in melee range.

"

The biggest one is that there is simply no really strong skill left compared to the best Caster skills.

There are plenty of melee skills if they did more damage (or have higher uptime) would be good. Earthquake, tectonic slam, cyclone, bladestorm, etc. All well functioning skills if they did more damage.

* The Southwest region of the tree needs a lot of tweaking, especially in defense. Ironically this region currently seems to be the worst for scaling defenses.

* Pure Physical (Impale) is in very bad shape.

* The Brutality gem is dedicated to Pure Physical only, it MUST offer obvious benefits, it is currently on par with Melee Physical damage which is a general gem for Melee. A buff and perhaps an additional defense benefit (flat of Life on Hit scalable with your amount of HP) would be appropriate for this dedicated Pure Physical Melee gem.

* Claws in addition to being very strong, have something even stronger: Implicit with ON-HIT Life recovery. This along with high attack speed is extremely strong, much stronger than Slayer's Overleech for example. The GGG could add something to the height in the Southwest region, perhaps in the Masteries of the other weapons.

"

kenbak wrote:

* The Southwest region of the tree needs a lot of tweaking, especially in defense. Ironically this region currently seems to be the worst for scaling defenses.

This is very true. And its mostly because fortify rework did not work. Fortify effect being replaced by +1 fortification would be fine if we could actually gain fortification. Even builds that can are not able to rely on it as a defense since it usually drops or gets reduced in-between packs.

"

Anton___Chigurh wrote:

"

Casters cant run every Aura they could benefit from either.

Casters don't want to run a lot of offensive auras. Melee do. That's the difference. And casters don't "need" to run all the defensive auras since they aren't (shouldn't) be in melee range.

"

The biggest one is that there is simply no really strong skill left compared to the best Caster skills.

There are plenty of melee skills if they did more damage (or have higher uptime) would be good. Earthquake, tectonic slam, cyclone, bladestorm, etc. All well functioning skills if they did more damage.

Caster Builds want more damage and more defense in the exact same way melee wants that. In many cases its not even better to stand far away. There is the same need for defense on every Build at least on HC. You dont rely on "dont get hit" there or your Char is already dead. The Reason its good to be able to Deal Damage from far away or while Running is Damage Uptime not Defense.

Sure you would Deal more Damage with another offensive Aura but it comes with the Downside of more Socket Pressure and the Auras left are not even that good.

There would be much better ways to "fix" melee imo.

For example an Overleech Keystone because lifeleech is weak without it and right now only Slayer can Achieve that without big Downside.

Fix Fortify so that it works reliable on Everything.

Rework Support Gems like Melee Phys and Pulverise. The "less Attack Speed" Downside is too much to handle for many Melee builds.
Brutality was already mentioned.

Remove the Buffs from Ancestral Totems and Buff Damage of Melee skills to make up for it. Would free Sockets and improve the Playstyle/Damage Uptime.

Rework Strike skills in General so that they dont need Melee Splash/Ancestral Call to have decent AoE and make them Deal much more Single Target damage for the Downside of beeing a Strike skill.

"

Vepa wrote:

For example an Overleech Keystone because lifeleech is weak without it and right now only Slayer can Achieve that without big Downside.

Fix Fortify so that it works reliable on Everything.

Rework Support Gems like Melee Phys and Pulverise. The "less Attack Speed" Downside is too much to handle for many Melee builds.
Brutality was already mentioned.

Remove the Buffs from Ancestral Totems and Buff Damage of Melee skills to make up for it. Would free Sockets and improve the Playstyle/Damage Uptime.

Rework Strike skills in General so that they dont need Melee Splash/Ancestral Call to have decent AoE and make them Deal much more Single Target damage for the Downside of beeing a Strike skill.

1. Overleech Keystone would be too OP and used by people besides melee builds.
2. Agree fortify needs fixed and so does GGG.
3. Disagree. Less attack speed gems are good for bleed or shockwave builds.
4. Agree, totem buff shouldn't be required by melee builds.
5. 1/2 Agree. There should be a full melee splash passive cluster on the tree.


Doesn't change the fact that my suggestions would help melee though and its a quick and simple fix.