Very Confused About Melee Rework

The main reason people disliked totems is because you had to stop and place them constantly to get their buffs which were a huge portion of your dps. Most people didnt bother with warcries and banners because it was even more tedious and they were relatively much weaker. Sure totems are gone now, but their power has just been spread to warcries and banners.

Warcries - most melee builds will want to use several which you need to do every few seconds. The only time I ever saw any build use them was with old call to arms so you could get 1 as an instant cast. Reserving 15% mana PER warcry to automate it far too costly to use on most(every) builds. Its going to mean you have to use most of them manually. Using warcries will be far more tedious than placing 2 totems.
Banners - These are basically exactly the same as totems, except you also need to build up valor before you use them.

And im just talking about gameplay here. There is a lot to be said about melee balance since builds will likely need to spend a lot more passive points and gem slots on rage, warcries, banners, than they ever did on totems.

So what exactly was the point of removing totems if we just replaced the playstyle with something even more tedious to use? The only gameplay benefit from these changes is you dont have to worry about banners or warcries dying. Ive played >1000 hours as melee and I can only see melee gameplay being even more tedious than before. Am I missing something huge or is this really it?

the base damage buff is equivalent to the totems in many cases (or thereabouts)

point is old + totems < new without totems

just treat the shouts as a separate thing and evaluate if you want to use them, shouting through all of them in a row sounds like the worst gameplay imaginable which is probably the point - prioritise and abandon the rest.

That chieftain node looks like bait though

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Ive played >1000 hours as melee and I can only see melee gameplay being even more tedious than before. Am I missing something huge or is this really it?

Nope, that's it, you have the correct impression.

3.2.5 melee will be clunkier than ever for the average endgame build for the average player who doesn't play 26 hours a day. It should also be noted the overall huge loss of attack speed which will specifically hit impale/bonk builds the hardest. Slower attack speed means more time to get in danger and die from stupid easy things that weren't a threat in 3.2.4 and earlier.

Removing totems was a step forward. Adding in banners, removing automatic warcries WITH BONUSES, making melee mana more punishing, and destroying attack speed sources, are all collectively a million steps backwards.

The more I think about it the more I think I'll just go back to something godmode non-clunky like hierophant archmage and laugh as the 3.2.5 community slowly realizes that the melee experience is worse than ever. The average melee enjoyer shouldn't be approaching the 3.2.5 state of melee in the context of "ok so which build is the LEAST clunky and annoying?" because that means that the "melee buff patch" is a complete failure.

hoho 26 hours a day.

soo i am not alone in thinking that this league is a bait for melee

What you have forgotten, is that autoexertion (the new call to arms) prevents any warcry from granting ANY buffs to players now, AND it reserves 15% mana per warcry. So, it takes two gem slots and 15% mana for literally no direct benefit. There's masteries and passives that benefit from "recently" etc, though the only way to instantly warcry, now ensures players cannot gain buffs from any warcry.

The rage generation mastery based on warcries needs investment to make it work with the how you'll now lose 10 stacks every 2 seconds. This is a bit of a puzzle atm.

I managed to make my build work and I'm using warlord's mark now for rage - Shield Crush and already at max crit so no need for assassin's mark. Warlord's mark looks very good now.

Banners are absolute dogshit. I could not make them provide any decent benefit in PoB. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, though I don't think that's the case. They seem worthless now. At least they don't get one-shot like totems which is nice. In uber boss fights, etc, where's there's no way to kill mobs to generate valour, I don't see how they work.

I logged in to see my build had lost 35% EHP and DPS. Almost exactly in both areas. Adding Seismic cry, 4 passives into warcries next to disembowelling, rage generation from warlord's mark and swapping from SST to Shield Crush, saw my dps go up by about 40%. I can add berserk though I'm not sure I'll be able to sustain it from Warlord's mark alone. It's fun using PoB again though!

There are quality distinctions between totems and warcries though.

1. Totems take attention away from you which in many circumstances is actually bad. Notably one shot animations firing off screen without you noticing.
2. Totems were always slower to get off.
3. Totems usually died quickly in higher tier maps requiring constant recasting.
4. Having just warcries now and not also totems will help reduce bloat and make the game feel more streamlined.

The changes absolutely gut the berserker ascendency though (having lost warbringer) so hopefully that ascendency gets another pass soon.

I'd have some of the critical ones on automation and the less critical hand casted. Or just go blood magic and one or two really important ones.

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1. Totems take attention away from you which in many circumstances is actually bad. Notably one shot animations firing off screen without you noticing.

Well now instead you can be staring at your action bar in the bottom right to track the tiny warcry cooldown timers that conveniently can't be moved anywhere near your character (and all the dangerous action) is.

Is it Awful Horrible No Good Very Bad for it to be MANDATORY for melee builds to curse their enemies?

Is it Awful Horrible No Good Very Bad for it to be MANDATORY that melee builds use auras/reservations that increase their damage or defenses?

Is it Awful Horrible No Good Very Bad for it to be MANDATORY that melee builds use movement or evasion skills for movement or evasion?

Really, I'm starting to wonder what the actual Sam Shatner Banana Manhell y'all are doing with your extra sockets. You hate warcries, you hate banners, you hate curses, you hate auras, you hate minions, you hate secondary melee skills, you hate supplementary skills of basically every sort.

Like...seriously. What the hecc are you putting in the rest of your sockets? You absolutely refuse to use any form of supporting skill, and you equally refuse to use multi-button builds that make use of multiple melee skills.

How are y'all using the sockets that aren't your core 6L?