Melee issues: River Hags and more
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I'm all for insta-kill mechanics in games where they make sense, but PoE is not that kind of game.
For those who don't know, the water sphere of the River Hags has a 3 second timer that ista kills you if you keep being inside one. Now... I did not even notice this mechanic with my mercenary and witch because they are not melee and bypass 99% of the mechanics in the game (with the witch I also bypassed 90% of the bosses attacks by burning them in less than 20 seconds due to the damage being OP). Honestly after 30 years of ARPGs I cant fathom why almost all (if not all) the enemy mechanics in these games are always built around denying melee attacks while they offer nothing against ranged. On top of that melees are also waaaaaay slower in their actions, just because. I was literally unable to land a hit on a pack of blue hags + a rare hag. The fight was longer than an act boss and not in a fun way. Basically you have to stand still for 1-2 seconds to land an attack and that becomes 2-4 seconds due to the sphere, but in 3 you die, so the only way to land an attack is to die with it. My huge warrior can tank all the one-shotters from big bad bosses, but he can only survive 3 (yes, three) seconds in the sphere (maybe make this 10 ? make it 1 second per 250 hp ?) the spheres also slow you down immensely. FUN FACT: the hag also has another instant permanent slowing AoE, so maybe make that the slowing one and let the sphere JUST kill you, so that you can kite it around with a melee? This is not the only mechanic that breaks melee: there's fleeing monsters, pushing monsters (no, not the charging ones that are ok, I'm talking about the Faridun Butchers that push you left to right with their swings for example), on top of all the ground effects, on death effects, HONOR, swings failing to connect with enemy colliders (yes, Perfect Strike, I'm talking to you) etc... You want to keep all this stuff to challenge at least a tiny bit the ranged characters? Ok. But give melees a way to counter this stuff. The 35% reduced honor damage honestly does not work at all when you are getting hit infinite% more than other classes (I love the trials with my xbow mercenary, in most rooms I simply DO NOT GET HIT, but with my melee I will absolutely never play it again) Give us ways to counter this stuff that mostly affects melees, some examples: - passive: cannot be pushed except by charges or huge mobs - new stat "resilience" decreases all problematic damage / mechanics like the hag sphere time, the ground damage, on death explosions, honor damage. This is a special, separate layer that is applied before or after the current system, and this stat is 90% in the warrior side of the tree. - aura: enemies in your presence that flee from you are heavily slowed and so on... Last edited by Macellomatik#7988 on Dec 27, 2024, 1:06:38 PM Last bumped on Jan 31, 2025, 2:49:52 AM
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Great feedback, nicely written.
Well, I think during normal campaign, all the classes are fairly balanced and take more or less the same risks, since you will very likely not one-hit trash mobs, so ranged/spells from enemies get through before they die. I would say, during the whole campaign, warrior is also in a very good spot, being a really good boss destroyer. But after? The dps and area from ranged and spellcasters skyrocket, while warrior gets worse and worse the further he gets in the tier maps. And that's why melee feels so unrewarding now. I think slow gameplay would be okay, if warrior would be the tankiest from all classes. And not just a little bit, the warrior should be able to face-tank certain attacks that other classes can't. This way, players could risk a hit or two here and there, because the attack gets through instead of getting killed. To solve this, I would re-introduce life-nodes. But ONLY in the warrior arrea. Other classes would have a hard time to reach these life nodes. And it would make sense, since ES protects against every damage (except chaos) and evasion also (except AoE damage). But armour? It just protects against physical damage AND has reduced effect against big hits. So warriors need access to life as well, because life protects against everything. It would also perfectly go in line with the +15% max life from titan and the % recovered life per second. The more life you have, the more life regeneration you get out of it. Yes, warrior would still feel slow, but it would be the perfect "feel safe" character, that can also be played in melee. It's quite similiar to the marauder we had in PoE1. He also had access to alot of life and life regen nodes and was very tanky. That's what I'm missing about the warrior in PoE2. |
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dont stand in the drowning orbs its a very obvious tell
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" Wow, I bet your IQ is over the roof man :D They spawn the orbs on top of you DURING your melee slow immovable attack and either you roll away immediatley losing the attack or the attack now takes so long you drown before hitting them, or just after (if there is more than one hag so the orb won't disappear on kill) |
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it'd be fine if it didn't snare your character
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" I honestly don't understand why you trolls feel the need to keep the game from realizing its full potential. We are in Early Access, these kind of issues are natural and should be solved in this very moment. It's called insta-kill because it does not deal damage but trigger death immediately, but maybe it's your first game so you don't know. 3 seconds when you are slowed to a standstill and stuck in an attack windup in a networked game is not much time. Also you cannot avoid it if you want to hit enemies with melee. Stop talking like you are a pro, as I said nobody gets hit if not using melee, that's where the problem is (and there are a lot of posts about this very issue on reddit and these forum too, if you want to cry about them too). I wrote an essay because I want to express in the best way possible my feedback because this is the Feedback Forum and I want to help. Get a grip. |
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Well guys, keep it friendly. Experiences here may be different, but we are here to give GGG feedback and not to swear against each other...
That said, I agree that it may be a good idea, that the water bubbles do not directly spawn on a character. Maybe they should always start close to the casters position and slowly wander to the player, getting faster the more time passes. Until now, i always managed to get out of those. But I also had tricky situations, where I was surrounded by enemies (so rolling out wasn't possible) and the water bubble spawned above me. Usually I canceled my attack by dodge rolling and then used leap slam. But in that time, I as a melee player receive a lot of free hits from the enemy, because I have to dodge instead of attacking. So I can say I was able to manage it with my titan, but I can understand that some may have problems in those kind of situations. Last edited by AceNightfire#0980 on Dec 27, 2024, 2:00:02 PM
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" I totally understand your feelings and i think that the changes you suggested are good, and maybe it's a really good starting point to give dignity back to melees. It's also true that we still miss many skills that where present in PoE1 to mitigate damage, still it's not good to release melees and give no support at all to prevent being killed or making the game way harder just because you are using a melee weapon instead of a bow or a wand. |
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" I guess it is because the mobs have blue hands. The orb is blue, usually they do another cast around with a whirlpool. Like you have all these tells. Plus if you stand in it, your entire screen changes and water sound starts to happen. If you decide, for whatever reason, to attack inside one of them, congratz you have done the one thing you are NOT supposed to do. Try something else. Just because you die to something doesnt mean its unfair and you need to have the developers change the game for you. You are telling me what your issues are and its not the river hags and their drowning orbs but your way of playing around them. Which you just dont do, you run face first into them and expect safety. Get some attack speed, use a 1h, use a area of effect skill, dont leap slam around recklessly... These are all options you can take into consideration before asking for a mechanic to change. Lvl 93 Warrior here, died to them once in the campaign since I didnt know what they did. Never died to them again though. The orbs spawn not on the mob, range characters do have to worry about it. So I dont know what you mean they dont worry about it but melee does. My guess is, like I said, you are just running face first into them with very little concern on mechanical play. Not something POE2 is meant to have. Other classes will be tuned MASSIVELY down after the holidays because of this as well. And warrior might see some stuff comming its way. Last edited by Poe2WarriorMan#6401 on Dec 27, 2024, 2:10:42 PM
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" If you had read my post with interest, instead of trolling with a git gud attitude, you would know that there was a group of blue hags and a rare one, so an orb spawned on top of me every <1 second, I don't even count the whirls that were covering the entire screen. Obviously I had to change tactics because any melee attack that took more than 1 second was impossible, so I used ranged attacks that deal far lower damage and took me forever to kill them with their boosted HP and ES. I'm not saying its not doable, its PoE you can literally respec your warrior into a minion sorceror. The issue you are not seeing is that neutering your character, which represents your power fantasy, and playing it in an unnatural, distant way will diminish immersion. With my mercenary I solved all stuff with rolls and long shots, and even if monsters one-shotted me it did not feel like I had to deprive my character of its core values, I just had to learn the game and play around it. My witch pretty much bypassed all this with my minions clearing everthing in seconds. But the melee guy, he needs to stop being melee... this is the issue. Also, again, there are a lot of posts that say things similar to this, if a huge portion of the melee playerbase is vocal there is a reason. Last edited by Macellomatik#7988 on Dec 27, 2024, 2:20:18 PM
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