Are we finally going to admit that melee ＞ranged?

I know meme = weak has been one of the most enduring memes and I am sure that for the longest time this has been the case. Now, however? Holy crap, I tested OP Berserker (didn't do it last league) and I am in awe. This class is ridiculous. The power level without decent gear, something melee has been constantly bashed for, is off the charts. I guess you can argue that Tailwind = har har, but the better survivability more than makes up for it.

It is time to acknowledge just how powerful melee is.

I'm glad melee is good again after 6 years. Really happy about it as my main characters are melee.

Slams are really good for league start, yes. Are melee, generally, much better now than the last 5 years? Yes. I life still subpar to ES? Yes.

Anyhow, I don't see much "melee is bad"-opinions these days, so I don't really know where this thread is coming from.

Melee is strong enough to be fun and, and in many ways balanced and competitive. That's a good thing.

Problem with that line of thought is a lot of people absolutely HATE slam skills, slow clunky attacks make us quit the game quickly. It got even worse when they removed block skills entirely and put in slow clunky slam with extra steps retaliation skill to replace them. I can stomach playing maybe a day or two of the new league and then just going meh, skills are boring and nothing i really want to play. I hate bow builds, minions have been nerfed every league for like the last 7 years straight, blocks been removed from the game, and personally for me slams can go burn in the 9th layer of hell.

even if its good i dont like it.

i like 1 button-ish builds and having to have bloodrage is a no go heh

Ohohoh slams are slow? You haven't played Berserker, buddy

"melee" is really good.

if i m being honest, if we see melee as a whole. melee is VERY GOOD.

the problem is when people start playing actual true melee, such as using strike skills.

and no. lightning strike is not what trumelee enjoyers consider melee.

and if we're talking slams.. slams at a certain point feel more like a mage using a melee weapon instead of a staff.

cleave feels very tru melee ish.. but the issue is with cleave is similar to strike skills. cleave feels good when you're hitting a huge portion of the screen. and if you get to the point where it feels good, suddenly it doesnt feel very melee anymore. some melee skills hit more or less the entire screen

strikes simply lacks a huge lot in many departments. aoe? minimal. reach? pfft. what reach? you need to up your weapon range. and if you dont have "strikes additional target" mod, strikes feel bad by default.

that said. melee is in its best state ever since the melee buff in settlers.

theres a lot more that should be done to improve trumelee.

comparatively melee might be good vs old melee but its still not up to bow or caster levels. GGG has made it exceptionally clear that they glaze the bow builds, lower floor and higher ceiling. As i said before some of us absolutely hate slam skills, block skills has been removed from game in favor of some stupid slam with extra steps, Strike skills are meh at best. Melee feels like it is always playing catch up vs everything else and a lot of that is because the devs for some reason crunch the numbers for melee with everything being perfect, they don't take into account range, attack speed, defenses, character placement, attack opportunity. People think this all happens in a bubble so if a melee does 10k with a single attack, being forced into horrible positioning with huge windup times but a ranged character does 10k with an attack from 2 screens away not caring about position and can hit 20x in a second its the same thing because each hit is 10k so they must be the same right...

Just because you gave the guy crawling in the dirt some legs to get across the country does not equal the guy who is flying in a jet to get the the same destination.

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Judicas#5519 wrote:

they don't take into account range, attack speed, defenses, character placement, attack opportunity.

the more non melee the skill is, the better melee becomes.

and this is the issue i have with most people claiming melee is good. frost blades is really fun despite being a strike skill, but in reality its a ranged skill. similarly lightning strike.

slam skills is no different when the aoe grows huge.

one example i always use is uber sirus. if you're using a strike skill, finding a good spot to start slapping him is difficult as he constantly moves around a sea of huge ass area denial spells. he sometimes even spawns them directly on your feet and if you're not constantly moving around and dont notice, you'll get swallowed.

then he has a beam phase where you have to avoid his beams while still avoiding all that shit previously mentioned?

so yeah. melee is good in a bubble. if you use certain melee skills, "melee" is really good.

but if we're talking about melee purists with trumelee, melee in poe has always been laughably bad.

the best tru melee skill in my opinion is cyclone. it has range/aoe and also is mobile. strikes need so much to make it work. we need range, strikes attack additional target. and if we want to kite bosses we're forced to take the strikes additional target from 40% further anoint.

cyclone? fix your mana issues and get range. maybe the damage out put might seem lower. but the fact you can keep doing dps while moving is a huge benefit compared to strikers that have to stop, do windup animation, then hit.

also for those not aware. turn speed is a thing too. in sanctum i was forced to play well. so i would dash behind a guard, we would be then back to back. i would then attempt to attack him. my attack would complete before my character turns fully to face the enemy resulting in a complete miss.

why bother with all that when you can use a ranged skill or one with a huge aoe?

Good.