Constructive melee feedback (Warrior centric)

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4: Armour as a defensive mechanic is bad Just like in PoE 1, this stat still feels terrible to invest in. Nothing has changed.

Notably,

4a: Bosses have built in overwhelm (???) which unfairly punishes the one class which is weakest defensively right now

4b: Evasion is easier to get and is far more powerful of a stat

4c: Enemy physical hits from non-bosses are not threatening enough to matter to EVA/ES builds who just have 2x the effective HP of warriors anyway, plus options like freeze/chill to further their defensive capabilities.

Potential solutions: Armour applies to damage from elemental and chaos damage from hits base line at 100% effectiveness. Just make it happen. Worry about the balance later. See how it feels or changes the game first. Outside of this, not sure how to make it appealing outside of significantly changing game monster balance.

As someone familiar with how armour works I made a post covering more in depth how to make it fully functional as a viable and balanced defensive option. If anyone is interested:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3667538

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LVSviral#3689 wrote:

"

4: Armour as a defensive mechanic is bad Just like in PoE 1, this stat still feels terrible to invest in. Nothing has changed.

Notably,

4a: Bosses have built in overwhelm (???) which unfairly punishes the one class which is weakest defensively right now

4b: Evasion is easier to get and is far more powerful of a stat

4c: Enemy physical hits from non-bosses are not threatening enough to matter to EVA/ES builds who just have 2x the effective HP of warriors anyway, plus options like freeze/chill to further their defensive capabilities.

Potential solutions: Armour applies to damage from elemental and chaos damage from hits base line at 100% effectiveness. Just make it happen. Worry about the balance later. See how it feels or changes the game first. Outside of this, not sure how to make it appealing outside of significantly changing game monster balance.

As someone familiar with how armour works I made a post covering more in depth how to make it fully functional as a viable and balanced defensive option. If anyone is interested:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3667538

I'll be sure to check it out!

I don't know about just increasing the AoE of skills for the Warrior is good enough. Fundamentally IMO where the AoE is hitting that matters more. Though this matters to me more because I actually want to be in melee range. I don't like that the best skills are ranged, but you have to be holding a mace to use this skill so its melee.

I feel like the only really viable melee skill is Boneshatter. Everything else is just single target or cone AoE, but if you are surrounded then cone AoE or single target aren't that different neither are likely to get you out is you don't have the defense or damage. For melee hitting area you immediately is more important, but the Warrior does have a skill like that that doesn't need some setup or time you don't have.

yeah warrior feels bad. I normally love warrior but not in poe 2. You basically have to suffer until you get to level 70+ and even then the pay off is not great. I agree with the op on everything good write up.

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slowjamsliver#6041 wrote:

I don't know about just increasing the AoE of skills for the Warrior is good enough. Fundamentally IMO where the AoE is hitting that matters more. Though this matters to me more because I actually want to be in melee range. I don't like that the best skills are ranged, but you have to be holding a mace to use this skill so its melee.

I feel like the only really viable melee skill is Boneshatter. Everything else is just single target or cone AoE, but if you are surrounded then cone AoE or single target aren't that different neither are likely to get you out is you don't have the defense or damage. For melee hitting area you immediately is more important, but the Warrior does have a skill like that that doesn't need some setup or time you don't have.

Well its a combo of things as I mention in the OP, not just the AOE that is off.

Damage/time-to-damage for many abilities is really bad for warrior (look at earth quake)

They severely overestimate the usefulness or effectiveness of things like jagged ground (no one scales this), and even worse, EQ specifically has a line thats like "you cannot create a new earth quake on a patch of existing jagged ground" which is insane because the obvious "EQ" nodes on the tree scale the radius of the jagged ground it creates, lmao

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Eep#5463 wrote:

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CPTBRUMBL3Z#3146 wrote:

Even if we get Purity again, we still need some straight up physical based heralds.

A bleed supporting aura would be fantastic

I had posted an idea thread for some possible physical heralds that includes two iterations that can work off bleed: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3603661

Look, I'm not claiming to know everything about how to play melee, but if you're saying it feels bad and awkward you're absolutely playing it wrong. Stop prioritizing damage over speed and melee feels a whole lot better. I leveled my melee merc to endgame with one handed maces and no ascension with no issues. Mace strike, leap slam, boneshatter and perfect strike. With mace strike hitting over 3 times per second and a mace strike plus boneshatter combo landing in about 0.8 seconds it feels super quick and responsive to play. Leap slam into a group of enemies and hit boneshatter to delete them. It's basically as simple as that. Tune mace strike and leap slam so you're able to proc primed for heavy stun in one hit and put impact shockwave in boneshatter. Perfect strike and HOTG for bosses.

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I don't know about just increasing the AoE of skills for the Warrior is good enough. Fundamentally IMO where the AoE is hitting that matters more. Though this matters to me more because I actually want to be in melee range. I don't like that the best skills are ranged, but you have to be holding a mace to use this skill so its melee.

I feel like the only really viable melee skill is Boneshatter. Everything else is just single target or cone AoE, but if you are surrounded then cone AoE or single target aren't that different neither are likely to get you out is you don't have the defense or damage. For melee hitting area you immediately is more important, but the Warrior does have a skill like that that doesn't need some setup or time you don't have.

This feels like the problem that POE2 needs to solve. And it needs to do so in a world where bows and magic exist. This... isn't easy.

I don't want my melee guy to be a caster in plate. I don't want to feel like an idiot for thinking that my melee guy should be tankier than the mage. I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my time whacking one guy, while another character can nuke the entire world.

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Look, I'm not claiming to know everything about how to play melee, but if you're saying it feels bad and awkward you're absolutely playing it wrong. Stop prioritizing damage over speed and melee feels a whole lot better. I leveled my melee merc to endgame with one handed maces and no ascension with no issues. Mace strike, leap slam, boneshatter and perfect strike. With mace strike hitting over 3 times per second and a mace strike plus boneshatter combo landing in about 0.8 seconds it feels super quick and responsive to play. Leap slam into a group of enemies and hit boneshatter to delete them. It's basically as simple as that. Tune mace strike and leap slam so you're able to proc primed for heavy stun in one hit and put impact shockwave in boneshatter. Perfect strike and HOTG for bosses.

Sorry for the double post, but this got posted while I was distracted.

This is also how I'm playing my warrior, though I don't yet have HotG. Attack speed is the functional equivalent to stacking X% damage on top of your final damage score, rather than summing with the rest to apply to the base. It also increases the rate at which your status effects stack up, being much more efficient than picking +Stun or +Armor Break individually. Which makes the slower attacks in the two handed nodes even more of a slap in the face.

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gmillar#4054 wrote:

Look, I'm not claiming to know everything about how to play melee, but if you're saying it feels bad and awkward you're absolutely playing it wrong. Stop prioritizing damage over speed and melee feels a whole lot better. I leveled my melee merc to endgame with one handed maces and no ascension with no issues. Mace strike, leap slam, boneshatter and perfect strike. With mace strike hitting over 3 times per second and a mace strike plus boneshatter combo landing in about 0.8 seconds it feels super quick and responsive to play. Leap slam into a group of enemies and hit boneshatter to delete them. It's basically as simple as that. Tune mace strike and leap slam so you're able to proc primed for heavy stun in one hit and put impact shockwave in boneshatter. Perfect strike and HOTG for bosses.

I mean did you read the original post? You are leveling a merc (not warrior) and also using one handed maces (I discuss primarily two-handed maces)

Likewise, I *did* prioritize every speed node possible where possible - its just I easily have access to maybe 2 clusters of them, and three of my other nodes actively work to counter act those bonuses.


So yeah, if I pretend two hand maces don't exist (they do), and then go out of my way to only use the 1-2 skills that don't add base time and pretend the others don't exist (they do), then maybe my experience would be similiar to yours.


I highly doubt I was "playing it wrong" given players like Alk, Ben, Carn, etc...did the same thing and had the same feedback. Likewise, I did all end game content and reached level 95, so I'd say I must have been doing something right.

Now with that in mind, are you sure the dismissive nature of your post is constructive or adding to the conversation at hand?