Melee bad 0.2-0.4 expirience

On 1.0 i played summoner, then chaos witch, then switched to titan and now to bear druid and just love the animations and souds of hard-pounding, trying to make it work. I made it to t15 maps on 0.3 with Titan Winddancer-Herald of ice combo, but its not really a melee, it's just a gimmick based mechanic on your high phys dmg weapon adding damage to retaliation mechanic. It doesnt fix the melee problem and it doesnt even feel like you play melee.

So first off, i wanna start with fresh from the oven rage from being killed in t7 map by some random rare caster lady which did about zero damage with her casts, but then it does triple-hit attack which killed me instantly. Twice - because i couldnt believe it and replayed the scenario.
Ragelurch was her name, she had All damage Chills, Volatile Crag, All damage Ignites modifiers, the map itself had 21% Increased Monster damage, and that's it. No more %Extra damage as something or other damage amplificatory modifiers on her. Just basic attack on a 70% armor 1850 hp+500ES bear is enough to kill it in "Light stun" window from first strike in triple-strike-combo.

And here am i again asking myself, WHY do i play melee, when all the hardwork i put into dodgerolling and building defences makes zero sence when you play some ranged gigachad who clears screens without anything even touching him? Its like game intentionally says me not to play melee, there is no payoff for being melee, standing in TEMPORAL BUBBLE on a CHILLED GROUND after CHARGING IN.

So here are TWO MAIN PROBLEMS i see with melee right now.

1. Basic attack damage of regular mobs is ridiculously high. For something that only melee classes expirience it doesnt punish you for tanking hits - its making it impossible. Armour REDUCES physical damage, while elemental resistance makes you take LESS damage from said element. Its a huge difference, which costed me hundreds of deaths and millions of exp. And even if you build ungodly amount of armour you just get deleted by some magic/rare mob with "breaks armor+extra crits/damage".

2. Amount of light stuns and slowing mechanics in the game is rediculous. Most ranged classes dont have to cope with such things as "Chilled path" or "Temporal bubble", or caster/ranged enemy standing still in huge chilled ground patch. Also most casts doesnt require you to move - you can cast from whatever position you choose, while melee abilities move you certain way like warrior's heavy slam or charge or bear's rampage, which make it even harder to position youself in a way you wouldnt be slowed, stunned and mauled to the death. And here we add SKILL ANIMATIONS, which can be LIGHT STUNNED and SLOWED and you stand in swarm of enemies with half hp with your skill stopped mid-animation and a rare with temporal bubble and chilling path sits on you.


To solve these problems you either need to make armour actually matter or lower basic attack values on most mobs (im not talking about unique bosses, these are overall good balanced, strong attacks are telegraphed and basic hits doesnt kill you in one hit/combo).

Im not saying that melee is unplayable, its just sucks to put a great amount of extra work into class when you have to deal with problems others dont for NO PAYOFF. I've seen demonstrations of high-evasion+deflection builds in 0.3, but its no melee, its a mock of a game mechanic. Why cant i build high defences with armour? Why should i make a choice whether i play some ninja or mage but cant play a proper warrior? I played both caster and melee and even though i still choose melee for flavour, i get mad af when i die to some random rare/magic/white mob melee attack. It sucks.

the temp bubbile + chilled ground is certainly a combo of all time
Also the abyss rares that have an aura that does damage and disables all life regen
and the armour break mod

Its crazy that those havent been changed with 0.4


The reason why i play melee (and hcssf) is simple, its more fun and engaging.
I tried a few range characters and it became boring pretty quickly if you can just ignore the majority of mechanics and challenges by simply outranging the enemy

Yeah melee is not ideal but at least its not boring

I am playing melee this league. I mostly facetank.

Things that have helped:

Getting some stun threshold reduction/stun recovery stuff.

Damage taken from mana before life.

Deflection (if you have evasion)

Block

Abilities that activate instantly for movement if you are getting overwhelmed and need to move back to get a better funnel of mobs.

I have died quite a bit but usually just when I am trying to clear very fast by facetanking and screen clearing a mess of stuff. Or getting lazy and facetanking boss abilities that would 1-shot most people.

I have high hitpoints and no endurance charges and relatively low armor. I am currently at tier 8/9 and still moving pretty smoothly.

The ascendancy stuff was definitely harder as melee but was not too bad. Just adjust your gear and strategy accordingly.

I know if I wasn't playing melee then I would basically never die, but it hasn't been frustrating enough to make me feel like it is an altogether bad idea. Sometimes it makes dodging boss abilities easier.

Opposite experience as melee myself.


I dont even take a stun charm on titan, as you get so much base health and stun threshold nodes are everywhere that you would have to actively avoid building any defense.

Which is what I am guessing is going on.



Silver charm for you slow woes as well

I am playing melee this league. I mostly facetank.

Things that have helped:

Getting some stun threshold reduction/stun recovery stuff.

Damage taken from mana before life.

Deflection (if you have evasion)

Block

Abilities that activate instantly for movement if you are getting overwhelmed and need to move back to get a better funnel of mobs.

You can also weapon swap to ice skills if it's a problem of getting overwhelmed.

I have died quite a bit but usually just when I am trying to clear very fast by facetanking and screen clearing a mess of stuff. Or getting lazy and facetanking boss abilities that would 1-shot most people.

Also mostly dying from using sprint.

I have high hitpoints and no endurance charges and relatively low armor. I am currently at tier 8/9 and still moving pretty smoothly.

The ascendancy stuff was definitely harder as melee but was not too bad. Just adjust your gear and strategy accordingly.

I know if I wasn't playing melee then I would basically never die, but it hasn't been frustrating enough to make me feel like it is an altogether bad idea. Sometimes it makes dodging boss abilities easier.

It's definitely not as bad as PoE one was when it was early going. I feel like there's a good amount of viable play styles here even if it's not totally balanced.

I don't understand why they are so anti melee. It's always way harder than just playing a ranged character.

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Opposite experience as melee myself.


I dont even take a stun charm on titan, as you get so much base health and stun threshold nodes are everywhere that you would have to actively avoid building any defense.

Which is what I am guessing is going on.



Silver charm for you slow woes as well

I am running silver charm and believe me its on 0/2 constantly. Maybe just bad luck on tempo bubble rares, i see at least one each map, pretty often paired with chilled ground one, once i even had 1 with TempBubble cloned and another with temp bubble right next to it, making it 3 bubbles on one screen. Mostly i facetank pretty well, but there's mobs here and there that just shred through you like butter, removing hp in one go. With 70% armour applying to elemental damage, having adaptation and 75% elem res i am dying ONLY to phys damage from basic attacks. I look for mobs which spawn tentacles which oneshot you, i dodgeroll most "skills" including abyss cursed ground teleporting ones, but when i rampage into a crowd with ancestral cry or when i get jumped on by some vaal asassins, they just make a mince meat out of me randomly with JUST basic attacks - hence why i've created this thread. Skills and special attacks as well as bosses are balanced pretty well, but basick attack damage on some random mobs can be spikingly high to the point of oneshotting fat tank. That should not be a thing when we talking basic attacks. I would try to make a list of mobs with ridiculously high base damage, but without deathlog you cant really tell who did most damage and with what. I dont remember what game had that but there was a death log with top 3 damage sources in last 5 seconds (like mob1 - 73% with basic attack physical, mob1 - 13% skill1 fire, moib2 14% skill7 cold) - that would help, even if for "early access testing" purposes.

"

Mirage447#7441 wrote:

I am playing melee this league. I mostly facetank.

Things that have helped:

Getting some stun threshold reduction/stun recovery stuff.

Damage taken from mana before life.

Deflection (if you have evasion)

Block

Abilities that activate instantly for movement if you are getting overwhelmed and need to move back to get a better funnel of mobs.

You can also weapon swap to ice skills if it's a problem of getting overwhelmed.

I have died quite a bit but usually just when I am trying to clear very fast by facetanking and screen clearing a mess of stuff. Or getting lazy and facetanking boss abilities that would 1-shot most people.

Also mostly dying from using sprint.

I have high hitpoints and no endurance charges and relatively low armor. I am currently at tier 8/9 and still moving pretty smoothly.

The ascendancy stuff was definitely harder as melee but was not too bad. Just adjust your gear and strategy accordingly.

I know if I wasn't playing melee then I would basically never die, but it hasn't been frustrating enough to make me feel like it is an altogether bad idea. Sometimes it makes dodging boss abilities easier.

It's definitely not as bad as PoE one was when it was early going. I feel like there's a good amount of viable play styles here even if it's not totally balanced.

I was playing melee this patch at the end of act 2 and like 16 hours of gameplay i cried out lout fuck melee, and picked mercenary with a crossbow

The difference?

Its like going from hell to heaven, fast map clear, shoots while walking good defenses nodes with highly impact, better combos, i think they do not put at all good counter to ranged play style.

i´m all the time just blasting the whole game, bosses have no chance, i dont even have to do the boss mechanics and in less than 3 hours i´m at the end of act 2.



Melee right now feels like extremely unfinished compared to poe 1, it is worse in almost every aspect


remember clearly they said on the exile con that the melee would feels better, for me it was a plain sight lie, melee on poe 1 is bad, in poe 2 feels way worse, you have way more to worry about and to cope to say ´´oh its not that bad´


i can survive on ranged with just like one kind of damage mitigation while on melee i have to, roll, block, life regen, energy shield, attack in a stuck annimation, get surrounded pretty fast.


Its just bad designed, poe 1 melee feels at least ´´good´´ in poe 2 feels like a chore

"

Mirage447#7441 wrote:

I am playing melee this league. I mostly facetank.

Things that have helped:

Getting some stun threshold reduction/stun recovery stuff.

Damage taken from mana before life.

Deflection (if you have evasion)

Block

Abilities that activate instantly for movement if you are getting overwhelmed and need to move back to get a better funnel of mobs.

You can also weapon swap to ice skills if it's a problem of getting overwhelmed.

I have died quite a bit but usually just when I am trying to clear very fast by facetanking and screen clearing a mess of stuff. Or getting lazy and facetanking boss abilities that would 1-shot most people.

Also mostly dying from using sprint.

I have high hitpoints and no endurance charges and relatively low armor. I am currently at tier 8/9 and still moving pretty smoothly.

The ascendancy stuff was definitely harder as melee but was not too bad. Just adjust your gear and strategy accordingly.

I know if I wasn't playing melee then I would basically never die, but it hasn't been frustrating enough to make me feel like it is an altogether bad idea. Sometimes it makes dodging boss abilities easier.

It's definitely not as bad as PoE one was when it was early going. I feel like there's a good amount of viable play styles here even if it's not totally balanced.

From what i can deduce you play warrio, and i can relate to that, since in 0.3 i pretty comfortably played aftershock titan until i swapped to winddancer build for fast-clearing. But now i play bear and while i can theoretically have block on my talisman, mostly its just facetank with armored face. I cant say im stuck, and i see a path to improving my build, but thats exactly what said - its not totally balanced and you would never die on ranged. Sounds like something needs adjusting hence why we are here.

"

ponebolezney#5412 wrote:

I am running silver charm and believe me its on 0/2 constantly. Maybe just bad luck on tempo bubble rares, i see at least one each map, pretty often paired with chilled ground one, once i even had 1 with TempBubble cloned and another with temp bubble right next to it, making it 3 bubbles on one screen.

Make sure to grab the charm effect duration from the campaign titans.


Can get belt mods AND implicit so you dont have to worry about it further. You should be oversustaining it though unless for some reason your build is also zdps.

"

ponebolezney#5412 wrote:

With 70% armour applying to elemental damage, having adaptation and 75% elem res i am dying ONLY to phys damage from basic attacks. I look for mobs which spawn tentacles which oneshot you, i dodgeroll most "skills" including abyss cursed ground teleporting ones, but when i rampage into a crowd with ancestral cry or when i get jumped on by some vaal asassins, they just make a mince meat out of me randomly with JUST basic attacks - hence why i've created this thread. Skills and special attacks as well as bosses are balanced pretty well, but basick attack damage on some random mobs can be spikingly high to the point of oneshotting fat tank. That should not be a thing when we talking basic attacks. I would try to make a list of mobs with ridiculously high base damage, but without deathlog you cant really tell who did most damage and with what. I dont remember what game had that but there was a death log with top 3 damage sources in last 5 seconds (like mob1 - 73% with basic attack physical, mob1 - 13% skill1 fire, moib2 14% skill7 cold) - that would help, even if for "early access testing" purposes.

You have said a lot and I think the best thing to do is to just show us your build.

I think your armour is probably extremely low and then we need to take a look at your tree if you are going for things like Unbending, or stun threshold in general.