Melee builds

I feel like all melee builds need huge buff... The only two melee builds I have that still can't be surpassed by casters are smiter for Ubers and berserker goldfind barb. Other traditional melee builds all seem suck... Any thoughts of buff, apart from simply change the damage numbers? One main problem with the melee builds, is the AOE. I can't imagine a way to add AOE to melee builds...

melee is old class, blizzard trend not to change those.
And in rotw, main focus is not there.

All other class is only 10% and most of them is sorc/Mosaic , my guess, current melee class close range fight player are less than 0.1%.

Just focus on current strongest build and class.


Simple change number wont work. it need change a lot. Like new physical jewel, that development to performance is none. Melee class equip those just like their old performance. equip it or not, no difference. (close range fight, amazon is different, new jewel works for her)

Sigil Lethargy charges on a ring-

v. useful for

Frenzy and

Whirlwind barb
does not overwrite curses / warcries

Most properly built melee builds don't need a dmg buff. They have plenty. At least once they get some decent gear to start scaling with.

Their problem tends to be merely that said dmg is applied only to a single target. They're hence not limited by DPS/target-kill-speed but rather by the simple concept of "need at least 1 swing for every single target and swings aren't all that fast, meaning no matter how many zeros you add to the damage number, you still wouldn't be any faster as you still need that same 1 swing per target".

The only way to ever truly bring melee up to par would be to introduce some form of decent AoE to them, such as e.g. adding a

Cleave effect passive to Barb weapon masteries.

Things like

Frenzy or

Zeal were the attempted start to fix that problem from day 1 I guess but those, too merely increase attack speed while leaving it at 1 per target. So while it helps a little bit in that it simply cuts down on the "time per swing (=time per target)", the underlying issue remains even with those skills as they, too remain "1 target per hit".

i feel not only melee builds need buffs. poison, fire and to some extend even Ice zon need some buffs too, at least for boss killing, from what i tested so far
pretty sure necro and druid also underperform

I understand you are right about balance.
But diablo 2 is about to play strongest and have fun with rest.

They are unlikely to modify old weak class that even have no active player left.

This also right about future class, if they want develop , they will just add new class that stronger than past.
Like Rotw, one class theme. Others just decoration.

Make

Whirlwind Great Again

varangium wrote: 3 weeks ago

Make

Whirlwind Great Again

all it needs is CTC !

Whirlwind, the iconic Barbarian skill — and my favourite skill before patch 1.10 — never got synergies. What an infamous mistake.

One thing that sucks with melee builds is that they need attack rating while caster builds don't even need anything like that to successfully hit something.

xuehang1985 wrote: 3 weeks ago

I feel like all melee builds need huge buff... The only two melee builds I have that still can't be surpassed by casters are smiter for Ubers and berserker goldfind barb. Other traditional melee builds all seem suck... Any thoughts of buff, apart from simply change the damage numbers? One main problem with the melee builds, is the AOE. I can't imagine a way to add AOE to melee builds...

FoH smiter hybrid. One of my favs. Hit the 75 FCR breakpoint, max out Fana +

Holy Bolt + FoH and stack as much +skills as u can and youve got a build that can shred areas like the Pit, Chaos, Jail levels, Catacombs 3 & 4, and Durance 1-3.

Also,

Frenzy/Zerker barb when properly equipped can shred areas like Trav, Durance 3, and Catacombs 4 nearly as fast and much more safely than a lightning sorc or Javazon and stack much more MF while doing so (not to mention horking on top of that).

Grief+Lawbringer PBs on the latter also shreds

Chaos Sanctuary. Same weapon combo also rips Pindle and his pack to shreds way more safely and reliably than other builds. Is it gonna be as good a cow farmer as a Javazon? No, of course not. But it doesn't need to be.

I've been doing endless TZ in full games and so far there was 1

Herald I simply couldn't kill due to the mods on it, even after clearing all the minions first. It feels like melee in this respect is very dicey. Maybe a runeword armor with high DR and defence (Prudence with 20% DR) or reworking

Shaftstop and

Leviathan. As far as damage goes, switching offhand between Lawbringer and

Dreadfang, there is alot of viable main weapons that can smack really hard already.

True, there are melee weapons, that hit hard, but most of them are not easy to get.
Grief, Last Wish, etc. need High Runes, which especially for casual players are hard to come by.
And even IF you can at long last put your hands on such weapons - the problem Schnorki mentioned remains: Not enough AOE damage...

There should be a little splash damage for melee attacks, maybe that would offset that flaw a bit

The decline of melee builds began long ago with the invention of skill charms and skill items (Spirit etc), as caster builds benefit disproportionately from them compared to melee builds.

i think if they just had a runeword that makes a monster explode or something when they die, then it would fix the AoE problem

IamSteve wrote: 8 hours ago

i think if they just had a runeword that makes a monster explode or something when they die, then it would fix the AoE problem

The

Volcano sword in Terraria has this effect, probably my second favorite game besides this.

Imagine a Beast of a two-handed unique sword, long as your player is tall, glowing orange.
Stats could include:
Any % ED
+to fire damage/% to fire damage
10-25% chance to cause explosion similar to

Exploding Arrow but with a larger radius- on striking
etc

Could socket it with a fire facet, giving them another use.

Such a mechanic already exists:

Hellslayer - 10% CtC evel 16-20

Fireball On Attack
Death - 25% CtC Level 18

Glacial Spike On Attack
and many more.

The problem are synergies - without them the spells are just fancy, yet harmless fireworks, and the classes that natively have synergy skills, can do better by using the synergized skill directly, not as a proc.

Modifying the numbers alone (say, by adding a new CtC skill which would be a clone of

Fireball, but with higher base damage (and no synergies)) would be a band-aid, not a real fix. Melee builds should be viable on their own, without having to rely on a specific item with a specific proc. We don't need another Mosaic.

The real problem is aoe, as the melee damage is limited to the reach of the weapon, which is not a big one. Admitted a well gear melee builds can clear TZ 96, but it can never reach the efficiency of a ranged build or a large aoe caster like

Nova spec. When the game was introduced first, passing hell difficulty was the main goal and this is not too much of a problem. But now the game is more about hunting better gear and chronicles, which makes clearing efficiency much more important.

The place where melee builds really shines is against tough single target enemies, like bosses and Ubers. The crushing blow and the leech are what make melee builds significantly better than casters. A smiter or a

Dragon Claw assn can do Ubers without anything terribly expensive.