As melee, Empowered Monoliths feel like D4's launch-state Nightmare Dungeons (Feedback)

General
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Exactly the same. Stun, stun, stun, ground AoE, point blank AoE, one-shot, one-shot, one-shot.

I play a level 94 Spellblade. I have max resists, crit avoidance, and ~35% armor. I run a ward build with as much ward generation, retention, and threshold as I can. I watch my modifiers and choose my EMs carefully when possible.

No, I don’t have perfectly maxed out defenses, but the fact I can complete one EM in a reasonable manner and then get one shot in the next is THE definition of imbalanced. This is obviously a problem unless, of course, you’re playing one of the more prolific builds, all of which are completely busted by comparison (Runemaster, Falconer, Warlock, etc). The theme here being ranged builds.

It’s clear why the consensus is that melee sucks in LE. I spend all my time dodging telegraphs and get punished for attacking due to the constant barrage of stuns and AoE ability spam. It also doesn’t help that to continue gearing up, you really have to run EMs for the best loot. It simply makes no sense whatsoever to require the best gear in the game before starting the endgame gear grind.

This is exactly how D4 was at the beginning, and also like D4, once you get to the actual endgame in LE, it appears you’re stuck with only a few masteries/builds that can progress efficiently. I’m not saying it’s impossible to progress with my current build or others, but one is unlikely to do so when the game becomes this tedious, frustrating, and simply put, not fun at endgame.

I actually really enjoy LE and will continue playing. However, if balance isn’t adjusted, this post will age like a fine wine. Please come at me, though, because the same people who said this wasn’t an issue in D4 at the beginning are the same ones who currently shame the game for its lack of build diversity.

7 Likes
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I played a necro in beta and am playing a mage now. Both ranged builds, so I can’t say anything about melee.

But let me ask you this - is it possible that you didn’t really gear up enough for empowered monoliths yet? Just because you leveled up enough and got decent gear doesn’t mean it’s quite good enough for enhanced. There may be other drops for you to get to improve your situation in normal monolith runs. After all, the game went live less than a week ago.

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I think the gear debate, within the context of my post, is not seeing the forest for the trees. Especially since I already stated I can clear EMs. I’ve completed every timeline at least once already at 100+ corruption.

Also, I disagree with your assertion that “just because you leveled up and got decent gear doesn’t mean it’s quite good enough for enhanced”. I’ve been doing EMs since level 80 and have actually had to regear myself multiple times to push through harder EMs and boss checks.

I think it helps to read my post as more than just a “me” problem. I see issues at LE endgame I feel won’t bode well for the game as more and more people reach EMs.

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OK. Well, I haven’t even reached enhanced mono’s yet. And since probably less than 1% of players have, I doubt you’ll get much useful feedback on this just yet.

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I completely understand that. The feedback is for the devs and anyone else who cares to listen. I wouldn’t wait to point out issues I feel need to be fixed sooner, rather than later.

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as a void knight. i dont share this viewpoint. i can do empowered monos now. sounds like your damage is just too low.

1 Like
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It actually helps if you read. I can do them, too, and I have been for a while now.

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i did read, and i reread after you told someone else to read. your damage is too low for the rate of progression youre expecting. melee is fine.

2 Likes
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Sure thing. I clear most EMs just fine but it’s my damage.

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What about dodge, glancing blow and endurance? I suppose a Mage shouldn’t rely only on such low armor to avoid dying. I mean… I have 35% armor rn with my new lvl 50 Warlock while my lvl 85 Paladin has 47%, so I’m sure yours is quite low, specially if you don’t have other forms of defense.

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alright youre either clearing EM’s just fine, which contradicts your text wall , or youre not ? which one is it? im having no problems booty blasting my way around in melee with void knight. you make no mention of what skill youre trying to use, only that you have prolific defenses. so i maintain, melee is fine. or i can suggest playing a better melee class.

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As someone pretty deep into Empowered Monoliths at this point (rockin’ 210 corruption right now), there are just a lot of big damage numbers being thrown at you. Monoliths are infinitely scaling, and certain builds are bound to start falling off eventually. Not every build can hit the big numbers, which honestly isn’t even a huge problem. The benefit of getting higher up in numbers is kind of just to say you did. Being able to farm C100 Monos is more than enough to farm the uniques and drops that you want (though I’d agree getting higher up the rarity does increase quite a bit and is nicer for farming).

But my point being, with the inifnite scaling nature of monoliths, it’s inevitable that any build is going to struggle eventually. The way you built yours is falling off where you are at without more significant upgrades, or maybe some shuffling around of your trees.

So far as my suggestions for getting up higher. Wardwardwardwardward. It’s not enough to just have good retention/decay threshold/overtime regeneration, your build needs to actively gain ward for attacks, for kills, for whatever. Spell blade has a little of it on the tree and for their passive, mana spent on attacks gained as ward and ward on melee hit, that’s a start but you need a lot more of that sort of generation to make higher monos work.

Edit: Also, by the time you hit Empowereds, you should have been interacting with the dungeons for gear and especially Temporal Sanctum to get some stats on 1 and 2 LP gear. Those upgrades are way more important than you might think. So look for some uniques that work with your build and slap some stats on 'em!

Edit 2: Some things to consider so far as ward generation goes, one of my favorite ways to do it is high dodge + Ward Trail (belt). If you use any channel skills, adding Telf’un’s Mirage (boots) makes ward-on-dodge really easy to make use of. If you haven’t gotten a Last Steps of the Living (boots), you can farm them from Blood, Frost and Death timeline Monolith’s boss. The boots will keep your ward relatively high to start and give you good natural regeneration that helps you take smaller hits from packs of mobs. Idols that give you % healing from potions as ward and a big potion belt w/ good chance to find potions is super good also for getting massive ward on demand to deal with packs and you can spam drink them to survive bigger hits from rares and bosses (but not their one-shot mechanics).

I hope this has helped!

4 Likes
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You’re conveniently leaving out the fact I mentioned my defenses aren’t perfect. It doesn’t make EMs more balanced that I need to run more EMs to get better gear. Also, I can clear most EMs. The point was that the design is imbalanced from one to the next. This was all clearly pointed out in my post.

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It doesn’t contradict anything, lol. Progression is measured by consistency. As a traditionally HCSSF player, clearing 5 EMs then getting one shot off screen in the 6th isn’t what I’d call balanced.

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So you mean there’s no content in PoE you purposefully skip due to the build being unable to clear it?
Then you really are something else… Because a single “reflect” modifier will make anyone just trash that map if their build isn’t immune to reflect.

Whelp, I (and all other guys posting here) was trying to figure something out of your complaint, but from the way you passive-aggressively responded to anyone, it points you don’t want anything other than that: complain.

2 Likes
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I agree with the first part that each spec/mastery will hit a wall. That’s why I made it an element of my thesis.

I spec my Spellblade for ward as much as possible. What I’m really acknowledging here aren’t the infinitesimal nuances of gearing but the lack of consistency/balance between EMs. I’m not “stuck” in EMs. I’ve cleared them all.

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I can hardly argue against the one-shots when you’re fine in other monoliths.

Some enemies just hit differently. Also, poison can be nasty because of the built-in resistance shred.

I’m curious about what enemies are killing you, and some more details about your build. How many HP do you have, how much ward before you engage in a fight? Do you use stuff like “gain missing health as ward”?

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Tell me you play softcore and have no idea what you are doing in as many words as possible challenge.

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I think it’s funny how I labeled this thread as feedback, knowing full and well it was going to be nothing but gaslit responses, and you’re calling it a “complaint”. My only complaint is that you all bury the lead behind half truths and ignore 90% of my actual argument.

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Tell me you don’t know how to make an actual argument without telling me you don’t know how to make an actual argument.