Give me a reason to play melee in this game

General
1

I got bored with my RM in the 80’s due to overall feeling of lack of progression so I rolled a Void Knight. Very powerful erase/cleave build except for bosses, where I feel completely gimped. I rolled through all of these bosses with my RM 10 levels below them, now on level or in some cases even higher it takes several attempts and forever to kill some bosses. The rdps and survivability of my RM is ridiculous compared to VK.

This is not saying you cannot succeed with melee, my point is the gap between ranged and melee is absurd.

4 Likes
2

Could you post your build for context?

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This, I assume.

4

Thanks, I forgot we could do that

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So, from a quick look.

  1. Your RM has a 64% bonus damage from crit redu, your VK has 0.
  2. 100 dodge rating doesn’t really give you any defense, you should replace that with crafted reduced bonus damage from crits.
  3. 18% crit avoidance on helmet is pretty much useless, it’s a gamble and the cards in your hand are not looking good.
    Ward generation definitely is easier to acquire on earlier levels than a good way to get HP back quickly, however sentinels get access to some pretty powerful item bases with very high armor later. Not to mention something like Leonine Greathelm pretty much takes care of crits by itself with high roll. Melee definitely feels better a little bit later, my advice is to just suck it up and try to get there.
2 Likes
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Melee is better than last season. Some apples to apple comparison would be beastmaster quality of life. In cycle 1, the pets just giga died. I’m lvl 84 now and not one death yet (doing empowered now). Life / hit points are easier to get. I got maybe 1.5k more now than I did at this point last cycle. Evade helps too.

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Your RM

DPS: you had 4 sources of Fire DoT damage (Disintegrate, Glyph, Ignite, Fire Aura), over 700% increased Fire DoT damage and % more bonuses in skilltrees. You have 77 INT, all 4 sources of your damage scale with INT, and you get special bonuses (spelldmg to Fire Aura, more dmg to Disintegrate, Elemental Pen for RI)

HP: 4000 (= 1398 HP + 2600 or more Ward)

Mitigation: 25% armor, 16% DR while channeling Disintegrate, 70% DR from Flame Ward, 30% Elemental DR from Flame Ward, DR during Flame Rush, quick movement via Flame Rush

Sustain: 91 Ward per Second + 160 Ward per Second from Disintegrate while on Glyph + 66 Ward per Second while standing on Glyph + multiple other flat Ward sources from skills (Flame Ward, Runic Invocation, Flame Rush) + 81% Mana Spent gained as Ward

  • You deal damage with all four DPS sources CONTINUOUSLY at the same time, while constantly regenerating Ward passively AND from using your main DPS skill. You have many sources of mitigation and can travel fast around the map.

Your VK

DPS: Only two Void melee hit skills + one Fire melee hit skill, 700% increased Void Melee dmg, 200% increased Fire Melee dmg. One guaranteed crit with Erasing per Void Cleave, otherwise low crit chance. You have only 51 STR+VIT combined, and Healing Hands doesn’t scale from it.

HP: 1379 + 0 Ward

Mitigation: 31% armor. No traversal skill. 80% DR while channeling Rebuke, but you deal no damage during that.

Sustain: ~26% melee leech. Base HP regen. No Ward. ~130 Healing when using HH, ~46 HP per second.

  • Void Cleave and Erasing Strike both have a cooldown, so you’re only using your strong-ish Void skills once every ~2 seconds. In between, either you don’t attack at all, or attack with the weak HH skill. Your only source of sustain is the leech from weak HH or from skills on cooldown. You have no mitigation sources other than Armor. And using Rebuke sets your DPS and Leech near zero.

Can you see the differences between your two builds now?

4 Likes
8

Appreciate you guys providing this analysis for this newb, it does shine a light as to where I need to get my VK. I still think the boss fights will be more forgiving for ranged but I enjoy the VK so will work it.

1 Like
9

Boss fights are always more forgiving for Ranged compared to Melee builds, but I’m pretty sure anyone can figure that one out. Limited to Melee range VS not limited to Melee range…

So it boils down to preference. If you prefer Ranged over Melee, there are ranged VK (or Sentinel) builds too, with Hammer Throw, Javelin, Devouring Orb, Smite, Shield Throw and Healing Hands.

1 Like
10

Perry the pig said it best. If melee is doing crazy damage it’s a bug. If a caster is doing crazy damage it’s overtuned. (this is always the case)

Melee is so far behind casters in every possible way. They have less overall mitigation, mobility and this is a class that needs to stand in stuff. All while doing 10-50 times less damage than ranged.

Melee has to do all the mechanics and avoid more mechanics on Pinnacle bosses, Julra etc. While a Caster comes in look at them and bam… pick up the loot. They really need to start giving Melee some massive buffs, reworks and consider them for Boss fights.

With that said HP builds need a change. They need to buff HP affixes to reward double if not using ward. Hp builds should be getting 10-15k HP and 1,000s of regen. Lets make HP and melee competitive and fun to build.

5 Likes
11

Couldn’t have said it better, I mean look at PoE even with their crazy talent tree than allows to build pretty much anything into anything understood the struggle & thus the importance to provide melee builds with tools that would allow them to be rewarded for the higher risk gameplay by adding some insane buffs to melee weapon suffixes/affixes & skills.

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And then by taking the approach that most “melee” skills should be able to do full screen damage (ie, being about as melee-range as casters).

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13

Tanks are muuuuuuuuch better than last cycle. Here’s a apples to apples comparison. I have two 100 beast masters, one from each cycle. Last cycle, he had to use low-life/ward with that goofy intel axe and had storm crow pets. 300 corruption my crows died every 8 seconds. I could stay alive with the ward, but 90% of my dps is from pets, not me. So gameplay consisted of me rezzing pets. Low life, lots of ward and spell damage. It did not feel like a tank at all. Stacking intel on a tank is just wrong, lol.

This cycle, I made a fresh beast master (I don’t play non-cycle). 6116 hit points, zero ward. uses a 2-handed axe called sword catcher that has 27 parry with slams. My pets are squirrels instead of crows, as I’m actually doing melee damage now. Other than goofy artillery maps where I can’t stop moving or die, life is good at 600 corruption. My pets do_not_die. I do_not_die. Bosses go down like sweet muffins, life is good.

I would like it if we had more defensive perks. Like stats boosting your parry% would be nice. Other games do that and it’s logical. Other than that thou, no complaints with beast masters.

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Yet still so far behind. FG is still garbage overall as a mastery. Sentinel is the weakest class and one of the squishiest. It’s just wild they can’t figure this out. They need massive buffs still and some big talent and mastery reworks.

2 Likes
15

LOL :rofl:

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Not sure why you are laughing. Most people feel this way. It’s got one of the worst masteries still. Their melee sucks. It’s struggles the most in regards to tanking aka squishy.

It’s just a common feeling. I tune into Perry the pig and he and other players all say the same thing. You are constantly trying to make Sentinel work. It needs a lot of love, buffs and reworks.

Especially FG it’s still the worst mastery in the game.

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Because your comment was very funny.

LOL :joy:

ROFL :rofl:

Well I think I had enough laughs for today. Thank you for the funny posts.

2 Likes
18

I started this season as a void knight but at lvl ~90, even with 2400hp and almost all capped resists, and 100% crit avoidance I was struggling to finish empowered monos.

my falconer from season 1 didn’t even have 1800hp and was at ~25% for most resist and I was able to clear more stuff. I made a necro second this season and it’s fun and much less stressful to play.

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19

This is very much contradicted by the ladders…
If you check them, you’ll see there’s a Forge Guard (and/or a Paladin and a VK also) within the top 5 on each of the arena modes.

20

I guess facts are funny to you, got it.

Again this is a fact.

Laughing at facts okay. Sentinel needs some massive buffs especially offensively. They also need more defensive layers cause HP builds really struggle still. Nerfing ward didn’t buff HP.

Yea I mean you can have a perfectly geared VK and get instantly 1 shot by some Dot. It’s crazy that people think it’s tanky when that can happen.

What makes a char Tanky is mitigation vs Dots/Aoe especially in end game.

1 Like