Give me a reason to play melee in this game

General
121

Bingo, You can make melee work however there is a very long list of downsides. Hence this thread.

  • For one the bosses do additional mechanics for melee WHY!!!
  • There are so many ground effects and range issues with melee that put them in far greater danger they have to mitigate and deal with. Most of the time they have to tank them because avoiding isn’t an option.
  • Class and game design is terrible for melee, many QoL changes are needed in both Class design and mechanics of creatures and Bosses.
  • Melee is also woefully behind in damage compared to ranged/spell and melee has the least uptime for their damage due to anti-melee boss mechanics. (ie boss hops)
  • Now with the damage issue melee has keep in mind Sentinel has Volatile Reversal literally the strongest damage increase ability in the game but somehow Sentinel is still bad. This highlights how bad the Sentinel design is. They are completely propped up by 1 button and it’s barely keeping them propped up.

I could keep going but hopefully everyone gets the gist. If you are playing melee in LE then you are in for some massive headaches. I’m not sure why EHG hates melee but the design says they do.

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This is why I go to extremes. People like ABomb genuinely believe that melee is so far behind ranged that it’s not worth playing. It’s not true, of course, which is why he put me on his ignore list. I don’t constantly agree with him, so he doesn’t want me in his echo chamber

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He plays almost exclusively Sentinel though, several in the 90ies and one at 100 (all in 1.1).

124

I think he is correct. I believe you are wrong. Maybe Abomb is over stating it a little bit, but melee is in a bad spot. Further, the game is just very poorly balanced as a whole. Health based characters (lots of melee builds) simply have significantly less eHP, all things considered, compared to ward generation.

It’s easy to hit 4K+ ward. On melee characters that go HP, they have to have Life affixes on every single piece of gear or they will die constantly. It’s genuinely difficult to break 2500HP and takes a LOT of farming. Literally hundreds of hours of playing gimped to find all gear with + and % HP, and idols have to have % and + HP on everything,. The devs need to decouple ward generation from health completely so that they can focus on giving health characters more health. The issue is that adding more health to items also makes ward generation go up.

Then you have to consider the LP system. It’s just poorly designed. Unique items should just roll random stats like nemesis does, but on drop. Make uniques with up to 4 affixes 20-50xtimes more common, Then, people can farm and use them. The LP slam is one of the worst, most punishing systems i’ve ever seen implemented in an aRPG. It outright sucks. Like, its horrible game design. In fact, it was designed to increase the time it takes to farm simply because the game has no content. They burnt their budget on a craptacular story instead of actual end game content.

Further, why make LP4 so rare? I mean, some LP4 items have NEVER dropped once since the inception of the game, (across all people playing). They are that rare. It boils down to the poor design choices around difficulty that the devs keep pushing. Very strange indeed.

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125

Your first argument is Ward vs HP not Melee vs Ranged.

You can absolutely play a ranged build without ward generation. You can also absolutely play a melee build WITH Ward generation. Sentinels can easily hit the 4k ward mark with certain builds.

Again, melee isn’t bad, the players are.

Edit: ignored the second half of your post. My bad.

The second argument affects all players regardless of build, so again, not Melee vs Ranged and is irrelevant to this conversation.

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126

Which is extra funny that he almost exclusively plays melee and plays it so poorly he thinks ranged are so superior when everyone else who plays multiple characters both melee and ranged keep telling him that the gap is not that wide.

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127

I’d like to once again reiterate that while ranged has an easier time, it’s not so far ahead of melee that melee is not a viable playstyle. Also, this is not a competitive game (mostly) and Jimmy The Warlock clearing 8 BILLION Corruption while you’re working on 1000 with your melee build doesn’t affect you at all.

I swear, you people would choose Hard Mode then complain that someone playing Easy is having a, surprise!, easier time.

Play melee if you want more of a challenge and to enjoy the “in your face” experience. Play ranged if you want an easier time and you enjoy barraging enemies with spells or pelting them with Arrows from a distance.

I’m going to keep playing primarily melee and doing fine no matter what you pick because the balance isn’t that off.

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I do I play Melee in all my games and I do have 7 Sentinels. It’s a shame that in LE melee don’t have the proper design they could and there are so many Anti-melee mechanics. That there are so many factual issues that I lised above that need to actually be fixed.

I do see several ignored replies so I can only imagine the gaslighting and trolling which is sad. Anyone who thinks melee especially Sentinel is in a good spot is not only factually wrong, they are trolling this thread. They have no place even being here and it just makes it difficult for the Devs to sift through this mess to actually fix real design issues and problems.

Lets just hope in 1.2 they actually make some significant changes for melee and especially Sentinel since the Devs are removing/fixing volatile reversal. (which is a good thing) I hope the Devs can actually design Sentinel better instead of having them barely be a class because of 1 button holding them together. Anyone who thinks Sentinel is in a good place when these facts have been laid out is a very bad troll.

PS - At least some players with far bigger pull than me and content creators who are in contact with the Devs are also trying to fix melee and Sentinels. It’s a team effort.

130

Well, talking about extremes…

Most classes have very strong specific options, sentinel has access to more health and block, and more armor in their class specific pieces (chest and head slots), and that’s it. Is considered the weakest primary class defensive-wise, but by no means is in a horrible state.

Sentinel has his issues, but is being reworked constantly, so it will end up in a good spot, half of the uniques are designed for sentinel. Heh, is not Marksman, thank EHG for that. They nerfed rogue so many times, still Bladedancer and Falconeer are absurdly tanky for an agility class, and these two have the less class diversity of them all. Marksman always has been a sad joke since they removed Critical Vulnerability, the latest updates to make it more playable made marksman go from worst class to worst class in the game. (IE nothing changed).

You guys are changing subjects constantly complaining about other things and not sticking to the main topic (melee vs ranged), what the LP system, or Sentinel, or Ward vs Health has to do with melee?

I’m in the boat that is not that bad, but still is a hinderance to play melee. Good players with game knowledge can play melee just fine, is just a bit harder, and that’s it. I think should be addressed, but I am much more concerned about the poor balance, in classes and difficulty progression, and the many dozens of bugs that still plague the game, many of those reported many months, even years ago.

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131

Yes

Not true. Sentinel is only functional because of Volatile reversal. It’s a broken ability that makes them viable. All Sentinel builds are required to take it because it’s the only thing propping them up. If you removed that ability they don’t work highlighting their shallow design.

On the other side if you give any other class an ability like Volatile reversal they would be completely broken BECAUSE those classes have good design. They don’t need a broken ability to make them function.

So in conclusion Sentinel needs Volatile reversal removed/reworked (Devs are working on this) Then the Sentinel needs a complete rework so they can be an actual class once it’s gone.

I think good player can make melee work but it’s annoying due to poor design and anti-melee mechanics and bugs.

I’ve made a lot of Sentinel melee build work. You have to do a lot of problem solving. With that said no one wants to play a game where the Class fantasy they enjoy (Melee) is so woefully behind Ranged/Caster in ever compacity.

Class balance wise we got ranged/casters doing 10-50 times melee damage. Then have way more ways to easily solve defensive and other issues all while not being exposed to Anti-melee mechanics.

True. With that said Sentinel is thee Melee Class. So they are a big part of the conversation.

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Completely disregarding the dozens of Sentinel builds that DON’T use Volatile Reversal and work perfectly fine. I genuinely don’t understand how you take yourself seriously when there’s so much evidence against you.

Just simply looking at the arena Leaderboards for Sentinel:

Out of the top 50 builds on this list: https://www.lastepochtools.com/ladders/harbingers-of-ruin/latest/softcore-1p/arena/sentinel

37/50 use Volatile Reversal.
BUT!
34/50 use Sigils of Hope.

But Sigils of Hope isn’t what you’re complaining about… Is it the extra 3/50 that makes Volatile required for Sentinel? Or maybe it’s the 21/50 who use both! I’d ask you to explain, but you don’t like facts that prove your opinions wrong.

Edit: it JUST gets better! 35/50 use Healing Hands. Is that propping up Sentinel too? Or just Volatile Reversal?

Edit 2: 46/50 of the top Void Knight Builds use Volatile Reversal, but 16/50 use Sigils of Hope, and 22/50 use Healing Hands

32/50 of the top Forge Guards use Volatile Reversal, but 44/50 use Sigils of Hope, and 36/50 use Healing Hands. (just for fun 42/50 use Ring of Shields)

34/50 of the top Paladins use Volatile Reversal, but 44/50 use Sigils of Hope, and 32/50 use Healing Hands.

In total that’s: 112/150 (~75%) that use Volatile Reversal, 104/150 (~69%, nice) that use Sigils of Hope, and 96/150 (~64%) that use Healing Hands. Meaning only about 6-11% more of Sentinel players use Volatile reversal than use the other two skills… Which isn’t that much. A lot of players use all three skills or a combination of two, so this data is probably best left to someone with a degree or passion for statistics, but to my untrained eye, nothing about this says “all Sentinels are required to take it.”

Edit 3: I ignored the best piece of evidence against you.

You say:

But of the #1 builds for each Sentinel Mastery… Only Paladin has Volatile Reversal equipped and their arena waves are 300, 1284, 406 for Void Knight, Forge Guard, and Paladin respectively. So if Volatile Reversal was the singular reason Paladin beat Void Knight, that’s a 106 wave difference. Meanwhile Forge Guard has 878 waves over Paladin WITHOUT Volatile Reversal… So what’s the excuse there?

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If that’s your impression, consider seriously not playing melee.

I won’t enter into Sentinel discussions, is just stupid. Reversal is being reworked on right now, Sentinel is the oldest class but also the class that has seen the most adjustments and reworks, and they’re actively working on it.

134

Why pathfinder is better. But back to the point. Subjectively I find martial builds harder. Just my 5 cents

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Exactly what I said and what my viewers told me. Gear in this game feels weak. And unfun on top of the rng nature making it frustrating.

I also written entire threads about it. I always try to power creep the item powers in Le because of this reason. Boring gear leads to boring game.

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I guess this sums up the whole story of Abomb… The neighbor’s grass always being greener. He plays almost exclusively Sentinel, so he has to complain about it, what else does he know about other classes?

It’s all a matter of perspective really.

My husband has only played Mage and Rogue characters since we bought the game in 0.8~.
Yesterday he decided to try a paladin, rolling a holy smiter build… Just a couple minutes ago he reached Empowered Monos and said: “I’m baffled, holy… How stupidly strong this class is” :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
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I love it! Did he have Volatile Reversal to carry him? /s

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Can I get advise on my build please

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/ozyKJ9eB

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You’ve asked before across multiple other threads. Just make your own forum post instead of derailing others.

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Just asking for help.

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Right. That’s fine, and even encouraged, but do it in it’s own dedicated discussion instead of hijacking another thread.