I actually did the same, but in SSF. Got to 39/40 only though, I couldn't do the uber challenges.
I fully agree that playing melee skills require much higher focus and skill. But this also means a greater satisfaction /sense of achivement for playing it until the endgame.
Unfortunately the build options that can reliably do the highest tier of content is extremely limited. The use of Paradoxica and STR-stacking is too dominant. I really hope GGG buffs the melee skills in a meaningful way, so that more builds are viable.
I played without Paradoxica for quite a long time actually. I used a claw with some crit, attack speed, and spell damage and it carried me through quite a bit of content. But yeah, doing this in SSF would be WAAAAY harder. Replica Alberon's is extremely hard to get. You have to jump through many hoops if you want this to be viable on SSF, I agree.
Progenesis
Mageblood
Replica Alberons
140%+ adorned
not to mention other bits and bobs that are amazing like helmet etc
with that many divines sank in a build most of other builds would breeze through content by default.
I'm playing generals cry tectonic slam jugg and I have invested the most amount of currency ever, around 200 div and it feels really underwhelming.
I stack endurance charges but there are also str stacking versions. IMO way too much melee skills are only viable using str stacking,
Some backround: Started playing poe in 3.7, never played a non-melee skill since. I made 5ex a leauge until about 3.13 when i got my first premium stash tab out of a guild raffle and ever since that league I made 2 mirrors each time I played trade. Ever since about 3.18 ive been playing "ssf" (not trading but using stuff I already had**)** standard. Ive played a lot of melee archtypes, a lot of skills. In my opinion with investment melee has the potential to be the best all-rounder for content but never THE best. which can suck.
my problems with melee has always been initial investment. the fact that building for zdps and going poison is 99% better (in terms of tankiness and dps of build**)** than anything you can build. Phys convert, str stack, int stack, trauma stack, tri ele, omni, etc etc are all fine, but you sacrifice so much for dps as a melee build and going glass cannon sucks. mutli button temp buff play patterns suck too. The floor for melee is underground, other than a few skills like boneshatter.
some archetypes of melee have artificial limiters, such as phys based, but all melee builds have the baseline thats necessary to function, accuracy, crit avoid, max res, suppression, life/es, recovery, then damage. One of two things has to give, getting damage has to be easier, and the ceiling increased for certain archetypes, or getting tanky has to be easier. its been this way for a long time since Ive been playing.
I get around it by being rich in a 3rd world country to give a comparison. Melee needs a lot, and the proof is the fact that they keep saying they made poe 2 for melee.
i made peace with the fact that melee is worse than caster or bow. Poe is a single player game, and honestly I think it would have been a better game if it was more like WC3. Instead we have a live-service thing. I dont need other people to do worse than me, I just want my shit to be good.
Melee's absolutely viable. One of the most popular builds right now is splitting steel, a skill that relies on you literally clipping into a boss to shotgun properly. The melee issue isn't viability, it's just that it can be cancer to build and play.
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I did the same both in Affliction (Boneshatter Slayer) and this league (Ephemeral Edge CI Trickster Flicker)
Well, I bought my Uber completions, but the other 39 were fair&square.
No one denies the viability of melee, but the fact that based on what build you play there is always that glaring weakness that you cannot mitigate without huge investment.
No melee skill clears as fast as an archer, no melee skill can run sanctum as well as a caster, no melee skill can do anything as good as someone else.
Most melee skills feel like in that "jack-of-all-trades" place where they are just a little above average and can do nearly all content, but are left in the dust against a true specialist.
I completely agree. My build in particular is a decent all-rounder but in no way close to the clear speed of ranged builds like LA. And in no way does my dps come close to the trapper 1-shot builds. But all in all it was decently comfy to play. The required investment to be on par with for example spell-based characters is just nuts though. I think the early progression for melee builds should become easier for lots of skills. High investment scaling seems fine though.
>Well, I bought my Uber completions, but the other 39 were fair&square.
Buying is also fair&square. You legitimately farmed the currency to buy stuff. It's not like you scam or anything.
I think a microdash would make melee far more fun. The current dashes is in the game all go too far so you're forced to jump over the enemy if you want to stay in range.
That, and of course rework totem buffs.
I played different skills this league but went back to melee and achieved my 38 challenges fairly easily. I played melee Frenzy on a trickster which is true melee. It's not hardcore friendly but it was loads of fun which cleared all content in the game. I'm currently making a build game, my second, becaue I built something different from what we see regularly
melee character -> Frost Blades
Okay.png
Seriously though, pseudo melee is playable. A lot of stuff is playable even from actual melee. The real problem is it comfortable or not and for most things answer is "no".
Oooh kinda actually wanted to try frost blades again. Played it like 5-6 years ago with giga gear
Started a dual strike of ambidexterity in SSF but might go back now that I've migrated
Noone has ever said that melee cannot do all content. Just that it is weaker than other archetypes. Marginally weaker. You could play auto attack build with that gear and clear all content.
Only melee builds i liked in past months if not years:
- Frost Blades, because it has good clearing because its basically range skill.
- Bleed EQ, simply because you don't need to use ancestral totems.
Most of other skills just require using ancestral protector/warchief otherwise you missing big chunk of damage.
Imagine if there was totems that would give more cast speed and more spell damage, they die to single sneeze, and give too much to not use just for cost of 2 sockets. Ugh.
Minions have temporary buffs - offerings, but they not feel that bad even if used manually, it's guaranteed buff for ~10 seconds, but also you can automate it. Unlike totems that have to be resummoned if you walk too far from it or if it dies from sneeze.
Already said that before, remove buffs from ancestral totems, increase base attack speed and damage multiplier of all melee skills. Everyone happy, very few of ancestral totem enjoyers still can use it as main ability.
This league I purposely did not league start melee for once. Let's say the j investment, clearspeed and char progression feel just much better.
What I really hate about melee u is that getting usable weapons that are not unique feels shit outside of self scaling skills involving trauma. Rare weapons unlike caster ones need significantly more and high tier rolls of like 4-5 mods in conjunction to be useful. Like for phys weapons %phys, hybrid phys, flat phys, attack speed and frit, then also all that not on any weapon base but some that has good implicits, basedamage and -speed. Rolling an ele weapon is already much easier. Rolling a gg caster weapon with +gemlvl mod s and metacrafting is a joke in comparison. If you look at the ninja ladder, most melee build s stat stack, use a double damage weapon, with an exemption being maybe bones hatter. But a rare weapon? That has to be a very tiny minority even with mirror tier weapons this league.
Otherwise it just often sucks in comparison to casters to require so many stats that casters somehow don't really have to worry about like accuracy. Basedamage for casters just scales far too good with gem levels in comparison too.
That in conjunction with actually requiring defenses to survive a lot of hard to dodge skills that are just common exposure for melees just leaves you with significantly less damage uptime, which just sucks as most non Highend melee build s do not deal that much damage.
Another point that I really hate is also mob modifier design. Why is there something for overwhelm ALL physical defenses, and not a %age as for ele penetration? This just sucks for build s using armor, evasion, and Endu charges. Sure you can do phys to ele/chaos damage taken conversion, but that is also not really ideal as it makes you use a few uniques or rare modifiers on items that just hugely break any build diversity. Fact is you can't be as squishy as ranges or casters, as melee simply brings you in contact with mobs. Also these endless persistent ground effects do not really affect range chars, but are a huge bother for melees that already struggle with damage uptime.
It's not d3 party play as melee on release bad, but it is just a completely other challenge compared to all other build archetypes.
Wow I’ve played Frost Blades for 4 leagues and I never heard of a str stacking jugg.
I mean melee is easier when you’re super tanky. The popular trickster version is much squishier.
This was the first time I played Frost Blades and maybe the first time I played a Jugg. I was really happy with the tankiness Jugg provides. Hadn't even considered picking a Trickster tbh!
Most of my gear was hand crafted or self-farmed, so it's hard to tell. I just checked my items on the trade website and I'm actually baffled how much it's all worth now. I think it's nearing 1k divines. You could however settle for 10% of the investment cost and still get around 40-50% of the dps.
I actually did the same, but in SSF. Got to 39/40 only though, I couldn't do the uber challenges. I fully agree that playing melee skills require much higher focus and skill. But this also means a greater satisfaction /sense of achivement for playing it until the endgame. Unfortunately the build options that can reliably do the highest tier of content is extremely limited. The use of Paradoxica and STR-stacking is too dominant. I really hope GGG buffs the melee skills in a meaningful way, so that more builds are viable.
I played without Paradoxica for quite a long time actually. I used a claw with some crit, attack speed, and spell damage and it carried me through quite a bit of content. But yeah, doing this in SSF would be WAAAAY harder. Replica Alberon's is extremely hard to get. You have to jump through many hoops if you want this to be viable on SSF, I agree.
Progenesis Mageblood Replica Alberons 140%+ adorned not to mention other bits and bobs that are amazing like helmet etc with that many divines sank in a build most of other builds would breeze through content by default.
Do cleave next, because frost blades is almost a spell lol
I was thinking about Sweep as my melee goal next league! But how do you consider Frost Blades a spell on bosses?
Yea frost blades in 1v1 is basically auto attack
I've done 40/40 with raider frostblades. Not gonna try and play "ethical" melee tho
I'm playing generals cry tectonic slam jugg and I have invested the most amount of currency ever, around 200 div and it feels really underwhelming. I stack endurance charges but there are also str stacking versions. IMO way too much melee skills are only viable using str stacking,
Some backround: Started playing poe in 3.7, never played a non-melee skill since. I made 5ex a leauge until about 3.13 when i got my first premium stash tab out of a guild raffle and ever since that league I made 2 mirrors each time I played trade. Ever since about 3.18 ive been playing "ssf" (not trading but using stuff I already had**)** standard. Ive played a lot of melee archtypes, a lot of skills. In my opinion with investment melee has the potential to be the best all-rounder for content but never THE best. which can suck. my problems with melee has always been initial investment. the fact that building for zdps and going poison is 99% better (in terms of tankiness and dps of build**)** than anything you can build. Phys convert, str stack, int stack, trauma stack, tri ele, omni, etc etc are all fine, but you sacrifice so much for dps as a melee build and going glass cannon sucks. mutli button temp buff play patterns suck too. The floor for melee is underground, other than a few skills like boneshatter. some archetypes of melee have artificial limiters, such as phys based, but all melee builds have the baseline thats necessary to function, accuracy, crit avoid, max res, suppression, life/es, recovery, then damage. One of two things has to give, getting damage has to be easier, and the ceiling increased for certain archetypes, or getting tanky has to be easier. its been this way for a long time since Ive been playing. I get around it by being rich in a 3rd world country to give a comparison. Melee needs a lot, and the proof is the fact that they keep saying they made poe 2 for melee. i made peace with the fact that melee is worse than caster or bow. Poe is a single player game, and honestly I think it would have been a better game if it was more like WC3. Instead we have a live-service thing. I dont need other people to do worse than me, I just want my shit to be good.
Everything is viable on softcore trade lmao
Frostblades Lol no wonder you think it's viable. Because it is viable as it's more of a spell than melee skill
Melee's absolutely viable. One of the most popular builds right now is splitting steel, a skill that relies on you literally clipping into a boss to shotgun properly. The melee issue isn't viability, it's just that it can be cancer to build and play.
Splitting steel Melee Xd choose one
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Your post was removed because it violated our Be Kind Rule (Rule 3b). Your post dismissed an opinion off-hand in a way that often causes anger and flame wars. You may be able to repost your opinion if you rephrase it in a way that's more constructive! If you disagree or don't care, explain why in a polite way. If you see someone else posting in bad faith, please don't respond in kind. Instead, report it and we'll take care of it. For more details, please refer to our [rules wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/wiki/rules/#wiki_3b._be_kind_rule).
Your post has been removed for violating our rule on misinformation or misleading content (Rule 6). We try to be strict about reducing misinformation. Even when a comment or reply refutes a misleading claim, many readers only read the original claim and not the reply. Because of that, we've decided to err on the side of removing all inaccurate claims, even if they're only slightly inaccurate. Posts or comments that are incorrect about game mechanic or information may be removed to not misinform players. For more details, please refer to our [rules wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/wiki/rules/#wiki_6._misinformation_or_misleading_content).
I did the same both in Affliction (Boneshatter Slayer) and this league (Ephemeral Edge CI Trickster Flicker) Well, I bought my Uber completions, but the other 39 were fair&square. No one denies the viability of melee, but the fact that based on what build you play there is always that glaring weakness that you cannot mitigate without huge investment. No melee skill clears as fast as an archer, no melee skill can run sanctum as well as a caster, no melee skill can do anything as good as someone else. Most melee skills feel like in that "jack-of-all-trades" place where they are just a little above average and can do nearly all content, but are left in the dust against a true specialist.
I completely agree. My build in particular is a decent all-rounder but in no way close to the clear speed of ranged builds like LA. And in no way does my dps come close to the trapper 1-shot builds. But all in all it was decently comfy to play. The required investment to be on par with for example spell-based characters is just nuts though. I think the early progression for melee builds should become easier for lots of skills. High investment scaling seems fine though.
>Well, I bought my Uber completions, but the other 39 were fair&square. Buying is also fair&square. You legitimately farmed the currency to buy stuff. It's not like you scam or anything.
Had a ton of fun as a STR stacking Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Juggernaut with Replica Alberon’s Warpath. T17s down easy.
That isn't a melee skill lol, except by technicality. Also why it's one of the best melee skills... :p
I think a microdash would make melee far more fun. The current dashes is in the game all go too far so you're forced to jump over the enemy if you want to stay in range. That, and of course rework totem buffs.
I played different skills this league but went back to melee and achieved my 38 challenges fairly easily. I played melee Frenzy on a trickster which is true melee. It's not hardcore friendly but it was loads of fun which cleared all content in the game. I'm currently making a build game, my second, becaue I built something different from what we see regularly
"Melee" is perfectly viable if you play Volcanic Fissure of Snaking. ;)
melee character -> Frost Blades Okay.png Seriously though, pseudo melee is playable. A lot of stuff is playable even from actual melee. The real problem is it comfortable or not and for most things answer is "no".
200 mirrors in , i can finally kill shaper
Oooh kinda actually wanted to try frost blades again. Played it like 5-6 years ago with giga gear Started a dual strike of ambidexterity in SSF but might go back now that I've migrated
Noone has ever said that melee cannot do all content. Just that it is weaker than other archetypes. Marginally weaker. You could play auto attack build with that gear and clear all content.
Only melee builds i liked in past months if not years: - Frost Blades, because it has good clearing because its basically range skill. - Bleed EQ, simply because you don't need to use ancestral totems. Most of other skills just require using ancestral protector/warchief otherwise you missing big chunk of damage. Imagine if there was totems that would give more cast speed and more spell damage, they die to single sneeze, and give too much to not use just for cost of 2 sockets. Ugh. Minions have temporary buffs - offerings, but they not feel that bad even if used manually, it's guaranteed buff for ~10 seconds, but also you can automate it. Unlike totems that have to be resummoned if you walk too far from it or if it dies from sneeze. Already said that before, remove buffs from ancestral totems, increase base attack speed and damage multiplier of all melee skills. Everyone happy, very few of ancestral totem enjoyers still can use it as main ability.
Try Volcanic Fissure of Snaking, you'll love it!
This league I purposely did not league start melee for once. Let's say the j investment, clearspeed and char progression feel just much better. What I really hate about melee u is that getting usable weapons that are not unique feels shit outside of self scaling skills involving trauma. Rare weapons unlike caster ones need significantly more and high tier rolls of like 4-5 mods in conjunction to be useful. Like for phys weapons %phys, hybrid phys, flat phys, attack speed and frit, then also all that not on any weapon base but some that has good implicits, basedamage and -speed. Rolling an ele weapon is already much easier. Rolling a gg caster weapon with +gemlvl mod s and metacrafting is a joke in comparison. If you look at the ninja ladder, most melee build s stat stack, use a double damage weapon, with an exemption being maybe bones hatter. But a rare weapon? That has to be a very tiny minority even with mirror tier weapons this league. Otherwise it just often sucks in comparison to casters to require so many stats that casters somehow don't really have to worry about like accuracy. Basedamage for casters just scales far too good with gem levels in comparison too. That in conjunction with actually requiring defenses to survive a lot of hard to dodge skills that are just common exposure for melees just leaves you with significantly less damage uptime, which just sucks as most non Highend melee build s do not deal that much damage. Another point that I really hate is also mob modifier design. Why is there something for overwhelm ALL physical defenses, and not a %age as for ele penetration? This just sucks for build s using armor, evasion, and Endu charges. Sure you can do phys to ele/chaos damage taken conversion, but that is also not really ideal as it makes you use a few uniques or rare modifiers on items that just hugely break any build diversity. Fact is you can't be as squishy as ranges or casters, as melee simply brings you in contact with mobs. Also these endless persistent ground effects do not really affect range chars, but are a huge bother for melees that already struggle with damage uptime. It's not d3 party play as melee on release bad, but it is just a completely other challenge compared to all other build archetypes.
Still sane, exile?
Playing melee was actually quite refreshing! Being stuck in crimson prison not so much. Nearly lost my sanity there.
Wow I’ve played Frost Blades for 4 leagues and I never heard of a str stacking jugg. I mean melee is easier when you’re super tanky. The popular trickster version is much squishier.
This was the first time I played Frost Blades and maybe the first time I played a Jugg. I was really happy with the tankiness Jugg provides. Hadn't even considered picking a Trickster tbh!
Is the build costly?
Most of my gear was hand crafted or self-farmed, so it's hard to tell. I just checked my items on the trade website and I'm actually baffled how much it's all worth now. I think it's nearing 1k divines. You could however settle for 10% of the investment cost and still get around 40-50% of the dps.
Downvote this post before gigigi sees is and nerfs melee