Hi Blizzard,
Since 1.10, melee builds have (severely) lagged behind caster builds in terms of overall gameplay competitiveness. While there are some very niche roles that melee can fill (Smiters for Ubers or Trav Barbs, for example), in general, casters fart outpace melee in overall kill speed, farm speed, terror zone diversity, and ladder competitiveness.
Patch 2.5 only made this lack of parity worse. Immunities are a broken game system that discourage build diversity, conflict with other game systems (synergies), and reduce access to multiple areas of the game; I am extremely glad that you’ve provided a solution in the form of sunder charms to help break this game-killing system. However, sunder charms exclusively help casters (and only those with further resistance-reducing items or skills, leaving poison-based builds behind, though that’s another topic entirely). Their introduction only further deepened the divide between casters and melee builds.
The long-term health of D2R emphatically depends on fixing this divide. I understand Blizzard Albany’s resources are likely very limited on further support for D2R, so here are some hopefully-simple ideas to fix this problem that can be implemented with only a few coders:
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Get rid of the hit cap for melee. Casters never miss. 5% of all melee attacks are guaranteed to miss, no matter what, due to the hit cap being 95%. Allow us to achieve 100% hit with enough attack rating. I’ll leave whether that’s a linear or logarithmic curve to your systems designers.
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Remove the no-hit-check system from running. As it stands, when a character runs in D2R, armor does not apply to physical attacks because the hit check against a character’s armor is completely skipped. This almost exclusively benefits casters. Casters very rarely get hit by physical attacks due to being ranged classes, and if they have to move, have tools to do so without running (teleport). Melee classes, however, get hit all of the time whether that’s the initial charge into a group of mobs, or repositioning in the middle of a fight to continue attacking. Make armor count while running to help close this divide. (Bonus points: tie % of armor effectiveness while running to stamina so it’s not a pointless stat. )
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Remove the reduce-block-chance system from running. No further elaboration. Same reasons as #2.
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Provide greater AOE to melee. Casters can wipe out entire screens in a few seconds due to the massive amount of AOE they have. Melee builds have no such AOE to use, and even if they did, would still likely be behind casters due to the need to close distance to enact the AOE. This has lead to a dramatic lack of parity between melee builds and casters, as evidenced by the majority of players being either Sorceresses or Paladin caster builds. On top of that, for virtually every class, the “caster” build is usually superior to any true melee option (Hammerdins/Auradins, Elemental Druids, Trapsin, Javazon, etc.). There are plenty of ways to fix this, but the easiest way is to simply make the currently-useless physical sunder charm also provide AOE. (NOTE: this AOE may need to be tied to weapon range (1-5) for balance reasons, especially to prevent Bowazons from clearing TZs as fast as they can move)
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Buff base weapon damage across the board. When 1.10 was implemented, monster health and other items were adjusted to make mobs more survivable. Melee weaponry was never adjusted to compensate, and this is the exact patch when melee took a backseat to casters. I don’t know what the % should be, so I’ll also leave that to your systems designers.
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Buff melee skills so that they provide their greatest scaling increases at low levels. No matter what happens with further melee buffs, leveling a melee character will always be worse than leveling a caster. This is because casters are nearly-item-independent at game start when it comes to offensive power; all of their offensive power comes from skill points, with items only providing marginal buffs to this in the form of additional skillpoints. On the other hand, melee builds are nearly-100%-item-dependent for offensive power, leading to long stretches of artificial leveling walls. Eventually, melee builds just can’t keep going without finding or trading for the right drop. By inverting the scaling curve for melee skills so that the biggest scaling jumps are at early skill levels, it dramatically lessens the importance of finding GG weaponry just to reach endgame and removes leveling cliffs/walls. (NOTE: in order to prevent melee builds from only investing a few points into a variety of skills to get maximum benefit, have the decreasing scale still stay appreciable from 1-20, and only fall off more-dramatically after 20. Also make synergy bonuses high. Both of these will encourage and preserve build specialization that the game seems to strive for now.)
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Give elite mobs and bosses more HP. Casters don’t have crushing blow. Melee does. This is one of the few advantages melee has in current game systems. By making elites and bosses stronger, it makes mechanics like crushing blow even more important. This will help bring clear-speed parity to even for casters and melee.
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Make Zod runes add ethereal status along with indestructible. Casters don’t care about their weapon damage, nor whether their weapon is ethereal or not. An ethereal Oculus, for example, is just as good as a regular. However, in order to remain even moderately-relevant, melee builds require ethereal weapons outside of Grief. This dramatically limits item options for melee characters compared to casters, making it much harder to reach endgame relevance. Even worse, so many of a melee character’s options (Grandfather, Immortal King’s Stone Crusher, etc.) are immediately off the table because they cannot be ethereal. By the introduction of sunder charms, it appears the D2R developers prefer item solutions to system problems, so allowing Zod to turn indestructible items (which cannot drop as ethereal) into ethereal items will be a big buff for melee. It will make it easier to find a GG weapon that is necessary for melee competitiveness by expanding the pool of options. This also has the bonus of making Zod runes more useful, because right now…they’re not very useful for being the rarest rune in the game.
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Remove the ladder stats-buff for mobs. Ladder mobs have increased health, armor, and a few other things. Especially with armor, these ladder buffs almost exclusively impact melee builds versus casters. Get rid of them. There’s no reason for them.
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Buff two-handed weapons. Grief is and always will be a problem when it comes to melee relevance, as there is virtually nothing that can compete with it when placed in a Phase Blade. AOE based on weapon range (via sunder charm?) will help this. Buffing base weapon damage will also help since Grief is a static buff not based on weapon damage. However, because of the ability to wear a shield and various other factors, even with such buffs, I’d bet two-handers will still fall behind Grief. Providing some benefit, like unstoppable attacks (like Druid bear form), would be a nice way to address this issue that, while not directly-related to caster/melee parity, is a tangential, systemic issue affecting melee relevance.
. - Give medium and heavy armors/shields some type of damage reduction buff relative to their speed penalties. As with #2 and #3, armor is a more important stat for melee than casters. Implementing this change will help melee more than casters, and it will also help break the Everyrunewordisinamageplateorarchonplate status quo that plagues the game, as other armor types would finally have a reason to be worn and justify their speed/strength penalties. I don’t know if the damage reduction buff should be 1:1 for the reduction penalty or some deeper fraction, but I’ll leave that decision, like previous issues, to the D2R systems designers.
I think these changes, or at least a combination of some of these changes, will dramatically help melee become competitive with casters. Doing so will help increase build diversity in the game and prolong D2R’s lifespan. This is good for Blizzard, as keeping franchises healthy and alive overall keeps customers loyal, happy, and eager to buy newer franchise installments that they can be confident will involve quality gameplay for years to come. Even better, I believe the coding changes required to implement these systems-level changes would require minimal time for what is likely a skeleton staff at D2R. For these reasons, please consider implementing the above suggestions!
P.S.: implementation of these changes will need to take into account Smiters and Bowazons, as their unique attack styles may require more-specific tweaks.
