The culprit behind all of this was the stupid decision of Blizzard’s developers to have a diminishing effect on FHR. FHR should be rolled back to 2.3 ver.
Melee was second class way before 2.3.
Why can’t melee characters even sit in the first class…? Caster’s FHR was deleted and he ate all the buffs of Sunder and Infinity Runeword. Tier 1 pve would be Jabel Amazon, Zombie Sorceress (Energy Shield & Nova), Extreme Blizzard Sorceress, Chain Lightning Sorceress, etc. Tier 2 is Hammerdin and Runeword Dream Paladin. Tier 3 is Poison Necromancer, Tier 5 is Trap Assassin…
Next ele dru,
Walker is Martial asn and wolf & bear druid? And barb…
W-w ?! Laggy and IAS broken…
The 2.6 announcement today said that there were more changes forthcoming beyond the runewords.
FINGERS CROSSED IT’S SYSTEMS-LEVEL TWEAKS FOR MELEE.
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I won’t hold My breath about it … They Will put a class specific chance % at Best on a new runeword , just like metamorfosis and mosaic…
Something like Barb : your shouts get a 25% to be reset on hit (lol) . They are not fixing or Even looking at mechsnics (hope to be proven wrong) , they are adding dumb pre-buff runewords ans some band aid “fixing” to furries and assasins via runewords. It is very anoying …
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Yeahhhhh…I’m scared any other changes will be minor or based on items/runewords, which won’t help since the issues with melee are systemic. 
That said, I’m holding onto hope since we know there are more changes than the runewords they’ve announced, and the above tweaks are not time consuming to code. Fingers crossed!
Just changing AR and removing block from ennemies would help alot for melee, that or making spell blockable so they suffer the same as melee x)
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Imagine them getting their spells blocked …
the tsunami of tears would decimate the internet "ma fireball, muh hammers "… “it’s dumb a tiny skele can withstand the power of My nephalem dbz powered sorc, dumb mechsnic”…
I would pay for a week with said mechsnics , ar and block to spells (AR based on int invesment) .
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While I’d love to see melee buffed, and hope it gets buffed, I also consider an melee focused area.
Perhaps just keep it simple, a random area red portal with TZ-level random monsters, boss and/or mini-bosses each time. Spawned with something insignificant - like a key and id-scroll in cube. Not able to create new portal in the same game unless boss is dead and no players in the active portal.
In order for casters to not just rofl-stomp the area, we can limit the capabilities of non-melee damage, teleport, mf, etc, when in this red portal area. (and other skills if needed, like Find Item)
So we can have a worthy place to fight to our hearts content, with a good challenge, knowing every moment spent there is roughly as valuable as any other place a caster would normally farm at their insane rate/speed.
I mean. It’s an option because many players get upset/defensive when you want to balance op skills and such. I guess some would still be upset because of getting good value without needing enigma or infinity. But they’re the ones usually pulling the “you can choose not to use it /it doesn’t affect you”-card… 
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The author probably already knows. No, many people here will know. Roll back the FHR to 2.3, increase the mana cost of the teleport skill, and increase the skill cooldown.
Do it. Give mobs that block claw block (it can block spells).
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The developers could also change so that each point of Strength would increase your 2H-weapon damage according to item rarity (see thread below). The benefit of this change would promote more build diversity with players pursuing Strength based characters and adds more value to the Strength Attribute (e.g. beyond stat req. for gear)…
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Yup. It’s honestly BS the way spells completely ignore block chance, and how they don’t have any sort of “hit chance” to deal with. Fix those two problems and suddenly caster damage would be a lot more reasonable.
It would also solve the imbalance that allows caster builds to blow through the game even when they are massively underleveled. Melee can’t easily do this specifically because it’s a lot harder to hit and dodge monsters that are much higher level than you.
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I really like this change too. I’m not sure what the buff to 2H should be, but if it’s something like this, I’d be happy.
The only tweak I’d make would be to propose a simpler method of giving all 2H the same damage multiplier per stat regardless of rarity. Something like a flat 2.5% per point of strength.
Regardless, it’s a great idea no matter how it would ultimately be implemented. 
The thing is … Diablo 2 haa this a quo in wich melee’s identity “the diablo 2 way” is to be lackluster compared to casters.
Dive into this post and You Will find númerous posts about “if You don’t like it , make a caster " " aOE is not a melee thing” “melee is SUPOSED to be more chalenging”… etc etc .
Most players (ppl in general) can’t admit when a disparity is widely beneficial to them for no reason , in fact they will try to “find” reasons to keep it . Diablo 2 is no diferent.
In the end i DONT want em to suffer like us , we want to not suffer at all , or at least to a lesser extend.
Let em keep their 100% acurate non blockable spells… Just give us more tools . But some how this post disturbs si Many caster players.
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Hey guys, I’ve been working on single player mods for D2 and I have some insight on some of the mechanics of the game that could be improved very easily.
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ADJUST THE ATTACK RATING AFFIX. It is just too low compared to monsters defenses and to even OTHER affixes:
“Strange” is the strongest for rare weapons and it is 151-300. “Fool’s” gives 16.5/lvl (lvl99 1630!!!). Makes no sense that an affix that gives both attack rating +max dmg is better than the one that gives only attack rating. Also, only weapons can roll those higher affixes, would be fair and on theme if Gloves, Rings and Helms could roll those affixes as well. -
Give an automod to Two Handed Weapons. Anything would help, but I think thematically the best would be either “-50% target defense” or “-X% target physical resistance”.
Also a make attributes scale better with those weapons. On my own mod I made 2h maces +2%/str, 2h swords +1.5%/str and +0.5%/dex, etc… -
Remove block from Bosses. They are the only ones with that mechanic anyways. Could even double their HP to compensate, they are way too weak to casters anyways.
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Fix Grief bug. It’s so freaking obvious that the damage affix was a TYPO. It was always suppose to be enhanced damage and not flat damage. This way we are free to buff most weapon’s base damage, that were never adjusted on patch 1.10.
Bonus: This is not for melee, but for Bowazon (and bow builds in general, there are fun Bow Paladin builds): Replace Arrows/Bolts with Quivers that can have magic affixes. This alone would fix the unbalance between Bow and Javelin builds. THE CODE IS LITERALLY PARTIALLY WRITTEN. Magical arrows/bolts are listed under “misc.txt” but aren’t enabled.
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This really comes down to how people enjoy the game. I hate playing caster builds because the game practically plays itself and there are much fewer interesting decisions to make. I do not see the challenge melee has as “suffering”, I see that as fun.
If all Blizzard did was just power-creep everything up to the meta caster builds, I would probably never play the game again because it would all just be so damn boring and predictable. This is why I am a strong proponent of bringing these overtuned caster builds and items down a bit.
- Hitrate and block chance for spells
- Cannot be frozen affecting cast rate
- Teleport affecting block/defense like Running does.
- Increasing projectile speed for ranged monsters attack
If we are going to buff melee, then I say we start with the skills that are already considered underpowered within the melee build space.
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I understand and completly agree, the ideal way to balance a Game involves buffs AND NERFs . Up the underpowered chars and bring down the OP ones… this just not gonna happen.
Even thinking about nerfs to ridículous stuff casters get away with , hurts our chances to inprove melee . They are Many , devs cster to the many , not the 3 Ppl that still play melee 
.
Wut ? Hit rate for casters and actually blocking spells ? Heresy!! This is d2 not Wow! … Yep , the criying would be too much .
Frozen /slows afecting cast rate ? I can hear the "diablo is 20+ years and this was never an issues "
You can’t Even speak anithing but good things about teleport. Ppl are too fund tontheir nigmas/sorc tele spam … Even if it makes horrible gameplay .
May be our caster overlords would accept the increased missile speed… maybe .
I will agree with you that the game is already kinda easy. What I could see working out pretty well would be:
- Buff Melee to be more on pair with Casters.
- Buff all monsters to be stronger.
- Add a new dificulty (Inferno?) that makes all monsters lvl 95+?
Edit: Teleport should PROBABLY be removed from the game. It is way too broken, but I don’t see it happening.
Also Grief should be fixed so that all weapons get better stats.
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If you changed whirlwind to include proc chances like “chance to cast x while striking” instead of making whirlwind a “casted” ability, it would definitely help bring the 2handed items closer to just “get grief, get good” meta that we currently have.
Imagine using cranium basher or gavel of pain and getting a chance to cast amp damage or even using dracs for life tap like everyone else gets.
Right now Whirlwind is the “only” AoE skill the barb has (not counting leap attack) and it severely lacks behind everything. Frenzy gets tiring afterawhile just holding right click and zooming because you have to sit there while surrounded by mobs attacking you which leads to barbs just getting enigma, teleporting around and using howl to remove the other mobs and just zerk the super uniques down, rinse and repeat.
It’s BORING.
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