So your solution for improving melee is to…have them cast non-melee spells? 
(Or at least make the spells already cast actually be meaningful)
Sorry a bit tongue and cheek there, and I agree most ctc spells right now are basically worthless w/o masteries and levels to get the damage reasonable, but…
I’d prefer they improve base weapon damage, and possibly add some flat damage and AR to certain skills so that they would scale better and be less item dependent. Raising base weapon damage also means balance between RW and Unique/Set items would be better. Grief is powerful because of the massive flat damage and where it enters the calculation, but it basically makes a weapon have the damage roll added to both min and max damage, giving it huge average damage. Increasing base weapon damage would still buff Grief, but it would buff other RW that use %enhanced damage more, making RW like Last Wish and BotD that are more expensive actually compete better. Plus set and unique weapons that have decent %ED would also benefit.
I also think they should do another pass on WW IAS BPs, 2H was left nerfed unable to get to 4FPA and many weapons need an insane 125 IAS to get to 5 FPA.
I play mostly melee, and when I do, I want to be a melee fighter, not use melee just to proc spells. If I want to use spells to kill, I just play a caster…Something like Splash damage is sort of similar in that it applies damage “magically” (ie you’re not actually hitting them) but at least with certain long range/large weapons it makes sense that you could hurt multiple enemies in a nearby area by swinging it.
Another common suggestion is to allow WW to proc - which has a few issues for me. One, it only helps WW, not other melee skills/classes, and Two, most Barbs want to hork, and Death is a fun WW weapon, so having Death proc Glacial Spike and freeze corpses would brick my WW MF Barb.
In most cases I’d say the skills that hit multiple targets have acceptable mechanics, and I’m fine with the fact that as a Zealer/Fury Pally/WW Druid, or Frenzy Barb or even WW Barb that I’ll clear screens slower than a caster just because of the fact that I can only attack a handful of monsters at at once, that’s part of the play style.
What I do have more of a problem with, is that the current balancing results in AoE spell that can also 1 shot everything in their large area of effect, while melee balancing is such that even with Grief, once you get to high player games, you’re usually having to hit an enemy multiple times to kill them. This would be okay “in a vacuum”, since 1 hit killing everything is a bit OP anyway, but when it already exists to such a level that spells can take out the whole screen with a single cast, it becomes a problem.
It just flat out feels bad to be attacking a trash monster for 30 seconds while a caster comes threw and blows up the whole screen instantly.
IMO an AoE spell should be balanced such that the damage is lower since it’s able to hit more monsters at once. Single/few target attacks and spells can do more damage to compensate for only hitting fewer targets.
I fear D2R is done with the level of support we’d need to get solid balancing passes though, and I fear another Mosaic situation.
