How to fix melee: Cleave mechanics

General Discussion
1

Tldr: new Cleave property for underused skills, base weapon types, uniques and runewords that allow you to hit multiple targets within melee range.

As we all know, melee playthrough can be, well, difficult to digest. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with it, especially when compared to ranged weapons, spells or summons. Melee builds are slow, clunky and, to many people, simply not fun.

Why is this the case? After all, melee characters are tanky, have tons of properties (leech, crushing blow, deadly strike, elemental dmg etc) to customize your build and can reach insane dps.

The answer would obviously be clear speed. And this is wrong answer. We cannot allow melee to have ability to hit entire screen + 2 screens away, this would turn them into casters and ruin the archetype. I don’t believe the game should be balanced fairly in this regard. We need to have clearly defined roles for each character, and melee classes already have lots of good stuff in their arsenal.

Still, melee combat feels bad and this is because you need to get into melee range, monsters start surrounding you and you don’t receive any reward for tanking their hits, instead you slowly watch as their hit bars depletes one after another.

Enter the Cleave mechanics. Percentage change to hit additional targets within melee range. Are you surrounded by mobs hitting you? Perfect, now you can strike in any direction and your dps gets doubled/trippled. Works like a crushing blow in a sense it is percentage change to hit 1 additional target. When stacked to over 100%, you are guaranteed to hit 1 extra target (if in range) and get percentage chance to strike third one. And so on, without limit, although obviously you would never hit 123 targets because you stacked 12200% cleave chance somehow.

Appears on low level skills (in large quantity), like: Sacrifice and Bash could have 100% chance to cleave. Found on base item types, especially axes and polearms, and also as a rare property on uniques/runewords. The goal is to enable players to stack 100, 200 or 300% chance to cleave fairly easily (although not without sacrificing something in return). Also tanking summons could receive some innate chance to ceave too so your golems can do some AoE damage too.

What would this achieve? Feeling surrounded as a melee would feel good as you are finally doing some damage. Good stuff about melee (leech, procs) would be aplified as they would simply be happening more often. Biggest melee weakness (AoE clear) would get lessened without turning the archetype into AoE caster (PoE style), and lesser used skills would find their niche.

Thoughts?

1 Like
2

Cleave is most often used as a skill name

The arpg terminology you are looking for is Splash damage

Ofc it should become part of D2, greatly reducing the gap between melee and casters

But it has to be done a in way that isn’t mandatory… it has to have a drawback so you can make the decision to use it or not

Imho the best way to add melee splash to the game is by linking it to Knockback

A melee mechanic that is considered garbage and counter productive and rightfully so

But by adding splash to knowback you justify using Knockback on attack builds and you create a drawback not making it a must have absolutely

It also makes total sense that if a monster is knocked back, it collided with other monsters transmitting his kinetic energy to them resulting in damage

With the monster size you can modulate the size of the splash

Bigger = shorter but larger
Smaller= longer but narrower

Bosses= Extra damage since they can’t move

3

I didn’t call it splash damage because it’s not meant to be. Splash suggests hitting targets around your primary target and it is not my goal here. I don’t want melee to gain extra non-melee range (this would make melee lose part of melee identity) and splash could potentially target monsters outside that. Hence cleave.

As for tying it with knockback, it can work for some pieces of gear or less used skills but I wouldn’t make it 1 to 1 combo. Knockback has anti melee feel: as a reward for hitting an enemy you can’t hit it anymore because it’s outside your range.

As for making this property mandatory: yes. The goal is to fix melee feel and reward it for finding in bind with multiple enemies. All melee builds should consider it as ‘mandatory’ (read: most efficient) additio to their general playthrough. Because right now melee feel bad as it doesn’t shine when it should shine the most.

4

I dislike the idea of just adding splash/cleave attack to everything as a crutch to balance melee.

Honestly, the issue is not that melee builds are too weak. The issue is that many caster builds are too easily made strong.

2 Likes
5

I don’t want to balance melee against casters, I want the contrary.

But I want melee to feel good when in melee.

Also it’s not meant to be added to everything, but rather to give you an (pretty much bis when in AoE scenario) option to use less single target optimal but more cleavy thing. Like use weaker skill to hit more enemies. Or use axe instead of sword. Or other runeword than grief.

6

i don’t like the idea of making every melee skill into aoe skills. could maybe have added some flat damage per skill point to make the skills slightly less dependent on weapons. some useless skills like barbarian’s stun could be setup to buff other skills. like while a target is stunned you do extra damage with other abilities like frenzy or whirlwind to that target. and attacks can’t be blocked, dodged, evaded, avoided missed etc.

7

Ok so

  1. you are a power creeper

And

  1. learn to reply to people properly
8

No. And no. 20202020

Why don’t you like it? Also, not every skill would become AoE from the start, only handful of less used ones. The rest would need proper weapon and/or uniques/runewords. The AoE would not be like spells, since it would be limited to enemies within melee range, have random chance to occur and/or be limitted in targetted enemies. All this just so melee don’t feel bad when surrounded and tanking.

I don’t want to fous on individual skills much, my problem with melee in general is that I don’t like, in short summary, tanking multiple enemies and not being able to hurt them properly during that time. I don’t want power of Sorcereress, but I think 1 swing = 1 enemy hit hinders the feel of powerful melee warrior. So I propose a (very available but not free) option to hit more than one foe.

9

every melee class already has skills that hit more then one target. i just don’t want every spell to feel the same way just because casters are broken op. just because some of the caster builds are stronger doesn’t make them more interesting to play. at least not in my experience. maybe it’s just the synergy system that is bad making you focus to much exclusively on one skill. i think it would be better if you had more reasons to do skill combos. like my example with stun.

1 Like
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While this is true every melee char has a skill to hit multiple enemies, each individual hit of such skill hits single target. Zeal will deal 5x the damage to the target if used against single enemy, otherwise it will hit bystanders. It makes melee combat feel weak when being surrounded, because enemies take so much time to be killed (unless being imba geared). My proposal is meant to fix that issue and add true AoE mechanic to melee, while not making it as strong / comparable to ranged and spells, which I don’t want.

It simply a matter how long it takes to melee through crowd of enemies surrounding you. IMO it’s too long which makes melee feel bad.

As for making skills work with each other, I’m all for it! But I would rather discuss it in separate thread and in regards to specific skills.

11

well there you got a example how the synergy system is bad. because it focus to much on synergies. thorns, holy fire, holy freeze or holy shock does not hit only one target. and could work great for you. but you’re often too tied up into synergy points to effectively do skill combos.

12

I don’t understand the desire to have melee add AoE…
Paladin has zeal for multi target, and aura’s for AoE.
Barb has WW for multi target… not sure about any AoE, never played one with any seriousness.
Assassin has clone for multi target… and AoE.
Druid has a Zoo for multi target and AoE… plus spells.
Necro has an army for multi target and AoE… plus spells.
Amazon has maybe the best multi target I have witnessed in the game… that is a screen clearing AoE.
Sorc… well, enough said really, zeal sorc is something to see.

If you are melee and are getting surrounded and closed in on, you need to alter your attack strategy, learn to herd/lead hoards, and retreat/gorilla… or you’ve made a mistake, or got over confident, and are paying the price.
Which should happen.

13

Guys, do you ever play melee? This archetype receives regular requests to be fixed for a reason. Are you seriously suggesting that AoE issue can be fixed with thorns aura or holy shock? Or that druid melee is good because you can summon stuff?

I explained my desire to add AoE to melee: I feel bad when surrounded by enemies and not being able to quickly tear them apart on my melee chars. I feel weak. AoE melee skills are actually quick hitting single target skills and require imba gear to feel good whenever you are in bind with 3+ enemies.

14

yes. melee is what i prefer over playing casters most of the time. people suggesting that melee in d2 are too weak to play are probably just used to d3. yes thorns, holy shock are viable aoe alternatives. if that is what you like. druid got spirit of barbs and rabies that are also viable. but many prefer other alternatives like fire / wind druid. because they are more effective.

15

cleave cone>splash

cleave makes positioning matter

splash is just boom

but none will “fix the problem” of dealing with multiple mobs that are not near each other, travincal for example where half mobs arent at melee range

16

That’s all I play.
That is all I have played since 2000.
I like that in order to play melee well you have to think, strategize, herd, lure, separate mobs, use corners, columns, doorways… retreat and regroup… to control these mobs that seem to give you problems.
You want the game to be altered to suit your inefficiencies, or, laziness… to add some magical AoE to get you out of the bad decisions that created your trouble.

My guess is from people who want a melee character, who have never played melee, but have experience with caster/ranged, then realize how slow/hard melee is in comparison, and are unwilling to put in the time and learn a new playstyle, so… want the game changed to suit them… rather than admitting melee isn’t for them.

I’m having a hard time believing the above is for real.
You feel bad?
You feel weak?
Because you let yourself get surrounded and cannot get out of it?
That is called a learning experience, not a “the game needs changed” situation.
Put another way…
If you play melee, and you get yourself surrounded, you don’t play melee very well.
And melee certainly doesn’t need a button/skill/attribute to insta-fix bad decisions, mistakes, or people simply in the process of learning how to play melee.

Melee needs help… AoE is not it.
And, to be honest, it sounds like you need more experience trying to learn how to play melee, and stop wishing for crutches to circumvent your bad decisions/mistakes in game that lead you to these situations.
You should be learning from this… not wishing it wasn’t so.

Then you say you just want to be able to hit multiple targets… that already exists, and was covered above.

1 Like
17

I will speak for the Barb angle regarding melee AoE.

I think Barb has great “AoE” - Whirlwind, it just need to hit much more often and even more for 2-handed weapons and its great. You can clear p8 Baal waves with good time with WW.

Then Leap attack - its excelent in Normal/Nightmare. But since AoE dmg doesn’t scale with weapon damage it falls off in endgame. Add some % of weapon(boots kick?) dmg to AoE and its fixed.

Then Doublethrow has AoE = piercing, so it hits more in line, altho IMO it could use a hand. Like wider missiles collision area.

Then Frenzy hits just 2 monsters in rapid succession. This could use some tweak to be felt like “more AoE” effect. I think it would feel more AoE and better if it hit much much faster, like on drugs. It would even feel much more funny.
EDIT: An idea sparked. What if during Frenzy attacks you could walk/run and still hit monsters on the way, that would feel more like real-life gladiator dancing around his opponents. But that requires a lot of dev work I think. As example if you stand near 2 monsters, you hit one and it dies, you could move while still hitting that second monster to get to 3rd monsters to hit that too. Not sure if you get it…

… so no need to add new mechanic to these IMO. Just some tweaks. Then there are garbage skills like Bash, Stun that are waste of time if thez would not get total overhaul.

18

I agree, let’s add cleave to it so it hits more targets

I agree, drop the flat dmg bs and add inherent chance to cleave to it.

Wouldn’t want to discuss ranged weapons or throw barb in this thread, let’s focus on melee now.

Maybe cleave? :slight_smile:

They could work well with inherent large cleave chance as AoE alternative to more popular skills.

All the problem mentioned above could be solved by cleave mechanics.

19

I mean Cleave sounds practical. But all skills will feel the same after its implementation.
Chance to hit more monsters per hit sounds great. But I think it changes the flavour of skills completely.

But on practical note to progress somewhere… in future PTRs: I would like if they add your Cleave to Bash, Stun skill since those are useless anyway. And see how it works in PTR. I dont doubt it would be useful. But how would it feel.

Note: such “Chance to hit additional monster” mechanic would be excelent for Doublethrow barb, bouncing axe/dagger missiles from target to target instead of line-pierce. But I dont see it fitting melee.

20

I’m a melee player, specifically the barbarian, however my melee abilities transition to other melee character classes very well. Melee requires a different state of mind to play than casters do. Yes, melee is slower in normal and nightmare, but in some cases melee catches up and passes casters in hell.

I don’t consider melee clunky, I consider it grind heavy, which is one of things I love about melee. In the end game the barbarian built and played to it’s highest abilities, is both the best mf character and the fastest leveling character. Berserk and whirlwind out perform all other skills in the late game, while frenzy and throw barbs are not far behind.

The real problem is that most players don’t like the early game grind of melee. Players just want to cast a spell or have minions do the work, very few people like to work a character. So they never really learn to build and play melee effectively. I personally love hard work, I learned it as a child. I know from years of a lot of hard work that the reward in the end is awesome and more rewarding than anything that’s easy.

In conclusion, melee requires effort, and most people don’t want to put effort into a game, they want it to be casual after a hard days work or they lack the constitution such effort requires.

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