Since melee chars have always been inferior to casters maybe it would be a good idea to increase the %damage they get from strength points invested.
Right now you get a 1% dmg increase per 1 point of strength for melee weapons ( 1% / 1 Dex for ranged weapons) which is basically nothing, that’s why everyone chooses to invest just enough to wear the gear and put the rest into vita.
So why not make it something like 3% or 5% per point so that your Str / Dex actually matter?
This will even help out with the leveling process since you can choose to invest more into Str / Dex to compensate for the lack of good gear and later, when you get those good runewords, you can respec and put more into vita.
The change is also very, very easy to implement, you just need to modify the StrBonus column in the Weapons.txt file from 100 to 300 (or DexBonus column for ranged weapons) or whatever % you think would be more appropriate.
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It’d probably be better to evaluate and adjust the base damage numbers for all weapons if needed. This would allow for a better fine-tuning of the damage output based on the difficulty level, rather than just an EZPZ game-wide blanket damage increase.
This would be the “harder” way to do it, so I’m not counting on Blizzard doing that. I’d see them doing the EZPZ route with a blanket game-wide damage increase to “fix” melee, sort of like they did with Mosaic to make the Martial Arts tree “usable”.
Stay a while and listen!
Actually no.
Before LoD was released, you could find essays on the net why casters were intrinsically inferior to martial classes.
Also not 100% correct. You will find a few guids out there which will tell you to invest into e.g. dex.
OP’s suggestion is far less nauseating than that mosaic abomination.
You’Re right, carefully evaluating and adjusting would be the gold standard. But with noone around to do it, the ezpz fix would be better than nothing.
I did a combination of both increasing base damage and str/dex bonuses in my mod, I’m pretty happy with the results. Gives some more incentive to invest into the other stats instead of meeting reqs/max block then vita dump.
That’s along with some other stuff like durability increase and runeword nerfs, rare/unique buffs and whatnot. 
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i have to disagree with you here, changing all weapon base numbers has the potential to screw more things up since you need to adjust 100 things not just 2. also, i doubt there’s still someone at blizz with enough time to do it.
the correct solution is always the simplest one.
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The potential to screw things up is omnipresent, regardless if the quick and easy or the drawn out and methodical paths are taken. Extensive game knowledge, passion and dedication are needed for both paths to avoid FUBAR mistakes, which I doubt anyone at Blizzard has for this game.
Yeah, that’s what someone at Blizzard thought with Mosaic to make the Martial Arts tree “viable”. 
Honest question: You really think that Blizzard thought Mosaic would be a/the simple solution? With that … innovative … mechanics?
What about if melee is in good state and caster meta is the problem?? Broken synergie system is that what make casters too OP.
Remove half of synergies and make system: 1skill = 1synergie MAX.
…problem is fixed, game would be more challenging again and builds would focused on more skills.
again, you are suggesting massive changes to the game. that’s not gonna happen.
someone needs to manually adjust the skills.txt and skillsdesc.txt files for every skill in the game and that is a lot of man hours.
also, cutting in half all synergies might render the damage of some spells unusable, so someone needs to test this before pushing to PTR and eventually to production.
my solution requires 5 minutes and it adds fexibility to the game.
also, the +% damage from strength would be most useful in the beginning of the game, (when you need it most since you don’t have a lot of +%dmg) , but it would taper off lategame when the bulk of your +% dmg comes from your maxed skills and items.
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Less than ~3h iirc.
About end game, 5ed per 1p is significant buff which makes str worth investing.
Enigma would be even more OP and better than Forti xD
This change, also makes Grief even more bis than it is now
let’s be honest, enigma is not OP because of the strength alone, and grief is going to be a problem no matter what
Weapon base dmg buff means Grief wont be bis any more.
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Very valid point and interesting. Problem is, melee does plenty of damage once you have something like an ethereal Breath of the Dying. I think the struggle is more during leveling. This isn’t a simple solution. It really is more like increase the damage of normal and exceptional bases, increase the range of damage modifiers for rares and uniques.
I just get really concerned about power creep. Miss building “iron” builds where you go all in on damage by maxing strength. I think a 5% bonus per point is too much, but an increase could be cool. maybe 2-3% range.
One thing is, 2h WW needs to be fixed/reverted back… that is just garbage now. Same with Werebear IAS.
Even if they buff base dmg 3x and increase str ed to 5%, casters will still have big advantage over melee due to big aoe, always hit, unblockable attack and etc, etc… Blizz will still be best starter, HDin will still be the King, and LSorc/Java fastest cleaners. Melee is not ez to build and a lot more expensive.
Even if you were to bump the bonus on Strength/Dexterity, it still has the issue of being lumped together with all other sources of Off-Weapon Enhanced Damage. This includes Skills, Auras and any sources that you happen to get from gear. If it were a separate multiplier like Critical/Deadly Strike happens to be, then putting points into Strength/Dexterity would be quite strong since that multiplier is based on exactly how much Strength/Dexterity you put in. Glass Cannon builds, such as Bowzon, could get upwards of 500 Dexterity for some insane multiplier action. Imagine say a x6 multiplier on that stat alone before Crit’s yielding a fat x12. Suddenly they’re not so bad aren’t they? Alternatively, you could simply add together Crit/Deadly Strike with Strength/Dexterity divided by 100. More Strength/Dexterity you have, the bigger the impact from Crit’s.
Problem is now we’re doing Diablo 3(and onward) power creep. If you want to bring melee up a tad, you got to nerf casters in some fashion without creating more headache. Personally feel cast rate should be affected by cold/chill/slow effects(melee has to deal with it, why not casters?), monsters should block incoming spell damage(again melee has to deal with this… only fair) and perhaps looking into removing Character Level/Monster Level from Hit Check equation(makes Ubers/TZ’s easier for melee).
but again: who’s going to implement all that? 
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Moving build from D tier to A is not power creep.