Melee issues and why Grief solves them

General Discussion
1

For a melee/physical character you have many issues to deal with vs a caster. First you are doing single target damage, second AR makes you miss constantly and then finally your single target damage is pretty weak vs what caster pull off. This is not to say casters need to change at all I just want to reflect on how one weapon, the only weapon that matters in melee, addresses everything and thus becomes the only viable weapon.

I don’t begrudge the single target damage at all, I don’t think this should be ‘fixed’ at all. Casters get AoE, and in this game they just are the win button. Accepted.

AR means we need to address getting the AR up by investing in Dex, finding charms, using duel Angelics etc. In general you will be happy with an 80% hit ratio which still means you miss a lot and monsters have a chance to block things, making you miss even more.

Then there is straight up damage, it’s low in almost all respects.

I recently crafted a Grief for my Zealot and I thought I would reflect on the before and after and the effect on the gameplay. I was chugging along using a Heavens Light and replaced it with Grief. This instantly changed how I was able to play.

AR issues: With Heavens Light even with an eth socketed in it to make hitting targets easier I was still at about 75% hit rating. If I took Fanat off I would drop to the mid 60’s. Missing means you don’t leech which is really how you stay alive. To help with the ‘to hit’ ratio I regularly needed to level up to make sure I wasn’t under-leveled for the area. Being under leveled you miss more, being over leveled you can hit more often thus actually doing damage, leeching, killing monsters etc. – Grief has Ignore Target Defense AND -25% to target defense. This ‘fixes’ all missing issues: You just don’t miss anymore. I can take Fanat off and the only thing that changes is the + to damage from Fanat but I still hit just as often. I can run around with any other Aura on and I still hit just fine. I might hit slower but I hit just fine.

I also don’t need to be concerned with the Area Level anymore. I had been watching it the whole leveling time to make sure I didn’t get too far under the level of the area. I don’t care about it anymore I can be 10 levels under and I still hit.

Damage: Grief has +340-400 damage, Not 400% to damage, to raw damage. This means my 1700-2300 damage moves up to 4200-4800 damage. That moves from 11K dps to 31K dps.

I see many threads talking about how to fix melee, the answer is given by Grief. You need to hit more and get the damage. Any solution that doesn’t address the to hit ratio AND the damage will not be sufficient. Grief will still be the go-to weapon as it gives damage and allows us to hit.

TLDR - unless AR issues and Damage is addressed Grief will be the only weapon viable to a melee char.

8 Likes
2

I am thankful for your game knowledge, and all the help/advise you have provided me.
Do not have time to read right now, but can hardly wait to do so.

1 Like
3

Great post Rondel, wish you would do so more often.
Agree with all, and especially the quoted bit.

4

Great post. You touched on it, but monsters being able to block (many without any visible shield) really does add a huge factor here.

Another point I want to make is while yes, you can usually make itemization trade offs to get more AR (like Angelics), it is a much harsher trade off than casters generally have to make, since you’re often directly giving up damage, leach, resistances, FCR, etc. to do so. It’s often worth it since now you can actually hit, but non-melee builds often don’t have to make such harsh choices, it’s pretty easy to stack damage and MF caster gear, for instance, and things like HOTO and Spirit still also have great FCR and resistances.

It’s also worth noting that even with Grief, Fort, Highlords, Gores/War Travs, LoH, etc. damage really does slow down after say, P3, whereas there’s caster builds that can still melt P8 screens, so I think there’s room for melee to grow a bit without pushing power creep.

I do agree with this in general, but would maybe be even a bit saltier and say if a spell is going to have AoE damage that effects the whole screen, it seems like those spells should deal less damage than single target spells OR melee single target skills (assuming similar level of gear and skill point investment ofc). On the other hand though I wouldn’t want to nerf builds people enjoy, and don’t want power creep, so it seems like leaving casters alone is the safe choice here.

I agree about not trying to add AoE to melee skills. I am in general okay with the multi-hit skills like DS, Frenzy, Zeal, and Fury, but as you’ve noted, being limited to attack fewer enemies at once, having a much harder time hitting them, and being lower damage to boot is a tough pill to swallow.

Overall this is why I’m in favor of them rescaling the base damage of exceptional and elite (hell maybe even normal, it’s not like “steel” is going to be competing with Spirit that casters get any time soon…) weapons. Seems like 50-75% would be the sweet spot of feeling a lot better during the leveling process but not pushing power creep.
It will have a minimal impact on Grief’s flat damage, but make the %Damage on other RW more useful. The minimal impact on Grief will help on the power creep front, and other expensive RW getting more of an improvement due to their %Damage means that Grief becomes less of an “outlier” in terms of cost:performance. They could even exclude or reduce the bonus from some items like PB which are already so good due to speed and indestructibility.

Realistically this is more work than they have budget for considering how much attention D2R gets and that it doesn’t have any form of recurring funding model (aside from infrequent bot bans requiring botters to repurchase) though, but it is something I’d really like to see.

It doesn’t by itself change the chance to hit situation though, so re-visiting the chance to hit equation, or reducing monster block chance (both the outright chance, and maybe removing it from some monsters where it doesn’t make sense, eg. ones that don’t hold shields) are other ideas I think deserve consideration. Perhaps monsters that have block removed or reduced could have their HP buffed somewhat to compensate so they don’t get too easy, but at least then melee has more of a fighting chance by being able to attack and leach.

3 Likes
5

Well said. If the devs could only make one change to improve melee characters, I think buffing base weapon damage would move ALL weapons closer to Grief, in particular for elite weapons.

5 Likes
6

I fully agree on that.

7

while i dont think

while i don’t think this is the correct solution.

i do think its the best we could ever conceivably get from blizzard

the correct solution would be to nerf infinity. and now mosaic.
and delete sunder charms and make all immune monsters act as if they had 95% resist but u stil have to lower resist and break from the actaul value… meaning u can damage all monster but not melt them
as that would put casters way more in check.

but that NEVER going to happen.

that being said i dont see blizzard really spending time to calculate proper damages on weapons either.

the main problem is… nothing is SUPPOSED to melt play 8.
your supposed to have 8 players and they are supposed to be grouped up.

the main issue that d3, poe have is that one you get “endgame gear” you can “solo” everything… and then it becomes a “follow the leader game” where you cant even get an attack off, you just run behind the person melting everything.
which is fine if u want to leech… but if u want to actaully play the game with other people…
its miserable

2 Likes
8

To look at this from a pragmatic standpoint, I think it would be realistic and sensible for Blizzard to atleast buff base weapon damage for elite weapons by +25-50%. Now endgame uniques such as Grandfather, Cranium Basher, Executioner’s Justice to name a few are in a much better spot as compared to Grief.

4 Likes
9

Agreed.

The melee problem centers around patch 1.10, which not only boosted skill damage and added synergies, but also boosted monster toughness. Casters got a free boost because their skills don’t rely on base weapon damage… Melee got the shaft because nothing was done about the base weapon damages for the 1.10 monster boost.

So, boost the base damages of weapons, and I think it’s a given that a nerf to Grief would be in order.

1 Like
10

It would be cool if they’d let us test some of this stuff out in a PTR. Grief’s flat damage may not benefit much from the base damage increases, so it’s power level may be okay as is, if other things move up enough. But maybe that’s too big of an increase for other things?

11

I wish you guys were in charge at Blizz for D2R. This thread has some really good ideas in it

1 Like
12

just 110% agree with MrLlamaSC
How Runewords RUINED Diablo 2

h ttps://youtu.be/J1QaBnK7P-s?si=OeVuDwIgnN38DujR

still sock for a young player he have that much knowlege on d2 old era and how the game use to be good back them patch 1.10 is garbage breaking the balance

in my book 1,10 and after player are not true d2 player

13

I agree on what OP has reported, but few data are missing for the full picture: +400 dmg is additive, so that it ignores the base damage, and that resolves in creating the runeword in the fastest weapon in the game, aka the phase blade.

Grief in phase blade is by far the best weapon in the game, and that is the Best in Slot item: no 2H weapon, no other choices, and that’s bad.
2 weapons? 2 Grief in phase blade for most of the tasks (lawbringer can be considered in few scenarioes, Death in others).

In the game there are some items that should never exist: grief, laying of hands, fortitude, phoenix, they all have an amount of bonuses that are fairly out of scale compared to any other.

And that is in the melee compartment only, otherwise we need to insert in that set also the items for caster: infinity, enigma, mosaic, sunder charms.
But this another story, let’s focus on phisical damage only.

14

Very valid points. Well done!

These are the kind of threads and discussions this forum needs, not numerology mumbo-jumbo!

15

Keep in mind that grief dose not get benefits from a lot of mods and auras. some skills just do not work with it. That’s where harmony and insight in a sword would be kind of fun in my own opinion. :yum:

16

Funny because my zerker barb attacks still misses with grief. Unless I am missing something (pun intended).

1 Like
17

1.09 have the eth bug that make you never miss
but this is all fix i think in 1.10

mean you will still miss

barb just really suck for attack rating you need to stack a lot 1.09 have the eth bug that fix everything , but still have issue for other melee class and maybe before barb never have a attack rating update or buff i think

personaly playing d2re on blizzard server are maybe the worst place because all terrible update the game have , now the game is not update anymore but still have terrible issue from is core

this game need tcp ip for compéten peoples work on the game and fix basic core issue

18

With a sufficient boost to base weapon damages, I think leaving Grief alone would be fine. It would get a relatively small bump, but everything else would become much better. It would be ok if Grief was still one of the best, as long as it’s not THE best by a mile (with a couple of class/build exceptions).

To me, the ideal boosts would be +50% base damage for 1H Elite weapons (except for PB which should be made always ethereal instead :slight_smile: ), and +25% base weapon damage for 2H Elite weapons and 1H Exceptional weapons. That would make 300-400% ED 1H weaps more competitive with Grief, give 2H weaps a smaller boost to help them along (but not too much), and give 1H Exceptionals a little more staying power in Hell.

1 Like
19

Agreed. Grief can still be the best weapon in the game, just want other weapon choices that would still be competitive by comparision.

This is where we disagree. It’s pretty obvious 1H-weapons already dominant the game so the boost should be relatively small compared to 2H-weapons, which deserve a much bigger boost as they’ve been lackluster for decades.

20

You are missing something. Ignore target defense only works against non unique monsters.
Also, besides the monsters that have a visible block animation, some block without visual cues (e.g. baal, he has like 40% block chance iirc and he doesn’t have any animation for that).

Which is just bullshiet. All odds are stacked against melee and not only caster gets to bypass all of those crappy mechanics, they also do more damage, have better mobility (in general) AND a metric ton more aoe.

2 Likes