Yes, you are correct that it still is no caster, hence pseudocaster and as I said to me it is, I realize its not the same as a caster, but the feel of a melee character is lost for me, that why I say it’s basically removing melee to me.
Be near is actually some caster need to do aswell (for example Nova/Frost Nova, but Wind Druids don’t work at high range either).
Yes they need AS and Flat damage, but casters (most) need Cast Speed and Skill Levels, melee doesn’t need Skills nearly as much as casters.
Even Grief needs AR for bosses, but many melee builds only need there and some simply don’t need it as they have Conviction in their build (though these might be seen as partial casters anyway depending on who you ask, but Fire Claw and Vengeance to name 2 are melee to me).
Problem is here Grief is basically the only endgame weapon for most builds.
Many casters would need good resists, they often have a lot less life (though one of the 1.10 action I think were bad was CtA which removed a part of the life problem of casters, and what went wrong there is a bit what I see here again when seeing this Facet with the damage height and splash)
True but the high stats actually influence the character in multiple ways and Vitality does more for the melee classes (except druid but that one gains more % life due to shaping).
156 for monarch can’t be ignored due to ES, because most builds have no room for ES, though with the Sunder Charm Hybrid builds become something you do for fun of it and you could become more effective with 1 button spam so more builds could use ES, still not nearly all can without losing damage).
DPS in it’s current shape is lacking big time, however that means rebalancing is needed not splash imo, and if the splash would be on this facet like it is now, well the facet bring melee inside caster damage range and some melee builds would surpass many of the caster builds in damage.
A good option to get melee to come closer to group clearing is to have their attack speeds higher so it would be less overkill damage with low number of swings (however they are mostly reducing the number of attacks per second if they make changes) and/or (pref both) nerf the casters as they have become stronger and stronger over time because the syn’s affected them more and they profit from skills a lot more and these have become more and more over time.
However this arguement is basically not one you should take into the discussing as the introduction of the Facet as proposed with Splash would so some melee builds surpass a number of casters in group clearing (while being superior in single target damage in damage even if not taking crushing blow into account, multiple melee builds could and likely would pass 100k dps if these facets keep 25-45 bonus damage)
The gearing is fully true point, but isn’t really why melee feels like melee, and tbh never even bothered me but I like designing a character and then building it, just pushing a char through, usually SSF and when done with hell and sufficient level re-rolling it into a premade build.
I do think melee splash removes the melee feel and PoE is actually a good example why, it (like D3) is a game were to me melee doesn’t feel melee anymore.
The tactic is to destroy screens as fast as you can and not hitting individual monsters.
During the leveling process, especially SSF you often play real melee for a while but slowly it changes into using AoE’s with different graphic styles.
All the things mentioned above will affect how a style works technically, but that doesn’t affect how things feel when using them, to me it doesn’t matter whether you call something melee or whether weapons have a part in the action or not, if you teleport/dash from point A to point B and deal 1 hit to everything in between it might aswell have been changing into a lightning bolt and traveling from A to B sparking everyone on the way there, the difference is mostly in the wording and background calculations
But my preferred solution would be to make caster more like casters again (they can be tanky with spell but that should reduce their overal damage output), but otherwise more squishy then melee and of course hit them with the nerf hammer.
Instead of staying in that powercreep, reverse it and start restoring the game’s difficulty level before it turns into a kill screens or be obsolete style of game.
You don’t one-hit (well some melee builds should one-hit many things but not champions and bosses, as should things like meteor impact, not the burn) and you don’t get one-hit unless you severly neglect your defenses or punch high above your weight.
I like the idea of a Facet for Physical (and even magic) because elemental has them as well, I don’t like the idea of the facet becoming the obvious choice in sockets or worse needing socketed items because with facets they surpass the normal gear.