Thats a god awful cringe take bro. When you pick one or the other, you arent benefitting from the other side. If you pick range, youre getting NOTHING from melee skills/bonuses.
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Rogue has less melee options compared to barb. Barb is 100% focused on melee. Most of their aspects/skills/glyphs etc are all focused on melee. They can also stack huge amounts of armor.
The rogue has utility/cc/range/melee. They are typical hybrid/multi-class. But they will never be as good as barb in straight out melee.
They nerfed melee like week one this is why u feel like this… They didn’t buff anything to compensate because they are to busy on the boats with the cash from sales to care
they nerfed 1 part of 1 skill… cooldown reduction on twisting blades. Don’t be inaccurate for sympathy.
First off, you arent in the same content so that automatically invalidates any opinion you have here. Second off, not a realistic goal for balancing? Youre kidding right. If you create a game, and a combination of a build it is absolutely without question your responsibility to make it viable in all content. Every combination, every class, everything should be viable IN ALL CONTENT. It is literally your duty to do it as a game developer. I dont understand why youre making concessions for Blizzard. They dont get a free pass. It is absolutely their responsobility to make every class and every build viable to play. Im level 89 and having the same problem OP is in not even that level sigils, im getting crushed in 54 keys and others I can clear just fine and I avoid the heck out of the terrible affixes. Just outta nowhere and I have just about the same amount of defensives. I have tons of DR, temerity, I have probably half the armor but it didnt matter when I ran the aspect that gives you 50% more. You go from being fine to one shot dead. Im not even bothering with +50 keys anymore because its simply not fun AT ALL to die out of no where when everything is going fine. The tusked chargers, they can either one shot or nearly kill you the second you touch them with their little spin smack move. No, Blizzard has a duty to their players to make what they themselves created playable and fun. Especially since their asking for a premium amount of money for said game.
You can’t make something challenging and allow any scruff build to clear the content. The more challenging the dungeons become the more optimal your build has to be. That is the entire gameplay loop.
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Bro…that means nothing for an ARPG 
why are you bringing WoW takes to diablo?? The balance isnt similar it all, nor is it supposed to be for a “hybrid” class
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You first argument that my opinion is invalid because I’m not at the same content is an unfortunate viewpoint. By that logic noone in here should be allowed to have an opinion as none of us have played all classes at level 100 yet, so if personal experience is all that counts there is no ground for comparing. You also really have no idea who I am or the experiences I have besides from what little information I gave in that regards, so deeming my opinion invalid is quite unproductive.
OP described the scenario perfectly well, so it doesn’t really require anyone to be at that exact spot to understand it.
I’ll reiterate again - to have all classes, all builds and all combinations equally viable at any given point in the game is not just impossible, if you want the game and the different classes and builds to be varied, but it is also not desirable.
At facevalue it sounds nice, but in practice that’s simply not the case.
This imbalance is the reason why EVERY single competitive game has a metagame, and a changing metagame is what allow games to feel fresh and fun for many years.
And that’s just when speaking of players that like to go for the strongest build. Then we have players that like playing weaker builds. In d3 I for instance enjoyed player some older weaker builds in certain seasons to try and get to the very top of the HC leaderboard in that specific build.
You want all builds and all combinations to be viable at any given point of the game, doing any given content.
Should a rogue with invigorating strike, caltrops, concealment, dash, dark shroud, and smoke grenade then also be viable at all levels, doing all content? I’m not trying to be clever here, I’m asking legitimately.
Now lets say we accept that some obvious bad combinations won’t be viable through all content and only focus on the most obvious ones, utilizing the intended synergies in the game ad so on…
Considering only those builds, how do we then set the perfect difficulty?
You seem to think the balance is off because you at level 89 struggle with +50 keys.
But who says you should you crush these?
What difficulty should be able to cruise through at level 89?
What difficulty should you be able to cruise through at level 100?
What difficulty should you be able to cruise through with optimized gear at level 100?
And how do we factor skills into it all? Should an average player be able to beat the hardest the game has to offer, leaving the exceptionally skilled players with no challenges?
Again I’m asking legitimately.
Going back to the question of balance, you mention how some affixes spell doom for you build while others doesn’t. Is that a bad thing in your opinion?
You know which affixes will be present before going into a dungeon, so isn’t it a good thing with the variation?
On-death effects are inherently more dangerous to melee characters. So all on-death effects should be removed from the game, if perfect balance is the goal.
Affixes that follows you are inherently more dangerous to the less mobile classes and builds that offers less maneuverability while fighting. Those should also be removed if the goal is obtaining perfect balance at all times.
Affixes that enchant monsters with a certain type of elemental damage will be far more dangerous to players with low resistances in that element, so those should also be removed to make all builds and combinations work the same everywhere.
The same goes for all resist affixes.
I don’t know if you see where I’m going, but very rapidly we get to a point where the game is just one big blob of grey… All classes will be similar, since ranged is not allowed to be stronger than melee at any point, and all skills have to be equal as well… All monsters must be as generic as possible to avoid abilities that are favorable towards melee/ranged…
All items has to be bland, because too powerful abilities will both make it unfair to those without them and ruin the perfect balance we just achieved.
It’s simply not desirable. Some builds are destined to be weaker than others, but ultimately that’s a big part of what makes the game fun.
And sure, it might suck if you refuse to adapt and play one of the currently stronger combinations, but the good thing is that this balance WILL shift over and over again as the game evolve.
And just as a final note:
I am not trying to give Blizzard a free pass… There is plenty of elements that should be improved in D4. Loads. Game Design is literally my profession and my biggest passion, so I have plenty that I’m unhappy about, but that all builds and combinations isn’t born equal definitely isn’t one of them, cause they shouldn’t be in the first place.
I wholeheartedly agree that Blizzard, as game developers, has a responsibility to make their game fun and enjoyable for their players though 
A few things i’d like to mention regarding what you said. First off, yes, all builds should not be equal, that’s why there’s a meta and some builds will always be more effective then others. It’s impossible to have 2 completely equal results unless everything about them are equal: player, class, build, items - so that’s never going to happen.
But here’s the issue - if you compare every “best” build of all 5 classes and you run 10 different dungeons and the barbarian and druid will always win the speed race while the others 3 might not even manage to finish them, then is that not a balancing issue that needs to be addressed? And if by addressing that issue, they unbalance the “best builds” again and now the barb and druid are always last or can’t finish, then i’m sorry but that’s a serious developer/QA problem. Now i’m not a developer, i’m a dungeon master and i had to make some homebrew calls to some classes in D&D because some players felt like they weren’t contruibuting enough in combat or exploration. Is fun not the ultimate goal? Should all classes not have fun? Should rogue get one-shot because “meta” or should the devs opt for everyone to enjoy themselves no matter the playstyle? (emphasis on this, ofc not all builds work, some can’t even be called builds, i’m talking about the ones that have or should have synergy and SHOULD work well according to many min-maxers and yet they don’t).
Blizzard needs to balance without destroying; a hard task, sure but one that’s necesary.
No I definitely agree that 1 or 2 classes shouldn’t be vastly stronger than the rest.
100% agree with that. That IS a balancing issue that should be addressed quickly.
I’m not advocating some wild west, where one class just straight up suck and another is leagues beyond the rest.
There will of course always be one build or a few builds that are strongest at the very apex of power in any given meta, when it comes to doing specific tasks, but the developers should definitely do their upmost to ensure that all classes have a top tier build - and ideally more than one.
But again it’s also worth remembering that the game is still very young. Season 1 hasn’t even started yet and will probably change everything in terms of balance.
Then a new class or build will come out on top for a while. That’s how the cycle always goes, but it can definitely be done more or less gracefully.
It’s nothing to do with WOW. This is how all game’s work. The further you get into the higher echelon of the competitive nature of the game. The less options that become available for use. As everything which is used has to be the most optimal. If something isn’t working as good as something else in a given situation, then you don’t use it.
If T91 - T100 (which is probably balanced around groups) has enemies which one shot a low armor character (such as a rogue). Then you have to use the facet of the class to get around this. That means either CC or Range. What else do you want the devs to do. Make the content easier? give Rogue the defense of a melee character such as the barb? In which case why have classes if every class can do the same thing. Might as well remove classes and just let player’s unlock everything on one character.
do you not understand the difference between a “high 50” and a 75+? the difference is astronomical. i could do “high 50s” at level 80. im 98 now with perfect gear and spec’d purely for defense and i try to step into a 75 and if its the wrong dungeon im getting insta deleted. try it out for yourself.
The simple fix in my mind is that rogues do not have fortify. Because they dont have fortify they need their defensive to be very strong but heavily favor melee so that the ranged spec does not become op. I dont care if they nerf twisting blades again (and honestly bursting venoms needs some tuning) but we need surviveability.
The change is honestly a very simple one too–atleast for now. They have to give dark cloak a much longer cool down, buff its damage reduction immensely, make its total damage reduction remain as long at least one orb is up (or a change of this nature), and change umbrous aspect to work with cutthroat abilies only instead of marksman (it applying to marksman abilities makes 0 sense anyways). Boom melee rogue can keep up with other high tier builds.
Oh I do understand and I have tried. I did a 73 on an “easy” dungeon but 75 and up is just insta death with ranged mobs.
I responded on the wrong thread where someone was saying anything 50s and up is impossible as melee at level 96. Obviously that guy had no idea how to make a build.
Climbing up will obviously be fishing for the best dungeons. That’s the way it has always been. So I don’t think we should expect that we should be able to just roflstomp all high dungeon levels.
Edit: unless you’re a barb which is just a broken as usual
they just need to fix dark shroud and orientate it more to melee since we do not have fortify that skill needs to be very beneficial. once they do that we should be fine.
Currently L81 here running TB + Daze with Knockdown, and I have zero issues speed running and clearing NM dungeons at my level solo, but I also heavily optimize my gear for maximum survival.
-All gear is upgraded max 5-levels
-Current Armor value provides 66% base DR before other DR is factored in
-700+ bonus hit points on at least 2 items, current life pool at 7000+ range
-Lots of stacked DR for close-in and general opponents
-Main healing is provided by Momentum and Aspect of Stolen Vigor. This yields 600+ passive heal / second so long as you are keeping up your momentum stacks, even while you are cc’d
-I keep my Ultimate on standby for Unstoppable cc escapes
Skill buttons are Imbue Shadow + Poison Trap w/ KD + Shadow Clone + Dash + Puncture + Twisting Blades w/ Daze
get to level 100. try level 70+ tier nightmare dungeons. realize at this point that pen shot rogue, sorc, ww wind druid, bone necro, and hota barb breeze through 80+ tier. you will not realize the issue until you’re done leveling and push late game.
The equation to determine dungeon level is Tier-level + 54. So if you are doing a Tier70 NM dungeon, then you are taking on L124 mobs. Yep, that’s gonna hurt since the current level cap is 100. The only other room for advancement is the paragon glyph levels, though I do plan on going ranged once I get better gear.
Sorry but what? Why would you take a key defensive aspect away from other rogue build options and buff it exclusively for melee because you want to be melee? Most if not all range builds toss this on their amulet since it is huge for their defenses and allows them to do double imbuements or traps.
Because their gear is not going to get that much better. Their glyphs are maxed out. They have ~800 gear with good rolls… Running through ~ tier 70s and you still get junk loot that’s worse than you got 10-15 levels ago for just running through a NM 40. Also, this game was also made with a seasonal model. Average Joe with a 9-5, wife and kids won’t even hit 100 by the end of a 3 month season unless the nightmare dungeon xp buffs are massive. Most of my friends list is around the 60s and thats probably not even 15% of the way to 100 after 3 weeks. They barely login now after realizing what type of game this really is or not at all.
I hit 100 on my rogue last night. There is nothing new to do. You don’t get better gear. Even with stacking as much defense as you can if you roll the wrong dungeon/affix combo get ready to just be 1 shot repeatedly. It’s not fun. I’m realizing now what a mistake it was to play melee. This “13 page” update better have something good in it. There is no player retention in this game. No reason to do harder NM dungeons when the loot is worse than NM dungeons you can steamroll that are much lower. There is no other player progression to look forward to. I’m not gonna keep playing for thousands of hours in the hopes of a shako or doombringer which will become worthless anyway after 3 months when a new season starts.