So, no such thing as fun melee? (Subjective)

[QuiteGoneJin]

So, I gre up to baldurs gate, I recall selling my consoles to a shadey smoke filled pc chop shop for a craptastic pc and a copy of all the old black ilse studio games and never looking back. But here's to problem, I'm older new, seen some things. Hardened and jaded to the lands of auto attacking and crit animations. I need more man!

 

Ok, jokes aside, I prefer melee but in IE games I find it kind of dull. I want a juggernaut that has tons of actives, a mobile AF rogue or some melee wizzy with tons of cc and spike damage. Something flashy, why are all the ranged toons so flashy and fun meanwhile.... I have played 150hrs of this game and barely gotten to act 2!

 

I have poured over all the builds here at http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844 (props to some interesting stuff) but everything melee is either a glass cannon crit machine or a tank. Maybe I'm not seeing some cool class powers cause I never get past lvl 6 but I just haven't been wowed by any melee. 

 

I have made a dual saber rogue, A tank cap'n america style monk, a cat melee druid, and a squishy AF melee Cipher and many more. nothing catches me. I did the story, but I want to dig the combat too.

 

Maybe its just me but I feel like melee should have either tons of close range cc or mobility alongside it's damage. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong? It's clear this game is caster biased but it cannot be that bad. Can it?

[gkathellar]

I agree, but there's also questions of complexity creep. It's easy to give melee tons of abilities in something like DA. For your PoEs, though, it can add a ton of micro.

 

That is what it is.

[rheingold]

Did DA origins have loads of active abilities for melee? I can vaguely remember 4 or 6 actives and the rest passives? Still my impression is not so much that there were more active abilities but they were handled differently. I.e. You could "cast" them more often. Whereas pillars what you have is either per encounter or per rest. There is no cool down timer. Which limits their use. That is probably more of an issue than anything else.

ps it's been a while since I played Origins so my memory could be an issue here.

[Blades of Vanatar]

High level barbs kill it. Just try getting to level 8 or 9. Equipment choices, there's tons of it, paired with class/racial talents is what makes a build awesome. Like you, I have tried tons of builds looking for a complete melee monster. Fighter with Twohander, any Barbarian in heavy armor or a dualwield Ranger can tank and deal simultaneously.

[mosspit]

Pre-2.x, I did an almost full melee playthrough - pally, fighter, monk, rogue, barb, ranger (ranged). I wanted to get the ranger to go melee too, but my frontline is already too crowded even with some party members wielding reach weapons on switch. Post-2.x playthrough, I am using the same composition with some adjustments. Because for me it's fun. To me, the more balanced party composition made battles a little repetitive and this is one of the way to switch things up. I am also enjoying the micro of actively positioning the melee characters.

[AndreaColombo]

2.0 drastically improved combat in my opinion. I'm enjoying it quite a bunch right now (and I typically favor melee protagonists.)

[QuiteGoneJin]

High level barbs kill it. Just try getting to level 8 or 9. Equipment choices, there's tons of it, paired with class/racial talents is what makes a build awesome. Like you, I have tried tons of builds looking for a complete melee monster. Fighter with Twohander, any Barbarian in heavy armor or a dualwield Ranger can tank and deal simultaneously.

What powers made the barb fun? Is it the most mobile melee class?

 

Pre-2.x, I did an almost full melee playthrough - pally, fighter, monk, rogue, barb, ranger (ranged). I wanted to get the ranger to go melee too, but my frontline is already too crowded even with some party members wielding reach weapons on switch. Post-2.x playthrough, I am using the same composition with some adjustments. Because for me it's fun. To me, the more balanced party composition made battles a little repetitive and this is one of the way to switch things up. I am also enjoying the micro of actively positioning the melee characters.

How do the Melee Rangers play out now? besides a pet and dmg buffing abilities (ones that just make your autos better) what unique abilities do they bring?

 

2.0 drastically improved combat in my opinion. I'm enjoying it quite a bunch right now (and I typically favor melee protagonists.)

Care to elaborate?

 

 

 

At first I thought a cipher would be the most interesting melee hybrid as I pictured Sorak from Dark Sun (shameless wizards of the coast novel plug here) but I felt so squishy. 

 

I think ill try the barb as I want to charge in not micro 5-6 buffs before I enter combat.

 

Sigh, here we go again, reroll # 99999. 

[AndreaColombo]

2.0 drastically improved combat in my opinion. I'm enjoying it quite a bunch right now (and I typically favor melee protagonists.)

Care to elaborate?

 

Enemy A.I. was improved quite a bit, making enemies use more of their abilities more intelligently, and disengage more often to target your squishy characters; the addition of immunities increased the importance of weapons that deal more than one kind of damage and made things more varied; and of course some of the high-level abilities and spells added by the expansion are pretty cool (especially Barbarian's Dragon Leap and Monk's Dichotomous Soul.)

 

My favorite melee class to play is still the Fighter, but I'm weird like that. Objectively, Monks have cooler abilities and Rogues can dish out more damage against targets with afflictions (you can have your Wizard and/or Cipher cause afflictions for your Rogue.)

Edited October 13, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[Nobear]

I think ill try the barb as I want to charge in not micro 5-6 buffs before I enter combat.

 

I was going to suggest a melee Wizard until you specified that lol.

 

So for you, I recommend checking out this build for a heavily-armored monk that zips around the battlefield. Granted, it doesn't start truly zipping until level 11, but with the new level cap of 14 that still leaves a good amount of time to enjoy it. I haven't personally tried it, but it sounds fun and quite possibly up your alley.

[mosspit]

"How do the Melee Rangers play out now? besides a pet and dmg buffing abilities (ones that just make your autos better) what unique abilities do they bring?"

 

No much. Afaik, melee rangers can still use swift aim and wounding shot besides the "casting" skills like binding roots and marked prey. They can still perform as melee I guess. But for me, I don't think melee rangers are particularly exciting. I tried to build Sagani as a melee tank before. While kinda decent, it was quite boring... then again passive tanks usually are.

[QuiteGoneJin]

 

2.0 drastically improved combat in my opinion. I'm enjoying it quite a bunch right now (and I typically favor melee protagonists.)

Care to elaborate?

 

Enemy A.I. was improved quite a bit, making enemies use more of their abilities more intelligently, and disengage more often to target your squishy characters; the addition of immunities increased the importance of weapons that deal more than one kind of damage and made things more varied; and of course some of the high-level abilities and spells added by the expansion are pretty cool (especially Barbarian's Dragon Leap and Monk's Dichotomous Soul.)

 

My favorite melee class to play is still the Fighter, but I'm weird like that. Objectively, Monks have cooler abilities and Rogues can dish out more damage against targets with afflictions (you can have your Wizard and/or Cipher cause afflictions for your Rogue.)

 

Tank fighter or melee dps? Why do you enjoy it? Great input everyone, thanks! Mobile monks are cool but I like mini teleports and leaps over passive runspeed buffs. 

[Nobear]

Great input everyone, thanks! Mobile monks are cool but I like mini teleports and leaps over passive runspeed buffs. 

 

Well, Barbarian does get a new leap ability at high level with the expansion. Monks, though, have had Flagellant's Path forever AFAIK, but it's always been a high-level ability (level 11). Check it out in that link, you can scroll down to the level 11 section. KDubya uses it to actively zip back and forth, plus damage and debuff whoever is in the way.

[QuiteGoneJin]

Such interesting replies, ty all. I think if i could make a macro that does my standard wiz melee spells at the start id play one, but microing for the same 2-4 buffs at the start would probably drive me insane. I wonder if a semi tanky melee shifter (druid) would do good dmg and be somewhat beefy on normal. Could probably even just play any race/form for RP sakes. 

[KDubya]

Thanks Nobear for plugging my Juggernaut Monk Saves me from shamelessly doing it.

 

A Monk in heavy armor is the most fun melee I've found by far. Takes a beating and dishes out a beating. You can micro every action with auto pause after activation or set the AI to aggressive and have the AI spam out Torments and Swift Strikes.

 

 Barbarians have Carnage for AoE goodness but tend to be squishy, Monks have smaller AoE from Torments but Flagellant's Path opens up the AoE damage output a bunch. And the twin summoning ability at level 13 is fracking awesome. I get two summons with 280+ endurance each who have near 20 DR who also can use any spell effects from equipment.

 

With Zahua you can have two monks for double the fun. They even do just as well with weapons, especially dual wielding due to Torment's using a full attack + 50%.

 

You can even go full on deflection tank with the toggle-able Duality ability for +8 deflection. Compared to a Fighter you'd have 8 deflection more except when the Fighter hits Vigorous Defense which would put the Fighter +12 for 15 seconds or so and then the Monk is ahead again. Fist and shield still out damages weapon and shield since you do average speed damage at the speed of fast weapons. All this just costs you one weapon slot for the shield, spend one talent on weapon and shield style and you have a super toggle-able deflection and reflex boost whenever you need it. Just watch out for crush immunes.

[QuiteGoneJin]

Erm, twin summoning? Weapon and shield style isn't a toggle... is it?

[Nobear]

Erm, twin summoning? Weapon and shield style isn't a toggle... is it?

 

Watch this video from 1:26 to see the twin summons.

 

What he meant is that you can toggle between weapon sets, only one of which should have a shield. The monk's Duality ability, however, is toggle-able between granting 8 Deflection and 8 to all defenses except Deflection.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Nobear

[QuiteGoneJin]

Ive basically played everything early game now, Finding the claws druid fun but I just cant rp a nature lover. The cap'n america fire god monk was effective but bored me, might give a melee cipher a second shot, or, heaven forbid, a dps fighter. 

[KDubya]

Nobear got it. I meant toggle as in can turn on and off via a weapon set.

 

A superb small shield gets you +20 deflection, with duality you get another +8, with weapon and shield style you get another +6. All in you get +34 deflection and +26 reflex, or you can set duality for defense and still get +26 deflection, +34 reflex, +8 fortitude and +8 will. A heavy shield would set you back 8 accuracy but add another +8 to deflection. Monks have the highest base accuracy and deflection to start with as well.

 

It helps a lot at low levels when you don't have a big enough endurance pool to be able to go shield to slow down the damage. At high levels you have enough endurance that more damage just makes more wounds and more offense.

[QuiteGoneJin]

That ice/fire monk summon's did look very cool. Thanks for that. 

[QuiteGoneJin]

I was kinda wondering if a high int fighter can still do some dps, spec into 3 knockdowns per fight might be fun with a long duration, too gimmicky for hard + probably but I should just hone in on a melee power I really like (knockdown) and play a toon on normal for fun/rp sake. 

Edited October 14, 2015 by QuiteGoneJin

[AndreaColombo]

Tank fighter or melee dps? Why do you enjoy it? Great input everyone, thanks! Mobile monks are cool but I like mini teleports and leaps over passive runspeed buffs. 

 

Melee DPS.

 

(Apparently not popular enough to save me the shameless self-promotion )

 

I enjoy it because it attacks fast, for lots of damage, yet packs high DR and two good defenses out of four.

 

That said, as mentioned already Monks and Barbarians have cooler abilities than Fighters. You can actually create a hybrid "Juggernaut of Pain" Monk by mixing my build with KDubya's; I've been meaning to post the details of how I'd do that in my build thread but haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Basically you'd pick stats and equipment from the Lady of Pain; class and talent/ability progression from the Juggernaut. Equipment would require some minor tweaking of course.

Edited October 14, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[Boeroer]

Most fun melee classes for me are Barb and monk. Barb really makes fun if you combine high int and per with sanguine plate and shod-in-faith boots plus a weapon that causes afflictions on crit (or hit/crit). Because of carnage he disables so many enemies at once and the shod-in-faith keep him alive. My favorite weapons so far: Tall Grass/Hours of St. Rumbalt/Mabec's Morning Star/Tidefall. Tidefall because then he never goes down and applies a lot of wounding. Helps with a ranger's pet. One handed stunning weapons would be even better, but you only geht them late in the game - except Cladhaliath, which I also renommend. This is also great together with the Vile Loners Lance and dual wield. With enough ACC you will have a stunlocking tank. Monks are so much fun because of Force of Anguish and Flagellant's Path. When you punch the enemy and he flies away - that's so satisfying. At the same time he's very sturdy even without special items. My tip for the later game: the two duplicates combined with the padded armor that gives Alacrity. Your Duplicates will hit so fast - and that works every encounter (if you get enough wounds)!

Edited October 14, 2015 by Boeroer

[QuiteGoneJin]

Since I havent finished the game yet, or even far beyond act 2's start, I dont want a build that's "perfect" and relies heavily on finding gear. That being said, pro monk guide, sounds very fun.

[Boeroer]

But that's the point: you can get all the gear I mentioned (sanguine plate, shod-in-faith, Tall Grass/Hours of St. Rumbalt) at the beginning of act 2. Most of them you just can buy. You can pick up Tidefall very early too - theoretically - the fight is quite tough when you just started into act 2... and you need mechanics 10 to discover the weapon. If you have all this, then a barb is really great, combining aoe dps, aoe cc and tanking. Monk is totally awesome nevertheless.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Boeroer

[QuiteGoneJin]

good to know! will probably do future playthroughs with these in mind, tyvm!