Basic Math - The Failure of Diablo Melee

[Roland]

Seems sort of like if you were to have posted back in D2 that you wanted to play an Inferno Sorc and then complained that Inferno wasn't a fun skill so it's Blizzards fault.

Not arguing your other points, but technically it IS Blizzard's fault. We didn't design the skills, and EVERY skill in the game should be fun and viable. Otherwise, what's the point?

That's why I've made such a sticking point with my DH to have no Evasive Fire, no Vault, and no Smoke Screen. I can full-clear Act I Inferno (barring some boss combinations) without problems, never setting off a Berserker timer (which I think is a complete bullshit mechanic on its own), and most importantly: having fun. My skill choices have been virtually unchanged since Normal, minus a couple swap-outs and rune changes, and the only thing I've truly had to adjust along the way is my gear - and to a lesser extent my tactics. Blizzard set the bar for themselves, saying any build should be viable. It's a hell of a challenge to properly balance that, but that's solely on Blizzard. They sold us this game with that line, now it's time for them to live up to it (especially if they intend to milk us on the RMAH - we don't deserve to be cash cows and get nothing in return).

Frankly, I won't speak to the rest of your post Sirian except to say one thing: I had higher life, worse defenses and worse damage than you, and I managed to make it through Hell without much fuss. There are tools to allow you to thin the herd against you (though I agree the reduction on timers is irritating, and plain lazy design), but mostly it sounds like you are flat-out under-geared. Spend some more time farming and crafting, and up your Life and defenses (Armor & Resists) a bit. Also, remember the golden rule: if something's dead, it can't hit you back. That's not an excuse to build a glass cannon, by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is it an open ticket to build flat-out defense and let your damage suffer for it. Blizzard's design choice, I believe, is for players to strike a balance between damage and defense. For ranged classes, damage wins out over defense, but for melee I think the opposite is true. I guarantee you with ~30% damage reduction from armor, ~20% from resistances, and almost doubling your life pool you'll be able to tank just fine. I say this from experience as a ranged class, which I know doesn't fully qualify me to judge but it does allow me to see things from the other side of the coin. If my DH with ZERO escape skills and only TWO CC skills (a stationary AoE slow, and a single-target chance-based Stun) can survive Hell better than you with probably much less defenses (but a much higher life pool), than you should be surviving just fine - provided your gear is up to snuff.

If you don't want to play the gearing game, I'm sorry but D3 is not for you. D3 is an item game, plain and simple. Everything else is just dress-up. I agree with some of your points, and disagree with others, but frankly I'd rather you spend a bit more time playing, properly gearing yourself for the encounters you're up against, before making a final judgment call. Also, one more thing to keep in mind: from Nightmare through Inferno, adding players not only increases monster health, it increases monster damage. IIRC, Nightmare adds 5% per player, Hell 10%, and Inferno 15% - at least for the first player. I don't think it's quite that linear (I think it increases slightly faster than a linear progression). Lazy design? Perhaps, but they needed something to combat the fact that more players = more skills, damage, health pools, etc. I do not want D2, where more players = easymode. I equally do not want D2, however, where mobs = cheese instead of challenge (and D3 does have a bit too much of that at the moment).