Basic Math - The Failure of Diablo Melee

[kandrathe]

Well to me it isn't just beating, it also shouldn't be tedious. Ranged characters didn't have tedium for me in D2, and with the exception of some Paladin builds (including, yes, POST-LoD Zealots of several kinds), melee always did. Mind you I never played a Pikebarb when they were the done thing. I've tried every kind of mastery, dual wielding, two handing, sword-and-board, and I've had every skill except Increased Stamina, Natural Resistance, Leap and Bash at 20 at some point. And every time I ended up with a tedious build. Paladins at least had their utility belt of auras for fixing a lot of dismal situations. I even enjoy Weredruids (of either kind) to a point. But melee 'Sins and Barbs are just plain tedious, and that shouldn't be. The Warrior was never tedious. Might be your experiences were different, though. Games should be fun.

So maybe it is not that Melee was wrong (difficult), so much as it was that ranged classes (and meat shielders) who kite had it easier. What was missing then were enough challenging (difficult) mobs for the ranged attackers. So, I see this more as a balance issue than a melee issue. The nature of melee is to have the fortitude, armor, resistances to go toe to toe with the worst. But, because a ranged glass cannon could prance through naked in DI or DII doesn't make melee broken, it shows the imbalance of H2H versus Ranged. Hopefully in DIII, if this games balance is not broken, ranged classes should be more fearful of physical attacks and we will not be able to merely kite ourselves out of danger.

But, aye, my lewt farming characters in DII were a level 80's Sorceress and an Amazon, where I could swap all their gear for high magic find gear, and kill entire zones quickly safely from a screen or two away. There are many things that were "broken" with ranged characters. To name a couple, the unreality of being able to spam ranged attacks, then without terrain acting as a barrier and consummately the inability of MOBS to have an even chance to hurt or close (due to bad AI) with their ranged attackers. Going back to even paper and pencil RPG basics, melee classes have an advantage in narrow twisty "dungeon" type spaces, and ranged characters were always better in fields, or large rooms. In order to make a game like Diablo work, you need to give the ranged character some meat shield to enable them to solo the twisty passages.

For my Barbarian's hireling, I prefer the Enchantress, (brain dead banter aside). If hireling killing power were on par with a player character Wizard, or Demon Hunter my Barbarian could focus on tanking (and healing myself), to let her kill the mobs. They can tweek alot of little things to even things out. If the potion cool down were a little less I could heal myself better, or if each hireling had an option for party healing it might also help. Or, maybe it is just accepting that the melee classes need for gear is normal, and that other classes lack of need for gear is what may be unbalanced and broken.

All in all, I'm hopeful they will get to a good balance on all this.

Afterthought: I was thinking also about what is done well in WOW for comparison. Certain mechanics, like only certain attacks can be done in Melee distances, and that mostly ranged attacks needed to be made against ranged targets. There really aren't any spammed "Spray and Pray" AOE skills (except possibly Barrage which I don't really use). They can make some mobs harder to hit (dodge, ranged dodge) with game mechanics too. The mechanics are such that for Hunter, melee is only really used to apply cc, and allow to kite to range where you can do much more damage. But, it is a vastly different game. I CC targets with traps, and use a Pet to off tank, while I focus on the ONE target I want to kill. Diablo's game style is to have lots of mobs rushing at you where every class needs some form of massive AOE (For my Barb, it's Rend and Earthquake). The pressure on balancing the Diablo character is that they need to have it all. They need to be able to tank (or CC/dodge), heal, have enough single point damage for champion/boss, and also some type of AOE for plowing through trash mobs.