Basic Math - The Failure of Diablo Melee

[Concillian]

To clarify, my stats above are with the enchantress out. I had forgotten about her 15% armor buff, which is pretty substantial (63.04% DR with her, 59.73% without, which works out to ~8.2% less damage taken). I don't think any of my fellow players offer anything comparable? Maybe another monk running Mantra of Evasion for added dodge? *shrug*

Barb war cry is +20% armor (+40% with rune, but most choose the +50% personal resists rune that doesn't help others)
Monk Mantra of Evasion has a +20% armor rune
Monk Mantra of Healing has a +20% resist rune
Monk Mantra of Conviction has a rune for 10% less damage taken
DH sentry has a relatively short range 15% less damage taken shield... not many use this skill...


I think those are the only defensive synergies and they're all on melee classes with the exception of the (often used... lol) sentry...

Most of the melee are using the enchantress already for the 15% armor, so they really only get the same benefit when playing with each other.

While ranged characters can potentially replace some defensive skills or passives with extra offense or resource generation, I don't see any real opportunity for melee unless grouped with other melee. 4 man team of barb (armor) / monk (resist) / monk (armor) / monk (conviction) doesn't sound like a great combo either.

[Roland]

DH sentry has a relatively short range 15% less damage taken shield... not many use this skill...

Not many use this skill because, just like it's cousin Aid Station, it is completely worthless. In order for it to be effective you have to stand within the bubble. Unless you're a melee character (who can probably tank the mobs anyway, and if you can't 15% reduced damage is not going to make a big enough difference) you will never be in that bubble more than 5 cumulative seconds in an entire fight, and 90% of that time will be spent kiting - thus not getting hit. Same thing with Aid Station - 1% max life regen is paltry considering how standing still will probably lose you between 4k and 15k life in a single hit. There's literally no incentive to use any of them, because they simply don't work as they were envisioned. The Demon Hunter needs some major attention in both its active and passive skills. As it stands right now, it's one of the weakest classes in the game - especially when it comes to parties.

Of course, I love my Demon Hunter, even in Inferno. I WANT to get something more sturdy like a Barbarian up into Inferno so I can actually farm the way the game intends me to, but I just can't give up playing a high-level Demon Hunter. It's the class I want to play, and despite all its problems I thoroughly enjoy playing. However, it's probably the weakest farming class in the game, and probably one of the most item dependent, as well. It gets no armor or resistance buffs, no dodge buffs, and the only damage reduction and/or healing abilities it gets force it to stand still in a very small AoE area, or in the case of Brooding not take damage for at least 5 seconds.

Anyway, enough ranting about the DH. I haven't partied enough to know how bad it affects the gameplay, but I've seen the numbers and I can imagine how daunting they must become in Hell and Inferno.

[Lissa]

DH sentry has a relatively short range 15% less damage taken shield... not many use this skill...

Not many use this skill because, just like it's cousin Aid Station, it is completely worthless. In order for it to be effective you have to stand within the bubble. Unless you're a melee character (who can probably tank the mobs anyway, and if you can't 15% reduced damage is not going to make a big enough difference) you will never be in that bubble more than 5 cumulative seconds in an entire fight, and 90% of that time will be spent kiting - thus not getting hit. Same thing with Aid Station - 1% max life regen is paltry considering how standing still will probably lose you between 4k and 15k life in a single hit. There's literally no incentive to use any of them, because they simply don't work as they were envisioned. The Demon Hunter needs some major attention in both its active and passive skills. As it stands right now, it's one of the weakest classes in the game - especially when it comes to parties.

I think Bolty would disagree when I drop an aid station in close to where he's tanking. It definitely has its uses in grouping.

[Concillian]

1% life per second and 15% damage reduction are both large enough to make a difference on a melee character at the higher difficulties (which are mostly forced into being very defense oriented). If you're receiving any amount of self healing, then 15% damage reduction is not small, in fact, it's pretty large... larger than the +15% armor buff the enchantress gives. Also if you have pretty significant damage reduction 1% health per second is also a substantial amount.

The main issue is the limited range and the fact that a DH probably doesn't want to be too close to a melee character, but I'll admit they have their uses.

[Sirian]

I pinned most of my hope for Diablo 3 on the talent, experience and skill of Blizzard designers -- with the lessons of Diablo 1 and 2 on hand, plus their successes with World of Warcraft, where melee is eminently viable.

Well the verdict is in, and the grade? Fail.

UPDATE

The following four things have occurred since I made my initial report:
1. I bought a few pieces off the AH to replace my worst gear slots plus get a stronger weapon.
2. The rest of my group retooled a bit as well: some change of skill and rune choices, some limited gear buys, and some practice at staying alive.
3. Two passes through Act 2 Hell have been completed, and five character levels gained. (Almost to 60 now).
4. Health globes started dropping comparable to how they behave in other difficulty levels, instead of the near-complete dearth we were experiencing.

That last point is BY FAR the most significant. Getting a regular number of globes off trash kills, one from nearly each champion or boss kill, and some during a fight from just beating on tougher champions and bosses, is night and day compared to the near-absence of globes for the several sessions upon which my initial post is based.

A lot more health globes lying around is akin to having more potions to use, which lets melee stay in the fight much better -- currently at a level I WOULD call viable, in combo with the rest of what changed.

So now I'm deeply curious. WHY are there so many more health globes dropping now?
A. Did Blizz increase the drop rate in Hell recently?
B. Are health globe drops tied to clvl-vs-mlvl, where the leveling up we've done has completely changed the balance with only a few levels gained?
C. Are health globe drops tied to gear in some way? DPS output, rate of brief stuns imposed on the mobs by having enough hard enough hits to cause them to pause momentarily?
D. Some unknown factor.

My gear purchases on the AH, which totaled less than 50k spent and a net cash change of zero because I sold some stuff, too -- the new items brought a 50% increase in Health (from 16k to 24k) and a DPS increase of about 30% (3700 to 5000), with little other change. The stats I prioritized were Vitality, Armor and Strength in that order, but I limited myself to a price range of 10k or less per item.

The health globe drop rate increased dramatically, right after the gear acquisitions. But the patch also occurred then, as did backing up to the beginning of Act 2 again, so a clvl-mlvl change was there too.

Over the course of the second pass through Act 2 Hell, I was able to obtain three new pieces with Resist to All on them -- all obtained in the very last portion of the act. I bought one, a ring, from the vendor. The others were group drops (four of us sharing items).

Tacking on about 50 Resist All, on top of the extra life and DPS, and the health globe drops, things feel fine again. For the moment. But I saw nary a Resist All affix on anything until I got close to Belial.

Without knowing why the health globe drops were SO TERRIBLE on my first pass through Hell Acts 1 and 2, I remain unsettled. If the slight change in ratio of clvl to mlvl did it, then the problem will return with a vengeance in Inferno and only worsen the deeper in one goes. If the gear did that, and not a patch change or the clvl-mlvl change, then it becomes even stupider than it looked at first glance that gear needed for the current Act (once you hit Hell) doesn't drop until two Acts later.


- Sirian

[Hocus_]

So now I'm deeply curious. WHY are there so many more health globes dropping now?

Did one of you spec the Barbarian passive, Pound of Flesh?

[Roland]

Without knowing why the health globe drops were SO TERRIBLE on my first pass through Hell Acts 1 and 2, I remain unsettled.

Health Globes are random feast-or-famine, as far as my experience has been (over 120 hours played). Some areas or sessions barely drop enough health globes for me to get by without chugging potions and healing via life regen / Aid Station (which I don't use anymore). Other times (usually easier fights ) they drop like rain, and I'm swimming in them. I haven't noticed any change throughout my playing via gear, clvl, nor patch changes. It just has struck me as a random element, through and through.

[Ruvanal]

Without knowing why the health globe drops were SO TERRIBLE on my first pass through Hell Acts 1 and 2, I remain unsettled.

Health Globes are random feast-or-famine, as far as my experience has been (over 120 hours played). Some areas or sessions barely drop enough health globes for me to get by without chugging potions and healing via life regen / Aid Station (which I don't use anymore). Other times (usually easier fights ) they drop like rain, and I'm swimming in them. I haven't noticed any change throughout my playing via gear, clvl, nor patch changes. It just has struck me as a random element, through and through.

I have to second this from some of my experiences with this from just today's run troughs on various characters. And there may be a bit of selective memory at work here too. Earlier I was running through NM act 2 with Magi and running into at times what seemed to be a dearth of health globe drops, but this was in part a matter of having that dearth at a time when they were really critical to survival. When you are not having a survival crisis, will you really be looking at how many dropped or not?

[Chesspiece_face]

I have to second this from some of my experiences with this from just today's run troughs on various characters. And there may be a bit of selective memory at work here too. Earlier I was running through NM act 2 with Magi and running into at times what seemed to be a dearth of health globe drops, but this was in part a matter of having that dearth at a time when they were really critical to survival. When you are not having a survival crisis, will you really be looking at how many dropped or not?

I have a feeling that there are multiple confounding factors when taking into account the issue of Health globes.

My instinctual response when I see a health globe drop is that it has something to do with how much damage was put into an enemy in a short period of time as I just remember the times they drop when I chunk a champion. This is most likely confirmation bias though.

I think it is more likely that each enemy has a chance to drop a health globe at a percentage life (75,50,25,Dead or something like that) excluding bosses which obviously work a bit differently. Something like this would give the appearance of rewarding high damage but in reality you are just chewing through a lot of enemies health really quick and racking up those % chance for globes to drop. This also means obviously that you will go through statistical lulls at times.

The other thing I would highly recommend as people advance upwards is to not automatically grab health globes when you don't need them. You never know when you are going to go into a tactical retreat and it's always nice to see the left over orbs along the path waiting for you.

[MongoJerry]

Have you ever read my D2 spot reports

My D2 site is back up now, after being offline for the last couple of years.

sirian.warpcore.org

My run with Wussie girl would have been quite different if I had neglected her poison resistance.

Yes, I see your spot reports and raise you one Irene, the Infirm, the no skills assigned, no stat points assigned, naked, no charms, no jewelry punching sorceress. As much fun as I had playing Irene, I bring her up to illustrate the gameplay problem that gets introduced when characters are allowed to effectively spam quaff healing potions. That is that if something doesn't kill you in one hit, you might as well have an infinite health pool.

The biggest gameplay impact that introducing a spammable health potion ability would be that any damage-over-time skills will no longer be something that one has to worry about. The floor under you starts to flare up in the Butcher's encounter? Just quaff some healing potions and keep pounding away at him. Belial casts green poison circles at your feet? Just quaff some healing potions and keep spamming your attacks at him. Azmodan... well, pretending that his encounter is dangerous... the black corruption that spreads at your feet would be trivialized if all you have to do is quaff a couple of healing potions.

But we know that the game is about champion and boss packs now. What about them? Molten, plague, desecrator... now trivial. Just quaff some healing potions and kill the packs off. Or how about mortor, the bane of ranged classes? Now trivial. Just quaff some healing potions and burn the mobs down. What about those annoying fast moving fast attack frog/dog things that nip at your heals? Trivial, because you can just quaff a few potions while you take them down.

But it becomes even worse, because not only would mob encounters become trivialized but also quite a number of player abilities. I know more about the Wizard than other classes, so I'll focus on that class's abilities. Diamond Skin, a Wizard staple, would become a thing of the past. No need for it, when you can just quaff potions to heal any damage you receive. Galvanizing Ward, which provides a low level health regen and is considered by many Inferno level Wizards to be a "must have" passive would be gone. The same would be true for any kind of healing ability or passive of any other class. For that matter, most defensive abilities, passives, and gear would have their value readjusted downward in favor of offensive oriented abilities, passives, and gear. Why bother with all of those defensive abilities when you can just potion through almost any threat?

I get the idea that you believe that Blizzard's introduction of a potion cooldown was done in a thoughtless reactionary manner. This isn't true. It was actually discussed in pre-release videos as one of the key decisions they made that enabled them to introduce more interesting encounters and more exciting gameplay. They wanted to get away from the "one shot" or "spike" encounters of D2 that provided the only threat to a character. I applaud their decision and believe it to be the correct decision.

(Yes, I heard you that maybe you'd be fine with 4 potions and then introduce a cooldown or something, but really when you start allowing such things, you effectively make potions become the primary way to negate threat rather than character abilities -- and you end up running into the same problems described above).

CC is part of the solution, but it cannot be the only solution. All the CC options have cooldowns, while the threats include things like champion packs where four different mobs can chain-CC your toon. Four mobs executing Jailer in sequence, or a Horde boss pack of a hard-hitting creature type able to chain Vortex you or chain Teleport to you. There are some mobs encountered in sardine cans, such as waiting for you as the first encounter in the sewers or caves, events that are traps, and so on, where there isn't room to kite or even maneuver.

Of course CC options have cooldowns. Deciding which and how many cc's or defensive abilities you have at your disposal is a part of the choices you have to make. Otherwise, you could pick one CC and spam it incessently. On my Wizard, I have three defensive cooldowns -- Diamond Skin, Teleport, and yes, potion. It's important that when I get yanked somewhere that I don't blow all three at once or I'm going to get in trouble real fast. If I get vortexed into a bad spot, I teleport out. A mob teleports next to me, I diamond skin and try to burn him. If I get in trouble, I try to hit him with my arcane orbs or hydra with the 30% slow and run off. If I get vortexed again, I potion. In addition, there are two Wizard passives that decrease these defensive cooldowns, and I think by the time I get to the end of hardcore Hell, I'll probably put one of them in. But the key thing to take away from this is that potions are not the first defensive option in the arsenal -- they are the last, when all other cooldowns are exhausted.

Your point about spike damage being the only damage that is dangerous is true regardless of healing options. If you get in over your head (whatever that means to your toon in its current gear, ability set, companions, and content phase) you should be in danger. If not, you should not be in danger of dying...

Whether you can full-heal instantly several times in a row without restriction, or heal only a small fraction of your health globe and wait 30 seconds before you can do it again, or something in between, spike damage is and remains the only threat of death. (Attrition could be a threat, as well, but only if you are trapped -- sardine cans, ambushes, positioning mistakes, etc). So that line attack is-- well, it's feeble. Sorry, but it doesn't even matter to the core issue.

Sorry, your argument attempting to dismiss this issue is, well, feeble. The truth is that you wouldn't be complaining about needing potions for your Barbarian to survive, if in fact non-instant kill attacks weren't threatening or killing your character. This is the heart of the matter. The fact that your not very well geared or built Barbarian is having difficulty surviving in encounters that do not involve one-shot kills shows that a very different kind of gameplay has been introduced that you have not yet adjusted to. And this gets to my final point...

I tried the Revenge skill. I was not having fun with that skill. Don't like the mechanics of it. Not going to switch to it. If that alone makes the class unviable in Hell+, it's Blizzard's fault and their design is SORELY lacking...

(BoltyMy point was that CC isn't the proper style of play here, even in Nightmare/Hell modes. Melee is quite viable from Normal to Nightmare to Hell difficulties. I ran into the same brick wall you did, and asked for help. It made a big difference, so I'm suggesting that to you as well. The simple fact was, I was Doing It Wrong.™...

Nor do I want to be force fed a game balance where I must play like it's Hardcore, running around like a tank with the most possible health and damage mitigation I can stack...

D3 wouldn't require monks and barbs to carry specific healing skills or go home crying, if potions were once again a primary form of health recovery...

UPDATE: My gear purchases on the AH, which totaled less than 50k spent and a net cash change of zero because I sold some stuff, too -- the new items brought a 50% increase in Health (from 16k to 24k) and a DPS increase of about 30% (3700 to 5000), with little other change. The stats I prioritized were Vitality, Armor and Strength in that order, but I limited myself to a price range of 10k or less per item.

I'm sorry, Sirian, but this sounds like an "l2p" issue rather than a game design issue. I know that this may be difficult to take for someone who often considers himself an expert in the games he plays. However, D3 is still new and involves gameplay that differs from earlier versions of Diablo and other similar video games. No one is yet an D3 expert, which makes this time period exciting for the game. You, just like all of us, still have a lot of learning to do.

There are problems with the melee classes starting at about Inferno Act 2. I've read enough and seen enough in game to see the problems coming even though I haven't experienced them yet. I do think there are some improvements that can be made to the classes -- and I think the answers can be found in the classes' cc abilities.

However, you were playing with 16k life in hell Act 2? And you think that 24k health is pretty good now? Are you kidding me?! My hardcore level 56 Wizard in Act 2 hell has 38k life with 4k dps. Frag's Barbarian has more health and way more damage mitigation than my Wizard has. And don't try the "but I don't use the auction house" line, because not a single item I or Frag is wearing came from the auction house. All items I'm wearing were either found, crafted, or bought from the vendor. It helps that Frag, Swirly, a Basiner named over9, and I trade items we find or craft with each other, but I'm sure that your group of four does to. Spend some time farming crafting materials, and you might try shopping the vendors from time to time -- or even purposely resetting them. My rings, amulets, and belt were all hell vendor purchases and made a huge difference in my stats.

Regarding your Barbarian, I can't give you much advice, because I've only played a Wizard. However, I can tell you this: Frag, a non-AH using hardcore Barbarian, just entered Act IV hell and he has only used one single potion during the entire trip.

There are problems with the Barbarian and Monk classes, and those issues should be discussed and addressed. However, those problems don't arise in hell Act 2.

[Mavfin]

<great wall of text I didn't want to just copy again>

Just as an example, my DH in Act I Hell is running 26K health, and 2500 armor. The only thing I really hate are the leapers. Vortex sucks, but I just save my vault, and hopefully toward the nearest health globe. Frankly, I need more, and I'll get the gear for it soon.

I can't imagine how often I'd die *as a ranged class*, let alone a melee class if I only had 16K health, as Sirian had when he originally posted that the game was FAIL.

[Archon_Wing]

Yep, 16k health is pretty normal for... nightmare. I had 25k at the end of nightmare and was pretty unsatisfied.

Although L2P tends to be used too much, I must say, if one is unable to accomplish something and others do, then a reevaluation is needed. Are those people that succeeded just lucky, or maybe they tried something else. It's way too arrogant to already claim to know everything about a game that came out for less than a month.

Sometimes you can admit that you are bad at a game. It happens all the time. Nobody is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, but making excuses isn't the way to go sometimes.

I beat hell with 4k dps. Haven't spent more than 20k on an item. So, really... I feel that multiplayer scaling and quality of item drops is a much bigger issue. In other words, playing untwinked feels more tedious... but weapon damage applies to all characters now. It's not like casters can have 5 dmg wands anymore. If anything d3's bridged the gap a bit more.

[Sirian]

There are problems with the Barbarian and Monk classes, and those issues should be discussed and addressed. However, those problems don't arise in hell Act 2.

They show up when gear stops masking them -- and if one is good with game math, he doesn't have to wait for Inferno Act 2 to see it.

The fact that your not very well ... built Barbarian...

I'm sorry, Sirian, but this sounds like an "l2p" issue rather than a game design issue. I know that this may be difficult to take for someone who often considers himself an expert in the games he plays.

Karmic justice for times when I flung condescension around freely.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

I can't imagine how often I'd die *as a ranged class*, let alone a melee class if I only had 16K health, as Sirian had when he originally posted that the game was FAIL.

This wasn't about dying. I never once did any dying against trash mobs, which is the situation I analyzed. There wasn't much dying against boss packs either, except for certain spiky trait combos. The problem is what I had to do to avoid dying: it wasn't very much fun. The low gear I had is what makes my analysis relevant, because gear level wasn't masking the other game mechanics. And I came up FAR short of posting that the whole game is fail.

I'm more disappointed with how unproductive my thread became than I am with the cracks in D3. An honest discussion on a topic like this was the main attraction for me here. Oh well. Never mind then.


- Sirian

[MongoJerry]

This wasn't about dying. I never once did any dying against trash mobs, which is the situation I analyzed. There wasn't much dying against boss packs either, except for certain spiky trait combos. The problem is what I had to do to avoid dying: it wasn't very much fun. The low gear I had is what makes my analysis relevant, because gear level wasn't masking the other game mechanics. And I came up FAR short of posting that the whole game is fail.

The gear is a part of the game mechanics, Sirian. You wouldn't have had to have run away to avoid dying, if you had chosen your gear properly. If the game were designed for people walking around with half the health they should be walking around in just from regular drops, crafting, and vendor opportunities, then the game would be incredibly unblanaced.

I'm more disappointed with how unproductive my thread became than I am with the cracks in D3. An honest discussion on a topic like this was the main attraction for me here. Oh well. Never mind then.

No, Sirian. It has been quite productive. You proposed taking potions off cooldowns as a way to solve the barbarian and monk problems later in the game. I explained to you exactly why Blizzard made the choice they made and why doing so would be a bad idea. Simply recognize that the potion idea was not a good one, and that would be progress.

Now, I made a positive suggestion in post #19 of this thread and discussed some bad choices that people have suggested. Reread that post and feel free to critique that one suggestion and make some suggestions of your own on how some Barbarian and Monk skills could be altered that would both make the gameplay interesting and allow the classes to have the survivability they need.

[FoxBat]

Here's Jay from 2009:

We changed the health model, so that players don't rely on potions. Instead they can pick up health power-ups from enemies. It doesn't change the basic way the game plays, but it gives it a little bit more depth. You don't have one answer to healing in combat – "I'm in trouble, I hit a potion." Instead, "I'm in trouble, there's a health globe over there, and there's a 20-foot demon standing between me and it." That's a really interesting situation for the player, but it works with the same complexity of interface and gameplay that we had.


...We did put health potions back in, but they play a very different role. You can't spam them like you used to, you can only use them about once a map. The purpose of those is to take the edge off the loss of health. "I don't have health, or I've got half health, do I want to use a health potion, or do I want to risk it? Ooh, I've got 10% health, it's not even a decision." That's a really interesting decision, and it makes potion use a fun part of the game.

I don't think that's quite as true as he stated given the power of some melee heal skill options, but that's the general theory. Orbs are the primary heal, potions are the emergency backup. That's why they have a 30s cooldown and running around on it kinda sucks, they aren't intended to be your main healing source.

I could swear that whites only drop pots when they actually die, in which case kill rate definitely helps. Not sure on bosses, they might have a chance to drop whenever the health falls below certain % thresholds as mentioned.

[MongoJerry]

Here's Jay from 2009:

That's a good quote, but definitely not the end-all of it. There are other cases where they talk about placing the potions cooldowns in so that damage doesn't have to be as "spikey" as they were in D2 in order to generate threat in encounters.

[Ruvanal]

I could swear that whites only drop pots when they actually die, in which case kill rate definitely helps. Not sure on bosses, they might have a chance to drop whenever the health falls below certain % thresholds as mentioned.

I am pretty sure that I have seen normal mobs drop globes without dying. But since they have usually died in 3 hits or less it is a bit harder to check. I do know that there is not a percentage that needs to be done like 25% to get the globes to drop. I had a NM Belial run that my DH Sentry had generated 9+ globes in pile in front of it before Belial was down to 80% life. Most of time, less globes would be generated the whole fight.

I suspect that each mob type has a low chance (0.5% or less?) that they can drop a globe each time that they are hit. Then an increased chance (x10?) to drop one on death. And like in D2 the champs and random bosses would have an increased chance (x4??) over that to drop globes.

[MongoJerry]

Quote from Jay at Blizzcon09:

So the other side of it is, we deal with some of the harder monsters, like bosses and rares and champions, they don't just drop them like that. They would drop health globes at percentages of their health. Rares in particular are almost guaranteed to drop about every 25%.

Of course, that was three years ago, so YMMV.

But knowing this, it makes sense that Sirian saw more health globes as he got better gear. He was able to stay in the fight longer and deliver more damage, which allowed him to get more of the champion and boss packs down to 75% of health, which caused health globes to spawn, which enabled him to stay longer in the fight, allowing him to get them to 50% of health, causing more health globes to spawn, etc.

Also, since health globes refresh a certain percentage of the players' life, having more life means also that the globes are more effective, which also allowed him to stay in fights longer.

In my experience, it seems like all of the white adds in set piece encounters drop health orbs on death -- certainly in the Belial and Diablo encounters.

[Archon_Wing]

I can't imagine how often I'd die *as a ranged class*, let alone a melee class if I only had 16K health, as Sirian had when he originally posted that the game was FAIL.

This wasn't about dying. I never once did any dying against trash mobs, which is the situation I analyzed. There wasn't much dying against boss packs either, except for certain spiky trait combos. The problem is what I had to do to avoid dying: it wasn't very much fun. The low gear I had is what makes my analysis relevant, because gear level wasn't masking the other game mechanics. And I came up FAR short of posting that the whole game is fail.

I'm more disappointed with how unproductive my thread became than I am with the cracks in D3. An honest discussion on a topic like this was the main attraction for me here. Oh well. Never mind then.


- Sirian

Dead characters do 0 DPS, so to speak. Now if you feel that melee characters sacrifice too much damage output in order to merely survive that would be an issue. Coming in undergeared and/or underleveled for a certain difficulty is going to lead to difficulties without grinding earlier levels again. It's fairly typical for most video games of this kind.

But in that case, the main problems as I've highlighted before are that drops suck too much and that's just not specific to melee characters anymore.

It's just that you have below average health for even ranged characters with a character that is melee.

Your assumptions about melee flaws aren't inherently wrong! It's just that the example you used to prove it is up to debate. Imbalances exist, but sometimes it can be confused for user error. When someone succeeds and I don't, I have to ask why. We simply don't have enough info about the metagame to really claim anything broad about the game just yet, as we can for d1 or d2.

I've been hearing complaints that all classes are having severe difficulty in the higher levels, so the problem may lie deeper.