Anti-Swarming Kung Fu

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

This stems from a conversation started on the Basin, which promptly degraded due to an overwhelming inability to actually read, it seemed. Let's try it here, instead.

Melee classes are dealing with a single dominant, troublesome situation in 1.10 beta: Swarming. The improved speed and AI of the monsters are combining to have characters activate and be surrounded in the blink of an eye. In Hell, this is by far the deadliest situation that arises from various murderous monster types. Even a character that can handle most situations on Players 8 suddenly finds themselves unable to handle certain Swarms, even on Players 1.

Case in point:



Extra Fast, Cold Enchanted, Mana Burn, Physical Immune Frenzytaur bossgroup... which would have been "fun", except for the fact that our presence ALSO activated a Fanaticism-aura Succubi bossgroup at the same time (from the same place on the map).

These were high level 1.09 imports into the beta. The paladin was a Fanated zealot, with skills akin to Tommi's "Walking Paladin" (having adapted to every D2 patch thus far). So: maxxed Fanaticism, Concentration, Holy Shield and Vengeance... with Conviction sitting at slvl 15 with adders. A typical melee "power build". The amazon was a Strafe/Guided bowazon with a maxxed Valk, optimized Passives and typically low investment into Freezing Arrow.

The little debacle pictured above was found in the Crystalline Passage. The end result was the two of us fighting, retreating, dying and recovering... trying to string out the opponents along the corridor which we had came in. Not pretty... and very difficulty to deal with, since the only true skills we had to deal were mana-gluggers: Freezing Arrow and Vengeance. Considering that a Zon and Paladin can construct one of the most powerful and adaptive offenses in the game, the fact that we two (very much used to each other's gaming style) had such a difficult time with this situation on P1 raises some eyebrows.

So... how would this be best approached? Please don't quote basic strategy movement to me, I've been playing this game sufficiently long to know the benefits of slow advance, diagonal approaches and circulation, when to run and when to stand. My concern is that there doesn't seem to be many viable strategies to offset the difficulty of these "Swarming" situations for melee characters.

The only advice that was offered from the Basin on this topic was "Holy Freeze and Conversion". *looks askance*. I remain unconvinced; my experiences with Conversion in 1.10 do not give me sufficient reason to consider it worthy of point investment, and the changes in Holy Freeze seem to activate more problems than it solves.

Case in Point:



THIS debacle is in the feared Frozen River, one of the deadly "sub-basement" levels of Act 5. Holy Freeze, which I was attempting to utilize as more than a "utility" aura, ended up activating EVERYTHING, despite my careful and slow progress. The screenie above is the result; anyone care to determine how Conversion would benefit THAT situation? :blink:

I refuse to believe that a melee-based paladin (with a bow on the switch, I'm not a complete fool) who has adapted to EVERY PATCH BEFORE THIS, cannot adapt to this one.

Thoughts?