Attunement vs Melee

This is true but it's not just that melee does less damage, it is also has less utility and it is harder to keep some mobs in range. Those skele archers, for example, run like Bolt on amphetamines.

Against undead, my death build is crap so I switch out death magic for life magic and throw in a bit of fire for the extra range arrows. Without needing to change my play style all that much, especially if I have taken the precaution of getting life attuned gear to match my life deck, I can shoot arrows at the skele archers when they get too far to use the fist spells, or I can use dispel undead which has moderate range. If I could be bothered, I'd build up my air magic and, instead of fire, I'd use chain lightning which has moderate range, good damage, and has a chance to stun.

Melee = moderate dps but you spend most of your time running around like a headless chook trying to get in range to hit things
Mage = good dps, range, cc, all of which are often in the same spell...

I'd love there to be a reason to use melee - good cc, for example, or more health, or greater resistance to damage - but it just isn't worth it at the moment. As a mage, I can wear heavy armor to get the good passives, have as much health, do more damage, and have access to a range of utility spells that a melee fighter would struggle to cast because of the high fizzle associated with using plate/metal shield.

 

I'm switching sides here. Buff melee; it's horrible! Especially twohanded blades. Put alot of cc into it as well as requested and it's good to go Damn was i wrong. Can't kill anything today.

 

Have you tried anything other than 2h sword? It's not that you can't kill anything, it's just that you have to catch the bloody thing first.

It's okay when fighting melee mobs on one's own, but the minute you have magic or range mobs, it becomes annoying because of the lack of snares/roots in the skill set. Nor is there a charge skill worth using to close the gap. All it would take to get melee into a decent place would be to add some snares or roots to the blade tree, and maybe a charge with which to open combat. As it is, charge is in the heavy arm tree and does no damage, and trip and engage are in subterfuge. Shield bash is okay, except that it knocks the opponent away from you which is kind of counter intuitive because you want to keep the targets as close to you as possible.

Put a snare on double slash or rend, add a charge that does damage in the next tier and using a sword will become more viable. Get all melee skills to generate extra aggro and using a physical weapon in this game will start making sense. And take the knock back off shield bash so that I don't keep pushing my opponent out of range of my attacks.

 

Heavy armor fully masterworked/enchanted offers a LOT more protection than cloth, fwiw. Wielding a shield is also a good tradeoff of damage for protection. Same with using defensive skills in your bar (both spells and heavy armor/shield skills). And obviously, defensive stance.

 

Not really true plate wearing mages are the best tanks with the best dps.

 

The only damage school you can reliably cast in full plate is Earth, which has a single ranged spell. Not what I would consider "mage", but I guess that's why definitions are so murky/fluid in this classless system.

 

I have a full set of +8 or so meteoric chain trying to get the resistance I need as well as all the defensive skills/abilities and spells. It's not doing the job. Shield doesn't help all that much. It's effective against other melee mobs, not archers and mages which is my problem. (and yes I have douse fireproof and magic based defense against fire, but again why is my only elemental defense magic based? Warding gems don't work in pve.

 

One way to get around the melee/archer shortcomings is to add battlemagic to the game. A field of magic that can only be cast when armed with a physical weapon, and that contains utility spells. You could have roots/snares, limited heals, a charge spell to get closer to an enemy and a gust like spell for the archers to push enemies away. As it stands, magic is too important to the game to allow a chars fizzle to get too high so melee are behind the curve from the get go and leather armor for archers doesn't give enough benefit over cloth to justify the extra fizzle. In fact, everyone should use a chain vest because it gives access to the best defensive tree in the game while providing only a minimal hit to fizzle chance, especially when coupled with cloth everything else.

Earth magic has root which has a 20' range and is a second tier spell and has 100% chance of rooting an enemy. The only melee root is the top tier polearm skill, which has a 2' range and less than 50% chance of rooting an enemy. The first glyth of the magic skills are usually damage spells like earth fist, ice fist etc. The first tier skill in the melee trees are simply the ability to use the weapon. Earth magic has a close range instant damage spell, a range damage spell, a root spell, two shield spells, an aoe with cc spell, a healing spell, and a pet. Compare that to the melee/archery branches and you will see why nearly everyone plays a mage-like character.

 

I think that's more of a NPC-mage-damage/fire resist being broken than gear-related.

 

I agree with most of this but as melee you should be using the heavy armor skill to charge any mob that starts moving from you. There other skills like trip and shield bash that can help. Of course blunt is full of stuns to stop them. I never had to run after stuff that I was directly attacking. In fact, the heavy armor charge (sorry, forgot its exact name, Im not in front of game), will hit for your full melee skill so if you are critting for 150 with your 2h mace, the charge crits mobs for that much too.

hint hint, stun is also one of the best skills in PvP since they all run from you like chickens too. I gave up blunt to Earth magic now but the heavy armor charge is still my #1 skill.

 

I'm increasingly thinking trying to make melee viable at high level is hopeless. I'm spending the weekend working on just defensive skills and overall survival passives. Its the same story, I can have a drink in the bar with a yellow melee mobs that I can fight multiples of at the same time (AL 85 or so) at how harmless we are but mages and archers don't even much pay attention to melee tree defenses (piercing arrow completely ignoring armor for example). (again I'm aware, and have of fire\air tree defenses to same, but that is the only PVE effective mechanic I know for it).

If there is some huge trick I'm still missing I'm all ears.

 

So you are not an mage if you don't use earth magic?

Earth magic is the most versitale tree in the whole game. I see earth tree as meleer´s magic since it can be used in heavy armour. I use Obsidian arror since in my oppinion is the best ranged spell against tough opponents because of that the spell can ingore armour and have a boost in damage based on strength.

So when you complain on that mages is better than meleers think that Earth tree is best for meleers!

 

Heh, I didn't know that armor didn't add fizzle to Earth magic. Is it a recent change cos I remember being frustrated at root when I first started playing and trying to make a tank. Nor did I know that Heavy armor charge does damage. I don't remember it doing when I used to used it a few builds ago. In fact, that was the reason I took shield, for the charge and then found out it only does one point of damage. As for stun, heavy armor has a stun immunity thingy and pretty much everyone wears heavy chest piece, so stun will become less useful as people level up.

As for chasing mobs, I played with an archer friend and he would kite stuff around, especially in the early days when archer autofire would acquire targets randomly. That's when I started experimenting with using a wand instead of a sword and found that using magic while wearing heavy armor and carrying a shield was more effective than using an actual weapon.

 

Sure, but as an Melee i don't have tons of INT, therefor i don't land 800+ dmg crits with Earth Magic like a mage does.
Yes Earth gets bonus from STR, but INT impacts magic damage and obviously crit chance by far more.

 

Doing 800 damage with earth magic with low strength .... how high do those mages have in earth magic? I surely don't do more than maximun 300 - 400 points of damge with spells but can do 700 - 800 damage with coup de grace.

 

Hes actually wrong. Earth damage is based on str. The higher the str and attunment the higher the damage.

 

I love playing Melee but your right.... It just plain sux and that is why I won't be PvPing. I will just play my sucky toon and hope the Dev's will give us some love.

 

If you need a tank, find a mage . I have over 900 in blades and decent defensive skills. Can tank physical dmg but thats only if aggro holds which usually does not. Aggro transfers to the ranged or mage. Plus the mages wear any type of armor and cast making them the ultimate tank.

What should happen like all other skills have been, Jack up the dmg to melee and adjust it as you go. That seems to be the case for most skills other than the melee.