Caster vs Melee unbalances around lvl 70s

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dust7 escribió:

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deteego escribió:

Pure casters have actually been pretty terrible ever since CB. Although its true in CB ranged were better, that ranged was catalyst LA bow users and sporkers, it was never really pure casters.

In the first phase of CB shock nova was able to destroy anything on the whole screen in two seconds. It had no donut effect and incredible range and damage when augmented properly. After that we had completely broken firestorm builds which abused the flat damage from the added chaos damage and added lightning damage supports. After that, when GMP (in fact it was just MP back then) had no damage penalty, Fireball- and Icespear-builds trivialized the Maelström of Chaos. In their time, all of these were the strongest builds around, and they were casters. Pure casters were so overpowered in the first months of CB that the feedback forum was pretty much about how to nerf them. If I recall correctly lifeleech and manaleech on regular magic and rare items even worked with spells. In addition to having the highest damage output intelligence characters had the best survivability because a high-level raise spectre gem could raise like seven high hp spectres, without any investment of skillpoints or support gems needed.

Shock nova you had a point

GMP/LMP were mainly abused with rangers, they weren't used with any spells apart from FP. The rest of your point actually all boiled down just to freezing pulse, which was a single skill that was too strong (just like Nova) that needed adjusted

I was talking about casters in general, not specific skills that were broken

Now its not just one skill thats broken that gives a build a huge advantage. Also without those skills for melee that are currently OP, melee builds are able to run high-end maps a lot earlier (or bosses like piety) than casters can.

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MissBum escribió:

Now its not just one skill thats broken that gives a build a huge advantage. Also without those skills for melee that are currently OP, melee builds are able to run high-end maps a lot earlier (or bosses like piety) than casters can.

Honestly the main issue is casters don't have the utility to make up for the DPS or range loss when compared to melee/rangers

Rangers typically move fast, and can kill stuff from a screen away. Melees have much higher damage, and even better damage/mana cost ratio (which means that melees can devote the rest towards survivability)

Just found this topic, interesting idea, btw.

I'm playing a tanky EK scion. Works acceptable, but compared to the melee duelist character of my friend... I do zero damage. :) I'm now lvl70, and by running on Docks (lvl62 area) the simple white mobs are 2 shots. They have pretty low life after the first, but still, I need two.

Of course, my DPS could be boosted: currently, I'm using a 5l body armour with lvl17 EK + faster casting + life leech + faster projectiles and blood magic. Unfortunately, I have to use blood magic. The best whould be using added fire damage and iron will / lvl3+ empower.

My DPS with hatred is about 3,5k with 0,57 cast time. The cast time won't be less and I'm not sure how much DPS will I have with lvl20 EK and added fire. Less than the melee duelist (who has 15k now).

However, I think the biggest advantage of his character is the attack speed. He uses dual strike + faster attacks + multistrike with attack speed passive nodes. He has 0.12 attack time now.

Basically, the EK is a "slow skill" (but I really like it :P) and the ONLY ONE gem which can boost its "speed" is the faster casting. Melee characters' attack speed is based on their weapon(s) and the multistrike is a huge attack speed increase. If we could have a skill like multistrike (I know the barrage, but it's an attack, not a support skill) for casting, everything could be better. :) The base damage from EK is pretty high, and casting 3x faster would be OP.

Another thing is the leeching mechanism. For casters, you can't get life or mana leech from gear, you have to use gems. A cycloner can use life gain on hit, casters can't. I've played with melee duelist (until just lvl76 - I liked it, but I always want to be a caster. :D) and I get life leech from only one item and a passive node (blood drinker). And it was enough. However, there aren't any passive for casters to get life or mana from "hits".

The new 1.1.0 patch improved the spell damage nodes, but hey... it's still pretty low compared to the melee boosts (lots of 10%, 12%, 24% and some 28% nodes).

Yes but life leech and health got nerfed in 1.1.1. This topic was prior to 1.1.1. Now a flameblast guy is equally if not more so effective than a melee, especially against the new boss monsters.

Yap, nerfed, but the fact is not changed: you can get life leech from items and passive. The life gain on hit is still available. I'm playing a life-based EK scion, so the life nerf affects me also not just the melee characters.

The flamebast is too OP however, but I don't like that skill. And that may be the only one (besides discharge) which can be stronger than a melee character. For the "traditional casters" the life still isn't as easy as for melees. :)

What melee build is anyone even playing right now? The fotm is (was) searing bond, DD, and flameblast. Before that it was burning discharge. Before that there was also spork totems. When was a melee build ever the fotm or even viable without insane gear? Have you ever tried to level as a melee character? LOL.

Melee as a build is extremely difficult in this game because of the incoming damage being so high in so many places. You simply can't facetank in this game and definitely can't do good melee damage at the same time, and it makes melee absolutely unplayable unless you've got a stash full of uniques and high end rares, because you're either dying or progressing at a stupid slow pace.

The only "melee" builds that I'm aware of anyone even using are spectral throw (not melee) and a long time ago, elemental cleave was a thing. When is the last time you saw someone do elemental cleave? When is the last time you even saw a real melee build in this game?

Maybe in scrubcore these things are popular I don't know, but they sure as hell aren't viable at all in Invasion. I've never even seen a single melee build in Invasion. Half the bosses can't even be fought from melee range even if your damage could kill them because you would die in less than a second, and there is even a smoke mine boss which just completely screws melee, as well as the eye boss who blinds you. These mechanics are all faceroll for casters.

I honestly can't even fathom how this thread is being taken seriously at all.

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Legatus1982 escribió:

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csisyadam escribió:

Yap, nerfed, but the fact is not changed: you can get life leech from items and passive. The life gain on hit is still available. I'm playing a life-based EK scion, so the life nerf affects me also not just the melee characters.

The flamebast is too OP however, but I don't like that skill. And that may be the only one (besides discharge) which can be stronger than a melee character. For the "traditional casters" the life still isn't as easy as for melees. :)

What melee build is anyone even playing right now? The fotm is (was) searing bond, DD, and flameblast. Before that it was burning discharge. Before that there was also spork totems. When was a melee build ever the fotm or even viable without insane gear? Have you ever tried to level as a melee character? LOL.

Melee as a build is extremely difficult in this game because of the incoming damage being so high in so many places. You simply can't facetank in this game and do good melee damage at the same time, and it makes melee absolutely unplayable unless you've got a stash full of uniques and high end rares, because you're either dying or progressing at a stupid slow pace.

The only "melee" builds that I'm aware of anyone even using are spectral throw (not melee) and a long time ago, elemental cleave was a thing. When is the last time you saw someone do elemental cleave? When is the last time you even saw a real melee build in this game?

Maybe in scrubcore these things are popular I don't know, but they sure as hell aren't viable at all in Invasion. I've never even seen a single melee build in Invasion. Half the bosses can't even be fought from melee range even if your damage could kill them because you would die in less than a second, and there is even a smoke mine boss which just completely screws melee, as well as the eye boss who blinds you. These mechanics are all faceroll for casters.

I honestly can't even fathom how this thread is being taken seriously at all.

For a very short while groundslam was FOTM, but that was mainly because piss easy to level as groundslam. Fbreakers got real popular too after BOR got released, but people quickly realized how hard fbreakers were in endgame scenarios. Ranged still rules supreme in endgame for various reasons. I'm strictly speaking from a HC standpoint here. In softcore, things are a little different, and builds start to open up in terms of viability.

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allbusiness escribió:

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Legatus1982 escribió:

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csisyadam escribió:

Yap, nerfed, but the fact is not changed: you can get life leech from items and passive. The life gain on hit is still available. I'm playing a life-based EK scion, so the life nerf affects me also not just the melee characters.

The flamebast is too OP however, but I don't like that skill. And that may be the only one (besides discharge) which can be stronger than a melee character. For the "traditional casters" the life still isn't as easy as for melees. :)

What melee build is anyone even playing right now? The fotm is (was) searing bond, DD, and flameblast. Before that it was burning discharge. Before that there was also spork totems. When was a melee build ever the fotm or even viable without insane gear? Have you ever tried to level as a melee character? LOL.

Melee as a build is extremely difficult in this game because of the incoming damage being so high in so many places. You simply can't facetank in this game and do good melee damage at the same time, and it makes melee absolutely unplayable unless you've got a stash full of uniques and high end rares, because you're either dying or progressing at a stupid slow pace.

The only "melee" builds that I'm aware of anyone even using are spectral throw (not melee) and a long time ago, elemental cleave was a thing. When is the last time you saw someone do elemental cleave? When is the last time you even saw a real melee build in this game?

Maybe in scrubcore these things are popular I don't know, but they sure as hell aren't viable at all in Invasion. I've never even seen a single melee build in Invasion. Half the bosses can't even be fought from melee range even if your damage could kill them because you would die in less than a second, and there is even a smoke mine boss which just completely screws melee, as well as the eye boss who blinds you. These mechanics are all faceroll for casters.

I honestly can't even fathom how this thread is being taken seriously at all.

For a very short while groundslam was FOTM, but that was mainly because piss easy to level as groundslam. Fbreakers got real popular too after BOR got released, but people quickly realized how hard fbreakers were in endgame scenarios. Ranged still rules supreme in endgame for various reasons. I'm strictly speaking from a HC standpoint here. In softcore, things are a little different, and builds start to open up in terms of viability.

Yeah in scrubcore I'm sure there are a plethora of non-viable HC builds that people think are awesome, those guys probably die frequently however.

I've died with my duelist about 3 times. All this was a server / internet fault (big lagg / desync, and standing in the center of a big group, or whatever). Oh, and yeah, I'm playing on standard (can't live with lagging on HC :( - but I'd like to play on it), and MOST of the characters are melee. I don't know what's going on HC leagues, like invasion.

Btw, let's see a higher DPS ranged character, like... lightning arrower. They can deal insanse damage. But can you solo the whole game with it? How can you deal with the flicker / leap mobs? What's about the smoke-mining?
You have to choose between tanky and damaging rule (of course, you can mix it), but you'll never have enough defense on a bower build. Reflect, hardhitters, flickers, leapers, etc. still pretty problematic.

The "positioning advantage" isn't always available. Let's see the mobs mentioned above. Try to run solo a self-found caster in flicker strikers (like in the ship graveyard) or something like that.

Currently, I have 30% run speed, lvl17 temp chain and chilling from hatred. There are a huge amount of mobs which are still running faster than me with temp chain and chilling. So you'll get hit with casters too. Yea, I know, use totems or whatever.

However, I agree with that the distance damaging is safer (mainly in HC leagues), but for example the discharger isn't so ranged. :)

Btw, you can make tank character. From passives, you can get 78% allres, huge amount of armor (just check the maraduer start area), 75% block and huge amount of life. You won't deal as much damage as a caster? Haha, you will. Use a facebreaker or a high dps weapon, and voila!

And you've written about "non-traditional" casters (flamebast, totemer, discharge). What's about FP, EK casters? Why can't I see any lightning witch casting spark and arc? Sometimes, I find stormcallers, but it's the "same" as flamebast. I want to run, shoot them fast, and run towards. :D

EDIT:
I still want to run as a caster, because I like it. According to diablo 2, sorcerers were pretty powerful. My lightsoso was able to clear the whole baal map in a 8p, but it was fragile. If a mob's coming close to me, just teleporting away and shoot it to the death.
Higher mobility could also help (just watch a high fcr soso in d2).

Btw, I'd be grateful if you could share your experience about end-game casters. What are they advantages / disadvantages, etc. Can you see FP/EK/lightning "traditional" casters? I can only speak about lvl70-75 characters, so I don't exactly know what's going on higher levels. Thanks!