Melee as a close combat skill -> Arena Problems

[Deathbane]

Well I almost had him this time… I have no idea why this particular Mob seems to be so difficult, but it shouldn’t cause me so much trouble at Wave 2… Those damn spikes that he sends out are a real pain, I tried to kite him but I have to admit, sometimes I don’t manage to turn around and throw hammers correctly, they miss… Yet again, I manage to get possibly two or three on target before I have to move again,

I use Ephemeral Stance due to my skills being mainly Physical or Void, whereas Juggernaut slows me down too much.

Hopefully, later today I can sort out a Video and post it so that I can receive some feedback, maybe I am just doing i all wrong, If I have time I will try to get it sorted out. I feel it would be very useful.

[Deathbane]

Quick Update: Somehow I managed to get to almost completing level 15. Just a few tweaks and points placed in other areas seem to have made some difference, I am still having to run around (kite) the end mob per wave for a long time though, possibly once I also manage to get to above level 35 it might become a lot easier.

[Deathbane]

@Sarno

I sincerely appreciate you getting involved this early - being willing to spend time giving us feedback, being willing to support us financially, and being active on our forums. I just wish you’d try to view what’s currently available in context of what else is planned.

Thanks, I am also hoping that the end game will be a massive success, and I will try to include positive feedback where possible or needed. Lots of things could change and skills tweaked, let’s hope that for once, you guys can produce a game that has MANY different character builds that are viable and able to sustain a high level of gameplay rather than the same-old-same-old cookie cutters.

Also thank you for your replies. I am still testing and tweaking the Char myself too.

[Deathbane]

And just to show that I am not all doom and gloom…

Whilst I was sorting out my char and tweaking stuff like equipment, I noticed something…

You see, I had just considered the Char graphic to be Uni-Sex, awaiting the final polish until…

I changed out her ( blush) Armor…

So now there we have it, due to some starnge reason, I have named a Female char ‘Deathbane’ the first one after a long line of successive male chars…

Must be a sign of the times or I am really becoming very very forgetful…

[warath]

Not sure what gear or skills you’re using with erasing strike, but I find it insanely powerful, my build crits for 30,000 with erasing strike. Crit strike dmg is very powerful stat. I haven’t played much in a month, but I just tested my build which is glass cannon with life steal build and its still viable in arena, cleared it with relative ease. I use vengence and erasing strike and put points into void knight for life steal and dmg then sentinel tree for crit chance and crit strike dmg. My character is lv71 so that probably helps alot with all those extra skill points.

There are always builds that are weak at low lv but really shine once you get all skill points assigned. I think erasing strike is one of those skills.

[Valen]

I really don’t know what everyone is complaining about. I have been playing summoner and fire mage exclusively till I read this post so I decided to try a solo melee toon for myself. Hit wave 100 on my first attempt before I died to some stupid void burst wombo combo, but that also happens on my other toons and actually a lot faster if i don’t pay attention.

You just need to pick a properly tanky build, grab a life leech weapon (or craft one, they are not rare at all) and max armor/def gear whereever you can find, then see if you can find good offensive prefixes. Sure the clearspeed was not tier 1, but thats because I had 0 gear and went 100% tanky with nodes to be on the save side. I could properly increase the dmg by 200-500% if I was willing to forgo some survival and actually pay attnetion to boss mechanics as opposed to mindlessly mashing Q-W 24/7. And it’s only boss clearpseed thats lackluster anyway, aoe you evaporate evrth in your way. It is actually a much smoother experience as a tanky melee getting hit for 5-40 dmg as opposed to 20-200 dmg like i get hit on my sorcerer the moment I fail kiting.

Y’all need to learn how to build defensively!

[Deathbane]

@Warath, thanks for the reply, Erasing Strike is also great when I am running through Chapter 1 and I have very little problems completing all the areas / Boss fights. Since the Arena won’t be part of the initial release it’s a mute point really.

@Valen, I hope you aren’t a snowflake because I don’t know how to reply nicely so I’ll have to reply bluntly and hope you won’t take offence:

Your post adds absolutely 0 value, all I read is ‘look at me and how good I am!’ and it would seem that you haven’t fully read or understood the previous posts.

Without ‘details’ I can’t learn or compare your post to my problem. What is a ‘tanky’ build in your opinion? ‘Just simply find the right gear’, can you post what gear you managed to find, and exactly which stats you have, also which Skills and passives did you choose? What level are you at?

I apologise for the amount of pictures but I don’t see how else to offer the information without writing too much.

Currently I also have 17% Life leech on my Sword (I only managed to achieve T2 because it Fractured… )

I managed to achieve Wave 15 (and was slightly unlucky at that) with this build, and doing a lot of wave boss kiting, which in my opinion is really bad for a Melee char or build, but I just can’t go toe-to-toe because the spikes or stun effects are too strong, I die too quickly, Rive doesn’t deal enough damage or hit often enough to make life-leech useful, and Erasing Strike even at 100% extra damage just doesn’t cut it for the mana it consumes.

If I use Shield Rush, deal damage, go through the mob, turn around, Shield rush, deal damage move through the mob (r & r) I can whittle the Wave boss down, the problem is moving away from the mob , I am unlucky with the spike attack or slow aura it ends in death.

Lastly, the whole point of this thread was to seek advice and to make the Devs aware of this problem. I have already re-skilled and that cost me some Skill points, I have had to change my equipment which cost me shards (and frustration to be honest) and if I could find a better sword and the shards to upgrade it I could probably do better.

Is that the Devs wish though, I am guessing your build is slightly different to mine, are some builds going to be more viable than others? Are we heading for @cookie-cutter builds?

The Arena is just a play area, however, it is also a great place to test builds and skill sets, it’s not just about how far I can go, reaching Wave 200 isn’t a milestone for me, it is all about how the game will be perceived, is there enough variety and depth to capture a new audience and grab new players? Does this game offer that something extra? Is the crafting experience a positive one, Can I fine tune my char to what I want and still be successful?

Please post more details and allow others to easier understand the differences and see what could be wrong or needs to be changed!

Sorry for the long post, unfortunately I don’t have a potato!

[Valen]

No offense taken. What I would go for in your case is Juggernaut stance (40% dmg reduction), and vengeance for multiplicatively 30% and 36% reduced dmg taken, which is a 73% dmg reduction for weaving in an additional skill occasionally, that also boosts your dmg by 100% for the next attack. The amount of life leech on your weapon is not important, every strike should instantly heal you back to full health even at 10-12%. Your block chance is very good, but your armor is too low. You want 700++. Forgo the added dmg and stun resistance node (it is not very good anyway until later in the game to dodge stunlock), max % armor and str instead and grab 5 points in Juggernaut for the bonus armor. Also having the sentinel passive helps.

It doesn’t really matter if you use erasing strike or shield rush, but in both cases you want mana efficiency nodes first and then pick the best damage nodes for your build. You don’t want to use rive or vengeance or any of those pesky fillers more than absolutely necessary, which is also why I find attack speed on melee builds to be rather lackluster. Also, I would specialise in either shield rush or erasing strike and master one of them, since each compete for a single resource and require different playstyles. Shield rush requires you to charge through mobs, use a filler, then charge again, rinse and repeat, whereas erasing strike you really want to group up mobs for a second, slaughter all of them in a quick combo and then deal with the bosses that remain standing buy just outleeching them.

As for stats: Just grab added armor and added health where your can. I personally find those the best defensive stats since we get so much bonus on any added armor and health helps both vs stuns and just to sponge attacks. Offensively crit chance and crit mult are, as usuall, king. Flat dmg or % increased phys dmg on weapons also goes a long way.
But I really think all your problems are coming from not using juggernaut stance and vengeance. Once you reduce your incoming damage by a good three quarters you will find the arena far less threatening.

[Deathbane]

@Vallen, firstly thanks for not being offended and secondly thanks for the more detailed reply.

Although my inner me says that it shouldn’t be like this, you are probably correct. I haven’t yet worked out how you get the 700+ Armor without forgoing a LOT of other stats, or having to drop in items that aren’t always BiS… like also having Minion dodge or something non useful.

Swapping out the Ephemeral Stance for Juggernaut seems the best idea for now. I really don’t want to go down a single path otherwise we start to have things that are obsolete and basically just place holders.

I am unsure of the underlying maths (theory crafting) between Might and Juggernaut because I haven’t worked out the value of +125 Armor versus 75% more Armor = the % added via the passive (currently at 28%) , I guess you could take both because it would negate the minus 10% of damage, depending on where the 10% was reduced, at source or actual value.

Include the Sentinel added flat 30% I don’t think the Dev design was for players to ALWAYS just simply take both, otherwise it would just be:

Steel Agis 10/10 + Might 15/15 and Juggernaut 5/5 (30 points) as standard.

I will also look into swapping out something for Vengeance, which if we are going for a ‘Tanky’ build would be the Hammer Throw and just use Shield Rush as a main attack with Rive/Erasing Strike to cover trash mob groups.

I am considering the long term strategy since the penalty for re-skilling is quite severe. It would be ideal to swap between Vengeance and Hammer Throw depending on the situation. Maybe a Boss fight with Vengeance and going through the chapters with Hammer throw.

I will try it out later and post the results.

(Maybe this thread could be moved to the Knight thread as it would serve as some good background knowledge for future newbies.) title: Sentinel Knight and the Arena build.

[Valen]

Well, as someone who has been playing ARPGS since D1 came out, I can say that there are mostly two melee approaches to ever be succesful in endgame:

1. Be so tanky that NOTHING can kill you and then scaleup your dmg from that point or
2. Be CC immune and just tanky enouh that nothing in the game can oneshot you with instant life leech so you can insant heal full after every dmg taken.
   Since CC immunity is not a thing yet option 1 is the only really viable one. The alternative is, that you make everything viable, but then anyone who actually goes to the lengths of playing a stacked build will steamroll all content and quickly grow bored. It is always a tradeoff.

Perfect balance is not achieveable and has never existed in the history of ARPGs and there are always with no exceptions skills that are inferior to others and not used except for people who want a special challenge, then there’s a huge patch and evrth is reshuffled. Here’s a screen of my current stats:

I simply stacked flat or % armor on all the gear I could find.

[Deathbane]

I see…

Hmm so the first Passive Tree has a choice of four, you can choose between relentless and Might.

I am still trying out the new build. I noticed you don’t have any Dodge , normally Dodge is better than Block because you don’t take any damage when you Dodge an attack.

It’s not so much Balance as available choices, the Arena probably skews that due to the nature of it, running the different Chapter One areas I would prefer to have a beefed out Hammer Throw since it enables you to melt enemies before they even get to you.

Let me see what impression the changes I have made have on my Arena score. I might even be able to pick up some good equipment.

Quick Edit: Having so much Dodge goes against Vengeance, since I might not take a hit within the two second cooldown, (I dodge too much) so I am going to try just Juggernaut and still use Hammer Throw, mainly because atm Rive deals so little damage that I am toe-to-toeing for 5minutes with the Wave Boss… tedious tedious… (and that is with throwing in a few Shield Rushes and Erasing Strikes when I have the mana etc.)

After just completing up to Wave 5, I am already bored, there is almost no challenge or dynamic, perhaps I should wait for the next patch update,