This might belong in the Barb thread, but it may apply to Monks as well but I cannot be sure having never played a Monk before. The reason I opened a seperate thread is because this is a very specific topic I wish to touch on, and in general threads things get derailed too quickly. I wish for this to be a thread of constructive opinions, and hopefully get a few insights along the way. All thoughts here are merely an opinion of mine. It's a long read for a forum post.

I'd like to discuss the gameplay of melee heroes, or rather the change in gameplay when getting to Inferno. And this will mostly apply for solo games where you do not have the benefit of other characters pulling aggro.

In Normal, Nightmare and even maybe Hell there are many builds you can utilize. Like Jay Wilson always said, it's all about viable builds. Inferno though, changes the game when it comes to which builds are viable. Rock in a weird build in Inferno and chances are Elites will melt you within 5 secs.



Why the sudden change in gameplay landscape?

- Diminishing returns on investment for items.
Every point of DPS you add will cost you more and more gold, or money. Going from a 400 DPS to 500 DPS weapon is going to cost you a lot less as compared to going from a 900 DPS to a 1000 DPS weapon. Soon enough, you will hit the hard limit where upgrades are a lot harder to come by and you're limited by either cost or game design (Currently for example there is no 1H with 2k DPS). Any wall you hit in Normal, you can overcome by item upgrades that allow you to break the "Kill time threshold". Same goes with defensive items.


- Minion HP exceeds "Kill time threshold".
First of all, let me clarify "Kill time threshold". Put simply, it is the time your character can spend hitting a specific target before your life bottoms out or you need to pull out of the fight. There are many things that can affect this threshold, such as :

- Minion Health
- Minion DPS
- Your DPS
- Your Health, Armor and Resistance
- Your skills (For healing or sustain)
- Sustain (LOH, Life regen)
- Etc.

As a melee character, you will take damage when you're dealing damage. This is a given. In a nutshell, when you engage a minion there are 2 outcomes to that straight fight. Either minion dies, or you pull out due to low life. The point where you start the engagement and you opt to pull out is your "Kill time threshold". This is the area I wish to touch on.




Kill minions within the threshold

Optimal solution. In other difficulty levels, this is possible by adding DPS. In Inferno however, it's not. Let's say you can straight up tank any Elites for 8 full seconds with the use of Ignore Pain and Revenge procs. Can you realistically kill before the 10 seconds is up? In the later Acts of Inferno, Elites rock anywhere between 2-3M HP. Champions up to 4M. Affixes such as Shielding makes it worse. Unless you're rocking a 200k DPS melee hero, you have to look for other alternatives.




Extending the threshold

There are 2 ways I can think of that extends the time you stay in battle, and will go through these :


Health Globes

The route utilized by all out offence melee chars. The theory behind this is you use Health Globes to sustain you through the fight to the point you kill the minion. Health Globes have a chance to drop when the minion hits half health or dies. The 'Sword to Ploughshires' rune gives you increased chance. Again, it all comes down to if you can have a high enough DPS to half life the minion and sustain that DPS through for the kill. The insane amount of HP Elites and Champions have in Inferno renders this build impossible in some scenarios.

Make it work : High DPS, enough defensive stats



Sustain

The most popular and expensive route. Sustain comes in the form of Life Leech, either from % of dmg done or Life On Hit. In Inferno currently, % of Dmg Done is near useless because in Inferno this is reduced to 20% efficiency. To put this into perspective, let's say you're going for 2k Life per hit. To hit 2k Life per hit using LOH is a lot easier than % of Dmg Done. Let's say you managed to obtain 10% Life Leech on Dmg Done, which is pretty high. Now, to get 2k life per hit in Inferno, you need to put out 100k DPS. Which is crazy high for a melee character without WotB.

Make it work : High LOH, enough defensive stats



So from this, there comes the deduction that LOH sustain is the only way to go in the later Acts of Inferno assuming you want to win every fight. Would like to see some thoughts on some non-LOH builds theoratically that may be viable for Act 4 Inferno.

kiting.

google/youtube "inferno ranged barb" and "inferno kiting chicken"

/thread

k?

If a melee char is going to build around kiting, why play a Barb when you could play a DH and be so much more effective at it?

I'm disappointed.

inferno is like a die-hard-fest
if you have decent gears can do some damages, the second thing you need worry is the repair cost.

in inferno, no decent gear = forget about playing

The other day I lost an auction on a 870dps sword that ended up going for 4mil+

Then I bid 1.5mil on a 845dps sword with similar stats and it ended up selling for 1mil.

I have been using this all this while and there are not much of an issue for me in act 2.

What's your DPS (Exclude WotB)? From the response I've been getting from Bnet 2H Barbs, the wall comes in end Act 3 and Act 4. The main issue for them is getting the Elites to half life quick enough with the increased Minion life pool.

Tried the double tornado build suggested in official d3 forum

Obamanotbad.jpg

This article is very wrong. The goal is not to stack LOH and outlast. Stacking LOH and mitigation is a brute force way that is both expensive, linear and high DR.

The goal is to have just ngam ngam enough LOH/mitigation and stack as much crit/crit damage. With that build, you have enough DPS to kill elites without sustain issues hitting the way. Crit/crit damage is exponential which is not subject to diminishing returns.

Perhaps I worded it a bit too blurry. I know the goal of stacking LOH is as a form of damage mitigation which buys you some time to kill the elites without kicking the bucket yourself, hence extending the window for yourself. And currently crit chance/crit damage is the way to go.

The reason for my post is that there only seems to be 2 ways to go for a more viable Inferno melee hero. Either by stacking sustain (Damage mitigation) or by health globe dependency for healing.

Edited : Help me theorize a potential build that can survive Inferno. Be creative! Screw cookie cutters.

This post has been edited by statikinetic: Jul 9 2012, 11:47 AM

get your gear in AH.

get all resist gear . good 1h weapon 8xx-1kxx dps

fyi i get 9xx dps 1h weapon at 500k gold only

camp at AH for good deal .

i have no problem in infreno . no die even fight ellite mob. + i am monk !

Both ways are bad. I mean some tank barbs here made it that way but it is because they brute force sustain/mitigation with 50m+ worth of gear. This is a bad mindset: oh i don't have enough dps so to kill off mobs so instead of having more dps i spend millions to stack sustain to buy more time to dps.

Watch the 20m video linked above, that's your answer. You will realize that with so-so mitigation and sustain, having 32k+ DPS is enough to kill off most A3 elite packs easily in one wrath. If you kill faster, you don't need to stack LOH. Very simple

The non-LOH, kill faster was the crux of my initial opinion. While it's simple enough to point out to someone a step by step guide on surviving with a specific build, I wanted to challenge some of the regulars here to think of a non-LOH build that may actually work.

Looking for people debate me on a theorized non-LOH Inferno ready build. Complete with skills to use. Let's start thinking for a change and theorize rather than be a constant flow of monkey see monkey do.

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Added on July 9, 2012, 12:39 pmI have no problems in early Acts in Inferno too. My AR is around 700-800.
My DPS is 45k without WotB. With WotB is goes to just over 100k. The total cost for all my current gear is under 2M gold.

I play with my ideals in mind. I have a set vision on what a barb is, and my itemization is built around that. While it would be easier to totally change it for a "double tornado survive Inferno no problemo" build, I wanted to rethink on how to make it work rather than reverting to a common cookie cutter.

This post has been edited by statikinetic: Jul 9 2012, 12:40 PM

My dps is around 19-20k without WOTB. Using sword and board.

why the f*** do you need to theorize a game/mechanic that is SOLELY based on gear?

if you need to talk about builds, FFS proceed to the pinned class threads

=edit=
oh and health globes? seriously? you seriously wanna build a shitty build that rely on health globe drops? you might as well start "theorizing" a thorn build that let the mobs kill themselves already.

This post has been edited by Quazacolt: Jul 9 2012, 01:53 PM

if u are talking about barb, why not focus on life leech rather than LOH..i do think life leech better on barb compare to LOH

actually...since Quaz talked bout thorn build, im actually interested to see one lol

i mean, gems have thorn attributes for weapon, and barb's passive increases thorn effectiveness by 50% iirc...LOL anyone?

Because in Inferno, Life Leech is cut to 20%. I wrote about it under 'sustain' in the initial post. For example to beat 2k LOH, assuming you get a massive 10% life leech :

DPS : 100k
Life Leech : 10%

Total life leeched from damage : 10k life

Inferno life leech rate (20%) : 10k * 20%

Total net life leech : 2k



As you can see, unless you're outputting massive amounts of damage consistently (Like over 100k DPS)...under current game mechanics LOH is more efficient.

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Added on July 9, 2012, 2:13 pmDamage dealt from Thorns is too low to make it anywhere close to main weapon damage for it to become viable, so there is not much to boost for your 50%. Boost a low number and it will still be low.

Might have been viable in D2 with the Paladin Thorn aura, but not here. If the old D2 Paladin was here, he'd just convert an Elite and slap Thorn aura on it and watch everything suicide on it.

This post has been edited by statikinetic: Jul 9 2012, 02:13 PM

i though barb have some kind of god mode..berserk? during that barb could regain lost hp
most of the time warcry could buff res and armor..so i think that would be enuf to take some hit..
not sure coz dont play barb yet

iirc ive got an armor that has 1k+ almost 2k thorn dmg. so im wondering, what if you get like say 7k thorn? with 50% mod, you get almost 10k or so, IF thorn dmg isint moblvl reductable, basically ur dealing like 10k+ FIXED dmg for every hit that mob hits u, and with the addition of dmg reflective skill+loh = win? trololol theory btw

While I don't see it coming anywhere close to being effective in Inferno, I do see the potential in trolling Normal mode.

10k Thorns damage in Normal. Just walk around picking up loot as everything just dies off you. Oh, did we just come up with a potential bot setup?

Why 2000 LOH? How did you come up with this number?

lul maybe, but yeah, i mean with shittons of HP and reduction AND still dealing 10k+ dmg doing nothin? of course u can spam revenge once a while, but dayum lol, someone try it out pls lololol

you wanted a non cookie cutter build no? ;D

It's for arguments sake that I used a nice round number to show efficiency between LOH and % life leech. It would be the same if I used numbers like 1476 LOH, but that would result in a little more work in calculation. In the end, it is just to highlight the difference in efficiency.

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Added on July 9, 2012, 2:32 pmFor Inferno lol.

But yes, if you want to try it out I suggest you stack your Thorns damage with massive life regen. Both stats come very cheaply. That way in Normal, you don't even need to bother with Revenge.

This post has been edited by statikinetic: Jul 9 2012, 02:32 PM

Yeah but who runs with 2000 LOH.

Even top tank barb streamers run at 800.

im thinking more like max "thorn" "AR" and "Vit" trololol

agree...even with gem socketed into weapon it would be hard to reach more than 1000 LOH without being a millionaire..
barb depend on massive damage compare to monk that focus on rapid hit...life leech for barb n LOH for monk...dunno how to explain so that u get my message...

I understand what you're saying bro.

Monks hit faster, so your LOH will scale off additional hits. Barbs stacking damage will hit harder, so more damage gets converted into life. Will probably need to spend a bit to test out which is viable.

i thought in inferno, life leech percentage is reduced or something?

It is.
You only get 20% of what you're would normally get in Normal.

If they ever do decide to release the nerf for melee chars, I'd be happy. I theorize it's there to prevent high DPS classes (DH and Wiz) from doing 200k DPS and being able to tank everything because of the massive leech.

This post has been edited by statikinetic: Jul 9 2012, 03:15 PM

heard about the scaling but i do think barb can utilize life leach better than LOH..need to try barb..for monk i cnfm LOH is more effective

and here i come to stray the topic - my DH does melee (close quarters combat) in Inferno.

approx ~900 LOH
approx ~900 life regen person
above 700+ res on all elements

Can vs Elites in Act I just standing there for the most part.

*previously had 1k thorn and 5k+ health globe but it's no more then since I modified the build for better resist, hp and dps.

-----------

wth!??! why i build melee style DH? cos i lz to do kiting and run around lor. furthermore there are places that are so cramped that running is impossible, and not without running into more hostiles.

then also there's the issue of facing vortex + waller / jailer + desecrator / plague / molten whatever nonsense so being a DH with resist + LOH + life regen makes a lot of difference when it comes to survival.

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Jul 15 2017, 09:18 AM

What's the problem being 2k LoH? I now dual wield can do 1.8k LoH (959LoH offhand + 558LoH main hand + 350LoH Helm)

With monk I think it works best with pre-high armor so that I can stack myself Mantra of Healing with resist. Tried exchange palm with Magda act 2 my 20k health hardly drop below 1/2 and most of the time it is just hovering at 3/4. Haven't got time to roll to belial yet but I think it is workable. There is a youtube posted by Vinluv indicating if you had enough stats having a good LoH means you can survive even with facing Ghom's fart. Just stand there and whack. Occasionally press the healing button and "Oh shit" Serenity button if it drops drastically.

ehh ok mah. my 900 LOH acquired without having to be millionaire. my char no money wan.

and if i put my gem into the said weapon, i could have 1k+ LOH but i didn't because i use green gem to get +60% crit damage instead.

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Added on July 9, 2012, 3:25 pmahah, that's what I do when my monk health is low. serenity = 3 seconds, then LOH + other buff to heal heal heal regen SP whatever else!

btw what punch you use? i use the 100-fistowatsever one.

No mention about the melee wizard? I don't have any problem solo act3 inferno, and all my friends love to have me to join co-op game coz I can do perma nova+ds, make thing more easier at inferno.

Deadly Reach + Foresight 18% dmg 30sec

LoH still better until your barb is dealing dmg in the 6 digits or doing massive aoe.

also, barb's own life leeching skills are based mostly on your maximum hp, and that isn't affected by inferno penalty AFAIK

if thats the case, is it a different modifier? or it stacks with equip life leech? coz Bloodlust is like 3% lol

yup agree..

seriously.... no.

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Added on July 9, 2012, 4:41 pmfrenzy and/or weapons master.

barbs can dual wield too.

FFS monks that dont know jack bout barb just go ask out/read up barb thread, like wise for barbs not knowing jack about monks.

god this thread is painful.

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Added on July 9, 2012, 4:43 pmand now we get melee DH, so... painful....

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Added on July 9, 2012, 4:48 pmdoesnt stack. its based on your max hp. i am talking about barb's life leeching skills (eg: blood thirst, revenge with life leeching rune etc)

This post has been edited by Quazacolt: Jul 9 2012, 04:48 PM

Kung Fu Barb Diablo run on Normal tonight. No weapons, no shield. Punch all the way!

Ive seen some pure tank dh with crazy thorn build.(iirc his thorn is about 13k, and hes still stacking for more @_@)
Basically he just stand still, put setry and loh with caltrops, and the rare occasion against ranged use grenades.

His weakness are knockbacks and fear as they force him away from his sentry haha.

As far as loh skill goes, dh is the most imba with caltrops proccing every 1/2 sec I think.
Dh also have grenade skill which have loh multiplier by 3.

teach me, master.

Melee Dh painful? So far it's fun to play lor. Stand there spam caltrops and lightning balls. Pew pew pew until run out of hatred. If manage to M4D on high HP target then hatred lasts longer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...Or9_gwk#t=3117s

Jay Wilson:"So why? Why Viable over optimal? Why are we even talking about this? So, Diablo has tons and tons of customization, we did the math on the new skill systems with the combination of passives and runes and we threw a crazy number out, uh, a few years back like 69 Billion, we're really more in the area of 2.8 Trillion- Trillion? Trillion. [2.8] Trillion builds. So that's a lot of builds. Um, and why? Why so many builds? Because customization is self expression, and if you have to build a character to be perfectly optimized, that's not really going to allow you to customize that character. So our job is to make sure that, yeah, that, you know, while there might be some best builds there's tons and tons of viable ones. It's totally okay for there to be best builds, it's totally okay for someone to go 'you know what, I made this Barbarian and he's got like 0.5% more damage than any other build you can possibly make.' And you know what, there's nothing wrong with that...unless you can't...unless that number becomes 'oh this, this Barbarian's like 50% more powerful.' So if we can get enough builds into that range of 'these are all viable, they can play at the max level.' It means you can play the character you want to play at max level and not be beholding anyone. So what we say is, go out, have fun, be free and make the Diablo character you want to make."


This excerpt from Jay Wilson before D3 was released sums it up well. How many builds are we looking at that are actually viable at max level (Inferno)? Where are our tonnes of viable builds?

This post has been edited by statikinetic: Jul 10 2012, 12:18 AM

my melee DH just beat the Inferno mode butcher, solo. i ish happy. later I brought another barb who just reach level 60 go hit. also none died. me rikes me melee DH.

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Jul 15 2017, 09:17 AM

well my build can do both.

initially i was just doing DPS and running around exactly like what you mentioned. I hit until his likfe is ||||| <=-- this amount left (about 5%) and then I died due to fire fire fire. I got 700+ fire resist but amidst the confusion i ter-KO.

then I got tired of trying la, my NV x5 also gone already. (took time to study him, and my character) - I really don't wish to spend more money just to defeat butcher.

it's not that one has to be melee to fight butcher, it just so happen build is LOH + Lregen based so I used it to my advantage.

will try Ghom. hehe.

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Added on July 10, 2012, 11:41 amproblem is i haven't reach Act III.

solo is easier than coop no matter how you slice it. even AFTER coop dmg nerf.

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Added on July 10, 2012, 12:10 pmgood luck man, assuming you reach act 3 someday

This post has been edited by Quazacolt: Jul 10 2012, 12:10 PM

thanks I haven't been getting to play Act I / II because my previous builds suck.

my previous builds suck so bad, I can't even whack Elites properly. end up spending time on Act III Hell Mode.

you want me to break it to you that melee DH's aren't exactly the best of builds?

i mean, sure, melee wiz works, but thats cuz they have retarded imba skill scaling that exceeds even barbs/monks, which i find funny.

ehh. I'm playing this game for fun la. everyone go "best build" direction then difficult already. I just want to enjoy the game, it may not be the best build but I just like to see how far I can go with it.

+1. FUN..is the goal...

and that is a wrap Sir. I am also trying to build a mily DH. Stacking AR/LOH and shield with 1x cross bow. I trying to get about 1K LOH. So far can get about 700..tried Act 1..boleh pakai. Act 2...errr..need to put more

and that's fine too.

hey, it actually proves jay wilson's statement on viable builds in d3! LOL!

I bought my monk friend some weapon upgrades, but he tossed them aside because he will only use fists

just sold some stuff on AH for 1.7m. I just don't remember what it was, Discordant Scourge was the name. Darn AH for not letting me remember what the item. hehe.

Melee inferno viability = only as far as early Act 3 if you only rely on drops and budget items from AH. Tanking in Act 3 is extremely painful, weakest mobs hit me for 3k upwards, some mobs hit me for 10k+, and I have 1k+ resists and 9.5k armor. I can clear Act 2 with full stack NV easily, but not act 3.

This post has been edited by gaeria84: Jul 14 2012, 02:03 PM