Ranged vs Melee

[Mathalis]

Its just my first impression, but ranged, especially magic, seems way, way easier to play with than melee. Is it just me or is magic the way to go? I love paladin builds, but fights just seem 1000% easier in harder difficulty as ranged.

[Xeirus]

I think all options are viable, but everything will depend on how much you've upgraded your weapon/armor. You're always going to want to use some magic. The game really wants you to have talents from other trees.

You can dual-wield almost anything in the game, so I would recommend to experiment.
I'm on my second playthrough now, but my first was all 2 handed hammers, lots of stun.

[heka515]

Hi,
I currently played extensively different playtrough with different builds : pure melee, pure ranged, pure magic and several hybrids.

All are fun, but pure types are the most efficient in Path of the Damned from my point of view. And among the pure types, melee is the best one : it heal like hell, especially with double daggers (double swords works but not as good), it deals a tremendous amount of damage and it is the only build that i've found that can face tank/damage everything in the game, to the point of asking very very few questions before just jumping into a fight and just wrecking everything, all bosses included.

Here is a build to start with melee : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYoEj1u91RU

[Nightslaver]

Originally posted by Xeirus:

The game really wants you to have talents from other trees.

Sorry, but it's literally only wrong.
You can play on highest difficulty builds that only use a single skill tree.
It's absolutely feasible.

So there is no truly "the game want this" of use multiple skill trees in a build. ;-)

Originally posted by Mathalis:

Its just my first impression, but ranged, especially magic, seems way, way easier to play with than melee. Is it just me or is magic the way to go? I love paladin builds, but fights just seem 1000% easier in harder difficulty as ranged.

First couple of hours on "path of damned" difficulty (especially in the prologue), yes, range definitely a little bit easier as melee combat, so in first 4 to 6 hours (but doable).
After it its only a question of your equip and pick the right skills and attributes, so thats melee and range at a same level of feasibility on highest difficulty.

[Mathalis]

Thanks guys. Like I said, first impression was its way easier to freeze and stay away, but if melee pulls out I might push for a melee build first.

[LazyJoeBeard]

Melee seems very lacking in every video and stream I watched while the magic looked interesting and ranged looks... well like ranged so not bad but nothing special. I would go magic.

[Nightslaver]

Originally posted by LazyJoeBeard:

Melee seems very lacking in every video and stream I watched while the magic looked interesting and ranged looks... well like ranged so not bad but nothing special. I would go magic.

Nothing is lacking with melee, but it is as it ever is, in every single game, between melee and magic / range.

The performance of melee scales more significant with your equip quality as magic and range attacks, which more scales with the effective / high level and only subtle with equipment quality.

But overall melee scales fine in Avowed, whether if you playing a pure fight skilltree build with two-hand weapon, or combined build with one-handed weapon and spell support, or the fist swinging monk-dodge-master high dmg glascanon.

[Xeirus]

Originally posted by Nightslaver:

Originally posted by LazyJoeBeard:

Melee seems very lacking in every video and stream I watched while the magic looked interesting and ranged looks... well like ranged so not bad but nothing special. I would go magic.

Nothing is lacking with melee, but it is as it ever is, in every single game, between melee and magic / range.

The performance of melee scales more significant with your equip quality as magic and range attacks, which more scales with the effective / high level and only subtle with equipment quality.

But overall melee scales fine in Avowed, whether if you playing a pure fight skilltree build with two-hand weapon, or combined build with one-handed weapon and spell support, or the fist swinging monk-dodge-master high dmg glascanon.

All he does is post negative stuff.

[Xeirus]

Originally posted by Nightslaver:

Originally posted by Xeirus:

The game really wants you to have talents from other trees.

Sorry, but it's literally only wrong.
You can play on highest difficulty builds that only use a single skill tree.
It's absolutely feasible.

So there is no truly "the game want this" of use multiple skill trees in a build. ;-)

The game gives you a ton of skill points. The devs want to encourage you to experiment. That’s one of the major points of their combat system.

I didn’t say you have to, just that it’s encouraged. Of course it’s feasible, but that wasn’t the question.

[Nightslaver]

Originally posted by Xeirus:

The game gives you a ton of skill points. The devs want to encourage you to experiment. That’s one of the major points of their combat system.

"A ton of skill points", not truly and not so lush to make really well rounded builds befor the last patch (a few days earlier), which gives you 6 skillpoints more as before the patch.

Also it is a question of your choices on 4 major story points if you get 4 more or 4 less skill points.

So overall, before the patch 29, respectively maximum 33 skillpoints (if you put the right choices) was really not nearly an "enormus" number of skillpoint, in higher difficuliys, where enemys has much more dmg ressistence, hp and dmg, so you must more invest in single skills (specilise) to be effective.
After the last patch surly, 35 points respectively 39 in maximum, are a solid number of skillpoints for numerus builds.

[LazyJoeBeard]

Originally posted by Xeirus:

Originally posted by Nightslaver:

Nothing is lacking with melee, but it is as it ever is, in every single game, between melee and magic / range.

The performance of melee scales more significant with your equip quality as magic and range attacks, which more scales with the effective / high level and only subtle with equipment quality.

But overall melee scales fine in Avowed, whether if you playing a pure fight skilltree build with two-hand weapon, or combined build with one-handed weapon and spell support, or the fist swinging monk-dodge-master high dmg glascanon.

All he does is post negative stuff.

All I do is post negative stuff? I have said many times that the magic looks good and quite a few times I have posts that I am happy people are enjoying the game... The most negative thing I have said is the game is mid and or the combat seems lacking to me...

[LazyJoeBeard]

Originally posted by Nightslaver:

Originally posted by LazyJoeBeard:

Melee seems very lacking in every video and stream I watched while the magic looked interesting and ranged looks... well like ranged so not bad but nothing special. I would go magic.

Nothing is lacking with melee, but it is as it ever is, in every single game, between melee and magic / range.

The performance of melee scales more significant with your equip quality as magic and range attacks, which more scales with the effective / high level and only subtle with equipment quality.

But overall melee scales fine in Avowed, whether if you playing a pure fight skilltree build with two-hand weapon, or combined build with one-handed weapon and spell support, or the fist swinging monk-dodge-master high dmg glascanon.

I find a lot lacking with it, its seems to me to be boring, uninspired and does nothing special. Its why I say the combat is mid, its about on par with skyrims melee and in my opinion the combat in skyrim is its weakest point. The magic looks good in the game and its hard to make ranged any better then common so I would say the ranged is ok but all in all I think the melee is lacking quite a lot.

[Lughdog]

I've been mixing weapon element proc % with the associated aura spell, for example the axe with frost dmg/proc and the frost aura to freeze people really fast and provide crowd control around me. Ontop of that I stack crit damage multiplier and other elemental effects so they're burning at the same time or shocked.

[Grimperson]

I did a melee only playthrough and had no issues, but just like in any situation ever, its easier to shoot a guy than to chase him down with a stick. Effectiveness is not the point of playing a single player rpg unless you're doing somekinda challenge. This game currently doesn't have any challenge modes, and difficulty is pretty casual even on path of the damned. Do what's fun, all strats seem viable enough. I'm currently mid wand/magic run and having much less fun than melee only, so I will probably switch to pewpew/stealth

[rustdwarf]

Originally posted by Mathalis:

Its just my first impression, but ranged, especially magic, seems way, way easier to play with than melee. Is it just me or is magic the way to go? I love paladin builds, but fights just seem 1000% easier in harder difficulty as ranged.

Doing a 2H melee build with some magic doing fine on PotD. In fact I would like to see PotD difficulty bumped up a bit.

And it's super fun, because you have to think quick on your feet and utilize a wider range of tools. I really didn't play enough with ranged options but I'd imagine staying far away and doing potshots while your companions tank is not as fun.

[Vito]

I found pistols and arquebuses to be the best
magic only good for aoe
melee is bad