Ranged vs Melee classes

[LucianDK]

Ive recently returned to Diablo 3 after hearing of the upcomming Reaper of Souls expack, having worked a Wizard to 60.

But after seeing how the game have changed, Ive started to question how melee classes is able to cope with the truly massive overflow of ground effects going on. Screen filled with lava and poison pools, easilly missed ice bombs and the arcane sentries.

As a ranged I am usually able to get away from bad stuff, but how are meleers suppose to cope with the overload? As Im asking myself if it really will be worth rolling a crusader and trying to perform in close range with all the stuff trying to melt your feet. Doubly so when Im reading that Crusaders does not have the -30% damage reduction of Monks and Barbarians.

 

[Valeli]

Crusaders have better shields though, and I'm sure they have abilities that will help make them respectably tough when taking damage regardless of not having the -30% boost. I also feel like they're not entirely a melee character though, despite the obvious reasons to associate them as such.

But barbarians and monks have plenty of ways to get out of binds, and travel quickly, etc. Also worth noting, while it's hard to get out of all of the poison pools etc, they also do significantly less damage to you now. I mean, my wizard is set up (basically) as a close range character. I haven't done high end torment or anything with it yet, but it basically works just fine.

 

[Dakkas]

Yeah, damage has been toned down so you almost never see one-shots. I was playing in Torment 2 on my Barb and WWing through Desecration, Poison and Molten and was only taking the damage that old Molten was doing (or something to that affect)

 

[Disciple of Erebos]

I'm not a Monk or a Barb specialist, but I'm pretty sure that both are in a good place in D3 right now. With attack speed and LoH, the Monk can stay alive in a lot of situations; my friend has about 2000 LoH (700 each on a Thunderfury and a Fulminator, and a bit on rings and amulet), and he basically never dies. The Monk also has Serenity, which is 3 seconds of invulnerability to damage and CC, along with Seven Sided Strike, during which you are untargetable and do not take damage. This, combined with the innate damage resistance, makes the Monk good enough for staying alive.

Meanwhile, I feel that the new patch has been good for the Barb in terms of survivability options. Since the Barb runs on Strength, he will automatically have a ton of armor, since strength gives you armor. In addition, since the new diamond gem gives allres, the Barb can work up his resistances quite easily as well. As a result, I feel that the Barb is very easy to make tanky now.

Combined with the general lessening of incoming damage, I feel that it should not be particularly hard for melee characters to stay alive. I believe that the reason the Crusader doesn't have the benefit is because he feels more like a 'holy caster' class than a melee attacker. However, as already mentioned, he gets special shields with high armor, and since he is a strength class his armor will already be high. On top of that, he gets the same benefit from diamonds as other classes, but he has a few passives geared towards making him tanky as well.

 

[Steven Hazani]

Standing on a turret hurts, standing on a Bomberman cross hurts, standing in Fire Chains hurts. The rest of the stuff you should never get hit by or doesn't really hurt at all (worth mentioning though, Frozen bombs are basically Dark Berserker swings that get spammed and well.... popsicle you, if for some reason you do get stuck in them expect the resulting chain of hits to take off at least half in an instant).