Melee is a build that hits with melee weapons, ranged is a build that hits with ranged weapons, and casters stand aside as cast speed/CDR users. I would sometimes call CT a melee caster, with “melee” meaning that it facetanks most of the time, but I wouldn’t call it a melee build to avoid confusion. There are also hybrids like Blade Arc/Clean Sweep build being more of a caster than a melee, and ABB+TSS spellbreakers could be defined as being more ranged or more caster depending on playstyle. Usually I don’t put them in any cathegory, to avoid a headache of terminology hell you’re indulging yourself into. If anything, I separate casters on those that need to stand still and are closer to ranged (or melee, in case of CT) builds, and those that could kite freely; that’s more important in my books than arbitrarily calling some casters melee or ranged.
1- PRM is a Ranged Caster, IE, a Caster that is At Range. Compared to a Melee Caster, that is at Melee distance, like CT, which is indeed forced to be at pretty much Melee range.
2-Wouldn’t know, I hate Nightblade. I would point out, though, that Shadow Strike as a primary burst damage skill is indeed a thing, though not a very common thing.
3- Again, CT ruins that argument. As do some of the granted skills that seem to be spells.
5- Why are you assuming there’s no way for a Melee Range Caster to exist? Melee only refers to distance from the enemy, not actually using a weapon. Ranged is the same, it only indicates being at range. If you use range-defining terms to define entire builds you will eventually cause confusion.
Yea sure pretty much = same and CT is melee, tell me more plz.
P.S. Im not assuming anything learn the differences.
CT is often hit by melee range attacks from enemies. CT can technically hit from just outside the area that you could cause a melee attack and hit those same enemies. So technically, CT can stand a few pixels further than a melee attacker, but nowhere near as far away as an ACTUAL At Range character.
So it’s not, in any way shape or form, ranged…But technically, it has a tiny, tiny bit more range then a melee attacker. So “pretty much” melee, as in, functionally the same, even though there is a small, small difference that people could get technical and pedantic about.
Make you feel better now?
Yea Im technical about you guys calling ~6 m radius spell melee jez…
If you stand 5 to 6M away from enemies at all times, you aren’t going to hit very many of them. As CT is a 360% AOE. To make the most of the skills damage you absolutely have to be in Melee range. So saying it isn’t a melee caster is asinine.
Not to mention you are also benefitting from Wrath of Agrivix and Flame Torrent by staying in melee range. You would be a moron to play CT at a full 6m away from enemies.
JoV: I’m not sure why you are getting so aggressive about this. You seem to be coming at this from the stance that your view is fact. The upshot of all the posts on this clearly shows that there are many views, so when you say:
“5. I wrote earlier what are distinct differences between casters and melee.”
Well… you wrote your opinion. And, sadly, you wrote it as if it’s fact.
And re skills like ABB - do they really have a range? Or is it that you hit something at melee range and there’s a 3m radius of blades as a result of that melee hit? That’s very different from being able to hit something at 3m range.
NB I’m not sure because I never used it, but it reads that way to my mind.
And in any case - the builds often use SS to leap in and then use ABB, which means they are at melee range, whatever ABB or other skill might (or might not) be able to do.
I’m a complete noob when it comes to GD, but I’m very experienced in ARPGs in general, so - it would be good if we can have a calm and reasoned discussion. If you’re right then that will become clear in due course - if you make your case via the usual logical / reasoned argument.
Nothing to add, that’s how builds are classified here
The problem with that is that it fails to classify all builds accurately. If, and I’ll keep using CT as an example, because it’s a good example…If I call CT a Caster build, and DEE a Caster build…Well, that’s two very different playstyles, isn’t it? If you didn’t know CT was Melee and DEE was Ranged, well, you’d be stunned by the weird over-focus on tankiness that CT builds usually have.
Generally, just saying “Caster” or “Attacker” doesn’t cover it all. Nobody seems to have problems specifying when it’s a Dual Wield build…What’s the harm in adding a single extra word, for the sake of clarity? Would it really kill you to look at your builds, and say Ranged/Melee, Attacker/Caster?
+1 Nothing to add.
To my understanding we are not talking about how you can maximize efficiency of something, but what are the differences and differences are clear.
Red text. Im/was trying to have calm and reasonable discussion thus Im not and didn’t called anyone else aggressive, technical, etc.
You are the one doing that and keep pointing things that are simple wrong as facts.
Again to my understanding we are not talking here about play stiles but about general differences between melee and casters.
The usual ARPG terminology “melee”, “ranged” and “casters” makes little sense in Grim Dawn:
Melee is supposed to be about all the fighting styles performed by “normal” gear, like swords, armors, knives etc. Anything that enable you to attack the guy right in front of you, and requiring nothing but equipping the item, attacking directly and eventually getting hit in return.
Ranged is supposed to be about all projectiles weapons, like guns, bows etc, requiring ammunitions, but letting you attack from a range, which generally let you avoid most hits.
And casters mean anything related with abilities, powers acquired by the character, away from what he directly holds in his hands. The casters are also supposed to do different damages than the melee/ranged characters: fire, water, ice etc, as opposite to concussion, slicing, piercing etc.
But in Grim Dawn, nothing of this makes any sense:
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You can have a full melee build mainly based on casters damages: elemental damage on a melee weapon/attack, %physical converted to whatever “magical” etc
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Ranged builds consume no ammos. You can fire at will with guns and crossbows exactly like you attack with a sword. No problem. Ok.
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The damage types hardly relates with the reality of the weapons: you have swords but no slicing damage, you have piercing damage but no spears, you have “normal” weapons like knives, swords etc doing somehow elemental damages, or even “weird” damage types like “vitality”, which really has very little sense or substance by itself (if vitality damage means losing the vitality power of a living creature, it should be related to bleeding or trauma, or even just physical damage), or poison and acid, which are considered the same kind of attack while they are completely different damage types.
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The damage conversion feature basically makes completely irrelevant the old character type system. Your sword can mainly do fire or chaos damage and your gun can mainly do acid or cold damage. So where is your melee? Where is your ranged? Where is your caster?
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And anyway most fights are too messy to really be able to consider your characters “ranged”, meaning “away from the fight”: all characters end up being “melee” one way or another, by the fact that they will take damage anyway and that they will have to manage their protection/defense/survivability. In most other games, ranged characters, like in most FPS, can clearly identify and avoid most attacks, and their survivability is mainly based on their mobility and reflexes, but this does not work in Grim Dawn: you have to look after your resistances regardless of your build, and you will take damage and eventually die even if you haven’t identified any attacks against you. The worst in Grim Dawn is probably the “Reflective” shit, which enables a monster to basically kill you even without needing to 1) reach you, 2) or even just to attack you or 3) or even, even, just to look at you. This is the level absolute zero of the challenge management in a video game.
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Anybody can also equip whatever gear granting a new skill. So you have now your pure melee build who can throw fireballs, unleash lightning or chaos waves or whatever. So where is your usual knight/barbarian/whatever melee build? Give that big sword to that caster and that amulet to that fighter. They will make good use of them. Your caster is not supposed to have ever wielded swords in his life? No problem, he now has 20K DPS with that one. Your good old fighter has no idea how summoning rituals may work? Just give him that amulet and he will now pop deamons all over the place. Since the items requirements are based on attributes which are shared over all the classes, anybody can basically equip anything to some extend.
Any build with less than 6K health points and 1 resistance below 60% is basically dead in ultimate difficulty, regardless of how careful you try to manage the fights. It is all about survivability first. The main challenge of the game is to reach the 60%+ resistance graal in those resistances so hard to get in the game (piercing, eather and chaos, and to a lesser extend poison and vitality). It does not matter if you try to play melee or ranged or whatever, as long as you have not accomplished that first, your type is basically “dead”.
Melee/Ranged/Casters is irrelevant in Grim Dawn. You can do acid or physical damage against a monster with no physical substance (ghosts), you can do vitality damage which makes no sense whatsoever, and against undead creatures, which are supposed to have no vitality, you can sit in your own napalm burning the whole place and shoot bullets with your firearms the whole game without getting and reloading any clips.
All builds in Grim Dawn are melee first. If this was different, your end-game “ranged” and “casters” builds would not wear those warriors pieces of armor and you would not have to focus that much your attribute points into physical. Show me your end-game true “caster” or “ranged” with 0 attribute points into physical, 0 melee-oriented items and 0 deaths.
Most monsters are “melee” type hence the fact that all builds have to be resistant to melee attack, it doesn’t change the fact that if you use a rifle your build is considered as “ranged” and if you rely on casting speed and you don’t use any weapon to actually hit the monsters, your build is still considered as a “caster”.
Melee/Ranged/Casters is irrelevant in Grim Dawn. You can do acid or physical damage against a monster with no physical substance (ghosts), you can do vitality damage which makes no sense whatsoever, and against undead creatures, which are supposed to have no vitality, you can sit in your own napalm burning the whole place and shoot bullets with your firearms the whole game without getting and reloading any clips.
I don’t know what is the relationship between damage types and builds types …
This maybe http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48783? Tho I have more than few deaths on it, but that’s only cuz I was pushing to facetank MQ with it 
Tho you have point in investing attribute points into phys.
Not to many people here they’re not. YOu seem to believe that your view is fact, you are not opening your mind to the possibility that your view may be wrong, and it probably is, as evidenced below…
That’s rather a schoolboy debating tactic - when you are accused of something, simply accuse the other people of the same thing. Sigh. The posts speak for themselves - the only aggression I’ve seen has been from yourself I’m afraid.
This is where I shake my head. The whole point of this discussion is that no-one but you is saying that the distinction is between melee and casters. Most people who have commented so far believe that’s not sufficient or useful - many believe that a more useful distinction would be to have the distance the toon operates from its target as being melee vs ranged and then also between caster and… something else. But you don’t seem to want to discuss this, you just discuss in terms of melee vs caster all the time.
Your own ‘point’ makes the opposite point - if CT and DEE are ‘very different playstyles’, then people here are saying that it would be useful if they have a different description / classification. Calling them both ‘casters’ doesn’t really help someone understand the playstyle. Something that has a small range is as near melee as makes no practical difference - do I really care if I’m 0.5 yards away or 1 yard away? No - I care if I’m 0.5 yards or if I can be 10 yards away doing damage and CCing the hell out of a screenful of mobs though.
Ok Im a schoolboy, but at least can read skill description.
Gl HF 