📜 The Melee Guide

Melee heroes are the frontline fighters, relying on close combat and durability to clear waves. Wave clear (AoE) is the key to surviving and progressing efficiently.

Example Melee build:

‣ Early Game

Start by buying Sticks (up to two) and a Wand upgrade (one recommended) to restore health and mana after kills.

Orb of Venom should always be purchased and upgraded to Orb of Corrosion - you can even use both to deal more AoE damage over time. Blood Grenades are also a solid early tool for wave clearing.

Your first core item should be Battle Fury, as it provides strong wave-clearing potential via cleave. After that, Boots of Agility are highly recommended for better stats and attack speed, with an active ability that grants 80 armor, 25% movement speed, and 25% evasion for 6 seconds - making them one of the best early items for melee heroes.

For survivability, Morbid Mask offers essential lifesteal and can later be upgraded as needed.

Vanguard might be a good early choice to block incoming melee attacks and can be later upgraded to Ataraxia.

‣ Mid Game

Once you’re capable of dealing AoE damage via cleave and sustaining yourself, focus purely on increasing your damage output. For physical builds, Desolator is essential - upgrade it to its maximum level as soon as possible to start building stacks.

Vladmir’s Cuirass and Echo Sabre (later into Ataraxia) are also strong mid game choices.

Damage (Desolator) goes hand in hand with critical hits, depending on your situation, you can buy Crystalys or even Daedalus to add critical hits to your attacks, it will increase your speed of clearing incoming waves.

If you need additional AoE, Mjollnir's chain lightning can be considered - but it requires high attack speed and proper use of its active ability (on yourself).

You can also upgrade your Battle Fury to War Fury for higher cleave and it's passive.

Ataraxia offers not only stat bonuses, but does have an AoE stun (active ability) and chance to bash. It can also block received melee attacks, making you way more durable.

Mid to late game, Butterfly can be a good choice but do not rush this item, it's evasion will give an advantage, but the item itself won't do that much. Can be upgraded to Hallowed Durandal.

‣ Late Game

Get Vladmir's Cuirass, especially for melee, it offers great aura bonuses like bonus damage, lifesteal, attack speed and armor.

As the game progresses, consider Hallowed Durandal if you’ve built into critical damage with Crystalys/Daedalus, or (Exalted) Heaven’s Halberd for evasion, health regeneration, and status resistance.

Alternatively, True Muramasa provides counterattacks based on hits received, but don't go well with evasion.

Rhyzik's Eye scales with your main attribute and slows enemies, can be used on some builds as well.

Situational items include Elysian Core for cooldown reduction and Exalted Armlet of Mordiggian for additional damage. If purchased, don't forget to upgrade your Mjollnir to Exalted, an Exalted Mjollnir can proc Elysian Core on its chain attacks!

Other optional items (for various builds)

Ichor Blade adds a chance to deal pure damage to your attacks.

Exalted Disperser is good for heroes who use illusions, attacks burn mana and deal additional damage.

Dredged Trident grants a high critical damage chance and ensures all attacks hit their target.

Moon Shards can be used to increase your attack speed at the later stage of the game, do not rush these if you don't know what you are doing.

Willful Resonance turns a percentage of your total damage into AoE magical damage.

Celestial Slayer is an optional item that offers some interesting stats and enemy debuffs, try for your own experimenting.