Talking balance cuz I'm bored

[ElBozo]

Before the change, melee characters would have had to take 1-2 extra defensive skills/passives just to keep up with the survivability that the ranged characters get by just not being in range of enemy attacks. Giving melee characters extra defense is just leveling the playing field.

Source please. No, really, i'm completely clueless what this is based on. Anecdotal Information? Besides, Blizzard claimed that Inferno will have all fighting range archetypes (Melee and Ranged) under fire from various enemies. Not to mention that you can build ranged characters around Close Quarter combat (be it short ranged spells or melee - just take a look at my stupid build i linked). So, where did this requirement for those defensive skills for melee only come from?

Though I agree with the general idea that melee characters need better defense because they're wading right into the thick of things, I didn't originally agree with the way Blizzard is going about providing it. At first, I thought that improving the defensive skills/runes/passives of the melee classes would have had similar results, and would have felt less contrived. After thinking about it some more, though, I realize that has the potential to create some problems. You either make certain skills mandatory (by lumping big defensive boosts into just a couple skills), allow for the potential of gamebreaking defense stacking (by providing big defensive boosts to a variety of skills), or just end up confusing the purpose of many skills and muddling up their tooltips (by adding little defensive boosts to all skills).

Lets face it. This change makes the biggest negative impact on end group gameplay (assuming it doesn't affect PvP). Fine, in a scenario where you're alone against packs of skeletons and other melee monsters it is helpful. But, it creates more problems with later difficulty leves then it solves.

First of all, it makes Monk/Barb way more durable, therefore they can invest 1-2 skills/passives to increase their damage output.
Secondly, we have basically no idea in what way AI will behave in later difficulty levels. What it means, is that monsters might not pick closest character as their target. Then what? Wiz/DH/WD get screwed. They don't have a 30% dmg reduction. They have to make up for it, just like melee had to do (based on anecdotal information).
And last but not least, 30% just begs for "potential of gamebreaking defense stacking". Meet Gutripper, the Invincible (crap build, i know). Just stack resistance on this rugged bastard and nothing will touch him. Sure, he won't deal much damage, but he'll stun, he'll nullify damage taken and he just won't give a f**k. Hell, make his Threatning shout use "Demoralise" and you have a cookie cutter inferno tank, without which no inferno group will be made. And that's not touching the monk. How's that for not being

likely to create any unforseen balance issues.

?

Really, one of ElementalEight's suggestion would do much more good. And i don't mean it in any demeaning manner. A simple option of being able to micro out of enemy swings would be waaay better. Hah, that would actually require some skill.