Some of ya'll 'bout to be real mad at me...But it must. Be said.
We've had this topic for the past year now and nothing has changed. Whether or not you would like to believe it, I am one-hundred percent certain that if I were to refund my current build right now and go 'Melee' with similar specs...I would, quite literally, out-perform my current self. You can say what it is that you want, but Chance has spoken upon this subject time and time again. The things that Melee have to offer, from the existence of 5 rpp to custom blade styles, to the hiddens that you can get (I.E. Perfect Body, Omega Overcharge, Pandemonium), Melee is quite literally the king. And when you place it next to spells that a mage would have...You will always see them blow mages out of the water. Perhaps, this might've been different if Melee were it's separate stat once more.
But it is not. So NOW, when you decide to buff spells- you also buff that meleer which makes balancing them more problematic. The truth of the matter is that Melee has far more options, they punish people much harder, and they do twice the damage that I could ever do as a mage by pressing two buttons while my entire rotation is on CD. You may hate the game of cat and mouse...
But there is no other choice when you are going against a melee user. You either run or you get minced in 10 seconds. Melee is not okay. I'm sorry, but it is not.