I assume, you see this melee buff as mandatory for your playstyle, thus you feel requirement for maintaining it as much as possible.
I really don’t see it that way, thats why i think its mindset problem.
But anyway, if there is a way to suffice everyone than let it be.
I personally had this in mind:
Make melee and ranged stacks storable by kills and expandable by shots or swings,
while getting buff from current amount of apropriate stacks.
First shot or swing will get the most benefits and the rest is getting less with each shot or swing.
Also, There should be some activatable 2-3 second buff if you swing or shoot at max stacks.
I think this should compliment any weapon and playstyle.
As for current melee buff. I think they just need to make it a separate passive talent, it doesn’t make sense for it to just be a passive, uninteractable part of keystone.
Or make something else.
Not really, you could build a perfectly fine melee Vet build in patch 14.
I can go at it from 2 direction while the current implementation feels bad.
First one:
Dropping dodge speed and dodge distance is super jarring. Even losing efficient dodges is gradual I think with very good reason.
Dropping that DS and DD is the main reason I’m trying to avoid the keystone if I can.
Second:
Reapplying the buff without a natural need for switching weapons is offputting, and considered something that should be avoided by basically everyone.
Take the AS boost portion of Fury of the Faithful, it’s very similar. It has a 10-second duration for 20% AS boost. When it drops you feel winded and that’s a prompt for you to Ult again to reapply the AS bonus and it comes with a huge damage boost (Auto Crit + Rending + Damage) and feels great.
I know that it’s a combat ability and not a keystone, but the long-term buff is similar enough so that I can make the comparison. Keeping AS boost active on a Crit FotF build is possible, arguably optimal, and feels great.
I could also make a balanced argument that Weapon Specialist is incredibly similar to Inexorable Judgment which apart from not suffering from “forced playstyle” provides around 10-15 stacks of bonuses (10-15% damage and attack speed) effortlessly, so a melee boost of similar proportion and with a smaller upper limit is totally fine to have.
We do have Lucky Shot which is just a passive so it wouldn’t be unprecedented. If weirdness is what it takes for it to feel good I think that’s alright.
That said you do make a good argument that usually, keystones try to seem interactive (Most are actually just passives with some fluffyness.)