Actually, easiest melee tweaks would be simply making melee-oriented skills cost less mana. Naturally, that's not the only thing to do, but it's a starting point. For instance, I can't see a early HC Marauder running with a viable support gem hooked up to any of the regular attacks. Some might, but I just don't, it drained my mana way too much to be a viable thing for the longest time. As a result, much of the melee ends up running around without things that would, in theory, save their ass, such as Heal on Hit support gems (which you normally spam on Normal because hey, why not).
Other things that could use a "rebalance" are freeze times and ranged incoming Chaos damage. Being ranged, you're quite screwed being frozen, but you'll usually have one second's worth of time to run away (In fact that's how I survived a party wipe on one of my races on some Sudden Freeze Mob), as a melee, it usually means you're swarmed and killed. Of course, it's your fault for not carrying resi rings for that, but yeah, Sudden Mob of Doom is still that. Although usually you have a chance to prepare for it with defrost flasks so eh, okay, in a non-race situation I don't see too much of an issue with this.
Ranged chaos mobs though, whoooooo boy. As a ranged character, these fuckers are endlessly annoying, but as melee, holy shit it makes things retarded in certain areas (like Vaal Ruins with those floating vaccuumcleaners). What am I supposed to do? Have a bow? If I wanted a bow I'd make a ranged char, I haven't spotted any encounters where a ranged is forced into melee, so yeah, no thanks. And yeah, in early HC you'll not have any flasks to mitigate, nor, usually, gear, making it an exercise in frustration. To be honest, I'd like Chaos damage to be either gone or reworked to be more mitigateable than it is, anyway.
