Minimum Melee DPS

[coolpenguin410]

What does the community consider the bare minimum requirements for DPS for a melee character whose primary focus lies elsewhere? I.E. For a defender tank, what would they have to have to not be considered gimped DPS? Is it just Power Attack, 30+ Str and a two handed weapon? Or should there be more?

[MrWizard]

grabbin popcorn

this is gonna be good.



as per my experience, the defender has a higher sustainable dps than any toon in the game (except maybe the defender pally).


Above all else it is how good of a player you are, then how you built your toon, then the gear and loot.
Even the best built toon or the best geared toon is gimp if the player is not aware of how to actually play it.
(for example Teth from legion. Lots of good gear, but what a gimp... giving xoriat a bad name)

[Draccus]

867.23

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=191968

[Strakeln]

867.23

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=191968

I was going to post 12. ****.

[cforce]

Heh -- while the posts here reflect the fact that "there's no good answer", I'll give you what my own rule of thumb is: for a build who's primary responsibility isn't melee, my own personal benchmark is: "40% of a fully boosted Frenzied Berserker". If I can't manage more than that, it's not worth investing any effort in melee. I use Absolute_Omniscience's spreadsheet (well, a close relative of it with some of my own tweaks) for comparison.

[hermespan]

867.23

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=191968

+1 for LOLs

[tihocan]

Is it just Power Attack, 30+ Str and a two handed weapon? Or should there be more?
Add Improved Crit and you're set as basic useful DPS. Ideally add the THF feats as well.

[coolpenguin410]

Heh -- while the posts here reflect the fact that "there's no good answer", I'll give you what my own rule of thumb is: for a build who's primary responsibility isn't melee, my own personal benchmark is: "40% of a fully boosted Frenzied Berserker". If I can't manage more than that, it's not worth investing any effort in melee. I use Absolute_Omniscience's spreadsheet (well, a close relative of it with some of my own tweaks) for comparison.

Ok, so what is "40% of a fully boosted Frenzied Berserker." I'm in the process of building one right now and I know it can be pretty high. But I was hoping for something more along the lines of build specifications.

Thank you, tihocan, for the straight forward answer at least. I was expecting a lot more debate about this kind of thing just like MrWizard obviously was.

[cforce]

Add Improved Crit and you're set as basic useful DPS. Ideally add the THF feats as well.

At the point you'd consider adding the THF feats, I'd probably just add the TWF feat line instead; THF gets you the most "out of the box" DPS without investing in the feat line, but once you're spending 3 feats, the TWF line offers more for a Defender build, I think. TWFx3, Power Attack, iCrit, and the Weapon Specializations should get you up around 70%+ of an equivalently equipped FB, so if you're putting together a Stalwart Defender and have feats to spare, that direction can give you a pretty solid 'backup DPS' role.