My Opinion on Melee in DDO

[Talon_Moonshadow]

While I like melee combat, I have never made a character that performed to my desires for melee.

Mostly this is due to the extreme difficulty in getting adequate defense for challenging fights.
While I have seen other players pull this off, I have never had much success.

The one exception was my Fighter life, where I took all of the heavy armor feats I could get. And used action point primarily for defensive options.
This did result in a fairly durable melee character, but the DPS was horrible.

One other slight success has been with characters that can cast displacement and self heal.

However, even the totally defensive Fighter and the Displacement toons, have not been up to the new Legendary Elite super 1.5K damage per every minor hit...that has become the Devs' definition of "challenge" in this game.

Then there is the new agro system. Basically guaranteeing that one will be surrounded very quickly...

In short...
I have not been able to build and enjoy a melee (only) toon.


Ok.. all of that said.
Then there is my observation of other players and melee.

People love melee.
But they love high DPS melee. and generally sacrifice defense for offense. Or have the same troubles I do of building both defense and offense into one toon.... or like me, just cannot get the gear.. or whatever.
The result is a whole lot of players that play melee toons that get beat up all of the time.

Then there is the numerous complaints from melee players.
Champions.
Can't solo such and such fight.
Hjeal Me!

Generally, melees lovers build melee only toons and are very, very needy. (and thus complain a lot)


Ok.. then there is my opinion about what melee should be.

Well, actually, I cannot only talk about melee here.

You see, I think Dungeons and Dragons should provide a large variety of challenges, and players should need to use a large variety of tactics to overcome those challenges.

Which is the opposite to how the game seems to be set up, and especially the opposite of convention character building mindset of DDO players.

The game and mindset seem to encourage specialization instead of versatility.
In fact, the power creep we have has just about made any other build choice but specializing in one thing to max out, .... almost useless.

Ya see, I would prefer a game where Fighters and Barbarians (and everyone actually) carried melee and ranged weapons... and felt useful when using either one.

To me.. meleeing a huge pit fiend with a strength far greater than any mere Human... complete with deadly poison and disease bearing claws...
is... stupid!
Seems to me that any sensible adventurer would shoot at this guy with ranged weapons rather than charge in and get beat up and killed by such a fearsome beast.

Yet... in DDO... anyone specced for melee (or anyone not specced for ranged anyway) Is basically useless with a ranged weapon.

Plus... we just want to be super melee men heroes anyway...



But... how do we have a game. That challenges players.
But allows all players to melee something.. and not die in one hit.. or last long enough to make meleeing a fun experience.

How do we have both a challenge and allow people to have fun with melee combat.


Personally, I would also like a system that allows every player to use any weapons they are proficient with, and not feel like a super gimp.. just because they didn't devote other feats and action points to using said weapon...


Armor up helped a lot.
But... then came Legendary Elite.....

Bringing friends certainly helps.
Hirelings help.
Some players just accept that they can use ranged for certain fights, even though they are specced for melee. (some o fus, just love Rangers for reasons such as this)
(some just play Warlocks.... :( )


Still.. I see a problem.
With no clear solution.

My current preference would be less damaging monsters. One hit dying is not fun.
But how to make monsters challenging if they do less damage?

Most obvious to me is other dangerous effects.
But the most deadly of those have some similar issues. Symbol of stunning for example also can make soloing on a melee not much fun.
Although, I actually am against forgoing challenge to support solo melees.... We should be encouraging grouping anyway.
I have seen much more use of CC recently... seems groups and working together are making a comeback.

So... is melee even a problem right now?
(I still think it is)

[nokowi]

The game and mindset seem to encourage specialization instead of versatility.


this

Melee would not be a problem if they contributed something different and unique.

Remember when melee used tendon slice in Shroud? This is an example of offering something different and beneficial when combined with ranged and casters.

Dire Charge for everyone is a perfect example of design gone wrong.

[AzB]

I have seen a few folks with durable enough melee for reaper. But like you said, their dps sucked. My melee toon was a bard, and the dps was slightly better, but the defenses were nearly non existent. EE is no problem because displace works and he could power heal through most fights. But in reaper, most champs bypass displacement and dodge, and self healing is nerfed. He was of very little use. He tr'ed into a caster, and he has more dps, and more defenses while not having to stand in the bad guys hit box to deliver the damage.

Unfortunately, we need smart chalenge and we got brain dead nerfs to the more useful defenses and the bad guys get more dps and hps. Not inteligent, imaginative design at all.

And to add insult to injury, casters and ranged suffer far less in both defensive and offensive nerfs while staying out of the reach of most of the damage.

Melee is not in a good place. Rangers, bards, and rogues are even worse off than dedicated fighters and paladins.

[Phoenicis]

Unfortunately, we need smart chalenge and we got brain dead nerfs to the more useful defenses and the bad guys get more dps and hps. Not inteligent, imaginative design at all.


Lets assume, for just a moment, that the devs are not stupid, and are aware of the fact that people want more challenge.

What options do they have, given the limits on the AI?

Big bags of HP that hit like trucks. OK, this we got.

Mobs that trip, improve trip, use the CC capabilities at their disposal. We have this too.

Mobs that use ranged weapons or magic when players stay out of their reach. Ummm, yeah. Got that.

Anything I've missed?

I keep seeing people say 'they need to be creative!' but stop there. Give them ideas to work from.

Do I have any ideas? One or two, but I'm sure players would hate when mobs matched, or exceeded, their PRR, MRR, Dam & hit mods (because then they may not be big bags of HP, but you wouldn't do much more than scratch them, and good luck if they had our all or nothing stacking defenses). That's why I'm on this end playing games and not that end designing them.

[MLKKK]

Create challenge is a problem because Turbine/SSg "sold" powercreep to everybody and didn't fix op builds.

So it's their problem to fix it.

[nokowi]

Rangers, bards, and rogues are even worse off than dedicated fighters and paladins.

I intend to prove you wrong if they fix the agro issues of ignoring player stealth scores.

Stealth is very powerful in a challenging group setting - it's too bad it is broken right now.

[Chai]

Melee is not in a good place. Rangers, bards, and rogues are even worse off than dedicated fighters and paladins.

Bards are great CC for R10.

If stealth/aggro wasnt broken currently, assassins would be more desired.

[KoobTheProud]

The Exploiterr build back in the day was the last time that I felt that it was possible to get the best melee damage and defenses in the same build.

Very high AC and Dodge for the era plus two-weapon fighting and the chain of feats up to Whirlwind Attack made for an excellent build for that day. I was absent from DDO for a couple of years and returned and nobody was using it any more. I'm guessing Armor Up is what invalidated it but I'm not sure that it's not out there waiting to be rediscovered at this point.

There were robe and light armor versions with the robes getting full dex bonus on very high dex scores and the light armor version capped at a high number.

It's possible that it just got whacked by Epic Destinies, with too many cool things that it alone provided in the pre-MotU game now being available too a wide range of builds.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

The Exploiterr build back in the day was the last time that I felt that it was possible to get the best melee damage and defenses in the same build.

Very high AC and Dodge for the era plus two-weapon fighting and the chain of feats up to Whirlwind Attack made for an excellent build for that day. I was absent from DDO for a couple of years and returned and nobody was using it any more. I'm guessing Armor Up is what invalidated it but I'm not sure that it's not out there waiting to be rediscovered at this point.

There were robe and light armor versions with the robes getting full dex bonus on very high dex scores and the light armor version capped at a high number.

It's possible that it just got whacked by Epic Destinies, with too many cool things that it alone provided in the pre-MotU game now being available too a wide range of builds.

We do have some defensive options, like high dodge, permanent Blur, etc.
But when we do get hit it is so massive that suddenly you are dead!

Not fun IMO.

I want to see some option that provides challenge, yet allows most players to participate in melee fights without fear of almost instant death.
There has to be some way to balance this.... :(

I would never ask for less challenge.
I'm by far a ranged fan more than a melee one.
But I also think meleeing monsters is a lot of fun....
...if you can survive...

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I am ok with some monsters being able to one shot players.
But there are too many that do super duper damage per hit right now IMO.

[Borror0]

I keep seeing people say 'they need to be creative!' but stop there. Give them ideas to work from.

As far as I'm aware, the problems with melee in Reaper are two fold.

First, there's little defensive counterplay for melee players. When a bad roll can result in the death of a player with reasonable defenses, there's a problem. Praying for good rolls isn't a skill, and as such there's little room for players to believe they can simply play better. If the developers want to increase the damage caused by monsters, then they should opt for smaller standard derivations hits. It's okay for there to be critical hits, but they shouldn't one-shot non-squishy characters with reasonable defensive scores. Increasing the speed of attacks or comparable averages with lower damage spikes would be a more pleasant experience. It would allow for counterplay, and time for healer to heal rather than rez.

Secondly, limit the effectiveness of kiting and high uptime. A major advantage that casters and rangers have over melee power is that they can kite and damage from afar, in much greater safety. Generally, that should be compensated with lower damage. That's part of why ranged damage attack speed increase so dramatically when standing still. If monsters can get to squishy targets more easily, it increases the value of meat shields to soak up the damage.

Now, that's based on my limited, heroic Reaper experience so take it with a grain of salt.

The important feedback for developers is this: a good challenge must come with good counterplay, for a balanced party. Being one-shotted is perfectly fine is the lesson is "don't do that, dummy." Automatic death is an important and powerful message. When you automatically die in melee through no fault of ours, that's a problem. Once the counterplay is in place, it's a matter of balancing the effectiveness each playstyles solutions to the challenge so they are no major gaps in effectiveness (e.g., kiting > melee).

[Enoach]

There use to be a time when melee builds did more then DPS and more then just defense.

During that time feats/abilities like SAP, Trip (and improved), Sunder and Stun were seen as useful (and they were). Part of the issue is that everyone thinks their DPS needs to be 11 in order be adequate.

SAP was probably one of the first feats I saw used less and less among the melee fighters. I actually attribute this to two things;

1) If mob was hit it broke and with more weapons doing AoE damage as well as Casters favoring AoE damage to get more out of their SP usage its ability to reduce incoming damage diminished
2) It took away a feat for personal DPS, even though it benefited every rogue type (splash) in the party via Sneak Attack damage

Sunder's nail in the coffin was the hit mechanic that now added in glancing blows. Its ability to reduce AC was no longer as beneficial because more characters with lower "to-hit" scores could hit without it. Sunder was a way to improve the overall Party DPS. This also suffered the not being a personal DPS booster issue.

Trip is used less, but that is because it is easier to complain about all the mobs hitting you even if you have the ability to stop one. Combine this with Stun and you now have two not hitting you (that is two per melee). This suffered because most don't think of Melee as sources of Crowd Control.

Personally, I think many melee need to take the time to re-examine the Tactical feats they left behind.

[Powerhungry]

increased effectiveness vs ranged?
binding chains
vortex (D3 ability)

[krimsonrane]

Melee is not in a good place. Rangers, bards, and rogues are even worse off than dedicated fighters and paladins.

this.

I've lost just about all desire to play. Been using rogues and roguish characters for a decade. **** near everything I kept was for rogues. I was literally the 1st person on my server Orien to gain 3 rogue past lives.
This last life I'd (IMO) finally perfected 2 builds and one in the works that I really enjoyed playing despite the anti/assassin stealth toon trends I'd been seeing already. One a full mech rogue with the rarest of rare gear combos and another ranger rogue arti mix that was a monster in 1 shot ranged combat and able to stealth past anything that wasn't a spider or slime in any EE quest or raid. I would solo stealth the entire quest of Good Intentions and only kill the boss without waking a single monster before that. That took a lot of the right stuff. A lot of investment in time and effort. I'd two manned EE tempest Spine regularly with a friends well made pali and just using stealth and tactics. He'd tank in a web trap and I would pick them off quickly. Using stealth and noisemakers we would herd the monsters and choose when and where we fought. We used agro management and location as tools. It was a patient but fun way to play. We did not sit around sniping one at a time.

Since u34 that is no longer the case. Stealth is pretty much useless now. It doesn't matter how high your skill score is, if you are with someone and they get spotted you are spotted. Automatically. They know exactly where you are.
If a slime or spider sees you everything near it sees you. Automatically. Then there is the new bluff mechanics. As a melee that is not built for toe to toe combat using bluff would save you some damage. Assassins had deception gear/bluff as a necessary damage mitigating requirement. Now you might as well be a fighter. The mitigation wasn't the only bonus. Sneak attack came into play and it was kinda cool to see the monster flip around and hack at someone else like you had just made him think the scream of "Arm the NUKE!" actually came from the guy behind him. I have an assassin half TRd at the moment. I dread leveling him anymore. I just can't envision an end game build where i'd be personally satisfied with its performance. And no I don't want to play a warlock. As things for rogues and assassins in particular grew worse over the last couple of years I've TR'd and tried other builds. Good stuff no doubt but not what I like.

I still play rarely just to join friends and I adapt out of necessity. I don't think this mini lament nor any of the niche player base's constant posts about the issue can expect a more rogue friendly stance in coming updates.

So... meh. it is what it is.




Melee is not in a good place. Rangers, bards, and rogues are even worse off than dedicated fighters and paladins.

[changelingamuck]

One Solution: Make all displacement clickies exclusive. Offer an easier access GS deconstruction option to mitigate foot-stomping and tears.

Increase the effectiveness of PRR and MRR.

The problem with melee damage mitigation is that the game's design is that non-melee classes are supposed to mitigate damage with damage avoidance mechanics and/or self-healing. And the game is designed for melee characters to primarily mitigate damage with damage absorption mechanics.

The problem is all melees can also get unlimited 50% concealment through the ridiculous fact that displacement clickies are unlimited. And it's too easy for arcanes to avoid arcane spell failure and gear up in heavier armors.

How are they supposed to balance the damage output of enemies in a game-balance environment like this where every character can get the same defenses regardless of whether or not they're front-line characters?

This is what happens when people get their wishes to be able to do everything equally well and when a game studio relies too often on cutting-and-pasting abilities/bonuses from one class into another class because it takes less time than coding something brand-new. Most people don't think about the long-term damage of power creep and class homogenization because whenever anything about the game is announced their first and overriding thought is "Will this make my own character(s) stronger? Yes? Then it's good. Cool update, devs. No? Then it's bad. Time to fight tooth-and-nail and grab the pitchfork/torches memes." And there's no more complexity to their thought processes than that.

Reaper mode is actually a backdoor way of turning back the clock on the power creep and class homogenization without coming out and overtly saying that the path of power creep and class homogenization has done damage to the game (which would suggest that mass-nerfing should be done despite foot-stomping, and tears). Unfortunately, Reaper can't account for the fact that every character can get practically the same defenses at similar or the same levels of effectiveness. You have to limit access to some forms of defense or alter the way that they work in order to fix game balance issues like that.

Frontline and catch-me-if-you-can characters cannot have similar types/levels of defense and self-healing and still have the game's combat be balanced. It's not possible. But guess how happy the more sensitive melee players are going to be if you take away their half-dozen displacement clickies though. Guess how happy the more sensitive arcanes are going to be when you make it much harder for them to get high PRR/MRR.

Eventually, they'll probably just have to invent yet another wholly new damage mitigation stat and weave it in somehow making the game's design even more convoluted. They have to 'tack-on' extra stuff instead of fixing the actual problems like tacking on reaper mode instead of fixing the existing difficulties, like adding champions instead of sufficiently nerfing the many over-powered builds, etc. Otherwise, short-sighted, self-centered players feel personally wounded when their characters are 'diminished'. Then the 'tacked-on' indirect fixes are packaged as "new, exciting game additions" and we live with how clunky the solutions are. Y'know, like how "legendary quests" aren't actually a *cool, new thing, kids!*. But they're actually a tacked-on indirect fix for cheaters having duped bypasses and an indirect fix for the exceedingly poor design of the "Mortal Fear" weapon effect that people came on these forums and actually raged against nerfing en masse with straight faces, despite it being hands-down the single-most poorly designed and over-powered weapon effect in the history of this game (and not subtly. like very, very obviously and clearly so. and the supposed solution still allows that grossly OP effect to function just like it always did in most of the game's content so as to avoid overly offending the 'My Character's Big Numbers 1st' crowd).

Your actual problem here calls for targeted nerfing and re-balancing of PRR/MRR. The playerbase won't accept that though. Your only option is coming up with a tacked-on new addition to our slew of existing damage mitigation stats. The words durability, hardness, physical/magical resistance, protection, sanctuary armor class, sheltering, etc. are all taken. I'll suggest ACRR--Armor Class Resistance Rating.

[TL;DR read another post, I'm not summarizing it.]

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Maybe less monster damage on non-critical hits?

But make critical hits high enough to kill most players.

[sephiroth1084]

Sunder's nail in the coffin was the hit mechanic that now added in glancing blows. Its ability to reduce AC was no longer as beneficial because more characters with lower "to-hit" scores could hit without it. Sunder was a way to improve the overall Party DPS. This also suffered the not being a personal DPS booster issue.

Trip is used less, but that is because it is easier to complain about all the mobs hitting you even if you have the ability to stop one. Combine this with Stun and you now have two not hitting you (that is two per melee). This suffered because most don't think of Melee as sources of Crowd Control.

Personally, I think many melee need to take the time to re-examine the Tactical feats they left behind.

Improved Sunder is definitely worthwhile, now that a lot of monsters have significant fortification and AC. It's just that fitting it in can be rough. Plus, it can help casters land their spells. I used to carry Improved Sunder on both my monk and my barbarian/fighter, but when I rebuilt them the former lost Power Attack (and therefore IS), and the latter focused feats differently, but may pick the feat back up. My other characters don't have it because they don't have the feat space. Besides, Improved Sunder doesn't have any defensive benefits.

As for Trip, the cooldown and duration on the auto-granted feat are poor, there are fewer things boosting trip DCs, and it doesn't increase DPS (as compared with Stunning Blow). Improved Trip is pretty good, but it requires Combat Expertise, which almost no one wants (this is a problem endemic to D&D 3.x, not unique to DDO).

You didn't mention it, but one additional issue is that Stunning Blow has too long a cooldown for a single-target melee-only ability. I'm sure it was originally designed with the idea that a free, reusable ability needs to be limited somehow, but the game has changed a lot, and now it's simply behind the curve.

[AzB]

I intend to prove you wrong if they fix the agro issues of ignoring player stealth scores.

Stealth is very powerful in a challenging group setting - it's too bad it is broken right now.

I hope aggro is fixed, but that still does very little for other specialized melees.

[Qhualor]

Improved Sunder is definitely worthwhile, now that a lot of monsters have significant fortification and AC. It's just that fitting it in can be rough. Plus, it can help casters land their spells. I used to carry Improved Sunder on both my monk and my barbarian/fighter, but when I rebuilt them the former lost Power Attack (and therefore IS), and the latter focused feats differently, but may pick the feat back up. My other characters don't have it because they don't have the feat space. Besides, Improved Sunder doesn't have any defensive benefits.

As for Trip, the cooldown and duration on the auto-granted feat are poor, there are fewer things boosting trip DCs, and it doesn't increase DPS (as compared with Stunning Blow). Improved Trip is pretty good, but it requires Combat Expertise, which almost no one wants (this is a problem endemic to D&D 3.x, not unique to DDO).

You didn't mention it, but one additional issue is that Stunning Blow has too long a cooldown for a single-target melee-only ability. I'm sure it was originally designed with the idea that a free, reusable ability needs to be limited somehow, but the game has changed a lot, and now it's simply behind the curve.

I cant see myself using a feat slot for Improved Sunder on any build, even on my pure fighter. there is still a fortitude save the mobs need to make and in epic levels they seem to go pretty high in the fairly new to recent content. plus you can bypass 10% fortification and more with gear, EDs and enhancements on certain builds. the DC I think needs work, but I'm not going to suggest that.

I use trip all the time on my fighter. I may consider taking Improved Trip on my Kensei, but my Vanguard has so much stunning CC I don't bother with him. most times trip works really good for him, but its weird that my strength barb cant get it to work more reliably. I disagree that it doesn't increase dps. a tripped mob doesn't attack and that's the time you go balls to the wall on it or move on and get some other more dangerous mob.

the biggest reasons why single target CC has lost some of its appeal is because quests are designed with packs of mobs around every corner and kill packs of mobs before advancing and also we have gotten used to rounding up mobs for efficiency. single target CC was awesome in its day and its still mostly good today, especially with a properly built toon with investment into it, but the problem today is in the quest design and how players adapted to those designs and power creep allowing us to survive a lot easier without being tactfully smart.

[AzB]

Bards are great CC for R10.

Melee bards tend not to have great cc capbility other than fascinate. Fascinate has it's own problems. Between the broken aggro making it dangerous to land effectively and rampant party aoe, it tends to be great for stealth soloing and less than ideal for groups.

Yes, a caster bard is still viable because he can stand out of harm's way. This is my point.

Bards are squishy and to help them with defense, they get self healing and displacement. And most good players max out dodge. These are all nerfed to uselessness in high level reaper. Other melee toons have much more in the way of defense.

My ex bard was a terrific toon that I've spent years perfecting. He can solo most anything le, and in reaper 1-4 he can contribute nicely. Go higher and he is a spectator tossing a few heals and buffing. I don't particularly find that fun.

That's why he's now a caster. Much more solid cc, much more dps, the same or better defenses and he can stand out of the line of fire. He can still heal and buff if needed, but as a caster he's a much more dimensional character to play.

What should be done is remove self healing from classes that were never meant to heal. Wizards, fighter, etc. Clerics, bards, paladins, and rangers should not have thier self healing nerfed. It's part of their class ability.

I saw a caster the other day facerolling slavers on r4. He had 4000 hp and walked around completely oblivious to the devastating traps as well as the mobs. The traps had no effect on him and the mobs melted away quickly. There was no cc, no strategy, no concern for death.

[Mr_Helmet]

Maybe less monster damage on non-critical hits?

But make critical hits high enough to kill most players.

Do you know how fortification works?

[AzB]

increased effectiveness vs ranged?


Yes. The gulf in the difference in damage taken is way too large. Melee absorb 10s of thousands of points of damage and do comparitively little damage in return. Casters and ranged are far too safe at distance and their damage is generally quite a bit higher. And they can outrun the bad guys while still doing that damage should things get up close and personal.

This is the largest single aspect of balance that is out of whack.

[AzB]

Do you know how fortification works?

Reaper champs can bypass fort. Any amount. From 10% to 1000%. Most players are doing good to bypass 50% of the monsters fort. This makes no sense.

[TinkTM]

So... is melee even a problem right now?
(I still think it is)

I've decided to stop playing the game entirely now as a result of this. Just deleted the client off my machine, and it will be at least another year or two before I even consider trying it again.
The expansion pack will not tempt me either. So SSG will not be getting any funds from me for a long time.

When your groups are filled with warlocks only, and they can take all the aggro of an epic reaper 1 skull quest and survive the onslaught and the you, a so-called exploit build with the best gear possible, high resistances, high ac, high prr/mrr, high saves, heavy armor, and a sturdy build that focusses alot on defenses, are getting one-shotted with simple non-crit melee hits doing about 1000 damage a shot: Its just stupid and ridiculous. I get that reaper is meant to be a challenge, but its not a challenge, its just a load of random rolling nonsense. The reapers themselves are hardly a problem, its the mobs (not even champs, just regular mobs) doing 1000 damage on a standard melee swing.

This game is totally broken in my opinion, not just melee.
The stupidness of the decision that level 18 and 19 quests not allowing level 20 players on reaper to enter is beyond me.
The fact that named loot is mostly useless now, and SSG has been quoted to say that fixing this would require unsurmountable work aka "we won't fix this", another ridiculous concept beyond my logical comprehension which just discards all reasons to try get named loot for your toon.
And then SSG just adds insult to injury by announcing racial past lives, another carrot on a stick aka hamster wheel for people to roll more warlock lives? What a fat joke.
I get the feeling that SSG just no longer places any considerable thought into the game any more and that their leadership has become significantly misguided as to what is making the game fun to play.
Development efforts going into new content may seem cool for some players as new content gets introduced, but ffs, just fix the **** that isn't working first, jeeslike.
I mean, still, the ladder bug, after how many years??? You cannot possibly tell me they have architected their code that each ladder in the game requires fixing separately???
I could carry on for ages about how many things in the game require attention, but I've wasted enough time and hating on this game, time for me to find something to play thats fun and rewarding and logical, and not just an endless grind on a warlock.

I used to really love this game, but now I can go so far as saying as: I hate it now and will be finding something else to spend my time and money on.

As much fun as I've had playing with friends I've made in this game, I won't be returning for a long time as a result of the uningenuitive way the developers have tackled systematic game progression.

[Mr_Helmet]

Reaper champs can bypass fort. Any amount. From 10% to 1000%. Most players are doing good to bypass 50% of the monsters fort. This makes no sense.

I stand (well, I'm sitting) corrected.

[Jetrule]

On the OP topic I have found fun play in melees with a heavy cc component. Monk and fighter to be specific. On fighter I am currently enjoying a pdk great axe kensai up to capstone, and tier five. Stalwart defender up to 2nd core and tier 4. Enough harper for know the angles. Picking most of the heavy armor feats and tactics feats slash spec line and 2handed line cleaves stunning blow and improved trip. Second lifer with most ed's filled. In epics he can self heal ok. Not strong enough for reaper or soloing l.e. but good in a party on that setting with solid gear. I think Gear may be the issue that sends most melee builds on the daily and reincarnate path. With proper gear and use of tactics feats and game play most quests can be soloed on EE some will require having a healbot hire parked in safety for emergencies and mistakes for me.. In a good or guild group I think it becomes a very viable cc and dps addition. I dont think he will ever solo LE slavers or high level low skull reaper quests as easily my warlock though.

[J-mann]

Its just the simple fact that melee do not bring anything to the table that ranged do not bring easier at a lower resource cost. In matter of fact, properly built ranged characters will get similar levels of defense statistics, while being ranged, as melee. Further, trip and stun are terrible cc options when compared to their competitions, para arrows, holds, webs, dance, sonic burst, and flat out death spells. At bare minimum the cds on trip and stun need to be dropped to 3 seconds or so to compare with sorcs casting cds, and melee dcs need streamlining. As it stands now, melee toons are easily the most gear intensive for the least reward in the game.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

imo melee is balanced.

imo casting is pretty much balanced (except for shiradi, though to what extent and etc idk exactly, i dont think much about it anymore).

imo ranged is what is causing balance issues between character archetypes in this game. the reasons are obvious, but it doesnt matter because the cause of the issue was an unintended snafu that was legitimized.


i dont think r10 scales in melees favor, and i dont think reaper was executed the absolute best way possible, but in all honesty melee players have never been happy unless they were very dominant in what i consider poorly balanced eras of ddo. the conclusion that i feel is most accurate when assessing the melee in this game, is that in and of itself, the biggest problem with the playstyle is not the design of it or the content, but the people who play it.

[Niminae]

While I like melee combat, I have never made a character that performed to my desires for melee.

[snippage]

So... is melee even a problem right now?
(I still think it is)

Ok, lots to work with here.


I have not been able to build and enjoy a melee (only) toon.
This is a difficult thing. To start with the word 'enjoy' is of course very subjective. One of the largest barriers to this enjoyment is, IMO, the game mechanics and the 'advice' the game gives to new players. Are you aware that there is an NPC on Korthos Island who tells new players that moving in combat is a bad thing? Yes indeed, here we have an NPC designed to give valid play advice to brand new players who actively lies to them and tells them to act contrary to how the game actually works. This should have been corrected years ago.



People love melee.
But they love high DPS melee. and generally sacrifice defense for offense.
Yes, high DPS is always desired. But high DPS has never been coupled with the ability to take a hit. So here we must agree with the OP, whilst also wondering what his point is.


Generally, melees lovers build melee only toons and are very, very needy. (and thus complain a lot)
This has not been my experience. Sure, some melee builds are not typically as BYOH capable as a lot of other melee builds, but that does not make them 'very, very needy.' It makes them 'party members.'


Ya see, I would prefer a game where Fighters and Barbarians (and everyone actually) carried melee and ranged weapons... and felt useful when using either one.
Nice. And characters w/o ranged feats should be just as valid as those who did buy those feats? The game is nothing if not an exercise in trade-offs. No character can be all things at all times. Those who bought ranged Feats will be good at ranged damage, and those who bought melee Feats will be good at melee damage.


Personally, I would also like a system that allows every player to use any weapons they are proficient with, and not feel like a super gimp.. just because they didn't devote other feats and action points to using said weapon...

So players who didn't invest in areas of particular strength should be just as effective in those areas as are players who did not so invest?
I am not sure I am understanding you correctly.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Do you know how fortification works?

....and several types of monsters (and player abilities ...which more monsters could get if the Devs wanted them to) can bypass it.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Yes. The gulf in the difference in damage taken is way too large. Melee absorb 10s of thousands of points of damage and do comparitively little damage in return. Casters and ranged are far too safe at distance and their damage is generally quite a bit higher. And they can outrun the bad guys while still doing that damage should things get up close and personal.

This is the largest single aspect of balance that is out of whack.

There are some changes I think that should be made to ranged weapon damage and Warlock damage.
Or rather certain monsters should be resistant or immune, under certain conditions.

Deflect arrows, protection from missiles spell, perhaps doing more damage within melee range to someone holding a bow. Maybe another monster being a tower shield bearer (and making tower shield do a lot of DR vs ranged. Things like that.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

imo melee is balanced.

imo casting is pretty much balanced (except for shiradi, though to what extent and etc idk exactly, i dont think much about it anymore).

imo ranged is what is causing balance issues between character archetypes in this game. the reasons are obvious, but it doesnt matter because the cause of the issue was an unintended snafu that was legitimized.


i dont think r10 scales in melees favor, and i dont think reaper was executed the absolute best way possible, but in all honesty melee players have never been happy unless they were very dominant in what i consider poorly balanced eras of ddo. the conclusion that i feel is most accurate when assessing the melee in this game, is that in and of itself, the biggest problem with the playstyle is not the design of it or the content, but the people who play it.


Yes.. I had meant to say more about "the mindset: of melee players in my OP..... ;)

I am a Ranger fan. And in awe of Warlocks...
I am a tactics and stealth fan. A Shadowmage Fan... etc.
I am definitely not a fan of charge, hit one button, curse my hireling/player Cleric fan. (you Haste me, you heal me, and since there's no trap here, you Rogue, hold my cape... I'm going in... !)

A lot of these guys do not deserve much sympathy.

But I do see their arguments.
and I am frustrated that my Rangers have to range in any difficult content and cannot enjoy the other half of their feats...
I am not a fan of kiting. Or of any of my characters having to run in fear from every melee swing of a monster.

That just isn't fun to me.

Plus I want to be able to play any class and enjoy it.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Ok, lots to work with here.


This is a difficult thing. To start with the word 'enjoy' is of course very subjective. One of the largest barriers to this enjoyment is, IMO, the game mechanics and the 'advice' the game gives to new players. Are you aware that there is an NPC on Korthos Island who tells new players that moving in combat is a bad thing? Yes indeed, here we have an NPC designed to give valid play advice to brand new players who actively lies to them and tells them to act contrary to how the game actually works. This should have been corrected years ago.



Yes, high DPS is always desired. But high DPS has never been coupled with the ability to take a hit. So here we must agree with the OP, whilst also wondering what his point is.


This has not been my experience. Sure, some melee builds are not typically as BYOH capable as a lot of other melee builds, but that does not make them 'very, very needy.' It makes them 'party members.'


Nice. And characters w/o ranged feats should be just as valid as those who did buy those feats? The game is nothing if not an exercise in trade-offs. No character can be all things at all times. Those who bought ranged Feats will be good at ranged damage, and those who bought melee Feats will be good at melee damage.


So players who didn't invest in areas of particular strength should be just as effective in those areas as are players who did not so invest?
I am not sure I am understanding you correctly.


The "needy" part has many meanings. but to avoid problems, let's just stick with needing healing from others.


The feat thing. Of course someone who invests should do better.
But we have a situation now where, "your class is proficient with all martial weapons, yet you must never consider using any you have not further invest in, because other players will laugh at your uselessness."
... that just ain't right IMO.

and contribute to the problem by not giving melee characters another option to use when it would otherwise make sense for a warrior to use a ranged weapon, for example.

What is the point of being trained to use a weapon..... and not being able to use it?

I am not proposing a fix here. Just stating a problem IMO.

I really don't know how to fix things at this point with that one.
This problem (like most others) was caused by power creep. I do not believe I saw such a problem in table top D&D. (although someone is sure to tell me I am wrong on this one too....)

[Rykka]

Yes. The gulf in the difference in damage taken is way too large. Melee absorb 10s of thousands of points of damage and do comparitively little damage in return. Casters and ranged are far too safe at distance and their damage is generally quite a bit higher. And they can outrun the bad guys while still doing that damage should things get up close and personal.

This is the largest single aspect of balance that is out of whack.

It's interesting to me that monsters have to stop and stand still while casting/ranging. And ranged critters weapons arc through the air at a speed that I can step out of the way of. While I get to Legolas around the battlefield casting spells or using a ranged/thrown weapon that shoots like a laserbeam. Also interesting that my fighter can throw a weapon for enough damage to make it worth carrying, but melee critters chasing a ranged/caster don't bombard them with handaxes that shoot like lasers. Might be interesting to see enemy archers and casters coded to kite as well.

[AzB]

This problem (like most others) was caused by power creep. I do not believe I saw such a problem in table top D&D. (although someone is sure to tell me I am wrong on this one too....)

A good dm in pnp dnd would have fixed most of these things along the way by discouraging min/max and never allowing power creep to get out of hand.

I remember one campaign where we had a fighter getting ridiculous with his min/max concentrating on nothing but his a/c and dps. No other skills or abilities. Suddenly, his life became more and more difficult as he was forced to realize the game was about role playing and many of those other skills came in handy. Helped along by the dm, of course. ;)

Now ddo is a video game and a great deal of those other skills are worthless, and AI is not up to the task of replacing a thinking human being. But quite frankly, I think the devs have dropped the ball by not using thier imagination to use tbe tools they have at hand to stop some of the cheese.

justmyonionheadedopinion

[Rykka]

A good dm in pnp dnd would have fixed most of these things along the way by discouraging min/max and never allowing power creep to get out of hand.

I remember one campaign where we had a fighter getting ridiculous with his min/max concentrating on nothing but his a/c and dps. No other skills or abilities. Suddenly, his life became more and more difficult as he was forced to realize the game was about role playing and many of those other skills came in handy. Helped along by the dm, of course. ;)

Now ddo is a video game and a great deal of those other skills are worthless, and AI is not up to the task of replacing a thinking human being. But quite frankly, I think the devs have dropped the ball by not using thier imagination to use tbe tools they have at hand to stop some of the cheese.

justmyonionheadedopinion

Also, in PnP if you face off against an enemy using the same weapons as you are, say like a longbow, they don't employ a completely different rules system. In fact if they were a pc class you could expect an almost fair fight.

[Rykka]

The "needy" part has many meanings. but to avoid problems, let's just stick with needing healing from others.


The feat thing. Of course someone who invests should do better.
But we have a situation now where, "your class is proficient with all martial weapons, yet you must never consider using any you have not further invest in, because other players will laugh at your uselessness."
... that just ain't right IMO.

and contribute to the problem by not giving melee characters another option to use when it would otherwise make sense for a warrior to use a ranged weapon, for example.

What is the point of being trained to use a weapon..... and not being able to use it?

I am not proposing a fix here. Just stating a problem IMO.

I really don't know how to fix things at this point with that one.
This problem (like most others) was caused by power creep. I do not believe I saw such a problem in table top D&D. (although someone is sure to tell me I am wrong on this one too....)

This is certainly true in higher level epic elites, where the difficulty of the game demands specialization and the game punishes anything other than that. But a build can be more general and do fine in HE, where the quests aren't as stupid. If you run in epic you are just saying,"I'm not concerned with fighting L80 kobolds to evict a used LLama dealer so that I can get a hat with a slightly better Int bonus."

[Pororoca]

Very important topic for the playerbase.
Hard to stay classy and not be ****ed off about it all...
Which is why there are 100+ such threads about this.

Or more

For anyone who wants to build a Melee to cap and feel useful these days, please don't. Save yourself the wasted time.
This is seriously good advice, don't fall into this boring trap thinking to put a magic spin on it.
Because you will find a lot to be angry about.
Because anything you think you can do, Kiters do better.
Warlocks do better.

And you will be straight up filler.

At endgame in every group you're in, 3 Warlocks will have already decided that they don't mind carrying your ass, and if they didn't you wouldn't be there.

Because you might be Uber, but you can't tank for ****.
Because you might be tanky, but no you still can't tank for ****.
And because you run slow as molasses in Risia, and you shrine occasionally.

No one cares how well you've built your toon. There is no specific place in the group where running
up and tapping things with your stick is a necessity, or even a good idea.

If it comes down to a meticulously constructed Fighter monk, with a hint of pally (if you're into that =/ )
Versus a cookie cutter Warlock
So long as the b a s t a r d can shine through, they're picking the Warlock.

You would be a fool not too. It's not hyperbole it's just true.

Here's some more


There really should never have been a time where any other playstyles (especially casters) could eclipse Melees for tanking,
and the proof was in the pudding when Warlocks were the ones tanking Legendary Elite Sorjek.
Of course not the pally... he was dead a long time ago.
The fighter?
Please.
No, it was the Warlock, and with relative ease,
turtling with no fail intimidates like a champ, with next to no trade offs in terms of dps.

Speaking of deeps? Who does it better than Johnny Fury-Cannon.

Serious, in the absurd post-modern DDO, those are the 2 people completing your runs for you.
Next time your on top of Tempest's Spine, show some gratitude. They definitely could have done it without you.

And I love it

The Warlock express was an amazing ride to 30 and I can't wait to do the same when dragonborn rolls out.

:):p:)

[SuperSexyLisa18]

Melees have only 2 ways to cc mobs dire charge and lay waste.

Both need a high investment to work properly, require a hit roll, mobs have a chance to save, last just a few secs, lots of mobs are immune, lay waste have a long cooldown.

With the fact you need to be in close range to use those abilities, in higher skulls this is the main problem.

[SerPounce]

Are we just talking end-game here? I just did three melee lives (pally, barbarian, fighter/monk) soloing r1/2 in heroics and ee in epic. It was lots of fun. Sure, no where near as strong as my warlock lives, but in many ways more enjoyable.

With this game you just have to take it for what it is. It's not balanced. It never was, and it's only gotten worse. It is however a lot of fun. And IMO it's generally been more fun when you try to make things work that are hard.

If anything reaper is the most fun on a melee. On a warlock you basically do the same thing on reaper as you would on normal. On a melee it involves some real tactics and quick reactions. I'll actually get some adrenaline and an increased heart rate during a good reaper fight on a melee. I love my lock and all, but sometimes it's a snooze.

[Phoenicis]

1) I enjoy Melee. Skating around, controlling how many get swings by moving. Loads of fun. Nowhere near as possible in alot of areas with the new aggro mechanics, doors, corners and such become your friend. Older contend with smaller groups of mobs single target CC was great, control one, deal with the other two and the one when he's not cc'd any more. Now, you have ten, cc one and you still have nine to deal with. helpful, except that in the time you dealt with the one...

2) Ranged are WAY more powerful IMO, My rogue mechanic way out performs most* of my Melee for sheer killing speed. Haven't made a shuriken build yet, though it's on my list of things to do.

*Ummmmm, wait. My THF barb with cleave, great cleave and Ummmmmm, the enhancement cleave that takes HP can lay waste to packs, and USUALLY come out fully healed. In Heroic content. Started being less survivable when we got to Epics

3) If I want to complete a quest with the absolute minimum of fuss I drag out a warlock. I call them my self buffing destruction machines.

A couple ideas I've had that may bring kiting under control
-Auto-targeting and auto-attack disable while moving, (optionally, only while moving mostly sideways or backwards) to hit anything you HAVE to hard target it and click or hold down your attack button.
--Taken to a logical extension, precision, precise shot and improved precise shot all disable (temporarily, they auto-enable again if you stop moving) while moving backwards...
-Narrow the field of fire while moving, if it's not within ten degrees of your centerline you won't hit it.
-The longer a ranged character keeps moving, the lower their doubleshot goes. When that reaches zero their ranged power starts dropping, when that reaches zero their hit bonus starts dropping.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Are we just talking end-game here? I just did three melee lives (pally, barbarian, fighter/monk) soloing r1/2 in heroics and ee in epic. It was lots of fun. Sure, no where near as strong as my warlock lives, but in many ways more enjoyable.

With this game you just have to take it for what it is. It's not balanced. It never was, and it's only gotten worse. It is however a lot of fun. And IMO it's generally been more fun when you try to make things work that are hard.

If anything reaper is the most fun on a melee. On a warlock you basically do the same thing on reaper as you would on normal. On a melee it involves some real tactics and quick reactions. I'll actually get some adrenaline and an increased heart rate during a good reaper fight on a melee. I love my lock and all, but sometimes it's a snooze.

Your mileage may vary...

But it depends on the quest, and level.
I agree that there are plenty of quests where most characters can melee their way through just fine.
But there are also many where meleeing is certain death.
Then there is the new/undergeared players to think about.

Perhaps, like most other issues in this game, the real problem is power creep.

[Saekee]

I have always played stealth toons and it is unfortunate with Reaper that the standard solo sneaky approach is penalized (add to this the mess of the new aggro).

I think the ideal stealth toon is no longer a melee. I envision a 12 monk/6 ranger/2 rogue that burns feats for trapmaking (noisemakers) & is specced as a thrower with the faster sneaking enhancements from all three trees.

It is also unfortunate that PM healing is tough in reaper. I am using a flavor PM melee in epics (level 21 now) that is extremely resilient thus far in EE but cannot heal in Reaper (it is a Henshin vampire SWF void striker). Then again, there have been buffs to PM healing & light resistance via CC and some gear like festering mummy wrappings (that I do not have...).

[SuperSexyLisa18]

Perhaps, like most other issues in this game, the real problem is power creep.

This.

[zehnvhex]

I love that the only way a lot of you can perceive of making melee less streaky is to nerf everything else. Really goes to showcase how this mentality is less about "I want to be able to survive standing in melee range" and more about "I think ranged should die more." They also miss the point. Anyone saying "nerf kiting!" is going to be absolutely floored once they see what actually good players are getting away with. There are a handful of exceptions here and people who really get it (AE CC being meta right now).

The only problem with melee is they rely on an external enabler while everyone else has some form of self-enabling.

Really only requires two things to fix this issue:



Some sort of protection, soft or otherwise, from agro switching. Monsters like to turn and swipe and there's no warning in DDO. I'd say any time a mob switches targets it does 80% less damage for 3 seconds. This would suffice for a melee to go "Woah" and back off to avoid taking further damage.




CC's scale instead of rely on pass/fail system. Honestly the DC system and spell system needs a rework from the ground up. All CC spells should be no-fail. Duration should scale with DC. So for example, trip should always land and be AE. It lasts for 2 seconds up to a max of say, what, 10 seconds? depending on your DC vs. the mobs save. Change sunder into a disable (prevents mob from attacking for x seconds) and improved sunder into an AE disable.


And that's honestly all you really need. No need to nerf ranged. In a situation where you have a tank, the melee are able to react if they suddenly pull agro or if the mob has random agro switching mechanics they aren't unduly punished. If you want to solo you have a way to deal with that. You might have to occasionally back out and wait for cooldowns to refresh but that's the price you pay for cool looking weapons.

But Zehn...wouldn't the game be one giant CC fest then?

It already is. It's just that melee haven't been invited to the CC pile outside of a level 29 feat. If they wanted encounters to be more fun/interesting in that regard then they'd have to make encounters more then just a pile of HP you have to chomp through to get to the next one.

[AzB]

The Warlock express was an amazing ride to 30 and I can't wait to do the same when dragonborn rolls out.



The Warlock express was fun for a while, but it gets old really quick. I like challenge, and there was none. Warlock has no weaknesses and can just about anything as good or better than any other class.

B o r I n g .

[AzB]

I love that the only way a lot of you can perceive of making melee less streaky is to nerf everything else. Really goes to showcase how this mentality is less about "I want to be able to survive standing in melee range" and more about "I think ranged should die more." They also miss the point. Anyone saying "nerf kiting!" is going to be absolutely floored once they see what actually good players are getting away with. There are a handful of exceptions here and people who really get it (AE CC being meta right now).

The only problem with melee is they rely on an external enabler while everyone else has some form of self-enabling.

Really only requires two things to fix this issue:



Some sort of protection, soft or otherwise, from agro switching. Monsters like to turn and swipe and there's no warning in DDO. I'd say any time a mob switches targets it does 80% less damage for 3 seconds. This would suffice for a melee to go "Woah" and back off to avoid taking further damage.




CC's scale instead of rely on pass/fail system. Honestly the DC system and spell system needs a rework from the ground up. All CC spells should be no-fail. Duration should scale with DC. So for example, trip should always land and be AE. It lasts for 2 seconds up to a max of say, what, 10 seconds? depending on your DC vs. the mobs save. Change sunder into a disable (prevents mob from attacking for x seconds) and improved sunder into an AE disable.


And that's honestly all you really need. No need to nerf ranged. In a situation where you have a tank, the melee are able to react if they suddenly pull agro or if the mob has random agro switching mechanics they aren't unduly punished. If you want to solo you have a way to deal with that. You might have to occasionally back out and wait for cooldowns to refresh but that's the price you pay for cool looking weapons.

But Zehn...wouldn't the game be one giant CC fest then?

It already is. It's just that melee haven't been invited to the CC pile outside of a level 29 feat. If they wanted encounters to be more fun/interesting in that regard then they'd have to make encounters more then just a pile of HP you have to chomp through to get to the next one.

There's so much wrong with this, I don't know where to start.

Nerf ranged kiting? It's cheese, of course it needs reworking. Don't act like just because someone is suggesting a so called "nerf" that it's just automatically a bad idea.

And cc should never be no fail. What a bad idea. Duration should be a function of level, not DCs.

[Altamedes]

My sympathies to those who love melee and have experienced how difficult is to do high skull reaper in that playstyle.

The thing is, I'm not sure what people were expecting...? Some (not all) have wanted drastically increased difficulty for a long time. Some wanted it so difficult that the highest difficulty wouldn't have been able to be completed for months (which did NOT happen, of course).

Before Reaper ever went live - we all knew that "whatever form" Reaper looked like, that it would result in MOST builds and classes being NON-VIABLE in R10. I didn't think it would be basically all melee classes, but that's how it turned out. Of melee, ranged, insta-kill, crowd control, and healing - it was gonna be one of them "left out". Although various ideas have been presented on the forums including nerfing ranged in various ways or trying to buff melee (Armor Up 2 apparently), I haven't read anything that won't just shift another playstyle into the position of being non-viable.

The reality is that R10 isn't about role playing - it isn't about playing a class or playstyle you like and being successful. If that's what you want, don't do R10. It's about power gaming (whether you like it or hate it), which is about picking the "best/optimized" toon for one of those 5-6 roles and that's it. If you're a pro/elite player with a pro/elite teammates, you probably have some wiggle room for flavor but for most, you're stuck with the emerging cookie-cutter builds.

I think if people accept high skull Reaper for what it is, and do their best to adapt, they can then decide how (or if) they want to play it.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I am not for nerfing anyone.

and I have always thought those melee guys who run into every room swinging with no regard to tactics, deserve to get beat up.

But.... now with the agro change, it is really difficult (practically impossible) to not have to fight a whole bunch of mobs at once.
While this is just fine for Warlocks, it is not so fine for those who cannot kill everything in seconds...just by being near them.... :(

I have always had trouble with defense on melees.
True, I did mention Fighters with the armor feats being ok. But few others IMO. And having to devote so much build resources to get passable defense is depressing.
I've had to run some classes in Unyielding Sentinel just to fee like I am not super squishy.... not superior... just not super squishy.
That depresses me too.

Fact is, we get beat up too much is challenging quests.
With most players having to spend considerable effort to not get beat up so much.

Ranged has always been powerful... even when it wasn't.

And dang.... Warlocks.... I do not even know what to say about them. The AOE damage they put out just puts everyone else to shame.
I am not a big complainer about class balance.. and I hate nerfs...
and I hate power creep... which I do not see another option to balance that class other then nerf them or power creep everyone else to uberness...
I am not trying to call for game balance in this thread anyway...
I just want to be able to melee and enjoy it... rather than run from every monster like I do now.

I have no idea how to fix this. I just know that it is broken and should be more fun.

Best idea I have now is to reduce monster damage for non-crits in the highest difficulties.
But I do not really want less challenge. I just do not want to have to run away all the time (or die trying)

I guess if they fixed agro to not agro so many monsters in most dungeons, maybe things would be ok.

I love stealth too btw.
and I have always thought that stealth and tactics are one and the same.
The ability to manage agro is essential to tactical play.
The ability to take on monsters one at a time should be allowed in this game.
We were able to do this until recently. And I am not referring to being able to shoot them and have them stand there or come running by themselves.
There really was a time when shooting them brought their friends, but not the whole dungeon.
But you could just let one guy see you and he would come by himself.

Breaking barrels no longer causes noise.

Rehiding and invising, is messed up.

If they fixed the agro and stealth problems, it would go a long way.

All things are related IMO.

[Thrudh]

I am ok with some monsters being able to one shot players.
But there are too many that do super duper damage per hit right now IMO.

Are you talking about reaper or EE or LE?

[McFlay]

I don't think melee is really broken if it was the intent of the devs for upper skull reaper to be pretty much impossible with current power levels...I think kiting and ranged mechanics are just broken beyond belief. There is simply no benefit at all of doing anything from melee range considering how you can do the same or better for ranged. Even if melees got a little bump in defenses...how do you balance it? If you balance it for R1 its trivial for R10...if you balance it for higher skulls lower skulls become trivial...and that still leaves you with the problem of how much PRR(or other defense mechanism) compensates for not being able to kite when kiting is effectively 100% damage mitigation in a lot of different fights in a lot of different content.

There just needs to be more ways for mobs to take down ranged that don't make things a little worse for ranged but a lot worse for melee...which is basically what inflated damage as a difficulty mechanic does. A mob hitting for a million damage doesn't matter when you can kite it and hit it from range and not ever get whacked by it...but for the guy who has to walk up to melee range with it and is going to take a few licks here and there...its stupid.

[Jetrule]

There are some very effective melee builds I have played with since LE and reaper came onto the scene. I have had success and fun as I posted earlier with Shianto based monk. built for dps and cc and maxed dodge. I have had success with Pure fighter built for dps cc and defense. Lay waste has a slow cooldown but it resets very often on a cleaving build, improved trip will keep many monsters (without balance skill) on their backs for at least 20 seconds stunning blow is single target but the dc can be made no fail or near no fail and then the priority target you used it on can be quickly slain. Same for jade imprisonment attacks.

I have friends who have done very well with and like their rogue assassin in party play, Their dps mele rangers. The guild, Gods has a video showing how much damage one of these well built beasts puts out in a r-10 slavers run leading the kill count, The most effective tank I have played with is a druid fighter lock dire bear tank. Lately the pure maxed con barb with ravager capstone has started to shine in alot of content too. Are these all second tier builds? all except the bear tank at tanking yes. But they are far from useless or no fun. I dont hate on the kiters or locks when I am playing my melee's I do get frustrated in some quests to be sure because I know my ranger or warlock could have handled a encounter or 10 easier but this is a issue I get while soloing. In a party I am just not experiencing that sense of futility or frustration on my melees though. A party provides agro draws. I dont feel swamped. It provides opportunities for me to charge and cc/kill dangerous opponents without having to worry about having every other bad guy try and kill me in the process. I know at the end of a quest or raid I have been a solid contributor and I guess thats what feels the best.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Are you talking about reaper or EE or LE?

Yes.







Ok... probably LE mostly.
But then there are those champions... which really are not that rare.

A select few other quests. Usually newer ones of course. Which they did make harder on purpose.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I don't think melee is really broken if it was the intent of the devs for upper skull reaper to be pretty much impossible with current power levels...I think kiting and ranged mechanics are just broken beyond belief. There is simply no benefit at all of doing anything from melee range considering how you can do the same or better for ranged. Even if melees got a little bump in defenses...how do you balance it? If you balance it for R1 its trivial for R10...if you balance it for higher skulls lower skulls become trivial...and that still leaves you with the problem of how much PRR(or other defense mechanism) compensates for not being able to kite when kiting is effectively 100% damage mitigation in a lot of different fights in a lot of different content.

There just needs to be more ways for mobs to take down ranged that don't make things a little worse for ranged but a lot worse for melee...which is basically what inflated damage as a difficulty mechanic does. A mob hitting for a million damage doesn't matter when you can kite it and hit it from range and not ever get whacked by it...but for the guy who has to walk up to melee range with it and is going to take a few licks here and there...its stupid.


One problem has always been the Devs' insistence that Hobgoblins and other mundane monsters are somehow "epic" challenges for us.
Truly epic monsters would have epic abilities and defenses.

But even on the more mundane level there are options. A well placed Symbol of Stunning.. or even a flooded tunnel.. would do wonders for kiting.

But of course, any real challenging dungeon would be avoided by the masses...... :(

[the_one_dwarfforged]

But I do see their arguments.
and I am frustrated that my Rangers have to range in any difficult content and cannot enjoy the other half of their feats...
I am not a fan of kiting. Or of any of my characters having to run in fear from every melee swing of a monster.

That just isn't fun to me.

Plus I want to be able to play any class and enjoy it.

im not sure of the exact definition of "kiting" or how it is intended to be used by any individual who also may or may not know the exact definition of the word. personally i have come to the conclusion that it is an absurdity to be or express discontent at a strategy or contempt for the nature of it. its simply a means of dealing with the circumstances players find themselves in, and you really cant fault anyone for using what works. it makes a lot more sense to be irritated with the prominence of kiting in particular how it is used by ranged characters, but that is a result of an accumulation of bad design choices.

im not a fan of my characters not having to fear any swing of a weapon form a "monster"...

isnt the point of different classes that they each bring something different to the table? wouldnt it make sense that if this concept was being realized effectively that it would take a different mindset or manner of play to fully realize and enjoy what a different class has to offer? i think the mass desire of the game population to easily enjoy every class in exactly the same way is what has in no small part lead this game to the unfortunate state that it is in.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

im not sure of the exact definition of "kiting" or how it is intended to be used by any individual who also may or may not know the exact definition of the word. personally i have come to the conclusion that it is an absurdity to be or express discontent at a strategy or contempt for the nature of it. its simply a means of dealing with the circumstances players find themselves in, and you really cant fault anyone for using what works. it makes a lot more sense to be irritated with the prominence of kiting in particular how it is used by ranged characters, but that is a result of an accumulation of bad design choices.

im not a fan of my characters not having to fear any swing of a weapon form a "monster"...

isnt the point of different classes that they each bring something different to the table? wouldnt it make sense that if this concept was being realized effectively that it would take a different mindset or manner of play to fully realize and enjoy what a different class has to offer? i think the mass desire of the game population to easily enjoy every class in exactly the same way is what has in no small part lead this game to the unfortunate state that it is in.


I certainly use a version of kiting quite regularly. If I see a monster or twenty agro on me, I circle around and stay out of it's reach.
My Warlock friend charges into every fight, but runs around in circles letting his aura kill everything. He does this in every single fight and it looks boring to me.
There are those that run backwards all over the dungeon....etc.

My preference would be pull just few if possible.

Whole party range to soften them up as the monsters charge to us.
Use some CC.
But man up and finish them off with melee without being scared of one stray single hit....

[Borror0]

And cc should never be no fail. What a bad idea. Duration should be a function of level, not DCs.

Agreed on the first part, less on the second.

It's a viable idea to make failures vary in intensity, resulting in longer or shorter duration (which may also scale with caster level). It may be defensible to put varies in degrees of success, so that it's less fail or succeed. That's one more levers for the devs to balance around, leading to an easier balance to achieve.

[changelingamuck]

This problem (like most others) was caused by power creep.


I am not for nerfing anyone.

These are incompatible statements.

How do you think the problem of this balance issue that was caused by power creep should be solved then? Because there are only two options: (1) nerf, directly or indirectly, ranged/casters or (2) buff, directly or indirectly, melees and consequently add more power creep. Your only option that doesn't fuel the power creep responsible for the imbalance in the first place is nerfing--which you don't like. (And, no, revamping enemy AI with counter-kiting strategies isn't a 'third option'. It's still nerfing ranged/casters, just indirectly. Also, it's not going to happen because of the non-monetizable time/resources that it would require.)

[Borror0]

(2) buff, directly or indirectly, melees and consequently add more power creep.

I do not believe this is an helpful definition of power creep.

Player power does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in opposition to monster power. There's that power creep has dramatically trivialized a lot of old content, especially at lower difficulties, for exemple. Would there be as much complaints about power creep if SSG had then rebalanced content accordingly? I doubt it. The problem of power creep occurs when we grow more powerful and challenges do not rise to meet those new power levels.

There's plenty of reasons to raise the in-a-vacuum power of players, including many balance-oriented ones. Most notably, the addition of PRR and MRR help balance build decisions one against the other by having more than damage avoidance as a defensive stat. Once upon a time, AC was so trivial that everyone would be walking around in robes because that was optimal and relevant AC was trivial. Changes that improved the situation greatly improved build options, a net positive. Now, all of this also leads to power creep, if mobs are not adjusted accordingly.

The reason that DDO suffers so deeply from power creep is that no adjustments have been made to years old content.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

These are incompatible statements.

How do you think the problem of this balance issue that was caused by power creep should be solved then? Because there are only two options: (1) nerf, directly or indirectly, ranged/casters or (2) buff, directly or indirectly, melees and consequently add more power creep. Your only option that doesn't fuel the power creep responsible for the imbalance in the first place is nerfing--which you don't like. (And, no, revamping enemy AI with counter-kiting strategies isn't a 'third option'. It's still nerfing ranged/casters, just indirectly. Also, it's not going to happen because of the non-monetizable time/resources that it would require.)


Like most Internet posts; I am simply complaining about a problem without offering a viable solution. ;)


Go back in time and change the past?

[Standal]

Like most Internet posts; I am simply complaining about a problem without offering a viable solution. ;)


Go back in time and change the past?

That is the issue with these kinds of threads. The correct solution is to roll back to either the pre-MOTU level 20 game or the game immediately after MOTU and then redo everything with a respect for the game as it was. Something from every epic raid should still be relevant. Don't introduce any heroic items with better than +6 to an ability. Don't nerf the **** out of clickies.

The problem is that that's impossible. So just roll with the game as it is until you finally don't enjoy it enough to log on.

[Niminae]

The feat thing. Of course someone who invests should do better.
But we have a situation now where, "your class is proficient with all martial weapons, yet you must never consider using any you have not further invest in, because other players will laugh at your uselessness."
... that just ain't right IMO.

I prefer to play casters, but I run with a lot of decent melee players. I see them swapping weapons to break DR wherever that makes sense. Of course swapping to a lame weapon just to break DR might not be productive, and of course they might have had to invest in building out and/or farming up different weapons, but I don't see that as any different than a caster who might be more focused on one type of spell damage having to swap to another in fights where the mobs are resistant or immune to their preferred element.


Melees have only 2 ways to cc mobs dire charge and lay waste.

Both need a high investment to work properly, require a hit roll, mobs have a chance to save, last just a few secs, lots of mobs are immune, lay waste have a long cooldown.

With the fact you need to be in close range to use those abilities, in higher skulls this is the main problem.

This is a problem. Reapers are immune to stuns, and as for Lay Waste the wiki says:
Bug: Feats, past lives, item boosts don't affect the DC of Lay Waste.
Bug: Legendary Tactics isn't applying to the knockdown DC of Lay Waste. (http://ddowiki.com/page/Legendary_Dreadnought)

If this is correct that's a huge amount of DC being missed out on just due to known bugs. Perhaps the devs should get around to fixing things that might allow melee classes to work as intended?

[SuperSexyLisa18]

I prefer to play casters, but I run with a lot of decent melee players. I see them swapping weapons to break DR wherever that makes sense. Of course swapping to a lame weapon just to break DR might not be productive, and of course they might have had to invest in building out and/or farming up different weapons, but I don't see that as any different than a caster who might be more focused on one type of spell damage having to swap to another in fights where the mobs are resistant or immune to their preferred element.



This is a problem. Reapers are immune to stuns, and as for Lay Waste the wiki says:
Bug: Feats, past lives, item boosts don't affect the DC of Lay Waste.
Bug: Legendary Tactics isn't applying to the knockdown DC of Lay Waste. (http://ddowiki.com/page/Legendary_Dreadnought)

If this is correct that's a huge amount of DC being missed out on just due to known bugs. Perhaps the devs should get around to fixing things that might allow melee classes to work as intended?

Fight reapers is a lottery for melees, you have to turn all your boosts and kill it before he turns to you or you are a soulstone.

But others can easily cc them for some reason...

[ThreadNecromancer]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.

[azrael4h]

Lets assume, for just a moment, that the devs are not stupid, and are aware of the fact that people want more challenge.

What options do they have, given the limits on the AI?

Big bags of HP that hit like trucks. OK, this we got.

Mobs that trip, improve trip, use the CC capabilities at their disposal. We have this too.

Mobs that use ranged weapons or magic when players stay out of their reach. Ummm, yeah. Got that.

Anything I've missed?

I keep seeing people say 'they need to be creative!' but stop there. Give them ideas to work from.

Do I have any ideas? One or two, but I'm sure players would hate when mobs matched, or exceeded, their PRR, MRR, Dam & hit mods (because then they may not be big bags of HP, but you wouldn't do much more than scratch them, and good luck if they had our all or nothing stacking defenses). That's why I'm on this end playing games and not that end designing them.

Mob positioning where archers and casters are perched and able to target PCs, while melee critters are on the same area as the PCs. Requiring a mix of ranged/casters to CC the hostile melees, and deal with hostile casters/ranged, while the melees have something to fight. See Maraud the Mines as an example. A couple champion casters in the center room and in the arena portion can make this still a decent challenge. Hidden foes behind illusionary walls, who can surprise us. Alarms which summon additional spawns.

Casters who use Disjunction to weaken temporarily our characters, removing the vast power some of the gear provides for an encounter or two. Anti-magic fields that prevent casting in an AoE, silence spells for single PC casters. Use of Gust of Wind to dispel persistent AoE DoTs and CC.

Combats that have traps placed throughout that the mobs aren't hurt by. Collapsing sections of floor that prevent just straight zerging.

All of this is in earlier quests, except the silence spell. "Modern" DDO quests are pretty much red alert sacks of hp.

[azrael4h]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.

Well, that, and since Ranged was given a few upgrades since MotU and such, increasingly mobs die long before I get to them. Running Newcomers with a guildy on an Arty Friday, most mob died or were largely killed before I could hit them with my Monk. Stragglers I had to chase then to try and punch, and Monks especially don't do well trying to hit a moving target. It's very frustrating.

Kiters I ignore; it you are kiting, then I will move to the next group and leave you to solo as you obviously want to. When I'm ranged, I may try to engage at as far a range as possible, but I also only kite if I'm alone; in a group I'll stay still until the mob is dead or a melee has taken aggro. Since the aggro is borked in this game though, half the time I can take aggro without ever firing a shot.

[Phoenicis]

Mob positioning where archers and casters are perched and able to target PCs, while melee critters are on the same area as the PCs. Requiring a mix of ranged/casters to CC the hostile melees, and deal with hostile casters/ranged, while the melees have something to fight. See Maraud the Mines as an example. A couple champion casters in the center room and in the arena portion can make this still a decent challenge. Hidden foes behind illusionary walls, who can surprise us. Alarms which summon additional spawns.

Casters who use Disjunction to weaken temporarily our characters, removing the vast power some of the gear provides for an encounter or two. Anti-magic fields that prevent casting in an AoE, silence spells for single PC casters. Use of Gust of Wind to dispel persistent AoE DoTs and CC.

Combats that have traps placed throughout that the mobs aren't hurt by. Collapsing sections of floor that prevent just straight zerging.

All of this is in earlier quests, except the silence spell. "Modern" DDO quests are pretty much red alert sacks of hp.

Perhaps then people are asking for challenge on the forums, but when in game running quests that provide big bags of hp, so the devs (who can I'm sure watch which quests are run the most in any given level range) are making what people actually run, not what they are asking for on the forums.

Just a theory mind you...

[Thar]

Bards are great CC for R10.

If stealth/aggro wasnt broken currently, assassins would be more desired.

Assassins are still good taking meatbags down in one shot but you have to be really careful and let others get agro first.

[azrael4h]

Perhaps then people are asking for challenge on the forums, but when in game running quests that provide big bags of hp, so the devs (who can I'm sure watch which quests are run the most in any given level range) are making what people actually run, not what they are asking for on the forums.

Just a theory mind you...

Well, most of the best designed quests are years old, and have no loot to grind for and in many cases, no Epic or Legendary versions for the endgamers, so they're pretty much just a once and done on a TR train. Meanwhile, the loot that is most desired and up to date? Is in the bag of HP stuff. They're also balanced towards a pre-MotU DDO, forget the current DDO with the massive RG loot boost, enhancement power bloat, and Epic and Iconic PLs adding to character power. Some quests are still poor XP, so they're only really there for the fun.

People run quests for one of a few things. Loot, XP, and Fun. They will generally sacrifice the latter for either of the former two. They'll even run poor XP quests if the loot is good enough, until they get it at least and stop running it entirely. Thus the most run quests tend to be either the new stuff (for desired loot upgrades) or the high XP stuff (VoN5 EE, etc).

You theory is sound, but it ignores a few variables. Notably the why of running any particular quest. In my experience, all players are after one of those three things when they play DDO. Theoretically, it should always be Fun + 'X', but as we've seen, DDO Players will run VoN3 EEEEEHHHHHNNNN to level fast (or whatever the pattern was back when you had to farm XP). They find the fun at their goal, not in getting there.

[Gremmlynn]

That is the issue with these kinds of threads. The correct solution is to roll back to either the pre-MOTU level 20 game or the game immediately after MOTU and then redo everything with a respect for the game as it was. Something from every epic raid should still be relevant. Don't introduce any heroic items with better than +6 to an ability. Don't nerf the **** out of clickies.

The problem is that that's impossible. So just roll with the game as it is until you finally don't enjoy it enough to log on.Actually, it would be to roll back to the 2004 or so time period and remake the game from the ground up to reflect where they want it to be. One of the games biggest problems is the amount of making stuff up as they go, rather than having a set plan in place to follow.

[Gremmlynn]

I prefer to play casters, but I run with a lot of decent melee players. I see them swapping weapons to break DR wherever that makes sense. Of course swapping to a lame weapon just to break DR might not be productive, and of course they might have had to invest in building out and/or farming up different weapons, but I don't see that as any different than a caster who might be more focused on one type of spell damage having to swap to another in fights where the mobs are resistant or immune to their preferred element.It's not so much swapping to a different weapon as swapping to a different type of weapon. Especially when it's melee to ranged or visa versa. It's mostly a matter of feat/enhancement investment.

The point about casters just shows how much specialized the game has gotten. There isn't a whole lot of adapting one's play to the situation. Either what one does well works, or one is going to suck pretty hard. In most cases, if it's not completely immune, it's better to just accept the resistance or DR as that's likely to be less of a drop off.

[Gremmlynn]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.The problem is that those who kite don't really care how you feel as that's what makes the game fun for them.

This game is rather dysfunctional for group play, in that what makes it fun to play as a melee makes it boring for ranged and what makes it fun for ranged (Keystone Cops) makes it annoying for melee.

[Chai]

I've been playing mostly monk/rogueish types since I started playing this game, and I only have one problem with being melee:


Kiters.


If a ranged/caster gets aggro from melees, they need to stop damaging it until someone else gets aggro again. Or use friggin Diplomacy if you have to, I don't care. But I flat out REFUSE to chase mobs around like a chicken with its head cut off because some ranger/caster/shuricannon/warlock can't handle getting hit in melee. Learn to manage your aggro, people. This isn't Keystone Cops.

With the numbers melee mobs hit for in the upper difficulty settings, its actually looking pretty much like keystone cops at this point, whether there is a melee in the group or not. This has much to do with people shouting down having parity between melee mob damage numbers, and ranged mob damage numbers.

[slarden]

Maybe less monster damage on non-critical hits?

But make critical hits high enough to kill most players.Which is how it used to be, but realistically players will figure out and then get enough fort to nullify all criticals.

[Wipey]

The problem is that those who kite don't really care how you feel as that's what makes the game fun for them.



You really think that those ranged toons kite only to **** melees off ?
I do less sneak damage, I take more damage and spell damage, get hamstringed, can't line up mobs properly when I have to kite.

From 20- 30 almost no fail paralyze ( up to reaper 6-7 ), Tendon Slice Dun Robar, Stay Frosty, Improved Deception.
No it's less fun to kite - I love me some proper tank or heavy melee with some Incite so I can see pretty numbers on Furyshots.

Sometimes the melees just suck. Yeah your Paladin in Sentinel with 2 kills autoattacking some rednamed for 150 damage in 3 skull slavers is not good enough.

My favourite is hjealing "supposed" tanks and getting aggro with Arcane Pulse only - on a bloody fvs.

Yeah so I start kiting that thing so we can actually have some fun and not be here 3 hours because of some melee primadonna.

[Gremmlynn]

You really think that those ranged toons kite only to **** melees off ?No, it's just generally preferable to standing in one spot shooting mobs that may as well be practice dummies due to the melee having the agro.

Like I said, either one style is bored or the other annoyed.