Melee and ranged vs nuker

[Alizar]

Is it just me or does melee and ranged feel much weaker to nukers now post u49? I tried out pure ranger after tempest. Noticed a lot of arrows not counting so that makes up a big loss in DPS. Nukers dont have to worry about lag as much as melee/ranged.

[AbyssalMage]

Is it just me or does melee and ranged feel much weaker to nukers now post u49? I tried out pure ranger after tempest. Noticed a lot of arrows not counting so that makes up a big loss in DPS. Nukers dont have to worry about lag as much as melee/ranged.
Sorry, couldn't say. I can say i am doing less DPS on Melee and Ranged but that was a known nerf prior to the patch.

[Burtle]

Sorry, couldn't say. I can say i am doing less DPS on Melee and Ranged but that was a known nerf prior to the patch.


Same... I've noticed a lot of difference in the amount of damage per swing on my Ravager barbs... I even respecced one to OS to just be a front line magic resistance fighter.. prolly have to tr them tho back to their respective classes ... Barbs sure didn't get much love this update...

[Baahb3]

I just finished an ETR since U49 went live, Bard Warchanter, SWFer. I found the damage comparable if not a bit better the whole life doing quests on EE. No hard numbers, just a gut feeling running the quests.

I did notice that my ice strikes and dire charges not getting all targets as consistently due to the lack of the double chance at the save.

[Alizar]

My tempest felt slow. Only time it felt ok was during haste boost. I think I'm going back to sorc. Probably water savant. Too bad I liked tempest.

[hit_fido]

Is it just me or does melee and ranged feel much weaker to nukers now post u49? I tried out pure ranger after tempest. Noticed a lot of arrows not counting so that makes up a big loss in DPS. Nukers dont have to worry about lag as much as melee/ranged.

Heroics or epics?

Judging based purely on observed performance in hardcore server, the most commonly capable builds for clearing mobs fast in 12-19 are alchemists, warlocks, favored souls, and sun domain clerics. I don't see nearly as many sorcerers. Spellsingers looked good but seem to die more often. THF melee (paladins, barbarians, ek) all seem to do well but a step below the casters. Bears seem slower but haven't seen any die either. Any split with endless fusillade or no holds barred excels at the niche of taking down the boss fast when the alchemist got to the end with no sp left.

This is a generalization as I've seen all kinds of builds do well; but to my view as a pattern in "late" heroics: caster AOE > THF AOE > pew pew pew. But is that any different than before U49?

[slarden]

It depends on what you are measuring. If you are measuring clearing low difficulty mobs faster - that is kind of what an aoe nuker does and is their niche.

If you are taking about boss damage in level 30+ raids the top dps builds are all melee and ranged builds and it's not even close.

[Maelodic]

Casters are very good at clearing mobs compared to melee/ranged but are significantly worse at taking down bosses/red names.

During the leveling process it feels like casters are stronger because they are stronger while leveling - but if you hit endgame and you have a raid full of casters your bosses are going to take much longer to kill. Try to put up LFMs if you're leveling, makes things go faster.

[rabidfox]

Casters are very good at clearing mobs compared to melee/ranged but are significantly worse at taking down bosses/red names.

During the leveling process it feels like casters are stronger because they are stronger while leveling - but if you hit endgame and you have a raid full of casters your bosses are going to take much longer to kill. Try to put up LFMs if you're leveling, makes things go faster.

I know FvS and Spellsinger both mature very early on but then slowdown as they cap out max caster level on certain spells. Heroic leveling vs endgame for what does what well is so vastly different; there's a serious lack of smooth power curves for everything while leveling (which is great as it pushes running different build setups to maximize different points of power at different level brackets and multiclassing/universal trees make it just go crazy for ways to optimize stuff while leveling).

[Kalindush]

Nuking spells is also affected by lag and some spells does not land on mobs due to it.

[Valerianus]

Is it just me or does melee and ranged feel much weaker to nukers now post u49? I tried out pure ranger after tempest. Noticed a lot of arrows not counting so that makes up a big loss in DPS. Nukers dont have to worry about lag as much as melee/ranged.


atm no idea about melee\ranged, playing caster now, but i assure you that lag is a problem for any build, lag can make spells don't land, have no effect, you see the visual, the fireball exploded, but nothing happens, no damage, no rolls, etc...and they go in cooldown and sp is wasted.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Casters are very good at clearing mobs compared to melee/ranged but are significantly worse at taking down bosses/red names.

During the leveling process it feels like casters are stronger because they are stronger while leveling - but if you hit endgame and you have a raid full of casters your bosses are going to take much longer to kill. Try to put up LFMs if you're leveling, makes things go faster.


It depends on what you are measuring. If you are measuring clearing low difficulty mobs faster - that is kind of what an aoe nuker does and is their niche.

If you are taking about boss damage in level 30+ raids the top dps builds are all melee and ranged builds and it's not even close.

Problem is that overall low- to mid-level is the majority of content.
30+ content is an extreme niche, if I count how much content is there.

And, since low- to mid-level is the majority of content, the subjective feeling of "not contributing" lasts so much longer, especially for Newbies, since the way up into end game is long, long, long, long and did I say long ? and difficult for melee.

And don't forget that F2P players have to do EVERY quest 3 times, if they want max Favour : Normal, Hard, and Elite difficulty, because each one much be unlocked by doing the lower difficulty of these three !
And that adds up to the play time. VIPs don't have that problem.

[slarden]

Problem is that overall low- to mid-level is the majority of content.
30+ content is an extreme niche, if I count how much content is there.

And, since low- to mid-level is the majority of content, the subjective feeling of "not contributing" lasts so much longer, especially for Newbies, since the way up into end game is long, long, long, long and did I say long ? and difficult for melee.

And don't forget that F2P players have to do EVERY quest 3 times, if they want max Favour : Normal, Hard, and Elite difficulty, because each one much be unlocked by doing the lower difficulty of these three !
And that adds up to the play time. VIPs don't have that problem.

I don't understand this problem at all. I leveled a first-life paladin to 20 running R1 solo on a new free to play character with no gear sharing or store purchases using just the free quest coupon and whatever gear dropped for this character. There were a few tough quests on R1 but not many. I mostly tore through content until I got to epics which is the same problem a new free-to-play caster would have. In fact I specifically went melee because it's so much easier to play without all the past lifes and accumulated character power compared to a caster.

The top rxp build on hardcore is a melee.

I agree the feeling of not contributing is completely subjective and likely based on kill count which is a bad measure for easy content. When people zerg through heroic lifes at low difficulties kill count is going to be based on fastest fingers and casters are going to almost always lead in easy content due to aoe and longer range.

We've seen so many nerfs of casters to the point they are severely under-represented in raids at level 30 and yet these subjective feelings never end. The problem isn't caster/melee balance the problem is when you join a zerg fast-leveling group balance isn't applicable at all because kill count will always be based on who gets to the mobs fastest and melees will always be last. Up the difficulty to R8 and the dynamics will be different.

The only way to fix the problem you are describing is to massively nerf melee, ranged, casters, past lifes and reaper trees so that elite/R1 is a challenge regardless of group composition. That would just create massive nerdrage and likely still wouldn't solve the so-called balance issue because as you say it's subjective.

[PedXing20]

I don't understand this problem at all....
You are an experienced player with a solid understanding of game mechanics who builds solid toons to complete quests.

Many of the people screaming casters are touching their bad places think a fully flavour-oriented dex focussed melee swim cleric is optimal and if they can't compete with the guy with reaper wings while they complete the 67xp optional, there is something wrong ...

You will never be able to explain your side of the game to them.

[Alizar]

Nuking spells is also affected by lag and some spells does not land on mobs due to it.

Yeah true I'm noticing some spells don't land but find the lag issue vastly improved playing a sorc. As for end game DPS I agree with all of you pre U49. Not sure post U49. I will assess once I hit 30. Melee and ranged felt terrible post u49 so I doubt I would want that regardless. Sorc* feels good. Back in the race car. Also, I have no intention of just going to 30vand TR. I plan to sit at 30 as long as I can enjoy it.