Are melees out of the high reaper raids?

[Deathwing_The_Dragon]

I play HO Fighter, Heroic, Racial and epic completionist with around 90 reaper points. Applied for a R8 VoD and was politely rejected - was asked to bring a ranged/caster nuker/healer toon if I had any of them. They had couple of tanks and were taking only the above. So is this the normal or was the leader just picky?

[Oliphant]

I have not heard this angle yet, the angle of people not accepting the non-tank melees, but I've been hearing non-tank melees self selecting out of that role in high reaper raids due to survivability being a mess for many builds post U51. Part of the issue is DPS is up overall but melee survivability is down; more people are pushing skulls to keep the raids challenging but melee survivability is actually worse going into that. I still think nerfing meld was the dumbest part of U51.

[draven1]

One of the reasons for that is...
Orthons that use whirlwind 360-degree attack. Those can't be CCed, so, there are very limited choices, a very smart tank, or keeping distance(being ranged). The latter is way easier. That's why they rejected melee.

There is no way to handle those whirlwind attacks on melee when on high reaper. In that situation, ranged have ZERO challenge factor unless they failed aggro management. It is a combat design flaw.

[slarden]

LVOD is a poorly designed raid and virtually every melee used meld in there to survive the orthon phase or if the boss suddenly turned. I can actually see a raid leader doing that - even if dps is a bit slower it doesn't really matter as much in there.

Removing meld was one of the worst decisions the devs ever made because it was already balanced by the timer and the need to use it very selectively.

It allowed players to work around poorly designed encounters like we have in VOD.

It's ironic the devs removed meld for balance reasons and it actually created a balance issue.

Also in an R10 quest I don't find meld all that critical, but in R8 LVOD almost everything is going to be a one-shot. You can't survive without it at close range.


One of the reasons for that is...
Orthons that use whirlwind 360-degree attack. Those can't be CCed, so, there are very limited choices, a very smart tank, or keeping distance(being ranged). The latter is way easier. That's why they rejected melee.

There is no way to handle those whirlwind attacks on melee when on high reaper. In that situation, ranged have ZERO challenge factor unless they failed aggro management. It is a combat design flaw. There is still improved uncanny dodge and the hood of unrest, but still meld is needed there. Agree.

[J1NG]

The Orthons DoT Aura is the big issue there for melee on something like R8. Everything else is secondary technically speaking.

1. A Tank can get dedicated healing and have enough MRR, PRR, AC (Maybe) and importantly enough HP to take a few moments of damage whilst they have full healer attention.
2. Extra Melee will need to look after themselves because otherwise you need to use Disease removing Mass spells as well (A Beacon, Burst or Mass Heal, all of which have timers and casting speed issues in the case of Mass Heal) every time you get a tic of the DoT onto you (you have 3 seconds to remove it).
3. Anyone who can reliable use Incorporeal (50%, so it gets reduced to 20% in R8) and/or Dodge, usually has very low MRR or no where enough MRR to take multiple procs of Evil damage. Certainly not on R8, and not when you have 4 sources of them potentially (1 from each Orthon and they tic on their own different timer). So this means certain Death for Melee in such situations, since they can't melee them without getting a DoT stacked onto them and then die from the resulting 8k Evil damage per tic and per stack on R8. (The Orthons in LVoD ignore Concealment, so anyone relying on that is a dead duck)
4. Ranged, who will remain outside of this DoT Aura radius, obviously won't have issues with it so long as they manage their aggro/threat properly. So they can just apply dps, unlike melee who are constantly trying to remove the DoT that will kill them in short order.

Suulomades is not the problem with a tank and healers since that's more controllable in terms of what to tackle. 1 source of incoming damage, either Melee (You either have enough Avoidance defence to stay in melee range or not), or reflex save based (from the occasional DBF, Chain Lightning, etc). Nothing that requires you to constantly be removing stacks instead of doing actions (like fighting).

J1NG

:: edit ::
The Ortho DoT Aura issue is the reason for any LVoD melee exclusion for simplicity sake. I doubt you'd find the exact same issue in other raids.

[Hawkwier]

I play HO Fighter, Heroic, Racial and epic completionist with around 90 reaper points. Applied for a R8 VoD and was politely rejected - was asked to bring a ranged/caster nuker/healer toon if I had any of them. They had couple of tanks and were taking only the above. So is this the normal or was the leader just picky?

Disappointing, but sadly not surprising. You were essentially asked not to bring a knife to a gunfight. Devs clueless approach to balance means Melee is flavour these days. But U51 is the best update ever according to some. Aye, right.

May be a portent of things to come as we move towards L40 cap. Should be fixed now, but I doubt they will.

[boredGamer]

Disappointing, but sadly not surprising. You were essentially asked not to bring a knife to a gunfight. Devs clueless approach to balance means Melee is flavour these days. But U51 is the best update ever according to some. Aye, right.

May be a portent of things to come as we move towards L40 cap. Should be fixed now, but I doubt they will.


It's almost like the exact same situation any time they give ranged too much DPS - there's no reason to work out other strategies.

It's also the exact situation where the pendulum swings too far, it always happens and DDO is slow to react (compared to a blizzard).

It'll come back, melee was king of the hill not that long ago.

I predict caster DPS will decrease and melee defenses will increase, eventually. Certainly not before all the forumites declare everything the worst thing ever, however.

[Zites]

I play HO Fighter, Heroic, Racial and epic completionist with around 90 reaper points. Applied for a R8 VoD and was politely rejected - was asked to bring a ranged/caster nuker/healer toon if I had any of them. They had couple of tanks and were taking only the above. So is this the normal or was the leader just picky?


Hmm... I wonder if any devs were in that raid to see this maybe on thier new builds range/casting everything in site LOL.

Just kidding maybe;D

The fallowing is in reguard to DeepReap.

Anyway someone said, just play the meta and force them to change it when no one plays melee.

But if you must play melee its avoidance, hate reduction and deplo all the way.

Under no circumstances should a melee dps take on any threat generation sorry Vanguards/Defensive Combat Stances but your sol.

Monks don't worrie thier going to buff you soon.

Ps. I know there are times when you may want to grab agro from say your healer but good luck having enough intim and defence to survive in DeepReap on a true dps toon.

[songswrath]

One of the reasons for that is...
Orthons that use whirlwind 360-degree attack. Those can't be CCed, so, there are very limited choices, a very smart tank, or keeping distance(being ranged). The latter is way easier. That's why they rejected melee.

There is no way to handle those whirlwind attacks on melee when on high reaper. In that situation, ranged have ZERO challenge factor unless they failed aggro management. It is a combat design flaw.

100% melee is no real fun to play any more. it been nerfed and nerfed. casters and ranged toons have got huge boost in last few updates. what the point of play and melee any more and don't say dps cause they are far on the bottom. just re name the game to spells and arrows already.

[Zites]

100% melee is no real fun to play any more. It been nerfed and nerfed. Casters and ranged toons have got huge boost in last few updates. What the point of play and melee any more and don't say dps cause they are far on the bottom. Just re name the game to spells and arrows already.

lol +1

[Oliphant]

It's almost like the exact same situation any time they give ranged too much DPS - there's no reason to work out other strategies.

They gave everyone more dps, people are pushing diffs, meanwhile they nerfed meld is what happened.

[TFerguson]

We did R5 VOD this week with 4 melees and they were dead so often when it mattered that they may as well have been empty party slots. These weren't tissue paper melees either.

I'm sure there are a few god-mode players out there still pulling this off but for the rest of the world melees need a significant survivability bump.

[TFerguson]

I still think nerfing meld was the dumbest part of U51.

Maybe? If overall defenses were better and balanced would meld have ever been needed.

[Hawkwier]

...just re name the game to spells and arrows already.

That made me laugh out loud. Brilliant! :)

DDO2=SnA

[Zites]

Maybe? If overall defenses were better and balanced would meld have ever been needed.

Nope but they want to change the meta from time to time and I think thats good, but puttng out a match with a firehose and driving a tack with a slegehammer seems to be the way.

I still like the idea of new reapers that target range/casters and nerfing dodge in reaper as this is where the problem is.

Just to head off the invalid talking point that we shouldnt blance around reaper, reaper is the game it's where 60%-70% play. Maybe we should go with who pays the bills and not the minority.

[Tilomere]

The Orthons DoT Aura is the big issue there for melee on something like R8.

Remove Disease (https://ddowiki.com/page/Remove_Disease) potions?


We did R5 VOD this week with 4 melees and they were dead so often when it mattered that they may as well have been empty party slots. These weren't tissue paper melees either.

R5 devils were hitting for ~3.5k through 200 PRR. Any well-built melee can take a hit and live. Assuming you have a pair of tanks, a pair of healers, and a pair of CC/instakill, the dps requirement for R5 VoD are 2 well-built dps characters worth of DPS, so the remaining 6 slots has room for 4 weaker melee to splatter and still succeed off the remaining 2 dps.


Applied for a R8

OP wanted R8 though not R5. Yeah, melee can't take a hit there.

[LiveFast]

All the melee builds I made since U51 have 8rogue and at least 1-3 levels of light monk and are running grandmaster. I have no problems at very high difficulties but I cannot picture how I would survive without this kind of split. at least /8rogue has become mandatory without meld.

[J1NG]

Remove Disease (https://ddowiki.com/page/Remove_Disease) potions?

lol, have you tried to co-ordinate your attacking, and active defences (Dodge as the others aren't much use there) AND you need to use a Remove Disease Pot potentially every second in the fight as Melee to remove every stack of the DoT you get (because it could potenitally one shot you)? You don't get many attacks through due to the animations for drinking the Remove Disease pot.

Compare that to ranged and spell casters where they don't need to worry about that, and only need to launch a reduced threat spell or ranged attack every so often. That's much more consistent dps than what any melee can provide at R8 LVoD against the Elite Orthon Legionnaires.

J1NG

[songswrath]

[QUOTE=TFerguson;6493643]We did R5 VOD this week with 4 melees and they were dead so often when it mattered that they may as well have been empty party slots. These weren't tissue paper melees either.

I'm sure there are a few god-mode players out there still pulling this off but for the rest of the world melees need a significant survivability bump.[/QUOT

my main songswrath is a full maxxed out toon with any gear you can think of. The build i am on now is a bear 18 druid 1 fighter 1 fav soul . i have 4600 hps in reaper mode around 260 a/c standing 30 dodge and prr of 300 capped mrr at 100 (light amor ) saves are all near 80 with evade. my def is far better than what 95% of player players are going to have. with out me dancing around trying not to get hit in-between monster hits. while hoping some casts a heal on me .i am still 1 to 2 hits away from ghost mode in r8+. some kind of rebalance needs to be made for melee's. melee's can't find a safe spot like casters and ranged toons can. or a glass cannon or you are a no dps tank that can take these hits.

[Zites]

All the melee builds I made since U51 have 8rogue and at least 1-3 levels of light monk and are running grandmaster. I have no problems at very high difficulties but I cannot picture how I would survive without this kind of split. at least /8rogue has become mandatory without meld.

Yea my curent toon is THF 8rogue/12fighter in light armor, in reaper 3700hp 250prr 140mrr 200 ac 54 standing dodge and 191 standing hate reduction.

And lost a significant amount of dps from my last build from a Standing 300+melee power too 240 melee power not to mention str nerf.

But now i have good cc's but casters/range melt them before I can land the buggy/misses often new dire charge.

ps Im usually the last to die due to mostly hate reduction and deplo srry caster/range but now I bring the agro stright to you and only attack from behind and I never go first any more thats for soul stones.:)

[Bjond]

I predict caster DPS will decrease and melee defenses will increase
It could just be another pendulum swing as you described. However, they added "Throw the Boom" for tanks. That hints that maybe they're looking to solve the issue by reviving the trinity. Intim only works on about 1/3 of all critters. Hate is slow to build. Boom works on everything. The CD is too long for jogging (or zerging) through a quest, but it's a step toward trinity rather than trying to balance the ball of solo'ing zerglings.

IMHO, the EDs hurt the other problem, which was leveling as a tank. There's just no point in doing things at a difficulty that makes tanking pay until L29+. A method that permits builds to easily swap from leveling/dps to all-out tank at cap might go further toward reviving trinity -- or maybe find a way to make high reaper sub29 worthwhile.

[Tilomere]

lol, have you tried to co-ordinate your attacking, and active defences (Dodge as the others aren't much use there) AND you need to use a Remove Disease Pot potentially every second in the fight as Melee to remove every stack of the DoT you get (because it could potenitally one shot you)?

Remove disease makes you immune to disease for 6 seconds per caster level? You mean, like walk into that raid solo on a pure 20 rogue assassin? Yes (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/528353-For-a-Fist-ful-of-Flowers?p=6480685&viewfull=1#post6480685)?

[J1NG]

Remove disease makes you immune to diseases for 6 seconds per caster level?

It appears you are unware of this fact, but Remove Disease only removes the DoT. It doesn't stop you from regaining the DoT again immediately after if it's time for those Auras to proc again. :)

J1NG

[Tilomere]

Ahh, that would explain the difficulties soloing hard.

Bad memory. Don't remember how I did it that well. But it can be done, have done it. I think I had to swap my left thumb mouse button out from boost to remove disease pots to spam it.

[J1NG]

Ahh, that would explain the difficulties soloing hard.

Aye, because it's not a "normal" disease, it is not prevented by the usual defences. So the Remove Disease approach wouldn't work here. On Legendary Normal, they only do around 40 Evil Damage each per stack, so very survivable. Once you reach R8, that's no longer the same story.

J1NG

[Tilomere]

Aye, because it's not a "normal" disease, it is not prevented by the usual defences. So the Remove Disease approach wouldn't work here.

I don't remember from my undead lives, does that work? Or being a paladin? I don't remember from my paladin lives either. If a bunch of your dps is adrenaline + boulder's might, spamming pots shouldn't be too bad a hit, especially for R5 where you only need 2 peoples worth of dps. But ya, R8 is a different animal.

[J1NG]

I don't remember from my undead lives, does that work? Or being a paladin? I don't remember from my paladin lives either.

It's very description says it works on Celestial beings, which means most likely it'll work on the Paladin, since it worked on a Monk. The question of the Palemaster I am uncertain of at the moment as I haven't brought one into that raid yet as it was used in tests and was stuck in test mode (not suitable for actual runs Feats and Enhancements).

J1NG

[Deathwing_The_Dragon]

OP wanted R8 though not R5. Yeah, melee can't take a hit there.

Yap after some convo with raid leaders in my server, seems melee are no-go for all high reaper raids, not only in VOD. I will be TRing into caster-nuker so I can be of use. Thanks for the replies everyone.

[J1NG]

Just took the Palemaster into the run and stayed invis'd next to the Orthons, and as I correctly surmised, they too are affected by the Aura. So there is no immunity to that effect, only removal.

As for using Adrenaline + Boulders might, not everyone runs in THF mode.

J1NG

[J1NG]

Yap after some convo with raid leaders in my server, seems melee are no-go for all high reaper raids, not only in VOD. I will be TRing into caster-nuker so I can be of use. Thanks for the replies everyone.

lol, those leaders have no idea then. :)

J1NG

[TFerguson]

Nope but they want to change the meta from time to time and I think thats good, but puttng out a match with a firehose and driving a tack with a slegehammer seems to be the way.

Changing the meta is fine, but not to the degrees in which they do. I've see people who only like to play one-style up and quit when it's nerfed to useless.




I still like the idea of new reapers that target range/casters and nerfing dodge in reaper as this is where the problem is.

Nerfing ranged/casters doesn't make melee better.



Just to head off the invalid talking point that we shouldnt blance around reaper, reaper is the game it's where 60%-70% play. Maybe we should go with who pays the bills and not the minority.

Saying they don't balance around reaper is absolute nonsense.

[Zites]

Changing the meta is fine, but not to the degrees in which they do. I've see people who only like to play one-style up and quit when it's nerfed to useless.

agree



Nerfing ranged/casters doesn't make melee better.

Disagree balance can be achived by a few methods buff, nerf or change in monsters incounters.

Also I didn't say nerf casters I said nerf dodge and add new reapers that target ranged/casters balancing the level of difficulty between play styles in reaper only.



Saying they don't balance around reaper is absolute nonsense.
Agree. I was simply stating the obvious and countering the common reply about balanceing around reaper that is stated in almost every discussion on balance.

[NabeGewell]

Disappointing, but sadly not surprising. You were essentially asked not to bring a knife to a gunfight. Devs clueless approach to balance means Melee is flavour these days. But U51 is the best update ever according to some. Aye, right.

May be a portent of things to come as we move towards L40 cap. Should be fixed now, but I doubt they will.

Cry more. I've had healer rejected bunch of times, because group already had 1 or two. Made sense to me.

This whole thread is like a 40+ women crying 'where have all the men gone' after spending their 20's and 30's with losers.

And more levels won't change anything, you'll still whinge and complaint that your favored class isn't a top tier tank, a healer and a dps all at the same time.

[Zites]

Cry more. I've had healer rejected bunch of times, because group already had 1 or two. Made sense to me.

This whole thread is like a 40+ women crying 'where have all the men gone' after spending their 20's and 30's with losers.

And more levels won't change anything, you'll still whinge and complaint that your favored class isn't a top tier tank, a healer and a dps all at the same time.

i like necros and women but healers i luv:)

[ChaosBuddha]

reaper is the only thing most ppl play these days

dev said they wouldn't balance around reaper and guess what reaper is poorly balanced.

now lets see how many "melee sux at end game" posts do we need before something is changed.

[slarden]

They gave everyone more dps, people are pushing diffs, meanwhile they nerfed meld is what happened.

This is the bottom line. They didn't nerf melees and they didn't make caster single-target dps higher than melee dps. My melee dps is up slightly with U51. They eliminated meld and they boosted caster dps to get closer to martial dps (I would argue they didn't need to buff caster aoe only single target dps - but the devs got other feedback and buffed both). My ranged is on the TR train since throwing dagger builds took a hit but people are telling me they can get bow dps above melee dps which is wrong if it's true.

So melee are not in terrible shape at all, but they should bring meld back, even if only for melees.

My experience is I don't need meld for R10 questing, but push raiding is a different animal. I try to keep up affirmation and find proper use of meld, improved uncanny dodge, hood (usually for tank) critical in VOD and still managed to die mid skulls most of the time before U51. I did manage to survive mid skull VOD without dying a few times when we had meld on my assassin, but more often than not I would die. And yes the disease dot scales up really tough but with affirmation and reaper points I could survive if I took my pot right away, not unlike PN with remove curse.

for single-target dps it should be melee>ranged>casters which it is for the most part. There needs to be a little course correction. The procs and huge burst are always problematic and the devs should have understand that before U51 - they were warned.

Currently on the Sarlona the tiny group interested in push raiding have mostly moved on to new world or FF - not sure if it's a permanent thing or not. But opportunities for push raiding are limited and Sarlona is probably one of the weakest servers when it comes to push raiding anyhow. There is very little interest and alot of the people that are interested can be a bit unfriendly when things aren't going perfect which makes it hard to recruit.


lol, those leaders have no idea then. :)

J1NG Exactly, for THTH a few casters are good for sure, but you still want heavy martial dps as it's ultimately a dps test. Low MRR build is the problem there not melee. The problem with VOD is stupid mechanics. For most other raids you still want max dps which is mostly going to be melee. I can see why this is happening with VOD - the devs should really not get rid of meld unless/until they understood and addressed all the reasons it was needed in the first place. And the number 1 reason it was needed is because the devs made dodge the king of all defenses and never addressed that.


And more levels won't change anything, you'll still whinge and complaint that your favored class isn't a top tier tank, a healer and a dps all at the same time.

I am not sure why, but for some reason this group has been largely successful at getting melee buffed and buffed to where it was mostly what you needed in push raiding since the last caster nerf. I agree with the hit from meld for push raiding. I don't agree with the hyperbole or that balance is way out of whack. A few tweaks is all that is needed, but they are needed for push raiding. If the devs don't balance around reaper no changes are needed, but despite what they say they do balance around reaper or we wouldn't have epic defensive fighting.

[Hawkwier]

Cry more. I've had healer rejected bunch of times, because group already had 1 or two. Made sense to me.

This whole thread is like a 40+ women crying 'where have all the men gone' after spending their 20's and 30's with losers.

And more levels won't change anything, you'll still whinge and complaint that your favored class isn't a top tier tank, a healer and a dps all at the same time.

Yeah, all true, but tbf ur a **** healer an even I'd find some excuse ta reject u on any toon u play anyway m8, an they prolly only told u they were covered to spare them ur salty tears n foot stampin wailin tantrums. :)

An a Happy New Year to you anaw. :)

[Tilomere]

Shadow Dancer extended melee range on strike/dash may be large enough to avoid both the orthon's cleaves and aura. Shadow dancer does redonkulous damage when built around.

[slarden]

Shadow Dancer extended melee range on strike/dash may be large enough to avoid both the orthon's cleaves and aura.

Maybe someone with better twitch skill can get that to work, but I couldn't. It helps with boss fights quite a bit, but not the orthons which could be my poor positioning.


Yeah, all true, but tbf ur a **** healer an even I'd find some excuse ta reject u on any toon u play anyway m8, an they prolly only told u they were covered to spare them ur salty tears n foot stampin wailin tantrums. :)



Wow, what a terrible thing to assume and say. People want 1 healer max for push raiding and usually it's going to be a core group person and often a character that can also off-tank - it's unlikely anyone unknown regardless of how good they are is going to accepted to heal or tank an R8 raid. You want a core group person for that. You might take a 2nd healer just to fill, but if you are sure you can get a dps that is what you want and not a 2nd healer.

[Hawkwier]

Maybe someone with better twitch skill can get that to work, but I couldn't. It helps with boss fights quite a bit, but not the orthons which could be my poor positioning.



Wow, what a terrible thing to assume and say. People want 1 healer max for push raiding and usually it's going to be a core group person and often a character that can also off-tank - it's unlikely anyone unknown regardless of how good they are is going to accepted to heal or tank an R8 raid. You want a core group person for that. You might take a 2nd healer just to fill, but if you are sure you can get a dps that is what you want and not a 2nd healer.

LOL he's a mate ya eejit! :)

[Bjond]

Just took the Palemaster into the run

most likely it'll work on the Paladin, since it worked on a Monk
I've run Paladin, PM, and Purity Filigree chars in VOD, though not high reaper. Nearly certain they all got diseased. It's one of the most irritating things about DDO -- that immune does not mean immune. Guess some bosses just don't understand that no means no.

[NabeGewell]

Yeah, all true, but tbf ur a **** healer an even I'd find some excuse ta reject u on any toon u play anyway m8, an they prolly only told u they were covered to spare them ur salty tears n foot stampin wailin tantrums. :)

An a Happy New Year to you anaw. :)

Yeah I'm sure you'd play a better healer, tank or trapper anyday, especially when Y O U . O N L Y . P L A Y .B A R B. and bish on the forums. Playing melee sure is difficult with having your autoaim on and waiting for cooldowns on your one hotbar, it's not like anyone's mother's blind dog can play as one. Well, tbh with all the times ppl told you to stop hitting a prep target I'm not surprised Y O U . O N L Y . P L A Y .B A R B.

Anaw? African network for animal welfare? lol

Oh and by the way, Hawkwier the phat axe only plays barbarian and he want's his favorite class to be top of everything, i hope everyone got that :)

[Hawkwier]

Yeah I'm sure you'd play a better healer, tank or trapper anyday, especially when Y O U . O N L Y . P L A Y .B A R B. and bish on the forums. Playing melee sure is difficult with having your autoaim on and waiting for cooldowns on your one hotbar, it's not like anyone's mother's blind dog can play as one. Well, tbh with all the times ppl told you to stop hitting a prep target I'm not surprised Y O U . O N L Y . P L A Y .B A R B.

Anaw? African network for animal welfare? lol

Oh and by the way, Hawkwier the phat axe only plays barbarian and he want's his favorite class to be top of everything, i hope everyone got that :)

Needs more caps. You luv ma phat ax. And you forgot it's "dum barb". Rest is fine. :)

[Tilomere]

I've run Paladin, PM, and Purity Filigree chars in VOD, though not high reaper. Nearly certain they all got diseased. It's one of the most irritating things about DDO -- that immune does not mean immune. Guess some bosses just don't understand that no means no.

I'll try spell absorb and globe it next time I run VOD. If that works then maybe a barbarian can survive a cleave, and a melee could work.

[J1NG]

I'll try spell absorb and globe it next time I run VOD. If that works then maybe a barbarian can survive a cleave, and a melee could work.

I can save you the trouble. Neither of those work.

J1NG

[PedXing20]

Yap after some convo with raid leaders in my server, seems melee are no-go for all high reaper raids, not only in VOD. I will be TRing into caster-nuker so I can be of use. Thanks for the replies everyone.You might give some thought to taking a look at the raid completions in the achievements forum, where many of the posts relate to pushing raids. Not all of them list party class composition, but many do ...

[amessi1]

I've loved playing melee, but currently the fun factor is greatly diminished. The real bummer is that current game balance is pushing many out of melee....many successful r10 groups may prefer no melee. This make me sad.

Several forum threads proposing great defensive enhancements for melee, b/c of pervasiveness of the situation.

It'd be great if ssg staff acknowledged and/or laid a plan to resolve. If not, then let's embrace songwraiths rebranding of ddo to "spells and arrows"?!?

[Tilomere]

I can save you the trouble. Neither of those work.

J1NG

So we have an AoE dot, no save, no avoidance, true damage, that kills you unless you are babysat by a healer continuously in a hectic massive damage phase where the healers are spamming the tanks? And if you live through that, you die anyways in 1 hit to cleave damage. And you can't exactly pull out a bow, because of 30 levels of hyper specialization to handle high reaper roles.

Ever wonder if we are looking at the problem wrong? Instead of looking at why melee die, we should be looking at why ranged/casters don't, and fix that? Like expanding the orthon auras to cover the entire area? If we bring ranged/casters down from R8 to R5, melee will be fine-ish.

If we lower the Orthon AoE damage, range and casters will still be favored, and the tank will more easily survive, so they will push up to R10 instead of R8, and we will be right back here where the R10 AoE is too high for melee. We will just move the goal posts. If the game is rigged, fix the game.

[Bjond]

Instead of looking at why melee die, we should be looking at why ranged/casters don't, and fix that?
The sark is strong in this one. If parity is the goal, making ranged equally broken would indeed achieve that. IMHO, SSG didn't test or consider what reaper scaling would do there. Someone prolly just said, "Orthons are sick!" and "Oooh! What fun, we can code that!" No thought that it might result in chasing an entire subset of builds out of a raid due to reaper scaling.

Especially no thought for the tertiary effect: that this could slowly cascade and result in chasing melee out of ALL raids. Why should anyone make a character that can't join every raid? Why should a raiding guild bother adding players that (once this is more widely known), choose to make a character that can't contribute?

Sadly, I doubt SSG will address the issue for VOD. They don't revisit released raids.

BTW, my own peeve for melee in raids doesn't stem from this VOD issue, it's from melee that use Stalwart Defense. Including stalwart in a squishy melee build is widely recommended in the forums across the years. The problem is that if they land a big hit, it will inspire a raid boss to flip, cleave, and slaughter all the melee. And, melee don't listen when we tell them to turn it off. I suspect they don't know you can assist-target on a boss, see who pulled agro, and then see they're using stalwart.

Perversely, stalwart only adds hate to melee. Ranged wanting more defense are perfectly free to use stalwart (most don't bother, but they could).

[Monkey_Archer]

Ever wonder if we are looking at the problem wrong? Instead of looking at why melee die, we should be looking at why ranged/casters don't, and fix that?
Because DDO AI is utter dog feces. If you kite mobs they just group up and slow down tripping over each other. If you get in a perch spot, they just sit there doing nothing or throw slow moving arced projectiles.
They could change the monster's "I cant reach you so I'm going to toss daggers" code into *activate jump+spring attack* , but knowing how successful SSG is at coding things like this it would likely just end up with kobolds stuck in the walls...:rolleyes:

The reality of DDO is that being melee is a just massive disadvantage that needs to be overcome with a combination of build advantages and player skill. Melee is currently only 25% hp (and maybe higher cc, debatable) which is not enough, so even the most skilled melee players are gravitating back to casters/ranged for anything difficult. Historically melee had a significant dps advantage to make up for the defensive disadvantage, but SSG has been perfectly clear that they want ranged/casters to also do dps; hence the point of this thread and others targeting melee survivability.

[slarden]

BTW, my own peeve for melee in raids doesn't stem from this VOD issue, it's from melee that use Stalwart Defense. Including stalwart in a squishy melee build is widely recommended in the forums across the years. The problem is that if they land a big hit, it will inspire a raid boss to flip, cleave, and slaughter all the melee. And, melee don't listen when we tell them to turn it off. I suspect they don't know you can assist-target on a boss, see who pulled agro, and then see they're using stalwart.


Stalwart defense should only be turned on when soloing or in certain short-manning situations. In addition, melee dps should have the the threat reduction filigree but few do and some view it as a badge of honor when they pull aggro rather than a failure which it is. You get epic defensive fighting hp bonus already. On my tank I usually don't bother with epic defensive fighting because I want to make sure the healer and cc stays alive so it's better to be able to cross-heal.

At least on my tank a melee with just defense stance isn't going to pull aggro, although they shouldn't be using it and should be using a threat reduction filigree.

Excluding exploits and super bugs when they exist, when someone consistently pulls aggro it's due to poor aggro management and not super dps.



Perversely, stalwart only adds hate to melee. Ranged wanting more defense are perfectly free to use stalwart (most don't bother, but they could).

Getting the hp bonus from stalwart defense requires either medium armor or a shield ruling out many builds including archers and monk ranged. It also requires 3 paladin or fighter which has a cost.

If you want to build a caster tank this isn't considered a positive.

[amessi1]

My best guess is we're looking at late spring to early fall before there is progress on the melee gap. (Isle of dread) This assumes that our deves are listening, which to be fair, we have no idea. I mean, I enjoy reading and talking to you all, and there have been some fantastic suggestions/idea/pleas on how to improve, but rather or not any of this bubbles up to our dungeon masters is a bit of a krap shoot...kinda like farting in the bed...sure, it feels good to get rid of all that unwanted pressure, and maybe that's the all there is to it or maybe we start a forum war (you know a real stinker)...either way this fart goes, it's just a bunch of hot air. Don't get me wrong, may all of our deities bless Lynabell for keeping our game strong and poping in with some really great stuff, but the best I can tell, Lynnabel is not on team melee, so were hoping for Steel or Torc to tune into the forums...doubtful based on their responses to their threads on Lamannia.

So while this is fun & Jing has some great insights...we're just farting around here....toot toot toot!

After this thread and a couple others, i'm convinced there is just no reason (outside of tanks and knife-rouges when they have tanks) to be melee...so, i'm rolling a ranger on my main (formerly fighter) as my 3rd life alt ranger can contribute so much more in nearly every aspect of the end game, in it's current iteration.

[mikarddo]

A few months ago melee greatly outclasses casters in R raids. Now possibly the pendulum swung the other way.

That is how DDO seems to operate. Never aim for balance always aim for new imbalances - most likely to make people TR more to change their setups and thus spend more money.

[NabeGewell]

A few months ago melee greatly outclasses casters in R raids. Now possibly the pendulum swung the other way.

That is how DDO seems to operate. Never aim for balance always aim for new imbalances - most likely to make people TR more to change their setups and thus spend more money.

Imagine making a game where nothing is certain, someone's character can be nerfed or buffed anytime for no reason, attacks or spells sometimes work sometimes don't, server could have a rollback of 3 weeks, get a permadeath character die to lag, get account breached, get completionist feat removed and left with empty feat slot when a new race.class is being sold and then you call yourself something which symbolises stability like 'Standing Stone' lmao. Supreme trolling right there.

[slarden]

A few months ago melee greatly outclasses casters in R raids. Now possibly the pendulum swung the other way.

That is how DDO seems to operate. Never aim for balance always aim for new imbalances - most likely to make people TR more to change their setups and thus spend more money.

If you exclude shiradi tweaks that are needed melee dps is still top dog. Shiradi was just a poorly designed destiny - I have no idea what they were thinking. With shiradi it's really the procs and hunts end that needs a closer look.

The generalist approach makes casters more cookie-cutter and easier to player. I think alot of people unsuccessful at casters in the past can make it work now because they no longer need to worry about finding that ideal trade-off between dps and dcs. Shiradi simplifies that even more.


After this thread and a couple others, i'm convinced there is just no reason (outside of tanks and knife-rouges when they have tanks) to be melee...so, i'm rolling a ranger on my main (formerly fighter) as my 3rd life alt ranger can contribute so much more in nearly every aspect of the end game, in it's current iteration.

My main R10 character is a melee and my main reaper raiding character is melee and they are both performing well although I have a decent amount of rxp, solid defenses, affirmation swap weapons and improved uncanny dodge on one of my characters.

I am still salty about the loss of a meld which the devs didn't do enough due diligence on to understand why and how it was used. I am happy I can now bring my casters to raids without feeling that I lowering group dps significantly. That was a change that the game desperately needed.

I don't think the devs needed to boost caster aoe which they did by going the proc route. They are over-relying on the discord group for feedback.

[trashgame]

This game is not designed for a melee, get over it and tr into a caster/ranged.

[TFerguson]

I just hope that when SSG eventually gets around to fixing this they don't do it in their normal means of a drastic over-correction.

The last thing we need is "Armor up part duex."

[TFerguson]

This game is not designed for a melee, get over it and tr into a caster/ranged.

You sir are really bad at trolling.

[Deathwing_The_Dragon]

This game is not designed for a melee, get over it and tr into a caster/ranged.

Nah, this is the usual change-meta tactics to make us spend more money in TRing, XP pots, Ottos boxes etc. I have put off my TR plans due to HC making my server a ghost server, very tough to level up and I don't like playing solo. I also see there is no way to do nebula crafting or reaper crafting without sinking Warren buffet levels of money and time, so I am out of that as well. Let's see how things go, we are used to this cycle.

[amessi1]

My main R10 character is a melee and my main reaper raiding character is melee and they are both performing well although I have a decent amount of rxp, solid defenses, affirmation swap weapons and improved uncanny dodge on one of my characters.



I just think heavy armor should be the heartiest of armor for front lines, but I realize that's me trying to play my fantasy in a digital world, so I own these shortcomings. Though because of my thematic prefences and ride-or-die mentality, I dont' know how to build a really good melee dodge build, outside of a wolf and I've done that too much in th past few years. Plus I enjoy designing my builds....but maybe I need some help here. Can you recommend a class split & enhancement tree, not the full build, just maybe tip or two?

[TFerguson]

I just think heavy armor should be the heartiest of armor for front lines, but I realize that's me trying to play my fantasy in a digital world, so I own these shortcomings. Though because of my thematic prefences and ride-or-die mentality, I dont' know how to build a really good melee dodge build, outside of a wolf and I've done that too much in th past few years. Plus I enjoy designing my builds....but maybe I need some help here. Can you recommend a class split & enhancement tree, not the full build, just maybe tip or two?

Heavy armor basically made you unkillable until gunpowder.

It shouldn't be tissue paper.

[spifflove]

Heavy armor basically made you unkillable until gunpowder.

It shouldn't be tissue paper.

And it should cause 1/2 movement speed.

(1/3 for Dorfs who should move at 2/3 speed anyway)
(1/4 for halflings who should normally move at a speed of, well, half)

[Ulfo]

Heavy armor basically made you unkillable until gunpowder.

Ugh... no. Bec de corbin looks at you like... well, you know.;)


It shouldn't be tissue paper.

No again. Chinese/Japan multilayer paper armor made of rice paper was able to stop a bullet from a pistol of the 17-18 centuries. 8)

[TFerguson]

Ugh... no. Bec de corbin looks at you like... well, you know.;)



No again. Chinese/Japan multilayer paper armor made of rice paper was able to stop a bullet from a pistol of the 17-18 centuries. 8)

Are you one of "those" people who think a katana can cut through anything?

[Zites]

I just think heavy armor should be the heartiest of armor for front lines, but I realize that's me trying to play my fantasy in a digital world, so I own these shortcomings. Though because of my thematic prefences and ride-or-die mentality, I dont' know how to build a really good melee dodge build, outside of a wolf and I've done that too much in th past few years. Plus I enjoy designing my builds....but maybe I need some help here. Can you recommend a class split & enhancement tree, not the full build, just maybe tip or two?

Sure start with Improved Uncanny Dodge Prerequisite: Barbarian level 8 / Rogue level 8
https://ddowiki.com/page/Improved_Uncanny_Dodge

From here you can go many ways, if barbarian go pure 20.
Occult Slayer to capstone, dont fall for self heal garbage enhancements.
Get your HP and dodge as high as you can, if possible get your mmr to 90 in cloth or 140ish in light.
Last try to reduce your threat generation as much as possible and build up your deplo https://ddowiki.com/page/Diplomacy

My currant build is something like this THF 12fighter/8rogue min/max str,con,int. And grab the feat insightful reflexes.
First Kensei for 24ish points think dps in this tree, next Thief-Acrobat 24ish points to tier 4 grab No Mercy, think avoidance, hate reduction and sneak attack in this tree.

This leaves you 22 points to play with, put 7 in Harper Agent to get Know the Angles.
Put last 15 points in Horizon Walker for more dps and or Stalwart Defender for max dex, and feed your racial tree.
Depending on your play style you may want to put points in one of the other universal trees.

Also Rangers and Monks still rock, but I dont play them.

[slarden]

I just think heavy armor should be the heartiest of armor for front lines, but I realize that's me trying to play my fantasy in a digital world, so I own these shortcomings. Though because of my thematic prefences and ride-or-die mentality, I dont' know how to build a really good melee dodge build, outside of a wolf and I've done that too much in th past few years. Plus I enjoy designing my builds....but maybe I need some help here. Can you recommend a class split & enhancement tree, not the full build, just maybe tip or two?

If you are looking for a replacement for meld, which seems to be the only thing melees lost in U51, think improved uncanny dodge + hood of unrest. This is either rogue, barbarian or a multiclass build.

Barbarian isn't really a high dodge build, but it has high hp, some dodge, highest hamp, temp hp boosts and the key thing is improved uncanny dodge for the uh-oh moments. If you want to solo, a buffing bard with a really good sustaining song is a fantastic companion dual box for a barbarian. And of course the healing you get from sustaining song isn't subject to the reaper healing penalty.

I am a long-time assassin player. That is also not considered a high dodge build, but has a solid dodge and improved uncanny dodge + hood of unrest. My dps is up compared to pre-U51, but the shadowdancer tree lost some utility. I haven't really posted my build in a long while because there isn't much variation in int builds, but with a bit more variety in dex builds. One flavor of dex build goes deeper into thief acrobat for more dodge and defense. Now with horizon walker and VKF the dps trade-off for those defenses is bigger, but even with a more defensive profile assassin dps is still really good. I try to keep up affirmation active to protect against the big hits a the cost of a little dps temporarily, but it's better than dying.

The highest dodge build has always been a fighter/rogue/monk staff build, but dps has traditionally been lower than full dps melees. I haven't tested it out since the recent buff to staffs. The grass is always greener on the other side, but these fell out of favor largely due to the mrr cap. I know some push raiding groups use a dodge tank situationally, but I am not sure if it is this build or something else. Druid is obviously really strong and I see many more than I see staff builds.

[Oliphant]

What are melees doing about the knife-at-gun-fight issue?

[Zites]

What are melees doing about the knife-at-gun-fight issue?

The most powerful action a melees can do about the knife-at-gun-fight issue is to not be noticed till you can close the distance.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Hate

I have 119 standing Hate Reduction

Take a look at these and find what works for you.
Assassin enhancements: Shiv - Reduces the threat of all your attacks by 5/10/15%.
Thief Acrobat enhancements: Sly Flourish - Reduces the threat of all your attacks by 5/10/15%.
Thief Acrobat enhancements: Subtlety - Reduces the threat of all your melee attacks by 20%/30%/40%.

If you have spell Absorption, jump the front line as you run in and take out the caster and healers and reapers as they pose the most threat to you as a cloth or light armor wearer. From there I sneek attack reapers/champs/rednames and let the range kill or be killed.

If they want to kite let them dont chase mobs just wait for your Opportunity to be Effective.

PS. Also look out for your healer if possible, let the rest fend for themselves just as they did you in their feedback advice that lead us to this melee conundrum.

[slarden]

The most powerful action a melees can do about the knife-at-gun-fight issue is to not be noticed till you can close the distance.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Hate

I have 119 standing Hate Reduction

Take a look at these and find what works for you.
Assassin enhancements: Shiv - Reduces the threat of all your attacks by 5/10/15%.
Thief Acrobat enhancements: Sly Flourish - Reduces the threat of all your attacks by 5/10/15%.
Thief Acrobat enhancements: Subtlety - Reduces the threat of all your melee attacks by 20%/30%/40%.

If you have spell Absorption, jump the front line as you run in and take out the caster and healers and reapers as they pose the most threat to you as a cloth or light armor wearer. From there I sneek attack reapers/champs/rednames and let the range kill or be killed.

If they want to kite let them dont chase mobs just wait for your Opportunity to be Effective.

PS. Also look out for your healer if possible, let the rest fend for themselves just as they did you in their feedback advice that lead us to this melee conundrum.

Some of these tactics seem questionable in a balanced party lol. Threat reduction on the other hand is a common problem with melees. The dps is so high they need to max out threat reduction. Every melee that isn't tanking should use the 50% threat reduction filigree. If they don't need it they might need to respec to improve dps.

Unfortunately I think too many melee don't want to slot this because it comes at the cost of melee power or something else. Range actually needs something like this as well.

[Carpone]

A few months ago melee greatly outclasses casters in R raids. Now possibly the pendulum swung the other way.
Remind me, what high skull reaper raids are you completing regularly to make such a general statement?

Melees shine in most high skull raids. Ranged/nukers are preferred in VoD due to one hit by an orthon = death. 99% of completing high skull VoD is dependent upon managing the adds. So it's no surprise to anyone that has attempted high skull VoD that the OP was rejected based solely on his build.

[krimsonrane]

one of "those" people

When they say "these/those people" it's time leave the conversation.

[J1NG]

For anyone interested, without including MRR or any other reduction, you're looking at around 1700 Evil Damage PER 1 Stack (Up to 4; 1 for each Orthon Aura) per stacked DoT (Unknown what maximum is) every 4 seconds it procs, on R10. To say nothing of the Melee damage by the Orthons which numbers into the 20k region with around 119 PRR (so already cut in half, so really it's more around 40k at the minimum, far in excess of what any typical melee dps can handle when hit, to say nothing of the real killers, the Disease DoT Aura the Orthon have).

J1NG

[Tilomere]

Ok, final questions here, is it possible on a fighter like the OP is building to have suitable melee dps for high reaper raids as well as suitable ranged dps for high reaper raids when melee is not usable?

Kensai crit multiplier and ranged/melee power doublestrike + shot primary tree supports both styles.

VKF secondary tree for both melee and ranged support to both styles.

Maybe dex or int-based for both melee and ranged option and trance? Elf finesse rapiers + longbows?

Summer set supports both styles.

LD, Fatesinger, GMoF, and SD support both styles.

[Ulfo]

Are you one of "those" people who think a katana can cut through anything?

I see absolutely no logical connection between my thesis and your strange question. It would be interesting to know the course of your thoughts. Are you one from "those" peoples who drop random question only to diverse opponent from your silly mistakes? ;)

Still, no, I don't think katana cuts through anything. So? 8)


When they say "these/those people" it's time leave the conversation.

Sure, but i'm just a man, how can I resist such a proposal? 8)

[blarhblarhblarh]

Why don´t you ask the person who said no to you later? Ask for their DC and take 10 minutes to go there have a chat.


There are a ton of reasons they could have said denied you and in 80% of the time is because of party composition. When people open a raid in such level it is a big responsability to the leader and to the players who have roles so they already know they are going to finish the raid when they open the lfm, they just want to be sure someone will not give them trouble and will be able to at least give some help. So trust the party leader that said no to you the same way you should trust him if he said yes. Don´t take it to the personal side. I bet most of the players made a build just to play this raid in high reaper so even if you are a strong player you may not fit in the role they need.

Love raids and high reaper but I don´t even would apply if I didn´t have a build perfect to help the group. Playing a squish sorcerer now that is great for high reaper but terrible for raids so I rather leave it to another life.

[Zites]

Why don´t you ask the person who said no to you later? Ask for their DC and take 10 minutes to go there have a chat.


There are a ton of reasons they could have said denied you and in 80% of the time is because of party composition. When people open a raid in such level it is a big responsability to the leader and to the players who have roles so they already know they are going to finish the raid when they open the lfm, they just want to be sure someone will not give them trouble and will be able to at least give some help. So trust the party leader that said no to you the same way you should trust him if he said yes. Don´t take it to the personal side. I bet most of the players made a build just to play this raid in high reaper so even if you are a strong player you may not fit in the role they need.

Love raids and high reaper but I don´t even would apply if I didn´t have a build perfect to help the group. Playing a squish sorcerer now that is great for high reaper but terrible for raids so I rather leave it to another life.

Do you think if they nerfed dodge and send some new reapers at your squish sorcerer, empathy could be found in your next post?

[J1NG]

Do you think if they nerfed dodge and send some new reapers at your squish sorcerer, empathy could be found in your next post?

They will never nerf dodge, because of the corner they wrote themselves into. The most they can do is reduce duration and/or increase the cooldown. This is because of how the Armours and PRR/MRR is designed. So if you're thinking a nerf to dodge will happen. It won't. At best the duration/cooldown changes. And even then it wouldn't solve any balancing issues between those who specialise in Avoidance defence and those who go with Absorption defence; it'll only screw everyone (and any remaining options) over and then the Devs will call it a day because everyone got nerfed and we have "balance".

Ask for the right things.

J1NG

[blarhblarhblarh]

Do you think if they nerfed dodge and send some new reapers at your squish sorcerer, empathy could be found in your next post?

Please read my post again. I think you didn´t understood it or I explained it wrong. I was and still am totally against the changes. This don´t mean that melees were weak before or that they are weak now. I hate playing melee but my melee deals more damage and survive more than my sorcerer and the melee is not fully equiped. Thing is that the whole game is unbalanced now and nothing is the way it should be.

OP can believe in anything he want but he only would be sure if he spoke with the leader that said no to him. The rest is pure speculation. Is this kind of missinformation on the forum that makes the devs nerf what don´t need to be nerfed because they don´t play the game anymore.

[slarden]

Ok, final questions here, is it possible on a fighter like the OP is building to have suitable melee dps for high reaper raids as well as suitable ranged dps for high reaper raids when melee is not usable?

Kensai crit multiplier and ranged/melee power doublestrike + shot primary tree supports both styles.

VKF secondary tree for both melee and ranged support to both styles.

Maybe dex or int-based for both melee and ranged option and trance? Elf finesse rapiers + longbows?

Summer set supports both styles.

LD, Fatesinger, GMoF, and SD support both styles.

At least in my experience no. With gear and filigree swaps you can improve it, but ED (think hunts end, sniper shot, etc.), enhancements and feats are too big a part of it. Even if you can squeeze in the feats you are behind. It's not unlike situations where a caster and nobody else in the party can strip enemy element immunities and your alternate spelltypes underperform compared to your best element/spells.

Tempest Spine (end fight) and LVod (orthons) on higher R are probably the 2 most melee-unfriendly raids in the game. Defiler of the Just and Caught in the web were extremely unfriendly raid to casters when it was released and still is on high Rs. I personally don't like raid mechanics that marginalize one build type. Of the 4 raids listed Caught in the Web is the only raid where it seems the mechanics are intentional. The others I believe happened by accident.


They will never nerf dodge, because of the corner they wrote themselves into. The most they can do is reduce duration and/or increase the cooldown. This is because of how the Armours and PRR/MRR is designed. So if you're thinking a nerf to dodge will happen. It won't. At best the duration/cooldown changes. And even then it wouldn't solve any balancing issues between those who specialise in Avoidance defence and those who go with Absorption defence; it'll only screw everyone (and any remaining options) over and then the Devs will call it a day because everyone got nerfed and we have "balance".

Ask for the right things.

J1NG

Concealment bonuses: capped by skull
Incorporeal bonuses: capped by skull
Armor Class: seems to get less effective by skull in a few high R raids but part of the issue is damage #s which makes tanks less effective when ac fails.Dodge: not impacted by skull at all

They certainly can change it. Doing so would undoubtedly create new balance issues not anticipated just like removing meld did. So great care would be needed in making a change.

This design choice certainly made dodge and temporary dodge better defenses than other options. It's the only reason meld was ever problematic.

For example if they capped dodge at 50% at R10 most game play would be unaffected. Old meld would only provide 50% in R10 questing and improved uncanny dodge wouldn't be as impactful on higher dodge characters. This wouldn't solve the R10 VOD and Tempest spine problems completely, but would provide balance in the rest of the game. The only reason people don't complain about Tempest Spine is that the tank uses a safe spot to get aggro, his hp aren't super high and mechanics in general make the raid relatively easy at level cap. My assassin can't survive a hit in there on R10 and yet I have many completions. Raid mechanics marginalizing certain builds isn't a new mechanic nor something that only impacts melees.

[Monkey_Archer]

For example if they capped dodge at 50% at R10 most game play would be unaffected. Old meld would only provide 50% in R10 questing and improved uncanny dodge wouldn't be as impactful on higher dodge characters. This wouldn't solve the R10 VOD and Tempest spine problems completely, but would provide balance in the rest of the game. The only reason people don't complain about Tempest Spine is that the tank uses a safe spot to get aggro, his hp aren't super high and mechanics in general make the raid relatively easy at level cap. My assassin can't survive a hit in there on R10 and yet I have many completions. Raid mechanics marginalizing certain builds isn't a new mechanic nor something that only impacts melees.
Just looking at the rough math, capping dodge at 70% would be a better balance point with regards to dodge vs non-dodge builds. Capping at 50% would just swing the pendulum and make investment in dodge inferior to maximizing prr.

Unfortunately, just like removing meld, all this does is further nerfs melee survivability and would just make the melee to ranged/caster exodus complete.

SSG needs to think long and hard about either adding anti-ranged mechanics or removing anti-melee mechanics before trying to "balance" dodge in isolation, thus ignoring the downside of being melee in general. (ie the reason melee builds are abusing dodge to begin with)

[Zites]

They will never nerf dodge, because of the corner they wrote themselves into. The most they can do is reduce duration and/or increase the cooldown. This is because of how the Armours and PRR/MRR is designed. So if you're thinking a nerf to dodge will happen. It won't. At best the duration/cooldown changes.
Dodge reduce duration and/or increase the cooldown would be a perfect.




And even then it wouldn't solve any balancing issues between those who specialise in Avoidance defense and those who go with Absorption defense;
Disagree.


it'll only screw everyone (and any remaining options) over and then the Devs will call it a day because everyone got nerfed and we have "balance".
Yea it would screw my currant build but it would benefit the game over all.


Ask for the right things.

J1NG
I always do EDF;D nerf to Inquisitive law damage;D nerf dodge ;D New Reapers that target caster/range;D

PS forgot 1 warlock nerf;D

[Zites]

Just looking at the rough math, capping dodge at 70% would be a better balance point with regards to dodge vs non-dodge builds. Capping at 50% would just swing the pendulum and make investment in dodge inferior to maximizing prr.
Sounds about right.


Unfortunately, just like removing meld, all this does is further nerfs melee survivability and would just make the melee to ranged/caster exodus complete.
Agree, unfortunately this is what it takes to get them to admit their wrong and make needed changes. So let the Grand Exodus begin.


SSG needs to think long and hard about either adding anti-ranged mechanics or removing anti-melee mechanics before trying to "balance" dodge in isolation, thus ignoring the downside of being melee in general. (ie the reason melee builds are abusing dodge to begin with)
Agree thats why I'm pushing for new reaper that target range/casters as I do not feel there needs to be adjustments to n/h/e .

[trashgame]

I always do EDF

EDF is easy the worst thing ever introduced in this game.

300 hp to kill team play completely.

[LurkingVeteran]

Ok, final questions here, is it possible on a fighter like the OP is building to have suitable melee dps for high reaper raids as well as suitable ranged dps for high reaper raids when melee is not usable?

Kensai crit multiplier and ranged/melee power doublestrike + shot primary tree supports both styles.

VKF secondary tree for both melee and ranged support to both styles.

Maybe dex or int-based for both melee and ranged option and trance? Elf finesse rapiers + longbows?

Summer set supports both styles.

LD, Fatesinger, GMoF, and SD support both styles.

This is an interesting discussion. I've long wanted them to give more options to mix both melee and ranged because it would give you more versatility to deal with situations where melee is bad (e.g. high DPS mobs, archers perched high up etc) In PnP a balanced melee build can often pull out a ranged weapon and still have 50% damage output when you run into e.g. flying mobs or rooted in place. In DDO it's terribad for most builds.

As you say, I've long wondered if it was possible to build something around the vistani melee<->ranged power versatility, maybe go RP and in Shiradi so you get both RP->MP and the obligatory Hunt's End for ranged. But it's very niche and since U51 that and Dire Charge share CD. Fighter was an interesting idea, but not sure how it would compare to rogue/ranger/bard splits.

Btw, is there a better way for sneak-based throwers to trigger sneak attacks than Sniper Shot? 15% from Deception seems rather unreliable. Haven't even tried ranged in a long time, not sure if it's even multiplied since the double strike/shot change(?).

[Zites]

EDF is easy the worst thing ever introduced in this game.

300 hp to kill team play completely.
This is the cudgel being used to make excuses to give more power to range/casters/hybrid builds.
"But they have EDF we need somthing too"

So everyone knows, there're Tanks, DPS, Healers and trap monkeys in R10. There will be people that say these roles don't exist anymore, players want to make DPS tank builds, DPS healers/support builds, Jack of all Trades builds that do it all just as good as pure builds.

Tank cries, "I'm not contributing in a meaningful way, all I'm doing is taking hits!"

Healer exclaims, "I'm not making a difference, all I'm doing is heals on people that are getting all the kills."

DPS's complaints, "I was making a difference, but I can't tank and the healer was using his crappy damage spells instead of healing me!"

Trap Monkey reasons, "I am the Jack of All Trades why should I be 2nd best at anything"

So the tank build takes hits....but wants to do more than be a sponge.
Healer's says, "I'm a support build, but I want to win the kill count as well."
DPS build says, "I made a DPS build, I'm killing stuff I cant heal."
Trap Monkey, me me what about me.............................!!!

I know many want to rethink every thing and turn it upside down to suit them, but what ever side is up it puts the other side on the bottom, most will do the dirty work and only one will win the kill count.

EDF is great for enforcing roles and getting more healers back in the game but this is a different subject for a time long passed.

[Artos_Fabril]

EDF is great for enforcing roles and getting more healers back in the game but this is a different subject for a time long passed.
There has never been a time when enforcing "holy trinity" roles was good for the game, or in the spirit of D&D.

[Zites]

There has never been a time when enforcing "holy trinity" roles was good for the game, or in the spirit of D&D.

Seems antithetical to state a role playing game would not have roles, in fact Gary Gygax would disagree with your statement.

"Always seek to contribute the most to the team’s success. From the players’ and the PCs’ standpoint any role-playing game is a group endeavor. Individual success is secondary to the success of the group, for only through group achievements can the quality of the campaign be measured.” – Gary Gygax, Role-Playing Mastery

As a player, your first role-playing obligation is to imagine a character who can cooperate with rest of the party to achieve the common goals of the game.

Individual Party Roles
In both single and multiplayer games a party typically consists of a group of characters who often fit into familiar roles or archetypes. For most MMORPGs these are that of the Warrior, Thief and Mage, sometimes referred to as a "Holy Trinity". These games often have game systems designed around these archetypes, requiring a set tank to protect others (warrior), set players for dealing damage to help eliminate threats (thief/mage) and set players for the purpose of magically healing or eliminating negative effects (mage).

Perhaps you prefer the words Archetype and Tolerance. Tolerance defined as an allowable amount of variation of a specified quantity, especially in the dimensions of a machine or part.

It's this limited variation that sets Archetypes apart. Better?

[slarden]

Just looking at the rough math, capping dodge at 70% would be a better balance point with regards to dodge vs non-dodge builds. Capping at 50% would just swing the pendulum and make investment in dodge inferior to maximizing prr.

Unfortunately, just like removing meld, all this does is further nerfs melee survivability and would just make the melee to ranged/caster exodus complete.

SSG needs to think long and hard about either adding anti-ranged mechanics or removing anti-melee mechanics before trying to "balance" dodge in isolation, thus ignoring the downside of being melee in general. (ie the reason melee builds are abusing dodge to begin with)

As I pointed out VOD can fairly be considered to have anti-melee mechanics as can Tempest Spine. Beyond that I am struggling to find the anti-melee mechanics you speak of. It's not unlike Defiler of the Just and Caught in the Web having anti-caster mechanics.

Slavers part III is probably the best example of anti-ranged mechanics. but it's pretty brutal on most builds which is why it's mostly avoided on higher difficulties.

[Artos_Fabril]

"Always seek to contribute the most to the team’s success. From the players’ and the PCs’ standpoint any role-playing game is a group endeavor. Individual success is secondary to the success of the group, for only through group achievements can the quality of the campaign be measured.” – Gary Gygax, Role-Playing Mastery
None of these words mean that forcing players into the Tank/Healer/DPS trinity is good for the game, or important to the spirit or D&D. A D&D party can have any class makeup, what Gygax is emphasizing as important is that the players (and their characters) all contribute to the success of the group, rather than pursuing self-aggrandizing goals to the detriment of group play.

[Monkey_Archer]

As I pointed out VOD can fairly be considered to have anti-melee mechanics as can Tempest Spine. Beyond that I am struggling to find the anti-melee mechanics you speak of. It's not unlike Defiler of the Just and Caught in the Web having anti-caster mechanics.

Slavers part III is probably the best example of anti-ranged mechanics. but it's pretty brutal on most builds which is why it's mostly avoided on higher difficulties.
Project Nemesis is essentially ranged only for high skulls, and prefered ranged even on lower difficulties
THTH is ranged cheese only for high skulls (I suppose that doesn't really count though)
LOB requires some ranged and has multiple anti-melee mechanics such as rain and dog goo (or whatever its called)
MA electric floor phase and titans are much easier with ranged

Generally speaking other anti-melee mechanics:
-any boss that uses circles
-any boss that cleaves, Markessa/Fortis AOE force blast
-Doom reaper brain dead AI that allows them to be solo'd by ranged easily
-the roughly half of all monsters in DDO that are melee only and don't even have a ranged attack
-etc...

Anti-Ranged mechanics:
-the extremely rare monsters with deflect arrows
-??

The closest thing to anti-ranged mechanics is large amounts of unavoidable damage, such as RtSO or KT, but this is just anti-squishy build rather than ranged specific.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by slavers 3 being anti ranged. It just seems like a pro-tank fight, akin to raids. My last r10 slavers run was on my tank with an all ranged party and it was essentially flawless.

[Zites]

None of these words mean that forcing players into the Tank/Healer/DPS trinity is good for the game, or important to the spirit or D&D.
There is a through line in his words that points to the obvious, they not only used archetypes but understood there essential role in story telling and game play.

The holy trinity/archetypes designed by Gygax and Arneson, gives players a reason to work together and allows different players to excel in different ways. Gygax and Arneson were huge fans of literature and influenced by the works of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt and more, all of which used archetypes in thier stoy telling.

Achetypes are how we understand our world.
In-fact there is empirical and historical evidence of archetypes and their effectiveness in all storytelling forms. According to the research of Carl Jung, archetypes are primitive, unconscious, and universal prototypes or symbols that humans innately understand. They can be demonstrated with the universal themes, allegories, and character types that can be found in all methods of storytelling – including literature, films, television, and theater, Greek Mythology.


A D&D party can have any class makeup, what Gygax is emphasizing as important is that the players (and their characters) all contribute to the success of the group, rather than pursuing self-aggrandizing goals to the detriment of group play.
A DDO party can have any class makeup if it wants to fail, but if it's success your after then welcome to reality class makeup/archetypes prevail. Hence OP's rejection to begin this thread.

[Question2005]

Yup, its really funny how DDO is biased against melee. There are so many anti-melee mechanics its not funny. AOE melee attacks that one shot anyone who isnt a tank, bosses spawning exploding circles underneath themselves forcing melee to stop DPSing and run, bosses that literally cannot be hit by melee, enemies that damage your weapons forcing you to swap from your endgame raid weapon with filis to some ****** club, bosses that constantly run out of melee range...the list goes on and on.

I cannot think of a single anti-ranged mechanic in the game. Nothing that forces ranged to stop dpsing, penalizes ranged attacks specifically, etc. And the only thing that penalizes casters are beholders which are easily countered by using a corner or staying out of their frontal arc.

The funny thing is that in D&D, the 2HF power attacking fighter/barb is the king of raw DPS when full attacking. Here, its ranged/casters that can wipe an encounter before the poor melee guy can even get into range.

[Tilomere]

I cannot think of a single anti-ranged mechanic in the game.

Solo clearing a room of 8 mobs and 2 reapers in a ranged paradigm SSG redesigned to be Precise Shot stand-still single target only with IPS nerfs and ED ICD nerfs to prevent effective IPS usage?

Being melee does hurt more, but it is undoubtedly a superior method than ranged at progressing your character faster. Only when progression is finished while primarily fighting single high reaper raid mobs does that hurt more actually turn into a possible net disadvantage.

Which means we could just introduce a Complete-Completionist feat that has: You really win DDO, your melee attacks against bosses reduce damage taken by 15% from all sources for 10 seconds. This balances out finished high reaper raid melee, without further increasing the advantage melee have in progression over ranged for everyone else, and without substantially changing dungeon mechanics. It would also encourage same tanks to duck out from behind their shields from time to time.

Such a feat would require: 156 Reaper Points and all available past lives.

Until you are an ultimate completionist with filled reaper trees, I don't care if you take more damage on your cleaving melee, that's your choice on how to build, especially on a fighter which can be built as a versatile melee/ranged combatant. That's just called balance and meaningful choice.

[trashgame]

Project Nemesis is essentially ranged only for high skulls, and prefered ranged even on lower difficulties
THTH is ranged cheese only for high skulls (I suppose that doesn't really count though)
LOB requires some ranged and has multiple anti-melee mechanics such as rain and dog goo (or whatever its called)
MA electric floor phase and titans are much easier with ranged

Generally speaking other anti-melee mechanics:
-any boss that uses circles
-any boss that cleaves, Markessa/Fortis AOE force blast
-Doom reaper brain dead AI that allows them to be solo'd by ranged easily
-the roughly half of all monsters in DDO that are melee only and don't even have a ranged attack
-etc...

Anti-Ranged mechanics:
-the extremely rare monsters with deflect arrows
-??

The closest thing to anti-ranged mechanics is large amounts of unavoidable damage, such as RtSO or KT, but this is just anti-squishy build rather than ranged specific.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by slavers 3 being anti ranged. It just seems like a pro-tank fight, akin to raids. My last r10 slavers run was on my tank with an all ranged party and it was essentially flawless.

This. Most of the things done to "create challenge" just hurts melee types.

As you pointed out pretty much everything in these days are only to annoy melee gameplay.

And that is the problem, the game is not harder, it is just freaking annoying.

[trashgame]

Solo clearing a room of 8 mobs and 2 reapers in a ranged paradigm SSG redesigned to be Precise Shot stand-still single target only with IPS nerfs and ED ICD nerfs to prevent effective IPS usage?

Being melee does hurt more, but it is undoubtedly a superior method than ranged at progressing your character faster. Only when progression is finished while primarily fighting single high reaper raid mobs does that hurt more actually turn into a possible net disadvantage.

Which means we could just introduce a Complete-Completionist feat that has: You really win DDO, your melee attacks against bosses reduce damage taken by 15% from all sources for 10 seconds. This balances out finished high reaper raid melee, without further increasing the advantage melee have in progression over ranged for everyone else, and without substantially changing dungeon mechanics. It would also encourage same tanks to duck out from behind their shields from time to time.

Such a feat would require: 156 Reaper Points and all available past lives.

Until you are an ultimate completionist with filled reaper trees, I don't care if you take more damage on your cleaving melee, that's your choice on how to build, especially on a fighter which can be built as a versatile melee/ranged combatant. That's just called balance and meaningful choice.

Yeah required to have no real life if you want to play endgame is such a great idea.

What's your next suggestions? Make the game single player and named after you?

[trashgame]

Yup, its really funny how DDO is biased against melee. There are so many anti-melee mechanics its not funny. AOE melee attacks that one shot anyone who isnt a tank, bosses spawning exploding circles underneath themselves forcing melee to stop DPSing and run, bosses that literally cannot be hit by melee, enemies that damage your weapons forcing you to swap from your endgame raid weapon with filis to some ****** club, bosses that constantly run out of melee range...the list goes on and on.

I cannot think of a single anti-ranged mechanic in the game. Nothing that forces ranged to stop dpsing, penalizes ranged attacks specifically, etc. And the only thing that penalizes casters are beholders which are easily countered by using a corner or staying out of their frontal arc.

The funny thing is that in D&D, the 2HF power attacking fighter/barb is the king of raw DPS when full attacking. Here, its ranged/casters that can wipe an encounter before the poor melee guy can even get into range.

Exactly, that is why ranged dps was trash for so many years.

Casters nukers were top dps for most of the time in this game already.

YOU CANT MAKE RANGED DPS GOOD WITHOUT RUINING THIS GAME.

They cant fix the benefits to play a ranged or a caster over melee play style.

They just give up and just punish melees in every update now.

[Bjond]

really funny how DDO is biased against melee.
I think it's more a result from lack of thought about the meta game rather than actual SSG bias, though. SSG tends toward a weird rp/story/feel driven change first and meta second. That's a backwards and counterproductive route towards balance.

It's why you have things that make zero sense in game, like Fire Breathing Dragons immune to fire because they breath fire. If you checked for similarities in reality you'd find that things don't work like that; eg. venomous snakes are NOT even slightly resistant to venom much less immune. What is resistant? Their prey: mice.

If you approach change from a meta standpoint, you never make mistakes that lock an entire class out of the fight. Instead you make balanced changes and THEN weave a different RP/story. Sophistry is infinitely and instantly malleable. Meta is not.

BTW, for melee balance, I'd introduce something a lot less drastic than completionist feats.

Give a bonus to PRR based on AC and Melee Power. It's just wrong to scale PRR on BAB. The result is that AC works as expected for D&D in heroics, but does nothing in epics unless stacked to ridiculous levels. Scaling PRR on AC instead of BAB gives AC more of it's typical expected D&D meaning. Balance for the scaling would require trial, testing, and player feedback, though.

Hmm, while PRR=f(AC) would be nicer and more D&D-like than PRR=f(BAB), more PRR would not save melee from being one~two-shot in high reaper. They need something like Meld that isn't completely cheesey (eg. with Meld, my ranged could tank and solo-kill dooms, which likely wasn't the intent).

Perhaps give all characters a reactive stance that drastically decreases DPS while similarly drastically increasing defense. Oh yeah, there's BLOCK. It's almost completely pointless even for tanks right now. Making it useful could be the way to go. It would need to be meld-level good for defense, but it should also zero your DPS; eg. when you first start blocking you get 100 stacks of 1% dodge & dodge cap, which drain at 10/3s with a 3m CD and it vanishes if you stop blocking or attack. I'd add a graphic effect on hit, too -- something for the group to notice as a visual "uh, help me please".

[Tilomere]

If you approach change from a meta standpoint, you never make mistakes that lock an entire class out of the fight.

SSG didn't lock a class out of a fight, the player wasn't denied because of their class, but because of their role specialization. The player locked their particular character out by their own build choice of turning a versatile class into a super specific role that wasn't appropriate to a specific fight at an advanced difficulty so high it is assumed you know how to build to handle that difficulty.

Maybe burning all your extra feats on weapon focus for a dozen or so extra power, and wearing robes with 50 mrr vs. Evil DoT for an extra 19-20 multiplier isn't the most versatile solution.

[J1NG]

Perhaps give all characters a reactive stance that drastically decreases DPS while similarly drastically increasing defense. Oh yeah, there's BLOCK. It's almost completely pointless even for tanks right now. Making it useful could be the way to go. It would need to be meld-level good for defense, but it should also zero your DPS; eg. when you first start blocking you get 100 stacks of 1% dodge & dodge cap, which drain at 10/3s with a 3m CD and it vanishes if you stop blocking or attack. I'd add a graphic effect on hit, too -- something for the group to notice as a visual "uh, help me please".

Wouldn't help. Stuff similar to this was suggested before already and all some of the players could do was complain about not wanting to lose their dps or why they should sacrifice for this defence. If you're giving it freely away, there's also going to be other requests for other stuff too, so that'll never fly.

It's not DDO that's the problem, or Devs not not giving buffs. It's players all over the place who are also too short sighted to see when something is good for not just everyone but them in particular and outright just rejects it. Then the Devs have no need to do anything until a more concise picture is set out. So really, any issue on slow development is entirely on the playerbase.

J1NG

[Bjond]

SSG didn't lock a class out of a fight, the player wasn't denied because of their class, but because of their role specialization. The player locked their particular character out by their own build choice
It was an example of the larger issue, the meta. Why put such a thing in game? Is it intended to be an inside joke for the informed to avoid or a mean troll to trap newbies that fall for it?

IMHO, SSG doesn't consider such things. They just think "fire immune dragons are cool" and then let the players work things out. There's precious little "informed choice" in DDO. Even once you know things, there's still a huge amount of testing that goes into taking a new build from concept to reality.

We're all testing the same thing in small: is it bugged-broken, bugged-OP, or kinda working? But, we're also testing the larger issue, too: what did SSG not think of when they added this to the game? Are they accidentally trolling us (again) or is this safe to build on? And, how safe is it? Can I commit a few months of effort without it being patched away or not?

When they do think about meta/balance, we end up with U51, "Argh, all this thinking about balance makes my brain hurt.
Can't we just release and let the players test it?"

Wouldn't help. Stuff similar to this was suggested before already and all some of the players could do was complain
Not likely to be added I'd agree with -- they seem unconcerned with adding or changing much based on feedback (for whatever reason). But, I think it would solve the issue and might even make play a lot more fun, since it would be a reactive play available to everyone at all levels. Reactive play creates the best kind of immersion (world immersion) rather than the worst kind (UI immersion).

[Tilomere]

It was an example of the larger issue, the meta. Why put such a thing in game?

The same reason you put some mobs on ledges or otherwise outside of melee range, or that different mobs exist? To challenge players to respond to a variety of situations in a variety of ways, or to bring value to preparing your character to respond to a variety of situations in a variety of ways? Prevent the game from devolving into: Cetus - 18 Fighter / 1 Monk / 1 Favored Soul: The Ultimate Offensive Fighter and provide value to building in other ways?

Now don't mind me while I go murder everything with bane damage on my thrower.

[Oliphant]

Calling God mode being able every 5 minutes to briefly not get one-shot is why we can't have nice things.

[math92]

ye sadly melee aint hot right now, idk...sad

[Bjond]

every 5 minutes to briefly not get one-shot is why we can't have nice things.
Well, ranged gets nice things, including TWO universal trees that are exceptionally strong. Melee have a dagger tree that is rather nice, but there's no 2H tree. A Q-Staff tree might be fun if it put it on par with other melee dps @ L30.

BTW, I was just playing around with the US ED on my swashbuckler a bit and wishing "Guard Up" lasted more than 6s. If it had zero timeout (infinite duration) like most other TMP HP things and could also be cast on others, that could help melee a bit in higher reaper and also potentially permit some nice group teamwork.

It's sorta "OK" now for melee. At 6s, it's hard to get full use out of it unless your melee is also tanking.

[Oliphant]

If people think you being able to survive a one shot every 5 minutes is God mode good luck getting anything actually great past them.