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 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 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.