Casters vs Melee

[MysticTheurge]

Oh and sooooooo losely based...

Or, you know, like everything else WotC's done with D&D in the last, what did they say, 2 years, it was a testing ground for the concepts they're cooking up for 4th edition.

Honestly, there are definitely things I read about 4E, where I go "Oh, hey, that's kind of like DDO."

[Missing_Minds]

Wrong.

Its not about that. Its about having a character thats viable in all the quests. Its about having a character that can go
into Ghosts of Perdition and DO something. Its about having a character that I enjoy playing and dont want to
see standing at a freakin wall while everything is PK'd.

Casters and clerics own MOD 5, fighters/barbs/rangers/paladins(Ha!)/rogues all second class citizens of Stormreach. Brought along
cause the casters need something pulled, or picked.

I understand casters should be god-like at higher levels, does that mean we need to make AC pointless? And AC is pointless
in the Necro against all the ghosts. Do melee really need to have a huge slowdown on their swings per second?? I mean really?

Do you honestly like the fact that in some quests little to no melee is used? I dont. I thought this was about party balance.

BP, let me ask you something simple. Is DDO a game? If you say yes, is the point of it to.. pwn everything, get the loot, win the rp, have the most kills.... in other words, have fun in your own style?

My point and my opinion is that DDO IS a game, and I will have fun. You can try to stop this if you want, but I doubt you'll suceed. I mean I had a cleric who refused to heal me at all in a quest (and no I was not on a WF, less hit points than your standard fighter though. about 150 or there abouts) I shrugged, and played harder and had a blast. So sure, try to grief me... I still have fun. I still win.

[Taojeff]

Or, you know, like everything else WotC's done with D&D in the last, what did they say, 2 years, it was a testing ground for the concepts they're cooking up for 4th edition.

Honestly, there are definitely things I read about 4E, where I go "Oh, hey, that's kind of like DDO."

Actually, I was thinking just the opposite, although it is true in some areas.

[bigj1608]

how bout this one:

DDO IS NOT PNP!!! DROP IT!!!

[Aspenor]

With exceptions made for Ghosts of Perdition, and Temple of Vol (especially as originally released) I don't see that melee has been exceptionally marginalized.

Sure many quests in the desert and gianthold can be easily solod/duod by a well-equipped and competently played caster, but a poorly played caster ends up being a severe liability.

I prefer to play casters over melee, that's just my playing style. However, when I actually do play my fighter I do not feel all that "useless" or marginalized. I intimidate, take hits, and consider myself essentially the cleric's bodyguard, and the caster's second. I try to help them control the aggro. I use my AC and saves to hold and control aggro, all the while doing decent DPS with my sexy dwarven axes.

If I were playing a barbarian, I would consider myself the leading force. I'd use my glancing blows and sustained DPS to attempt to hold aggro, relying on hit points, DR and saves to keep me standing through the attention. I'd grab attention and try to hold it while everybody mops up. I'd probably get a good number of kills in the process.

Why does everybody have to feel like a star? Why can't we just find a niche to fill, and do so? On my wizard I cannot just nuke through everything, so I finger casters and then help fighters kill the melees. On my sorceror I consider myself a primary DPS character in MOST quests. It's not about being the star, either, it's about being stategic with my character and playing him to the best of my abilities. Just because I zerg a little to group up ten or twenty mobs for a cone of cold and fireball blitz doesn't mean I'm overpowered when I get every kill, it just means that I used my resources in the most efficient manner possible to fulfill my role.

I understand that you guys want to kill things as contribution to the party, but there are more things to do than just kill for everybody in this game. If people discriminate against melees because they feel casters are more useful, I will say to them the same I said about rogues about a year ago: don't say no to a character just because of their class unless you simply must have a certain class in that slot, otherwise be open minded.

[CrimsonEagle]

Um... every time?

D&D doesn't work like that.

Unless you fumble, then roll a critical hit, thus decapitate your friend standing next to you. Yep....it happend. Everyone thought it was funny except the guy I decapitated. He threw a hissy fit and we busted his balls for the next month

[Beherit_Baphomar]

BP, let me ask you something simple. Is DDO a game? If you say yes, is the point of it to.. pwn everything, get the loot, win the rp, have the most kills.... in other words, have fun in your own style?

My point and my opinion is that DDO IS a game, and I will have fun. You can try to stop this if you want, but I doubt you'll suceed. I mean I had a cleric who refused to heal me at all in a quest (and no I was not on a WF, less hit points than your standard fighter though. about 150 or there abouts) I shrugged, and played harder and had a blast. So sure, try to grief me... I still have fun. I still win.

The bolded part is correct! You are teh winna!

Seriously tho, my points that I cant run my barbarian in Ghosts of Perdition, who's gonna take him? Even if I do find a group
what am I gonna do in that quest? Watch? Same with Vol, Im reduced to bait in that quest.

I think the point of the quests is for all classes to have something to do, its just not turning out that way. Honestly, would you like to see one of each class in a quest? I know thats hard to do because we'll find a way to make the quests as easy and fast as possible, and at the moment thats 6 caster/cleric make up.

The reason Im kinda ****ed about the whole thing is the new attack animation for the new MOD...its just one more way to make
melee obsolete. We need AC to matter, we need firewall not to obliterate everything. Dont nerf casters, but dont nerf melee either. Fighters certainly dont need brought down a peg.

[Puke]

well now that i have your attention, hehe let me share a little observation i noticed last night while questing.

First the back ground..

There seems to be a lot of comments along the lines of casters AOE spells should be made to effect party memebers, to make it in line with PnP rules etc...

ok.. i can see that, BUT....

1/ When was the last time you where in a PnP dungeon quest and the GM let you swing that very large greatsword inside that 3foot wide tunnel?

2/ When was the last time in a PnP quest that you all stood FACING one enemy (ie you all have him boxed in) and the GM let you all swing at him with those large greatswords WITHOUT CAUSING EACH OFF YOU TO GET HIT BY EACH OTHERS SWORDS!

3/ When was the last time in a PnP quest when the GM let you all stand on top of each other and attack with your swords all at the same time using all your special moves in very tight spaces without any of you taking damae from each others attacks?

Now these where just observations i noted that suddenly jumped out at me as i was playing my melee rogue, and yeah we all stand on top of each other swinging madly at creatures with our swords. If you want damage from casters spells to effect party members then we MUST HAVE the corresponding balance of melees causing damage as well, then add in the weapon restrictions based on dungeon size etc..

Do you tanks really want that? do you want to be forced to use daggers in small areas? do you want to lose your melee specials as well due to space restrictions?

sure it'd fanatastic to have this level of game play in the game and i do like the idea.. BUT... in a MMO i cant see how it would ever work out.
How many of you would get so utterly frustrated and quite that when ever you go to attack you get a message "unable to attack with that weapon in this place, choose a smaller weapon"
or then theres the "wheres the healer? i'm getting wasted here" only to hear back, sorry none of us is joining you while you swing that greatsword around in that confinded space, you'll kill us as well!

You call for nerfs to casters, but many of us casters play melees as well, if we call for nerfs to melees well many of us melees play casters also.
you get the point?
By nerfing one class you only hurting YOURSELF as at some time you might want to play the class your calling to get nerfed.

Lets play this game as it is. A TEAM game requiring TEAM players to play in a TEAM utilizing each others strenghts to cover each others weaknesses.

Now thats real D&D there. a TEAM game!

It is impossible to have friendly fire in these games, be it by a caster or melee. The trouble you get into is someone who gets bored or mad who would just fireball the whole party before the end-boss and then leave. And with the way people are, this would happen a lot!

I think casters are seeing some of the trouble Rangers have. "You shouldn't be able to kill anything without taking risk of being beaten to a pulp." I think this is where the call for a nerf to casters comes from. Anyway, for Rangers (archers), archery was gimped so that there are no kills without risk. DDO had to slow it down so things weren't dying before melee range. However, now at these higher levels we are seeing casters with too many spell points (I firmly believe that) who are Finger-of-Death'ing everything. It's almost to the point of why bother casting buffs on the melees 'cause that'll take away SP from the casters who can one-shot kill most everything around which then saves the Cleric mana because he doesn't need to heal/buff either 'cause the melees have nothing to go toe-toe with and allows him to then Disentegrate everything.

For casters who aren't concerned about this, would you want Archers to have Slaying Bows with saves similar to what you guys are forcing the monsters to make? I firmly believe this is where a lot of the contention is coming from, the attitude of killing things before it ever gets to melee.

[Puke]

The reason Im kinda ****ed about the whole thing is the new attack animation for the new MOD...its just one more way to make
melee obsolete. We need AC to matter, we need firewall not to obliterate everything. Dont nerf casters, but dont nerf melee either. Fighters certainly dont need brought down a peg.

I'm guessing the new animation will slow down ranging too. Don't nerf casters, don't nerf melee and un-nerf ranging! Now you know how the Rangers feel.

Ranging is obsolete and has been since post-Beta. Who really goes out and puts in the LFM "need someone to range things." Nope, never happens and never will. Now Fighters aren't invited on GoP but that's the life of a Ranger in most groups levels 1-14.

[Tanka]

Unless you fumble, then roll a critical hit, thus decapitate your friend standing next to you. Yep....it happend. Everyone thought it was funny except the guy I decapitated. He threw a hissy fit and we busted his balls for the next month

Er.

There's no core rule anywhere that has anything about a natural 1 being anything other than an automatic miss.

There's an optional rule, somewhere, yes, but I can't find it at the moment.

GMs who want to punish their players for a 0.25% roll against them are just looking for ways to punish players via mechanics rather than via story.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

I'm guessing the new animation will slow down ranging too. Don't nerf casters, don't nerf melee and un-nerf ranging! Now you know how the Rangers feel.

Ranging is obsolete and has been since post-Beta. Who really goes out and puts in the LFM "need someone to range things." Nope, never happens and never will. Now Fighters aren't invited on GoP but that's the life of a Ranger in most groups levels 1-14.

Lotsa Rainja love coming MOD 6... Im guessing you aint been worshippin' Codog like the rest of us.

Oh and when I say fighters I mean melee, including rainja's 'n' paladins.

[Puke]

Lotsa Rainja love coming MOD 6... Im guessing you aint been worshippin' Codog like the rest of us.

Oh and when I say fighters I mean melee, including rainja's 'n' paladins.

I have read about some of the new Ranger stuff. I already have two new Rangers built sitting at 6th level waiting for the new Tempest and Deepwood enhancements. I'm skeptical about the Deepwood enhancements to the point I'm grumpy about it because archery overall is neutered and singing falsetto.

Though I know better, when I was typing Ranger above I was getting at the archery aspect. PnP Rangers have to choose between the Archery and TWF lines but DDO neutered archery so much they had to give Rangers both lines so that it isn't a completely worthless class in here. And that's kind of my point. There is this thinking that pervades in here that it's bad to kill things from range. This typically was put on the shoulders of the Ranger but now the casters are feeling the pressure. It is ridiculous just how much the casters are now able to snuff out with a spell when in PnP those high spells aren't usable for more than one or two times per day/rest. I don't know, I at least see some relation here and I do kind of feel it's a bit ironic. How one class in Beta was nerfed along their archery line because things shouldn't die at a distance yet almost 2-years later at higher levels a new class has come into its own who can do just that and in spades.

Hmmm, maybe spell casters should be limited to how many times they can cast spells of a certain level. That is, the sixth level spells can only be cast say 15% of the mana bar yet 1st levels about 30%, etc. This would at least be closer to PnP. But not Finger-of-Death all day 24/7!

[Yaga_Nub]

Wrong.

Its not about that. Its about having a character thats viable in all the quests. Its about having a character that can go
into Ghosts of Perdition and DO something. Its about having a character that I enjoy playing and dont want to
see standing at a freakin wall while everything is PK'd.

Casters and clerics own MOD 5, fighters/barbs/rangers/paladins(Ha!)/rogues all second class citizens of Stormreach. Brought along
cause the casters need something pulled, or picked.

I understand casters should be god-like at higher levels, does that mean we need to make AC pointless? And AC is pointless
in the Necro against all the ghosts. Do melee really need to have a huge slowdown on their swings per second?? I mean really?

Do you honestly like the fact that in some quests little to no melee is used? I dont. I thought this was about party balance.

B, hell my caster dies fast enought in Ghosts that "I" don't ever feel like I'm doing something either.

So wizards, sorcs, and clerics own Mod 5, haven't the melees owned Mods 1 through 4? So I guess that means that the casters are due 5 through 8?

AC is pointless against the ghosts in the Necro whether casters are god-like or not right?

I agree that AC shouldn't be pointless but somewhere along the way it did become pretty pointless....... for some quests...... against certain mobs.

This is from a site about 4.0 rules -

Ancient dragons will have possibly over 1000hp and AC’s near 50.

They wouldn't ever be able to do that in DDO, we'd slaughter the dragon faster than it could fry us.

Who said this game was about party balance? This game is about completing an objective and taking all the friggin' loot you can get your grubby little hands on.

[MysticTheurge]

Actually, I was thinking just the opposite, although it is true in some areas.

Like what?

I'm not saying DDO is fourth edition, but there's certainly some things they've been saying about fourth edition where you kind of wonder if they weren't sort of testing those things out in DDO.

The biggest one that comes to mind is the "Important decisions at every level" thing. Enhancements are clearly an attempt to make that happen.

[Missing_Minds]

The bolded part is correct! You are teh winna!

Seriously tho, my points that I cant run my barbarian in Ghosts of Perdition, who's gonna take him? Even if I do find a group
what am I gonna do in that quest? Watch? Same with Vol, Im reduced to bait in that quest.

I think the point of the quests is for all classes to have something to do, its just not turning out that way. Honestly, would you like to see one of each class in a quest? I know thats hard to do because we'll find a way to make the quests as easy and fast as possible, and at the moment thats 6 caster/cleric make up.

The reason Im kinda ****ed about the whole thing is the new attack animation for the new MOD...its just one more way to make
melee obsolete. We need AC to matter, we need firewall not to obliterate everything. Dont nerf casters, but dont nerf melee either. Fighters certainly dont need brought down a peg.

Wow.. what sort of groups do you run that your barb feels so worthless? I take my barb in there, and while I am not a primary killer by the kill count (wall of fire and creatures just standing in it), I am the main force to be reconded with because I will survive. My guild always takes things pretty much in a team aspect. No one is bored/has a free ride in perdition, that is for certain. Same way with most other things as well.

Now stepping away from our personal case examples, There is something more important than classes that lead to bordem, and most people forget this. The skill and style of play of other players. Some people have phenominal luck with rolling 20/crits and mow through stuff like crazy. Others zerg making the rest just play the running game to catch up. Some players suck so bad, they might as well just have a free ride. At other times, lag just ruins the play experience, or constatly junk dice rolls. 4 out of 7 days of the week my dice roll averages will be about a 6-8. Saddly I am not joking. I have watched it that much. These are what I have noticed seem to matter more than just a class. However, playes seem to be so base prejudicial against classes instead of players. This is more than evident by people wanting say.. only casters for quests, or never allowing rangers into a group.

I know nothing about the new animation speed so I'm not going to say a thing about it. AC means squat in upper lvl PnP so I'm not expecting it to matter here either. We need the mobs to not just stand around in WoF. The spell doesn't need any changes, the AI needs the changes. With the AI getting better (hopefully at some point) This huge carp talk about casters vs. melees will die down.

My opinion is that the point of quests is to provide entertainment. This aspect has been so far forgotten. Where I went to college, it was a small town that most people who went to COMPLAINED BITTERLY (much like people have been on the forums) that there is nothing to do, and were utterly bored. Here is the thing, there was lots to do, YOU had to take the initiative and find it. 1.75 years through that college that dawned on me. So I made my own fun and honestly had a blast compared to so many others. Sometimes it is difficult and disheartening, but given enough times, you'll end up with a great bunch of gems that make you ignore the boring times.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

LOL....I run with PuG's, alot. And I never said my barbarian cant survive. He can featherfall with the best of them.
What he cant do is throw heals, firewalls and disintegrate, nothing else is needed in GOP.

And, like I said I dont want anything nerfed. I especially dont want melees DPS nerfed. Changing the way mobs react to firewall is a good solution, yes.

Again, Im not saying casters need nerfed. Im saying melee need to be left alone. Hell, stick a freakin strength lever in every quest.

As for melee ruling MOD 4 & 5, well thats not true either. Reaver Raid solo'd constantly by casters, Trail by Fire is a 10 minute run for a halfway competant caster, Maze of Madness was a joke at first, Cruicible/Madstone. Every quest in the game is practically a walk in the park for casters. But thats not the point Im trying to make.

Come MOD 6 and the attack animation slowing down DPS....do you honestly think DPS needs to be toned down??
Its making melee even less attractive.

I want people to play melee, I want people to play rogues, bards, paladins, rangers. But people play to loot, people play to complete the quests they are doing...effectively. And that is why casters are king.

Yes, yes play to have fun. Ok. No problemo. But the LFM's for Cleric/Casters only shows me there are more playing to win than to have fun.

I dont see many LFM's saying Bards Pallies Rangers and Rogues only - We all gonna die, alot!! But it will be fun!!

[Taojeff]

Like what?

I'm not saying DDO is fourth edition, but there's certainly some things they've been saying about fourth edition where you kind of wonder if they weren't sort of testing those things out in DDO.

The biggest one that comes to mind is the "Important decisions at every level" thing. Enhancements are clearly an attempt to make that happen.

Hahahahahhahahahahahahhahahaah, ha ha ha ha oh, *hold stomach from laughing*, um no not enhancements. They mean useful stuff.

[MysticTheurge]

Hahahahahhahahahahahahhahahaah, ha ha ha ha oh, *hold stomach from laughing*, um no not enhancements. They mean useful stuff.

Yeah. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was an entirely successful attempt to do that (at least not across the board). But it was clearly the impetus behind the enhancement system.

And you kind of ignored the question in there.

[EinarMal]

Hahahahahhahahahahahahhahahaah, ha ha ha ha oh, *hold stomach from laughing*, um no not enhancements. They mean useful stuff.

You don't find things like a +1 to your critical range useful?

[The_Truth]

If you cant beat them join them.

Casters are know as the cannons of the game, weak but does crazy damage. Accept it and move on or make one for yourself.