what can be done to balance melee and magic

[minimomo]

i just can't stand this anymore... after a lot of suffering and endless hours of waiting for people to join my party etc. i finally flagged litany, okay?

that took me about 3 weeks... of course i'm not a hardcore player and i play about 4-5 hours a day.

now, today i tried litany in casual mode, killed all weaklings and only that blackguard skelly left with an asian-like name and i couldn't kill him because both my str and con drop to zero.

NOW THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT; if i was a caster, i would put a blade barrier or firewall or whatever... and just run around the columns... bam, he is dead, piece of cake.

is this fair? why do i have to make a caster to enjoy the game, without waiting hours to run a **** quest?

and don't say melee can do that too. NOT AS SUPER EASY AS A CASTER. not without super duper items.

casters only need their spells. heighten, maximize, get every possible damage increasement feats and enhacements out there and just take your time and kite things around.

it will take less time then forming a party in any case.

[Crystalizer]

but there are many other situations in ddo where a caster is useless compared to a melee, apart from having a huge pool of mana pots. casters have been so much nerfed in favor of melee classes, i dont think they deserve some more nerfs.

[minimomo]

just go youtube any quest name.

you will get 10,000 results like this;

- soloing "x quest" arcane
- soloing "y quest" cleric

and maybe a few very low level quest results where a straightforward melee (not a rogue sneak passing stuff) bashing things around...

i don't care if they have to nerf casters more or make melee stronger. i just want to solo things too...

[Flavilandile]

i just want to solo things too...

You know that it's not one of the basic tenet of D&D ( and DDO ) ?

This game is all about cooperation... Solo mode and Explorer areas were put in as an afterthought because a lot of
people asked for the possibility.

Yes a large portion of the content is soloable ( even on a melee... but you need the right build and the skills to use it correctly... ) but there's still a good portion of it that requires to be in a party cooperating with others.

[Dunklerlindwurm]

You want to beat him alone on a melee? Guess what? Its easy...i do that all the time.

Only thing you need is being immun to vorpal and use a cleric/FvS hireling to cast Heal on you to remove your stat damage from time to time.

Thats it.

[minimomo]

You know that it's not one of the basic tenet of D&D ( and DDO ) ?

This game is all about cooperation... Solo mode and Explorer areas were put in as an afterthought because a lot of
people asked for the possibility.

Yes a large portion of the content is soloable ( even on a melee... but you need the right build and the skills to use it correctly... ) but there's still a good portion of it that requires to be in a party cooperating with others.

if no one was able to solo any quest all by themselves, i wouldn't start this thread. i know what is D&D. it's more like this game doesn't know what it is. and no, unless like you have to use 3 different runes or have to be in 3 places at the same time, all the quests (don't know endgame stuff) soloable by casters...

this is not what i call cooperation.

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS; because, say, a cleric can easily solo litany, you won't be able to find a healer. people just seeing this problem and converts to casters to solo things. which is wrong. the game indeed should be all about cooperation and force you to find a party.

[Jakarr]

I normally play hybrid casters my fav are my FvS and 16 sorc/2pal/2rog and I will tell you for most quest I will beat it np just melee'n the whole thing. Melees do great 1-7 then about 17 they gain that grp advantage back. Another thing is your gear up to date? Did you try using a Greater Undead Bane on him? Melees are shackled by what gear they have while casters have to deal with sp and what spells to pick(not to hard really).

Everytime I hear a melee cry about the balance I gotta turn and say hey maybe you should get a better weapon then that +1 flaming greatsword.

All in all play to 20 then tell us the balance.

[Xaxx]

I love that in your what.. (looks at forums join date)... 2 months of playing op that your already calling for *balances* aka nerfs.

Play some more classes, get past necro, and learn about the game first.. then come offer us your opinion, until then, back in the cage you go.

Just as an aside to the f2ps, we're well over a year into this f2p ddo with module 9.7 launching and 9.8 somewhere down the road (sorry i refuse to call them updates, every update from here on out is simply Module 9.x, if they ever release a massive update being worthy of being called a module then that shall be Module 10 and updates from then on will be 10.x).

Yet I still hear newer players (be they f2p, premiums, vips who started as f2p, or guys who just joined 2 weeks ago) moan and gripe about the treatment us vets give them. Now dont get me wrong ive met alot of great players who started out in f2p, but in general its posts like this that still leave a sour taste in a vets mouth. People with a join date 2 months old thinking they know everything about the game and ranting that this needs changed and that needs changed.

For every great unlimited player i've met, i see 10 of these froob posts/ingame people complaining about this or that or spells or a weapon or how trip works (its sad when you have to tell a level 15 fighter that they actually have to hit the trip icon to make trip work). They have no clue what they're talkinga bout but have to spout about how unfair something is.

So this is just a public service message, dont be like the OP, learn the game, then be free to complain about it, not the other way around.

[donfilibuster]

i don't care if they have to nerf casters more or make melee stronger. i just want to solo things too...

not gonna happen, there's no one man army in d&d, likewise there's going to be some quests casters can't solo.

[AyumiAmakusa]

This isn't your everyday MMO. I like how this game incorporates cooperation into gameplay. Magic is meant to be strong but they are limited by SP while Melee are meant to be sustainable damage and not nukers.

[minimomo]

not gonna happen, there's no one man army in d&d, likewise there's going to be some quests casters can't solo.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...... there is. and they are casters. i don't care if they can't solo "all the quests" they can solo "most of them" i want that too.

i don't want to solo any quest a caster can't solo.

but i want to solo every quest a caster can solo.

[AyumiAmakusa]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...... there is. and they are casters. i don't care if they can't solo "all the quests" they can solo "most of them" i want that too.

i don't want to solo any quest a caster can't solo.

but i want to solo every quest a caster can solo.

That's life. You can't have everything you want.

Deal with it.

[Lorz]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...... there is. and they are casters. i don't care if they can't solo "all the quests" they can solo "most of them" i want that too.

i don't want to solo any quest a caster can't solo.

but i want to solo every quest a caster can solo.

Learn to play. Most quests are solo able by melée. You can't but that does not mean others can't. Improve your game don't dumb down the game as your requesting. Seriously, your whining because you can't do it...but why can sp many others do it. It's you.....I say nerf YOU.

[Vellrad]

I think you don't know what are you talking about.
1st: this guy is blackbone, so he is 100% fire-resist. No FW, no meteors, no fireballs, no polar rays etc. He is carrying a lot of different weapons, and switching them in battle, just like players.
2nd: at endgame all casters are reduced to buffbots for meeles, and throwing 2 or 3 spells in whole dungeon (mass hold, firewall, dancing sphere). All other spells are almost useless.
3rd: its 100% OK that some of dungeons are made in way that 1 class got easier task that other. In some quests caster is king, in others he is waste in party slot.
4th: you're not going to finish this quest without spoilers/ another players anyway.

[minimomo]

I think you don't know what are you talking about.
1st: this guy is blackbone, so he is 100% fire-resist. No FW, no meteors, no fireballs, no polar rays etc. He is carrying a lot of different weapons, and switching them in battle, just like players.

i have seen a youtube video where a cleric using blade barrier and killing him. i don't care if he has fire resist. firewall was just an example. i'm not a caster...

2nd: at endgame all casters are reduced to buffbots for meeles, and throwing 2 or 3 spells in whole dungeon (mass hold, firewall, dancing sphere). All other spells are almost useless.

i'm not talking about endgame though... you can't explain unfair with another. you just hang in there, keep sucking but try to hit 20. then you will rock? screw that.

3rd: its 100% OK that some of dungeons are made in way that 1 class got easier task that other. In some quests caster is king, in others he is waste in party slot.
4th: you're not going to finish this quest without spoilers/ another players anyway.

guess you are talking about endgame again.

[Vandas]

When my Strength drops to 0 on my Wizard/Rogue, I can't cast spells. I'm just as helpless as a Melee. The difference is, you can take more hits with your Melee Strength than I can with my Caster Strength.

The game is not balanced around solo play (assuming you are talking about solo - it's hard to follow).

Everything is fine.

[minimomo]

When my Strength drops to 0 on my Wizard/Rogue, I can't cast spells. I'm just as helpless as a Melee. The difference is, you can take more hits with your Melee Strength than I can with my Caster Strength.

thing is you don't have to stand before him and wait till your any stat drop to zero...

The game is not balanced around solo play (assuming you are talking about solo - it's hard to follow). .

yes, and i'm asking what can be done. but as usual people just trying to teach me how to play.

Everything is fine.

not really, not at all.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

thing is you don't have to stand before him and wait till your any stat drop to zero...

yes, and i'm asking what can be done. but as usual people just trying to teach me how to play..

Ah, now that's a better way to put it...

Let's start with don't stand there and let your stat drop to zero. Drink lesser restore potions to fix your stats before they hit zero.

If you like to solo a lot, you need to put UMD on that character so you can also use heal scrolls and restoration scrolls, both of which quickly deal with all stat damage.

Frankly this game requires a bit of skill and planning to solo on any class.

[sigtrent]

yes, and i'm asking what can be done. but as usual people just trying to teach me how to play.

That is because the challenge is not the balance of melee and casters but that you don't know how as a melee to deal with the challenge. You can easily get items that will restore your ability damage, or you can watch that monsters dialogs and avoid fighting him when he is using weapons that are a danger to you. You can get a cheap hireling that can cure ability damage. Just because a cleric has an easier time does not mean there is anything wrong with your character much less Melee characters in general.

Clerics can be challenged in that game due to the intersession ability of the ghosts weeps which can make all divine casting impossible for a time. And while you can see videos of clerics blade barring their way through quests, for every person that does that well, there is someone new to the game who gets their but kicked doing it because they lack the practice and experience.

The only type of character that I could say may have no good options in that quest would be a finesse rogue. Anyone else simply needs to adjust tactics or level up a bit if they are having trouble.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Last time I was in there we melee'd him down with a rogue and a fighter so there is no problem dealing with him as a melee.

Besides which, D&D is based on grouping, the only balance should be at the group level. Group if you don't have the skills or equipment to solo.