Melee on a FvS or Cleric, why?

[Iphigen]

I totally don't understand the obsession with having to melee on a cleric or a FvS. What's the benefit? What kind of melee dps are we talking about under the most optimal circumstances? And how much casting/healing ability do you have to sacrifice? In most epics i don't have any trouble getting ahead in kill counts with my Evoker FvS (fully capable to heal raids AND dps on raid bosses + crown) compared to a so called DPS FvS (even if they have a ESoS and even if i am the only healer).

So what's the deal here?

[mute_mayhem]

Why not?

Even if a divine is only contributing 1/2 the dps of a true melee....at least they're doing something besides healing. An evoker FvS is a little different because you can just insta-kill stuff, how does that work out for you on raid bosses?

And yes, I know you'll reply with: Divine punishment ftw!

Well guess what, my "melee" FvS does just as much with Divine punishment as my evoker FvS...

[Vordax]

I totally don't understand the obsession with having to melee on a cleric or a FvS. What's the benefit? What kind of melee dps are we talking about under the most optimal circumstances? And how much casting/healing ability do you have to sacrifice? In most epics i don't have any trouble getting ahead in kill counts with my Evoker FvS (fully capable to heal raids AND dps on raid bosses + crown) compared to a so called DPS FvS (even if they have a ESoS and even if i am the only healer).

So what's the deal here?

Because its fun?

Vordax

[Iwinbyrollup]

Because its fun?

This.

My Sorcerer was a offensive casting cleric last life; my FvS was a melee cleric last life and is a melee FvS this life. For me, the difference ultimately comes down to really having fun with the variety. Playing one is different from the other, and playing the melee FvS is different still from playing, say, my Paladin (who is, unsurprisingly, also a melee).

My melee FvS's DPS doesn't come close to that of my paladin's when I'm just meleeing (a bit different with groups of mobs and BB or with DP on single targets), but it's ultimately not just about DPS. It's about having something to do well that isn't *just* healing. And it's fun in a different way from the paladin because it's a) more self-sufficient, b) more desirable in groups, c) able to take on multiple roles (including solo raid healer in many cases), and d) still able to melee.

[-Zephyr-]

Some people enjoy playing the game in other ways you do.

Casters are currently unmatched trash killers thanks to insta-kill, everyone is aware of that. But once you get to an orange named or red named, your DPS as evoker is not any better than the melee divine anymore :
- either you kite through blade barriers, and by doing so prevent the rest of the party to do damage : less damage overall, and you'll be asked kindly do go solo and stop being selfish in groups
- or you stand there using Divine Punishment, while the melee divine is using both Divine Punishment and his sword.

Oh, and did I mention the word "FUN" ?

[The_Brave2]

From what iv seen both an evoker and a Mele FVS are contributing to the group, just in different ways, you may be able to throw a implosion every once in a while, along with a destruct/slay living, but the Mele FVS is shooting off constant DPS which if he is optimally geared will be about 70% of a equally geared mele DPS. While healing the party at the same time. it really just comes down to play style.

Not to mention boss fights, where a mele FVS truly shines, healing the party though quick cures, dropping divine punishment along with mele DPS, will FAR surpass any other DPS in the party.

I havent mentioned cleric because... its a cleric.

[Talon_Oakenleaf]

From what iv seen both an evoker and a Mele FVS are contributing to the group, just in different ways, you may be able to throw a implosion every once in a while, along with a destruct/slay living, but the Mele FVS is shooting off constant DPS which if he is optimally geared will be about 70% of a equally geared mele DPS. While healing the party at the same time. it really just comes down to play style.

Not to mention boss fights, where a mele FVS truly shines, healing the party though quick cures, dropping divine punishment along with mele DPS, will FAR surpass any other DPS in the party.

I havent mentioned cleric because... its a cleric.

No love for clerics

I recently TR'd my very boring level 20 cc/healer and I mean boring. I hated sitting back and throwing heals and the odd spell or divine punishment and not doing much more than that. So I chose to try an Arcane archer/ cleric build to see if sitting back and healing and pew pewing things would be cool. Well its level 8 now and I am having a blast and i do not get the AA until level 9 because of the BAB. So to answer the OP's question, the deal is for me, playing a hireling sorry healbot was not fun and really a waste of a slot for a party so I love the idea of melee on the healing class.

[gavijal]

You can do some dps and save your sp for healing

[der_kluge]

You can do some dps and save your sp for healing

This.

I tank Harry along with the big boys, deal out really respectable DPS (I think it's a lot, but I have no idea what kinds of numbers everyone around me is putting up), and I can devote all my spells to healing.

[dkyle]

Any Divine can heal, and put out spell-based DPS (Divine Punishment, basically), with a few feats. The choice is generally DC-based casting vs. melee DPS. For DC-based casting, you want as much WIS as possible. For Melee, you want as much STR as possible. Since you can't max both WIS and STR, a choice has to be made. And a balanced approach is only likely to end up with a character that sucks at doing both things.

For a melee Cleric, the only loss to healing/DPS spells from dumping WIS is the minor loss of SPs (assuming just enough to cast level 9 spells). The actual potency of the spells is unaffected.

For a melee FvS, loss of WIS is even less detrimental, as their SP is based on CHA, anyway.

Healing/spell DPS do require feats, but it's not hard to fit in Quicken and some reasonable subset of Maximize/Empower/Empower Healing, alongside basic melee DPS feats: PA, Imp. Crit. If you go THF, the THF-line isn't that important, and can be skipped. TWF is tricky, though, as the full TWF is basically mandatory.

Now, there do exist melee FvS and Clerics that entirely dedicate themselves to melee, and don't take the metamagics needed for effective healing and spell DPS. I would question that choice. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I see it as trading the huge amount of utility from healing and spell DPS for a slight increase in melee DPS. But not all (or even most, IMHO) melee Divines do this.

[Calebro]

a balanced approach is only likely to end up with a character that sucks at doing both things.

No necessarily true. Yes, some sacrifices need to be made, but that doesn't mean both will end up sucking.

Example: I have an 18/2 Monk splash FvS, mostly caster spec'd, with a little GTWF'ing melee thrown in. His melee DPS is obviously less than stellar because he's caster spec'd, but it does enough that when I want to conserve SP in less dangerous fights I'm still contributing. And all it cost me was 1 point of DCs by starting with a 16 Wis rather than an 18, and 2 points of Spell Pen from the splash.
The melee DPS suffers from missing PA, and that's all he's missing on the melee side (as a 24 Str isn't enough to reliably hit with PA on).

Is he optimized for casting? No.
Can he cast offensively, and still be reliable at it? Yes.
Is he optimized for melee? No.
Can he still melee reliably? Yes. He doesn't do nearly as much melee damage as someone more melee focused, but he can still melee.
This took quite a bit of planning to do via stats/gear/spell choices/etc, but saying that it's *likely* that he'll suck at both is a bit of an overstatement.

[gloopygloop]

No necessarily true. Yes, some sacrifices need to be made, but that doesn't mean both will end up sucking.

Example: I have an 18/2 Monk splash FvS, mostly caster spec'd, with a little GTWF'ing melee thrown in. His melee DPS is obviously less than stellar because he's caster spec'd, but it does enough that when I want to conserve SP in less dangerous fights I'm still contributing. And all it cost me was 1 point of DCs by starting with a 16 Wis rather than an 18, and 2 points of Spell Pen from the splash.
The melee DPS suffers from missing PA, and that's all he's missing on the melee side (as a 24 Str isn't enough to reliably hit with PA on).

Is he optimized for casting? No.
Can he cast offensively, and still be reliable at it? Yes.
Is he optimized for melee? No.
Can he still melee reliably? Yes. He doesn't do nearly as much melee damage as someone more melee focused, but he can still melee.
This took quite a bit of planning to do via stats/gear/spell choices/etc, but saying that it's *likely* that he'll suck at both is a bit of an overstatement.

I'd agree 100% with dkyle's assertion that a "balanced" character is likely to be a character that sucks at everything. I do believe that it is *possible* to make a character that is mainly focused on offensive casting, but which can do some melee when appropriate and I do believe that it is *possible* to make a character that is mainly focused on melee, but which can do some offensive casting when appropriate, but that is certainly not the "likely" outcome - especially on a multiclass character.

There are enough ways to screw up and make a character that can't do anything well enough to be effective that "likely to end up with a character that sucks at doing both things" seems like a perfect characterization of the both DDO and pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons. The rule of thumb in both games is "go big or go home".

[Chai]

I'd agree 100% with dkyle's assertion that a "balanced" character is likely to be a character that sucks at everything. I do believe that it is *possible* to make a character that is mainly focused on offensive casting, but which can do some melee when appropriate and I do believe that it is *possible* to make a character that is mainly focused on melee, but which can do some offensive casting when appropriate, but that is certainly not the "likely" outcome - especially on a multiclass character.

I dont agree with those all or nothing assertations spreadsheet gamers make. With some outside the box thinking you can make a toon that will out DPS a one trick pony character and have infinately more survivability. Instead of one super awesome ability which no one can match you at, you build a toon that has 3 or 4 DPS abilities which when all used at once, add up to outing pure melee in both damage and survival. Spreadsheet gamers dont admit this of course, because the common viewpoint when discussing DPS is, if it isnt first place, its useless. The minute water savants began outing melee by a long shot, many people came to these boards claiming melee was now irrelevant.

There are enough ways to screw up and make a character that can't do anything well enough to be effective that "likely to end up with a character that sucks at doing both things" seems like a perfect characterization of the both DDO and pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons. The rule of thumb in both games is "go big or go home".

Ive seen this done on pure melee just as often as I see it happen on splashed divine. People start their fighters str at 19 and put a few rogue levels on the build for UMD and evasion and now all of a sudden, they are "gimp". Instead of having an 78 sustainable strength they have a 77. Oh noes!!! The only measuring tool that is used to make this claim is how the toon performs against 3 big devils, 1 abashai devistator, and a demon queen.

I take these max DPS / no survivability toons into enter the kobold hard or elite, SOS, TOD elite part 1, etc, and they die, usually after a good 20 minutes of talking about how awesome their toon is at stealing aggro and keeping it.

No, D&D P&P is not like DDO, heh. Go big or go home fails the minute metagaming is not on your side. Without being able to metagame, all of the weakspots of your toon can no longer be covered up by buffs before encounters. If you have a photographic memory and have memorized every page of all monster manuals, more power to you. Everyone else is bowing to the metagaming gods as much as they can, and relying on a generous DM with their dumped charisma half orcs, who are one full attack round from being too ugly to take a standard action.

[wax_on_wax_off]

To answer your question, a melee specced divine can, under ideal conditions, do about 80% of the DPS of a melee class (according to older maths).

For me playing a melee FvS melee DPS was a side affect of the more interesting past time of hate tanking. When it gets down to it, twitch two handed fighting while solo healing and holding the aggro of a raid boss is heaps fun

Effective too.

[Raoull]

I find one advantage of being a melee cleric is also that my Torc/ConOpp processes more. When I'm playing the "stay in the back and heal" cleric, I don't have nearly as much mana as when I run around fighting trash up close and personal. I also get more mileage out of my auras/bursts that way.

But the most important advantage is... its fun.

I like casters too, mind you. But I figure I'll play a caster Arcane and a melee Divine. A caster Divine is a perfectly fine choice, except I've only got time for so many toons.

[Dandonk]

1) Because it's fun.

2) Because if you're a healbot, you're not contributing as much as you can to the party.

3) Because your torc/Conc Opp is nice.

4) Because it's even more fun to outkill* dedicated melees and watch them go all (word deleted due to community rules).


*: Yes, I know kill score doesn't really mean much. It doesn't stop some people from being very angry if my wf fvs outkill their barbs, though. So yes, it's fun.

[Chai]

Divine melee DPS + spell DPS is pretty darn good. And this can all still be had without sacrifice to being able to heal raids and groups.

Gygaxian divine classes can fight. Its one of the things that sets D&D apart from other MMOs and fantasy realms where their priests are running around in cloth armor babysitting the melee classes so they dont die.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Benefits of the divines being in the middle of the fight:
- Radiant servant aura provides some handy background HP regeneration
- Radiant servant burst is very powerful & doesnt require SP.. doesnt matter if you end up overhealing thanks to metas either, since the cost for it (1 turn) is the same regardless.
- easier for the divine to use mass healing, just cast it & it'll default to targeting on self, catching other party members in the AoE - ok, a little different fighting undead & the RS burst need to have yourself selected but its not that hard to just hit F1 then your healing hotkey.
- FvS with the PrE gives a handy debuff that can increase the damage from holy/good/light damage & reduces fortification, thus potentially boosting dps for the whole party with crits hitting more often etc.. plus the SR debuff helps other casters that might be at a distance to let their own spells stick like mass holds etc.
- implosion is limited AoE & centered on the caster

With all those benefits, may as well be hitting things too while you're there & contributing to DPS, as with a halfway decent group you really shouldnt be taking so much damage that constant healing is required, outside of a few intense situations such as raids & scripted ambushes in certain quests. Ok, their dps isnt on the level of a raging barbarian or most other "proper" melees especially at cap, but are no slouches either & at low levels they're a lot closer.

The only real problem with melee divines are the less epxerienced players who have seen it done & just jump in, figure they can pull it off, but then end up failing when they discover it needs a lot more attention than they realised & cant handle the multitasking, usually healing others & failing to heal themselves as they get hit too, or concentrating on themselves as they get hit & then neglecting other party members. Once you've gotten over that hurdle though, they're awesome fun to play & very effective

[rjbutchko]

My cleric is on her second life. First life she stood around with her aura on and tossed an occasional heal. BORING! Now she has Conc. Opp. , a Torc and viable HP and I love to have her jump into a middle of a pack of mobs and do less than a quarter of the melee damage that her party mates do just to regain SP for implosions. So as a melee cleric she actually is able to do more offensive casting than she otherwise would.

[Dendrix]

It's fun hitting things in the face with big hunks of sharp metal.