Melee on a FvS or Cleric, why?

[mournbladereigns]

HJEAL MEH!

^FIXED^

cause meleeing is fun and active. People will play the way they want. Know UR ROLE, not mine.

Also, *Cough* Divine Avenger *Cough*

[sirgog]

Let's turn this question around.

Given that a melee FvS that uses Divine Punishment properly does about the same total DPS (melee + DP) as a 'traditional' melee class does, and can do that without making any sacrifices in the healing department - why would you roll a traditional melee?

You could take the Barbarian that does 450 melee DPS, or you could take the FvS that does ~280 melee DPS and ~165 Divine Punishment DPS, provides a Fortification debuff on bosses where that is relevant, and if your party's designated healer(s) die/prove incompetant, can instantly shift gears and heal.

Really the only three things traditional melee DPS's can do better than a FvS are AoE physical damage (Supreme Cleave spam on held mobs is better than Bladebarrier on non-held mobs at present endgame); DPS against the very highest AC targets, and DPS on targets with too little HP to merit Divine Punishment.

[jandhaer]

While I agree that a well built FvS can heal and dps at the same time many are weary of FvS, I know people who just don't take any anymore.

The result = FvS with splashes get little to no love and even pure FvS get asked "healer?" before they are accepted in a party.

This is the most rediculous thing i've read in a long while, LAUGHABLE if it wasn't just so..so.. so wrong. You say you know people who just wont take FvS anymore period... WOW is all I can say about that. They dont accept what is arguably the best class in the entire game. FvS characters have time and again pulled off what was thought to be impossible, just check out the achievements forums if ya dont believe me. Your join date is 2011 so ya ... there is that -.-

[Rdonaccount]

Because melee dps is free. You aren't making the choice to have less blue to heal with everytime you cast a spell.

Because melee dps is better than instakills on bosses.

And most importantly, because most such builds were made before u9. Your evoker fvs was, (and i'm not trying to be mean, i had wis-based divines pre u9 too) a useless healbot pre-u9 in end game. In epics, you couldn't horde kills because you couldn't insta kill anything. And you couldn't dps bosses effectively before divine punishment. u9 has switched the power back to casting focus, but many of us are just attached to the pre-u9 characters we made (and already geared up), so we keep plugging away with melee-healers.

[Matuse]

Why melee? Because it's there.

[Yagi]

no, it wont. but you can try to prove it here :

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=300873

rflol

[SirValentine]

I totally don't understand the obsession with having to melee on a cleric or a FvS. What's the benefit?

1. Contributing way more to party sucess than a healbot. More DPS is more DPS.
2. Killing stuff in melee is fun. Way more fun than hiding at the back being a healbot.

What kind of melee dps are we talking about under the most optimal circumstances?

I haven't run the numbers, but what I've heard from people who have is 50-70% of a pure melee build.

And how much casting/healing ability do you have to sacrifice?

Healing, not enough sacrifice to matter, at least on a Cleric.

Offensive casting...here it's a continuum. You can tweak where along the spectrum from top-notch-casting-with-useless-melee to very-good-melee-and-useless-with-offensive-spells you want to be. It's possible to be decent at both, but specializing more one way or the other can make that aspect better, of course.

[Ebonrook]

The issue is that "fun" is completely personal and subjective. It can justify anything and it can't really be argued.

But that's just it: enjoyment of character and build *is* entirely subjective and applies directly to the OP's question.

Yes, we can discuss the relative, math-based merits of this or that, but, as we're discussing clerics/FVS with a splash of melee, we're talking relatively minor amounts of difference in actual team support. So "what tickles your interest" becomes the name of the game.

Now, if we were talking about cleric or FVS builds in general and how, fun aside, you can make them really, really bad, then maybe fun should have less to do with it, since you'll literally be taking fun away from others by bringing your horrid build to a team.

[dkyle]

But that's just it: enjoyment of character and build *is* entirely subjective and applies directly to the OP's question.

I read the OP much more as asking for the mechanical merits of melee Divines (What's the benefit? How much DPS? etc.), than as "why do you guys like playing melee Divines".

Yes, we can discuss the relative, math-based merits of this or that, but, as we're discussing clerics/FVS with a splash of melee, we're talking relatively minor amounts of difference in actual team support. So "what tickles your interest" becomes the name of the game.

There's a pretty big difference between a STR-based and WIS-based FvS or Cleric.

"What tickles your interest" provides no information to other people beyond what your own personal preferences are. Lots of people like a lot of different things, for no good reason. Usually people want to know specifically what people think makes certain build choices better or worse then others, and in what ways, to help them figure out what's likely to be fun for them.

Unless I know someone really well, just knowing what's fun to them doesn't really tell me what might be fun to me, or help me understand why it's fun to them and other people.


The point is that "excluding fun" doesn't mean that people who discuss the relative merits of various build options want to exclude fun from the game, as the person I replied to seemed to suggest. It just means that, in discussing builds, its generally useful to set aside purely personal opinions of what is "fun" and focus on the actual game mechanics.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I said "hold my cape" not put it on!

[ThePrincipal]

I have noticed that on many battle Fvs people tend to say sorry I'm melee I dont heal. Whereas, the battle cleric can still heal a party without a problem largely due to the Radiant Servant prestidge.

The problem is that melee output on a fvs or cleric is about 1/3 a fighter dps. So if you cant or wont heal the party and are doing 1/3 melee dps... see what I'm getting at.

[Habreno]

For your interest, OP, I am having quite a bit of fun being able to melee with my pure Cleric. Of course, he'll never put out the DPS that melees can, but he doesn't melee for DPS. He melees to have the heals on him (and at 500 hp plus on a Divine, you should-especially as a Favored Soul with saves up the wazoo-though he's a Cleric) and if you don't get healing it's not my fault as I tell everyone where the heals are. Of course, the secondary benefit is the divine doesn't die, because they're getting heals.

However, he is not a "melee divine" but merely a "melee-capable divine" and that distinction means that he knows when to melee and when not to. Part 3 in ToD he'll certainly stay back and heal- to melee is suicide for him. On the flipside, he'll most certainly be tossing healing from in the melee in Shroud parts 4 and 5- and don't say it's my fault when your 300 hp butt dies because you can't last 7 seconds (time between Heal, Mass casts) especially when I run an aura that hits you 25 a tick, with the standard healing amp of 100% AND another divine who's usually outside tossing heals.

[The_Brave2]

I have noticed that on many battle Fvs people tend to say sorry I'm melee I dont heal. Whereas, the battle cleric can still heal a party without a problem largely due to the Radiant Servant prestidge.

The problem is that melee output on a fvs or cleric is about 1/3 a fighter dps. So if you cant or wont heal the party and are doing 1/3 melee dps... see what I'm getting at.

ANY FVS with 18+ levels of FVS should be healing, if they are not, they are a minority and should be ignored, just like the minority of rogues that dont do traps, or the mele wizards. I fail to see your argument. A mele cleric will have less SP, so less heals, less DP, no wings, no LoTB enhancement line if the FVS was WF.

Also, 1/3 is not true for well geared FVS's. with eSoS and a couple other loot items a FVS will out dps a fighter on a single target boss fight, or do about 70%ish dps on a single target trash mob. this number goes down when facing a barbarian in a group of mobs.

If you are talking about mid levels, 8-12, then sure, WF FVS isnt going to do much mele damage compared to a mele class, but neither is a cleric, and at midlevel is the only place where that aura is going to do much for you (seeing as the only place a healer is needed is burst damage, and your aura doesnt help with that. And midlevel is the only place you will find a large amount of mele FVS's who dont know how to play their class.

[gloopygloop]

I have noticed that on many complete character build failures, incompetant players tend to say sorry I'm melee I dont heal. Whereas, the battle cleric can still heal a party without a problem largely due to the Radiant Servant prestidge.

The problem is that melee output on a fvs or cleric is about 1/3 a fighter dps. So if you cant or wont heal the party and are doing 1/3 melee dps... see what I'm getting at.

Fixed that for you.

Any Cleric or FvS character that takes Empower Healing + Quicken or Empower + Maximise and is willing to spend 6 AP (+6 more if they're going to scroll heal single targets in raids where appropriate) on heals can heal any raid in the game. Anyone who says that they melee instead of healing is just a terrible player and that's not the fault of the class or the build concept.

I'd say that a FvS actually does about half of what a similarly geared Fighter does in melee alone based on my FvS with mediocre gear vs. my Fighter with pretty decent gear. And even if you did only do 1/3 of the damage that a Fighter can deliver, why would you want to only heal when you can heal + fight?

[dieaufop]

A lot of people have already weighed in with their reasoning and I'm bored so I'll add mine:

My pen & paper Clerics always waded in and hit things, so my DDO one does too - although he's swapped his hammer and shield for a variety of 2-handers due to DDO game mechanics. One of the nicest things about D&D is that you aren't a squishy, cloth-wearing, run-away-from-the-scary-monster character if you're a healer, unlike many games.

Cleric specific: Radiant Aura and Radiant Burst are centred on the Cleric anyway so to make good use of them you need to be in with the melees.

Even if you're only doing a fraction of a real melee's DPS, it's still free damage. Even a low-Wis (compared to a pure caster) melee FvS/Cleric does just as much Divine Punishment damage as a pure caster build.

Particular pet peeve of mine: FvS and Clerics have better base HP than Rogues do (and the generic battlecleric with monk splash build will have evasion, and a pure FvS has natural DR), and no-one complains when the trapmonkeys melee the mobs, so why do people complain when FvS/Clerics do?

It's not actually that difficult to heal and melee at once. Granted there are some mobs you don't really want to go near, but 99% of the time you're better off in the melee pack where you can leverage burst/aura/mass X centred on you than standing a long way back. Empower Healing/Quicken/Maximise work just as well from melee as they do from 40 feet away. You don't lose any healing ability whatsoever with a melee Cleric or FvS.

Of course, all the above is completely irrelevant to a good ~80% of the forum's userbase as I don't give a **** about raids and therefore am under no compulsion to min-max for their "leet" playstyle. I'm sure the serious (waaay too serious, in some cases) raiders will say that melee divines are a waste of a raid slot, but then I don't play with those people anyway .

Oh, and I forgot to type the other reason: I have a Sorc for offensive casting, who's substantially better at it than even the most casting-focused Cleric/FvS. So if I feel like playing a caster, the Sorc's a more fun choice. If I feel like playing a melee, a Barb or Fighter is what I'll play. If I feel like playing someone who can both fight and heal, the Cleric's the one I go to. It's not like we're limited to one character per account.

[Calebro]

Even a low-Wis (compared to a pure caster) melee FvS/Cleric does just as much Divine Punishment damage as a pure caster build.

This is a HUGE mistake in the design of the DoTs like Divine Punishment, and will hopefully be remedied soon with the addition of a save for half.
To be honest, I'm surprised they've lasted as long as they have without changing to add a save, and I'm sure that day will be coming Thoon.

[The_Brave2]

and I'm sure that day will be coming Thoon.

I see what you did there >_>

[ThePrincipal]

Just to answer the OP, the appeal with a melee caster of any kind is to simply do more than one thing. It's fun to see how high your dps can get without killing casting ability. It's very straight forward to make a dps barb or dc wizard. Battle casters are simply a more difficult animal to build and play, thereby making it a fun and worthwhile challenge to some.

[Matuse]

This is a HUGE mistake in the design of the DoTs like Divine Punishment, and will hopefully be remedied soon with the addition of a save for half.

None of the DoTs have ever had a save. DP isn't the only one.

As I said in a previous thread where this came up right after U9 was launched, I don't believe they CAN put a save onto it. Why? Stacking. When a new stack of a spell is cast, it doesn't just put an extra version onto the old spell, it replaces it with a completely new version. Turbine's database has 3 different spells called "Divine Punishment", one version to represent each "stack". Adding in a save would throw a major wrench into the mechanic, as soon as you run into a situation where the monster saves against 1 element of the stack, and not the other.

Example 1: DP 1 is saved, DP 2 is not saved.
First DP is doing half damage.
Second DP is applied
First DP is now doing full damage, plus second DP is doing full damage.
Result: Damage suddenly becomes tripled.

Example 2: DP 1 is not saved, DP 2 is saved.
First DP is doing full damage
Second DP is applied
First DP is now doing half damage, plus second DP is doing half damage.
Result: Damage is...the same as before???

It's particularly egregious in the second example, where you've all but wasted the SP you just cast. Sure it refreshes the timer and opens up the third casting, but that's not the impression people are going to get. Hell, they'll see the same number continue to pop up and think that the spell "missed" or failed in some fashion.

[Calebro]

None of the DoTs have ever had a save. DP isn't the only one.

I didn't say that they had a save. I said that was the problem. I said that they NEED a save.
And I can't imagine that adding a save would be such a hassle, even if there are three different versions.
And your description makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Each *tick* should get a save for half. Once the damage is calculated, roll a save. Success = half damage. Failure = full damage.
It can't be that complicated to code, because as you said, each subsequent stack replaces the previous. Each subsequent stack does not add on to the previous. It completely replaces it.

It's just like casting a new stoneskin when you still have 20 points left on the last one. You don't get double the effect, because the old one is simply gone, and has been completely replaced by the new one.

So there is no "second element" to the attack. The spell that affects the mobs changes from DP1 to DP2 to DP3, and when these changes happen the previous one has been completely overwritten. If it weren't completely overwritten, then casting another stack when there was 4 or 5 seconds left on the first would show damage from both stacks for a tick or two, and that doesn't happen, because the previous stack is gone as soon as the new stack arrives.
And if that's NOT the way that it's coded, then that's the way that it SHOULD be coded.