+20 lesser heart of woods for all melees!

[SpiritBoy]

Annnd once again someone attempts the 'a good player playing a melee will be better than a bad player on caster'


Duh. Yes. We. Know.


BUT. A good player, a VERY good player, playing a DECKED OUT melee with MULTIPLE PAST LIVES, and MUCHO EPICO GEARO will easily be left in the dust by a GOOD PLAYER WITH A CASTER / DIVINE WITH ONLY THE CURRENT LIFE WORTH OF GEAR...

THIS is the problem. Not some made up 'well a bad player will be worse than a good player' ****, the simple fact that there is an obvious and glaring imbalance between the classes, at ALL levels of play(Contrary to what another poster said, casters from 1-20 got it E-A-S-Y. at 5 I'm still watching FvS/Wiz's blow past me in elite content. I've got 7 lives behind me. Those divine/casters got... none. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.)


U know to fix the problem they should implement 'potion sickness' which gets worse and worse (AKA silver flame pots) as u drink more pots. The severity of the sickness depends on the potions used(CSW pots might make u -1 each stat after the 4th potion inside one minute, but a major mno might give -4 all stats after the 2nd inside one minute?)

I don't use pots on my caster, and I still do much more than every melee ever will.
I never run out of mana. I run epics all the time.
I'm a first life wizard with about 1900 mana.
And I still do much much than every useless melee ever will. (To quote one guy that grouped with me once - "Can I pike since caster seems to have this under control?").
Melees suck, caster rule, with or without pots.
Get the pots stuff outta your system, that ain't the problem.
Just to have an example, I solo west side of deeps using the free entrance shrine, without using pots. I do this while caster + rest of the group clears west side.
It's ridiculous.

[GermanicusMaximus]

heal for 120 would generate 360 threat.

Welcome to the world of the "healer tank"! Wait, wasn't tanking the new fallback plan mentioned for melee?

And if the healer tank does happen to die, the melee are going to do what exactly?

[taurean430]

My casters are not stuck with only buffing melee toons and holding mobs. My divines are one small step closer to where they actually should be in terms of actual pnp power level. I think in that sense the changes are good.

Being able to do elemental damage to golems is very strange to me. Being able to damage other mobs that were previously immune to baseline elemental attacks I find to be problematic. Those small examples take away what was the usefulness of a fast swinging melee with smiting weapons/construct bane on. Those sorts of things strike me as out of balance.

What is within balance is the option for a divine or arcane caster to provide baseline buffs and still be an effective participant in a party. And no, holding mobs for melee was never something I'd considered to be a great option.

This game is entirely melee centric. Give casting classes one or two options that allow them utility, and the the pitchforks and torches come out. The bottom line is that one's greataxe is not equal to a level 9 arcane spell, or condemnation from the gods...

[R0cksteady]

My casters are not stuck with only buffing melee toons and holding mobs. My divines are one small step closer to where they actually should be in terms of actual pnp power level. I think in that sense the changes are good.

Being able to do elemental damage to golems is very strange to me. Being able to damage other mobs that were previously immune to baseline elemental attacks I find to be problematic. Those small examples take away what was the usefulness of a fast swinging melee with smiting weapons/construct bane on. Those sorts of things strike me as out of balance.

What is within balance is the option for a divine or arcane caster to provide baseline buffs and still be an effective participant in a party. And no, holding mobs for melee was never something I'd considered to be a great option.

This game is entirely melee centric. Give casting classes one or two options that allow them utility, and the the pitchforks and torches come out. The bottom line is that one's greataxe is not equal to a level 9 arcane spell, or condemnation from the gods...

Sorry, if balance is against your role playing.

But for classes that can really do only one thing, and that's damage, you should be doing more damage than classes that can do everything.

[taurean430]

Sorry, if balance is against your role playing.

But for classes that can really do only one thing, and that's damage, you should be doing more damage than classes that can do everything.

Your melee are defenseless because you build them that way. Mine are not.

[R0cksteady]

Your melee are defenseless because you build them that way. Mine are not.

Who said they were defenseless?

[SpiritBoy]

Your melee are defenseless because you build them that way. Mine are not.

In epics, which is the only stupid endgame we have in DDO, the only melee classes that are viable are -
(to a lesser degree) Monks (who stun), Fighters (who stun), barbs (who stun).
Best melee in epics is rogue due to assassinate. I've have several excellent rogues out kill me due to that little ability.

[R0cksteady]

In epics, which is the only stupid endgame we have in DDO, the only melee classes that are viable are -
(to a lesser degree) Monks (who stun), Fighters (who stun), barbs (who stun).
Best melee in epics is rogue due to assassinate. I've have several excellent rogues out kill me due to that little ability.

Why are stuns useful? Maybe in the few quests that have a lot of drow.

But everything that can be stunned is going to be either instakilled or held

[mournbladereigns]

So, the entire point went right over your head?

I'm saying, why not make all classes useful instead of a few. Makes a melee caster isn't going to make Barbs, Rangers, Monks, Fighters, Rogues and Paladins more useful.

Not particularly, I was being facetious. I do agree in end game melees are significantly underpowered (of course the fact that I don't do epics shields me from this some )

Adding in more tactics effects, making combat feats much more effective, giving melees moar effective combat feats, especially AOE strikes, and more CC options. More DoT type attack feats along the lines of slicing blow. Improved sunder was a step in the right direction. Most importantly making Armor class viable in end-game content.

The AC fix based on using the 2d20 minion debuff add to the to-hit roll is a good suggestion to make AC more viable and matter more. As well as the changing Fortification to crit resistance added to the to-hit roll to determine crits. (i.e. Heavy fort = +20 over to hit to be able to have crit chance(with adjustments made for the stupid mob AB's in Epic).) Which currently would give melees more of an edge, since AC would be more beneficial, and hit-points would be more important. And would put more casters in glass cannon territory.

[Chrasch]

THis argument is completely stupid. Whether the game is balanced or not means absolutely nothing. WIth no melee classes the game will not be DDO. It'll be SFE. The devs aren't going to give every single melee user a +20 heart of wood(ridiculous suggestion since something like that doesn't exist and would be worth like 10 Million platinum). Some people are going to still play melee because it's fun to play melee. There will always be melee. If you're sad that you aren't doing enough and don't feel like playing anymore because of it then switch to a caster or go back to WoW.

[taurean430]

Not particularly, I was being facetious. I do agree in end game melees are significantly underpowered (of course the fact that I don't do epics shields me from this some )

Adding in more tactics effects, making combat feats much more effective, giving melees moar effective combat feats, especially AOE strikes, and more CC options. More DoT type attack feats along the lines of slicing blow. Improved sunder was a step in the right direction. Most importantly making Armor class viable in end-game content.

The AC fix based on using the 2d20 minion debuff add to the to-hit roll is a good suggestion to make AC more viable and matter more. As well as the changing Fortification to crit resistance added to the to-hit roll to determine crits. (i.e. Heavy fort = +20 over to hit to be able to have crit chance(with adjustments made for the stupid mob AB's in Epic).) Which currently would give melees more of an edge, since AC would be more beneficial, and hit-points would be more important. And would put more casters in glass cannon territory.

The majority of those suggestions are things I would support. I do believe it is true that in terms of epic content melee classes could use more buffage. What I don't support is nerfing casting classes.

There are a number of feats I am minimally aware of that apply to melee classes and epic. My orientation before playing this game is 2nd edition. I'll have to look up the 3.5 listings to view them again. Seems that the addition of at least one of them would solve the crying melee problem.

[Yan_PL]

Barb CC:
50+ on trip
45+ on Stunning blow
bypasses spell resistance.

Barb DPS:
Cleave/supreme cleave
over 130 damage per swing on average
800+ damage per crit
does lots of fast fast fast swings with autocleave/supreme twitching

Barb instakills:
Limited lately, but vorps, banishers, disruptors, smiters... heck, if they changed working cap, they'd still be like omg.

and I'm not even talking about any really cool gear. just stuff i had on my lvl 20 in last life + new damage boost. add lightning strike or stuff like that, and really, shove dots up fvs fottom. Casters won't be able to sustain their "supreme" DPS forever (unless chuginn' the pots or doing other expensive stuff). Casters won't survive horoth disintegrate, or explosive charge. Or many of LoB abilities, unless theyre armed to the teeth with expensive gear.

There are plenty of situations where Melee fluorish. There are quests I like to do with Melee, and ones that I like to do with casters.

[waterboytkd]

Casters won't survive horoth disintegrate, or explosive charge.

lololololololololololol.

The casters I regularly run with all sport more hp than most melees, with the exception of SD/DoS. They even beat barbs. The sorcs are just beating em. Granted, these are power gamers, but the idea that casters have low hp is laughable. Poorly designed casters, like poorly designed rogues, monks, whatever, have low hp.

The only reason that pretty much any barb you run into has decent hp, and you never really run into too many low hp barbs, is that barbs are idiot proof.

[Baloran]

I think that part of the problem is that playing a caster requires more effort than playing a melee. When I started playing the game, I tried all classes and pugged a lot, ususally I was contributing more to the group on a melee than on a caster. So I guess in terms of game balance, an inexperienced player playing a melee will be better than an inexperienced player playing a caster.

But when you really master the art of playing a caster (and that means you have to feel comfortable with around 10 bars on your screen) you will outperform the melees.

So I guess for the majority of the casual players on the server, the classes feel balanced, especially since they didn't discover the full potential of casters yet. Since this game is F2P I would guess that the casual players are a vast majority which usually do not contribute too much here on the forums.

That said, I am wondering wether the new DOTs where actually really needed. Perhaps they should remove the stacking part?

Some other ideas:

- normal fortification should also prevent spell crits
- new "magic fort" reduces all incoming spell damage by a certain percentage (up to 75% perhaps?)
- more mobs with Antimagic field
- create new clickies like: "Superior Sharpness - this will increase your slashing damage by 75% for the next three minutes - 3 uses per rest" This should be as easy to come by as the low level superior caster clickies.

Cheers

Baloran

[Yan_PL]

Poorly designed casters, like poorly designed rogues, monks, whatever, have low hp.

Low HP ain't exactly matter of poor design. actually, in most cases, I seen rogues and casters who did not need high HP. I seen AC tanks with HP lower than fullblown DoS/SD, but with more of reliable damage mitigation. Thing is, Barbarian usually accepts situation of constantly being hit, thus high HP is more useful.
and sure, you can go make a caster with 7 toughneses, grab full epic abishai set, Superior false life mabar robe, Toughness on Mro Belt, +1/+2 exc con on ToD ring, chug yugo pots, wear Stalwart trinket and GS HP goggles along with +2 con ship buff, but barbarian or fighter who'll do the same will probably still have more HP.

Barbarians are not idiot-proof, barbarians just need less effort on gear in endgame. Actually, idiot can still run into inferno or into traps. Idiot can still not remove his/her curses. Idiot can still run away from heals. Actually, if anything is idiot proof, I'd rather say FvS, because you can get relatively easy enough HP to survive most 1-hit damaging stuffs, and quicken selfheals while throwing dots/BBs.

[bendover]

lololololololololololol.

The casters I regularly run with all sport more hp than most melees, with the exception of SD/DoS. They even beat barbs.

You're apparently running with the wrong people.

[Rodasch]

Your melee are defenseless because you build them that way. Mine are not.

amen.

[waterboytkd]

Low HP ain't exactly matter of poor design. actually, in most cases, I seen rogues and casters who did not need high HP. I seen AC tanks with HP lower than fullblown DoS/SD, but with more of reliable damage mitigation. Thing is, Barbarian usually accepts situation of constantly being hit, thus high HP is more useful.
and sure, you can go make a caster with 7 toughneses, grab full epic abishai set, Superior false life mabar robe, Toughness on Mro Belt, +1/+2 exc con on ToD ring, chug yugo pots, wear Stalwart trinket and GS HP goggles along with +2 con ship buff, but barbarian or fighter who'll do the same will probably still have more HP.

I think you overestimate what a caster needs to do to hit great hp. The fact is, casters only need to worry about two stats: their casting stat and con. A lot of people build casters not realizing that. Also, just be warforged. My friend has over 500 hp unbuffed, and that's with 1 toughness feat and the usual hp buffing equipment...except no GS hp item. Once his sorc is geared out, it will be unbuffed around 600 hp. It's all about build.

Barbarians are not idiot-proof, barbarians just need less effort on gear in endgame. Actually, idiot can still run into inferno or into traps. Idiot can still not remove his/her curses. Idiot can still run away from heals. Actually, if anything is idiot proof, I'd rather say FvS, because you can get relatively easy enough HP to survive most 1-hit damaging stuffs, and quicken selfheals while throwing dots/BBs.

I was talking idiot-proof in building, not playing. You practically have to try and in order to make a barb with low hp.

You're apparently running with the wrong people.

I would say you are running with the wrong people. The casters I run with don't die, and can carry whole groups through epics and raids. I run with casters. I pug melees.

[Yan_PL]

I think you overestimate what a caster needs to do to hit great hp. The fact is, casters only need to worry about two stats: their casting stat and con. A lot of people build casters not realizing that. Also, just be warforged. My friend has over 500 hp unbuffed, and that's with 1 toughness feat and the usual hp buffing equipment...except no GS hp item. Once his sorc is geared out, it will be unbuffed around 600 hp. It's all about build.

My human sorc has access to yugo pots (40), Superior false life (40), GS +45hp item, +15 guild slot item, Toughness item, +6 con, can get stalwart trinket, +2 shipbuff and used +2 con tome. That's 270hp from items.

20hp - heroic durability
80hp - hit die
Has toughness feat taken twice, bought 1 toughness AP enhancement, that's 54 from feats.
I started with 16 base con. (had only 28 pt build at the time and never found/bought GR heart)
It totals at 504 hp buffed with rage. There are ways to go for me on improving that, but I would need to sacrifice some important parts of my build, or grind more and more, to achieve better stats. it's already enough in most cases, and in other cases, more wouldn't save me.

Barb with similar gear and stat distribution would get 160 HP more from hit die, 40 more from class toughness, ~30 hp more from class +stat, and lots of HP during raging. Also, it wouldn't be uterrly useless if something casted tenser transformation on him or if Beholder floated around. So, barb on same wealth/player experience level would have a lot more hit points.


Anyway, what's important to me, is that playing barb still pleases me. I don't run out of spell components for Barbarian Rage. I don't get burdened with spell components. All I need in most cases, most I need on lvl 12-20, is my trusty greensteel axe. And I still land % more out of my stunning blows than wizards around me massholds or fingers. I still happen to keep aggro against dotting casters, even without hate gear. My rages last long enough to take down a lot of foes. If I'm hasted, or if I scroll - use shadow walk, I'll have more speed than most characters, with my sprint boost.

I have a Sorc and Barb, and I'm in opinion that Melee is still useful, satisfactory to play, and powerful sustainable DPS. And I didn't even have to mention Wiz-king fight usefullnes of arcanes.

[waterboytkd]

My human sorc has access to yugo pots (40), Superior false life (40), GS +45hp item, +15 guild slot item, Toughness item, +6 con, can get stalwart trinket, +2 shipbuff and used +2 con tome. That's 270hp from items.

20hp - heroic durability
80hp - hit die
Has toughness feat taken twice, bought 1 toughness AP enhancement, that's 54 from feats.
I started with 16 base con. (had only 28 pt build at the time and never found/bought GR heart)
It totals at 504 hp buffed with rage. There are ways to go for me on improving that, but I would need to sacrifice some important parts of my build, or grind more and more, to achieve better stats. it's already enough in most cases, and in other cases, more wouldn't save me.

Barb with similar gear and stat distribution would get 160 HP more from hit die, 40 more from class toughness, ~30 hp more from class +stat, and lots of HP during raging. Also, it wouldn't be uterrly useless if something casted tenser transformation on him or if Beholder floated around. So, barb on same wealth/player experience level would have a lot more hit points.


Anyway, what's important to me, is that playing barb still pleases me. I don't run out of spell components for Barbarian Rage. I don't get burdened with spell components. All I need in most cases, most I need on lvl 12-20, is my trusty greensteel axe. And I still land % more out of my stunning blows than wizards around me massholds or fingers. I still happen to keep aggro against dotting casters, even without hate gear. My rages last long enough to take down a lot of foes. If I'm hasted, or if I scroll - use shadow walk, I'll have more speed than most characters, with my sprint boost.

I have a Sorc and Barb, and I'm in opinion that Melee is still useful, satisfactory to play, and powerful sustainable DPS. And I didn't even have to mention Wiz-king fight usefullnes of arcanes.

I would never disagree that barbs CAN get more hp than casters (without gimping themselves). And really, this whole thing started when you made the claim that casters can't take a horoth disintegrate. Well built casters can take it on the chin and keep on chugging. And that's not necessarily uber-geared, either. The same can't be said of a number of melee classes (looking at you ranger, rogue, and monk in wind stance), who need to be quite geared to get hp into the 500s, and that's because those melee classes have more for stat requisites than str and con.