To the developers - Suggestions for balance changes.

[Aesop]

Make Whirlwind attack have a Passive effect that makes all Tactical Melee Feat act as AoE

add in Disarm and Improved Disarm have them reduce targets melee damage output by 10-20%

add in Ranged Pin for archers and other ranged characters that acts as a single target Web effect.

Perhaps implement a version of the Combat Form Feats from PH2... Most of them as written would be useless but something could be thought up to give real benefits to combat characters

Aesop

[DogMania]

Now, as a melee who invested his skills into class abilities only (and I am saying this purely from the perspective a new player, who doesn't really know much about building a character, nor the importance of UMD), how much fun would it be to stand around for long periods of time gradually healing yourself up,

The cloak from the Threnal end reward does just that

[Viciouspika]

The blue bar rains supreme. What was orginally designed to limit caster is no longer a limit. Some times it is, but this is very rare. The shrines, mneumonic pots, con-ops, babbles, and other such items make the blue bar limit less. Casters also get pots to increase damage by a percentage and improve the crits for a limited time. Meta-magic feats that dont take up spell slots is another massive boost for casters.

In PnP, the limiting factor to the casters uberness was the number of spell per day. DDo casters have limitless spells. I dont want them to nerf casters to the level of buff bot, but wow come on really.

I like aesops idea of a passive feat that allows for an AoE. I was thinking of using the cleave feat to accomplish this. Since casters can have multiple effects on there spells, why not melee. Cleave plus stunning blow equals stunning cleave. So on and so forth.

Melees insta-kills are also nurfed. I think it is if the mob has over a 1000hp left vorpals only do a 100 points of damage. I would love to hear casters whine if they had the same limitation on their wail and spell absorption equal to or half of the mobs fortification.

Melees need meta-melee skills, potion boosts for damage, better healing pots, some new feats, and some love.

Meta-melee feats could be Empowered strike(all damage multiplied by 1.5), and maximized strike(auto crit attack). Of course, these would be over powered with out some negative effect because after all casters pay extra for those empowered and maximized spells. You could use these feats only a limited time per rest say 5 to six times, or have a 10-15 second cooldown.

Would also like to see weapons do damage over time. Melees need Dots too.
Just my 2-3 cents. Dev's melees need love also.

[Ziindarax]

The blue bar rains supreme. What was orginally designed to limit caster is no longer a limit. Some times it is, but this is very rare. The shrines, mneumonic pots, con-ops, babbles, and other such items make the blue bar limit less. Casters also get pots to increase damage by a percentage and improve the crits for a limited time. Meta-magic feats that dont take up spell slots is another massive boost for casters.

In PnP, the limiting factor to the casters uberness was the number of spell per day. DDo casters have limitless spells. I dont want them to nerf casters to the level of buff bot, but wow come on really.

I like aesops idea of a passive feat that allows for an AoE. I was thinking of using the cleave feat to accomplish this. Since casters can have multiple effects on there spells, why not melee. Cleave plus stunning blow equals stunning cleave. So on and so forth.

Melees insta-kills are also nurfed. I think it is if the mob has over a 1000hp left vorpals only do a 100 points of damage. I would love to hear casters whine if they had the same limitation on their wail and spell absorption equal to or half of the mobs fortification.

Melees need meta-melee skills, potion boosts for damage, better healing pots, some new feats, and some love.

Meta-melee feats could be Empowered strike(all damage multiplied by 1.5), and maximized strike(auto crit attack). Of course, these would be over powered with out some negative effect because after all casters pay extra for those empowered and maximized spells. You could use these feats only a limited time per rest say 5 to six times, or have a 10-15 second cooldown.

Would also like to see weapons do damage over time. Melees need Dots too.
Just my 2-3 cents. Dev's melees need love also.

The Godly Wrath property on the Bastard sword and Dwarven War-axes from the u13 quest chain are DOT-like effects that proc occasionally.

However, I agree with just about every thing you've said in this post.

[budalic]

Just wondering, have you even seen endgame?

Stand next to redname, with 4-5 badass melees beating teh SNOT out of mob, watch its health tick down slowly like |-| every second.. then DoT triggers and POW away goes |------|

Thats ONE casters vs 10 melees slugging away.(Might be a bit of an exaggeration, but a dot going is FAR, FAR more damage than 10(TEN) melee's can manage in the same time frame, and the sp cost ISN'T THAT MUCH for how much it does.

Do the math. 2 dots that are in game vs. full melee beating are about equal, and that's what i consider 'sustained' dps. Everything else is 'burst' dps, that brings higher damage at much higher cost per spell point spent.

True, casters are better because:
a) they have better aoe options then melee
b) they have more surviviability, either via shieldblock&dot strategy or kiting
c) they have more versality, with instakills, utility spells and similar stuff

So, give melee those options.

But don't bring dps into it, and don't say endgame. Chances are you were playing with bad melees.

[Rizzia]

D&D Saying "D&D (PnP) is balanced over 20 levels" is not a good argument for an imbalance in DDO at level 20. (or 25)

Im not claiming in anyway that PnP is balanced.

But why does everything always come down to damage? (edit: not aimed at the OP, just the general feel I get on the forums)

Casters (more so sorcs) are supposed to be glass cannons right? but atm a/c (+ dr to an extent) is meaningless unless you spec specifically for it. I agree with others, melee should be err tankier - the ac system as is with people in pyamas having goldy ac is stupid, wheres the knights/warriors in fullplate?
Melees should be choosing the armour which gives the best protection (and for it to give meaningful protection), not which gives the better other stuff.

Most of the time in ddo the type of armour is purely cosmetic, Hows about ressurecting an old 1e ruleset: weapon type vs armour

Fullplate would get an inherent (stacking) DR to slashing and bludgeoning, Splint would be from Pierce and bludgeoning, Chain would be from slashing but have a weakness to pierce. etc.

These would give all melees more survivability and not arcanes.

[BlackSteel]

not signed

if the penalties are removed I'd like to see a much longer timer. But at the same time install an even longer one on SP pots.

[Ziindarax]

Im not claiming in anyway that PnP is balanced.

But why does everything always come down to damage?

Casters (more so sorcs) are supposed to be glass cannons right? but atm a/c (+ dr to an extent) is meaningless unless you spec specifically for it. I agree with others, melee should be err tankier - the ac system as is with people in pyamas having goldy ac is stupid, wheres the knights/warriors in fullplate?
Melees should be choosing the armour which gives the best protection (and for it to give meaningful protection), not which gives the better other stuff.

Most of the time in ddo the type of armour is purely cosmetic, Hows about ressurecting an old 1e ruleset: weapon type vs armour

Fullplate would get an inherent (stacking) DR to slashing and bludgeoning, Splint would be from Pierce and bludgeoning, Chain would be from slashing but have a weakness to pierce. etc.

These would give all melees more survivability and not arcanes.

This, I think, would be quite acceptable. In combination with additional feats, and more/stronger tactics (the meta-melee feats ViciousPika suggested appears to be rather sound), melees would have a greater purpose in this game, and as something more than just meat shields/walls for the casters.

As for your argument, blacksteel - stronger potions are needed, and the silver flame potions are a pain to get access to let alone purchase (the best one available costs 1k platinum each if I recall correctly). Should strong potions such as side-effect-free Silver Flame potions and/or potions of Heal have a reasonable timer? Certainly.

Should mana potions have a cooldown? Definitely, at this point a caster is no different from a Warlock in that they cast their spells almost literally at will (and it is perhaps because of the Warlock's manner of casting spells that they've never been implemented in this game [at least, not yet]).

[Vazok1]

1a) Give melee's some love - Remove the absurd penalties from the Silver Flame potions; they cost enough to obtain, are bound to character/account, and the favor necessary to obtain access to them are more than sufficient to prevent everyone from drinking too many.
the negative effects from flame pots are the only thing that stop me from using them constantly. they are needed, and no the cost wouldn't stop me if there were no downsides. money is easy to make if you put your mind to it.

1b) Offer better versions of the silver flame potions at a slightly increased price (one version could offer twice the healing of a regular silver flame potion, while another would heal for about the same amount as a cure critical wound spell, but it would be a sustained effect lasting for a period of time). Also consider producing more powerful potions (such as cure critical, and maybe even offer "heal" potions for those with enough favor).
what you seem to be aiming for is heal scrolls without umd, sure put 'heal' in pots, but put 40 umd on them as well

Beyond universal status ailment removal potions, melee characters with no investment in UMD (which for many classes, is not a class skill) are grossly lacking in self-sufficiency. Should potions replace teamwork and healers? Not entirely, but the playing field as far as who can solo what should be leveled a bit more in my honest opinion (casters should not be the only people who can go into an epic quest, or an Elite shavarath quest, and solo it as though it were a cakewalk).
if you want to self heal, build umd into your character, its silly to think you can make your character fully self sufficient just by throwing money at pots. sure some people already do with silver flames, but they get a downside.

2) Melee will never come even remotely close to half the DPS of a caster, even when it was possible to stack the madstone proc with the clicky (and then have those stack with rage and other effects). Epic fighters and epic barbarians should not be Epic Fail, but Epic Win in some scenarios compared. Enable epic melee classes (monks included) to pick a feat that applies a reasonable damage bonus to their favored weapon.
i read dots(eld+niac) put out about 400dps, add in a few other spells like ice storm and black dragon and i bet your at 500-600dps give or take depending on gear and sorc/wiz, enhance etc. this is well within the reaches of pure dps characters, especially if they have hate on they will hold agro easily against dots. for burst dps situations on small hp mobs, sure casters will win as they can spell spam. but they cant hold that up for long. do you ever see a caster spamming sp at suulo in vod? bet they are out of sp very quickly.

Warriors who have reached level 20+ should, by now, by highly skilled in dealing with large throngs of blood-thirsty enemies (having an AoE crowd control combat tactic would be nice); currently if a melee gets swarmed by mobs, and doesn't have a caster/healer there to lend support, he/she/it is usually either dead, or very badly wounded and close to death (the only exception to this being the Soul Survivor WF build [FVS20], who happens to be a caster good at using a really big sword). Whereas a caster can casually throw down a spell to kill, stun, damage, or stun them in one swift action at minimal risk to said caster.
in my opinion depends how you build your character, i have a dark monk ac build and while my ac is useless in epics i swap on more dps gear, hit a displace clicky, hit shadow fade and start stunning. i rarely take more damage than heal scrolls or even vampirism wraps can deal with. build a toon for it and you can do well

Level the playing field - give us a REASON to play a melee archtype (currently, casters are the best at everything, and thus, for many who are knowledgeable in the game, there would be little reason to actually play a (pure) melee character beyond simple preference and flavor) toward and beyond the first 20 levels.
in my opinion the difference is the stamina behind melee dps as opposed to a casters limited sp pool. the only problem is theres not many places this comes into effect unless the boss has far too much hp.

Thanks for your time.

in B.

while i have defended casters to an extent i (as a caster player) think dots are too powerful

[Ziindarax]

in B.

while i have defended casters to an extent i (as a caster player) think dots are too powerful

I would be content if the healing potions healed for a reasonable amount (at least better than cure serious). It would be even better if melee's had a better means of damage mitigation (besides evasion for certain spells/traps); stronger self-healing (while not entirely as powerful as a heal scroll) would be fairly decent/efficient.

In one of my other posts, I did state that stronger healing potions should have a reasonable cool down for their power. Heal scrolls cannot be spammed, so neither should potions.

[BlackSteel]

As for your argument, blacksteel - stronger potions are needed, and the silver flame potions are a pain to get access to let alone purchase (the best one available costs 1k platinum each if I recall correctly). Should strong potions such as side-effect-free Silver Flame potions and/or potions of Heal have a reasonable timer? Certainly.

Should mana potions have a cooldown? Definitely, at this point a caster is no different from a Warlock in that they cast their spells almost literally at will (and it is perhaps because of the Warlock's manner of casting spells that they've never been implemented in this game [at least, not yet]).

plat is trivial, yeh they do cost a good amount comparing to other costs in the game. But its fairly easy to earn plat if you set out to do it. shroud or a few easy high end quests = done

the favor was a pita to get a year or two ago. with barely enough SF favor available, u needed pretty everything but 1. Now we have both more quests AND the bravery bonus. Convincing people to run obscure quests is ALOT easier. Its not that hard to have the needed SF favor now by the time you start level 17 on your bravery bonus.

I'm not opposed to having even the stat reducing potions having a longer timer. But I'd much rather see a cooldown on SP pots as well. with a CD on those being far more justified

[CanuckWisdom]

I really like the idea of whirlwind feat being changed to a AOE enabling (meta)tactics feat. I made a fighter based around achieving that feat. For what the feat does, the cost in pre-reqs being too high is an understatement. So;

Perhaps like a metamagic feat, once taken you can turn it off/on for differerent tactics feats (of which 2-3 more would be nice, including a couple for ranged weapons) and it would cause them to be area of effect.

Melee's are under powered? Instead of tweaking this stat or that item, do this ^ (or some version of this). Suddenly tanks are improved tripping 3 mobs in one go, monks are stunning two different guys at once (mass hold) then the melee just eat them up (+50%), tactics fighters are sundering the whole mob and barbarians are cleaving multiple... er yea they're using cleave!

[Luthe111]

another feasible fix could possibly all melees getting something akin to a ki bar that recharges as they hit. monk ki would be used for monk stuff, and true ki abilities. but for other melees it could be akin to special ability points. they can use these points they charge up for different effects depending on class. maybe barb gets instant vorpal crit every time the bars full enough to use it, or a suggestion earlier i liked was an aoe stun for fighters. these abilities could massively up dps skills and roles in a way that emphasizes a strength over casters:they dont run on fuel. even action boosts could be rolled into this, use the energy to massively up ability out put temporarily. few more suggestions are once a rest clicky effect, barbs maybe get the quad damage buff, maybe a stalwart gets to activate hate magnet buff. kensai gets crit chance increased by large amount temporarily, etc. would like feed back on this idea

[Faent]

1a) Give melee's some love - Remove the absurd penalties from the Silver Flame potions; they cost enough to obtain, are bound to character/account, and the favor necessary to obtain access to them are more than sufficient to prevent everyone from drinking too many.

No. SF pots need to go away, not be improved. SF pots are primarily a way for barbarians to output insane DPS while fearing nothing. If you have the plat, and are a barbarian, you can do pretty much anything you like at end-game by quaffing them constantly. This is stupid, and it makes barbarians the ideal melee DPS toons for plat-rich folks. I am not sympathetic to whining about the difficulty of achieving SF favor.

1b) Offer better versions of the silver flame potions at a slightly increased price

You must be insane. Obviously the requirement to get the appropriate amount of SF favor isn't causing you any trouble with drinking these things like water.

Beyond universal status ailment removal potions, melee characters with no investment in UMD (which for many classes, is not a class skill) are grossly lacking in self-sufficiency. Should potions replace teamwork and healers? Not entirely, but the playing field as far as who can solo what should be leveled a bit more in my honest opinion (casters should not be the only people who can go into an epic quest, or an Elite shavarath quest, and solo it as though it were a cakewalk).

Agreed. But the solution is not to amp up SF pots. It's to amp up melee ability. Give melees back some insta-kill options. Give all melees some decent CC options. Give melees some decent AoE options. (Barbarians win at AoE melee damage.)

I agree with a lot of what you've said. But the solution isn't SF pots. Melees need some serious buffage. That's the solution. There is no good reason (from a powergaming point of view) to play a melee right now, unless you're playing a tank. Currently, melees SUCK (comparatively speaking) in 99% of content.

Turbine hates their melees. But the DEVs have been listening recently. This gives one hope. Maybe they'll listen this time.

[budalic]

My suggestions:

a) Make Whirlwind attack work like one that Lord of Blade uses. Give it some kind of coolodwn. There - melee wail. And, for something that costs so much feats, it should be truly cool.

b) Make Cleave/Greater cleave work as AoE DPS options. Like, it's an attack mode, and deals about 55% of your single target damage. Thusly, you're slightly ahead attacking two targets with it, and clearly better at more than 2 targets.

c) Boost surviviablity of melee classes. PnP rules won't cut it. First, fix AC so that it actually works. Then adjust other mechanisms, if needed.

d) Self-healing. Not sure if melees should self-heal in groups - i'd say yes, but some people preffer otherwise. But they should have options for that while soloing. Currently, there are 3, pretty good, options, but one requires Silver flame favor grind, other one requires 39 umd, and thrid one requires having torc, blue bar and csw. Something more accesible to new players and mid-level players should be implemented, to bridge them till they get access to one of the above.

e) Utility. IMO, here, weapons are key. Pure casters don't beat stuff, so they won't profit from it. Weapons like (improved) Terror, Thaarak hound wraps, T1 alchemicals, Stat damagers already have some of this. Weapons should provide more options to melee than simply DPS. And stuff like that is interesting.

[Ziindarax]

No. SF pots need to go away, not be improved. SF pots are primarily a way for barbarians to output insane DPS while fearing nothing. If you have the plat, and are a barbarian, you can do pretty much anything you like at end-game by quaffing them constantly. This is stupid, and it makes barbarians the ideal melee DPS toons for plat-rich folks. I am not sympathetic to whining about the difficulty of achieving SF favor.



You must be insane. Obviously the requirement to get the appropriate amount of SF favor isn't causing you any trouble with drinking these things like water.



Agreed. But the solution is not to amp up SF pots. It's to amp up melee ability. Give melees back some insta-kill options. Give all melees some decent CC options. Give melees some decent AoE options. (Barbarians win at AoE melee damage.)

I agree with a lot of what you've said. But the solution isn't SF pots. Melees need some serious buffage. That's the solution. There is no good reason (from a powergaming point of view) to play a melee right now, unless you're playing a tank. Currently, melees SUCK (comparatively speaking) in 99% of content.

Turbine hates their melees. But the DEVs have been listening recently. This gives one hope. Maybe they'll listen this time.

On the Silver Flame potions - It is unwise to "drink these things like water", because each potions hits you with a -10 to every stat except constitution, and there is a severe movement and saves penalty attached to them. Outside of battles, they're okay as it is easy to wait off the penalties, but there are some mobs in the game (especially in the older content) that reduce certain stats with every blow. As such, a barbarian (which I am not playing btw), would be obliterated if he were drinking these potions while fighting the end boss of the Dreaming Dark since the penalties cannot be removed via Heal/Heal Scrolls and restoration pots.

Another thought that has occurred to me is healing amp. Healing Amp is not widely accessible to many players in their first lives (even then, the only way to get earlier access to healing amp is by crafting them on to weapons) until somewhere around level 16-18 where they get their first dragontouched armor (and if they're lucky, an eldritch and Tempest healing amp rune). As a possible solution to this, why not add some healing amp recipes to Cannith Crafting?

Or offer potions that temporarily boost the effects of incoming healing by a considerable percentage (but as a draw back, become more vulnerable to critical hits [I was going to suggest negative energy, but that would only serve to boost necromancers since they heal through negative energy]).

As for weapons that offer more than just DPS, the Elemental Khopesh of Water offers a paralyzing effect at higher levels/epic, so that's a good start (and there are more than a few random-generated weapons that offer boosts to trip/sunder/stunning blow/stunning fist)... Though it would be nice if the epic slots were expanded a bit more (I.E. offer something like Improved/Greater Curse-spewing).

@ Budalic: I agree with just about everything you've said in your post. To add, I cannot see who would get upset over melees who try to self-heal to a degree as it removes a considerable burden from them (the casters), leaving them with a larger mana pool to work with. I've even read more than a few threads posted by disgruntled healers urging players to at least try to make an effort to heal themselves whenever the opportunity presents itself.

[Drona]

Almost there....DOTs must not stack? Should be in line of sight to maintain DOTs? Great ideas indeed!!

one day my palemaster will hage, GH, displace/blur, mass prot:elements you melees and wait at the entrance...oh maybe i can hold some monsters if u want...or make them dance...but not needed i guess...

anyways, i play barb as well so i ll be havin fun with all the new buffs in U13 and beyond...so go ahead...

[Ausdoerrt]

Not to derail the topic (some sensible suggestions here BTW, OP), but IMO, before melee gets balanced to an extent with magic, ranged needs to be balanced against everything else.

[Ziindarax]

Almost there....DOTs must not stack? Should be in line of sight to maintain DOTs? Great ideas indeed!!

one day my palemaster will hage, GH, displace/blur, mass prot:elements you melees and wait at the entrance...oh maybe i can hold some monsters if u want...or make them dance...but not needed i guess...

anyways, i play barb as well so i ll be havin fun with all the new buffs in U13 and beyond...so go ahead...

The majority posting suggestions in this thread did not call for a nerf to casters, but rather a well-needed buff to to the melee archtype (at the very least, they should have the abilities that they had in P&P D&D). If most of the suggestions are implemented to the letter, casters would be completely unaffected by the buffs to melee.

In fact, it would appear the casters are getting another spell to add to their repertoire of DoTs via Eledar's Thunderclap (that is spelled correctly right?).

Not to derail the topic (some sensible suggestions here BTW, OP), but IMO, before melee gets balanced to an extent with magic, ranged needs to be balanced against everything else.

Ranged could use some love, I do agree. Especially since they're even more restricted in build options than the melee's IMO. Personally, I don't think it'd be out of the question if the devs did a simultaneous pass for melee and ranged classes (if I recall correctly, archers/crossbow users had a feat equivalent to power attack in pen and paper).

[Aeolwind]

The answer is not simple, but it has a few simple elements. Mainly armor class (or mob to hit values) & mob HP

In PNP melees were solid because they were harder to hit and couple with that they could cut through most NPC's in 3-4 hits.

Here mobs never/rarely miss and have a truckload more HP.

Casters can kite mobs making AC and HP fairly irrelevant. In PNP the DM could say you were getting tired, or make a dex check to do a jumping pirouette to have LOS on a mob to cast.

AC at this point is virtually irrelevant for 3/4 of the game & requires some pretty amazingly rare drops & time investment. A mechanic in a game is broken when removing it would impact game play to such a small degree that the vast majority of players wouldn't even notice. Player AC is one such a mechanic.