Melee DPS is dead:long live casters!

[Mubjon]

Up until endgame a sorc can pretty much one shot groups of enemies. It really isn't possible for a melee to out kill them as everything will be dead before they get to hit something. With a good DC casters can just wail or implode groups of enemies as well. For bosses casters have their DoTs and can do more damage than any melee. Swapping weapons for a few percent more damage isn't going to make up this difference.

Of course there are some quests where their sp management can become a problem but for the most part they're better than a melee.

To be that "Sorc" requires a bit of knowledge about the game and the class its self. There are far more new players to the arcane class that do not have a clue how to run one properly. Maybe you are getting the cream de le cream of Pugs on your server, I know that the pugs I run with the arcanes and a lot of times the divine drive me crazy with their sever lack of contributions.

I do understand where people that know the game are coming from, but in my experience those that show off the arcanes and divines as being overpowered are maybe 5% (tops 10% and I am being generous here) of the game population. That same 5% will make a rogue look overpowered, a fighter, a bard, a barb or any other class they play look over powered and in need of a big huge nerf bat.

[ristretto93]

So I am in Rainbow in the Dark - hard. We decide to stop waiting for healer, let someone else join, and start the quest. It was a good group, and people were friendly...

...eventually in the spiked pit that everyone has to 'mario bros' jump on little islands to get over people start missing, landing in the spikes and dying (there was a person new to the quest, and some that just had bad jumps...prolly about 5 deaths). I stand on one of the middle islands and start raising people. Then I pull out repair wands and start healing the warforged, and cure wands and start healing the 'fleshies'...

...during the fights, I was able to whip out everbright weapons for cubes and rust monsters, banishers for the elementals, nice icey bursted weapons for the end fight. During the quest I kept people blurred and sometimes stoneskinned.

I felt incredibly useful. I was.

I am melee DPS. I am a rogue!

[ThePrincipal]

i have a first life capped human PM with no epic gear who i take out of the garage every now and again to farm out some middle level question to get some twink gear for a lowbie. i find him about average in end game in terms of power and like the kiting roles that wizards play in end game either.

for end game I much prefer to get my cleric or evasion fighter, just plan more fun.

[Thrudh]

Ive posted the challenge 5 times now. Ive asked casters to solo quests they dont have the gear for as of yet, and no one has responded. I dont mind overgeared casters having an easy time in quests they have outgrown, but I want to see less exageration in the amount of power imbalance.

The reality of the situation in DDO is overgeared casters go further than overgeared melee. Casters are not soloing much epic content they havent already outgrown by being well overgeared.

I am not interested in seeing a torced out multiple past life epic chrono set arcane blow through eBOB. I want to see casters geared up to the content they are running blow the doors off it. This is the exageration that is constantly made, but not proven.

Want to tell us we dont know what we are talking about? Screenshot or it didnt happen.

I'd like to see this too... I do think casters are slightly over-powered because of DoTs and their ease at self-healing, but people on these boards exaggerate way too much.

I don't care if someone with all the gear and tons of past lives can dominate content. That's the reason they did all that work!

A first-life caster with minimal gear can get farther into an epic quest solo than a first-life melee... but he ain't going to finish it without help.

[Alex301]

To be that "Sorc" requires a bit of knowledge about the game and the class its self. There are far more new players to the arcane class that do not have a clue how to run one properly. Maybe you are getting the cream de le cream of Pugs on your server, I know that the pugs I run with the arcanes and a lot of times the divine drive me crazy with their sever lack of contributions.

I do understand where people that know the game are coming from, but in my experience those that show off the arcanes and divines as being overpowered are maybe 5% (tops 10% and I am being generous here) of the game population. That same 5% will make a rogue look overpowered, a fighter, a bard, a barb or any other class they play look over powered and in need of a big huge nerf bat.

No, i certainly agree the average caster is no where near this standard. I actually played nothing but melee at the start and finally decided to role up a warforged sorc to test the class out. To my surprise, i was able to kill things far more quickly than my melee toons could ever think of doing all whilst healing myself and keeping everyone buffed. It made me realise how powerful a first life caster could be, but also how badly many people play casters as well.

For many i think casters and melee are fairly even and i still get turned down for shroud pugs because they 'already have a caster', despite the fact i can do more damage than any melee they have. All these points about how OP casters are really only apply to the well geared and played casters who can make "epic" quests pretty trivial. I still think melee need a buff in general but i think the real problem is how powerful casters can be with the proper gear.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Maybe you could build a melee with UMD to cast Haste scrolls on the casters.

[countfitz]

Last night, "PUGing" a guild run, (as in, sixth man in an all guild run that was not my guild). Level 82 guild, in IQ, elite for BB. They are all running their melee's in there to cap. All TRs, trying to get their lives done ASAP. I'm also on a melee also just trying to get to 20 to TR into a useful class.

We're in Mindsunder. Don't get past the first room. I'm happily the last man standing, with TEN kills (using my Terror, so not actually doing any DPS) and those 10 kills are double the next highest toon.

We recall. The fighter (we're fighter, monk, paladin, barb, rogue, and a healbot) switches to a NON TR FvS at the same level.

By this point we'd done the whole chain, taking FOREVER. So, it's freaking CRAZY to see the speed we run through the quest. Serioulsy, like 10 minutes, elite at level. I go from 10 kills in the first battle to, TOTAL, by the end of the quest, 10 kills. FvS has 90+. No other melee has over 10.

We get to the end fight, kill all but the boss, I intim the boss, hold him until the FvS can recall, switch to his fighter, get in quest, and at least not break his BB streak.

So at least I contributed. A bit (I didn't even have a disc to contribute, but I did put my loot up for roll.) Thanks for the group guys!

[Mubjon]

No, i certainly agree the average caster is no where near this standard. I actually played nothing but melee at the start and finally decided to role up a warforged sorc to test the class out. To my surprise, i was able to kill things far more quickly than my melee toons could ever think of doing all whilst healing myself and keeping everyone buffed. It made me realise how powerful a first life caster could be, but also how badly many people play casters as well.

For many i think casters and melee are fairly even and i still get turned down for shroud pugs because they 'already have a caster', despite the fact i can do more damage than any melee they have. All these points about how OP casters are really only apply to the well geared and played casters who can make "epic" quests pretty trivial. I still think melee need a buff in general but i think the real problem is how powerful casters can be with the proper gear.

But, how are you going to buff someone that swings a sword? I do not want to see a melee doing 2K dmg a swing that is not balanced either.

How many swings can someone get with their sword in say 6 seconds? 4 to 6? If they all land and it is my barb doing the swinging where the dmg is about 80 on average without a crit. That is 320 to 480 dmg from my weapon in the time it takes a sorc or wiz to fire off 1 fireball spell that does about the same damage without a crit. It is about the same damage that a divine will get from a single cast of divine punishment.

Now I do not think that 80 dmg per swing is a lot and it is quite easy to get to be honest, my lowly ranger that goes twf gets on average 30 to 60 dmg per hit (both weapons connecting) and with haste the numbers just fly by. Last night I took my little exploiter into a mid level quest (level 9) with Arcanes that were 2 levels ahead of him (they were 11 and he was 9) and he still beat out all of them in the kill count with 47. The Arti beat me with 63 and he died twice during the quest. We ran the quest at elite for bravery bonus.

[Alex301]

But, how are you going to buff someone that swings a sword? I do not want to see a melee doing 2K dmg a swing that is not balanced either.

How many swings can someone get with their sword in say 6 seconds? 4 to 6? If they all land and it is my barb doing the swinging where the dmg is about 80 on average without a crit. That is 320 to 480 dmg from my weapon in the time it takes a sorc or wiz to fire off 1 fireball spell that does about the same damage without a crit. It is about the same damage that a divine will get from a single cast of divine punishment.

Now I do not think that 80 dmg per swing is a lot and it is quite easy to get to be honest, my lowly ranger that goes twf gets on average 30 to 60 dmg per hit (both weapons connecting) and with haste the numbers just fly by. Last night I took my little exploiter into a mid level quest (level 9) with Arcanes that were 2 levels ahead of him (they were 11 and he was 9) and he still beat out all of them in the kill count with 47. The Arti beat me with 63 and he died twice during the quest. We ran the quest at elite for bravery bonus.

Going from 80 damage a swing to 2k a swing is a pretty big jump :P Casters should be capable of higher DPS imo because they rely on a limited amount of mana. I'm not sure how you'd solve the current imbalance though. Perhaps more mobs should have deathward to prevent casters from just insta-killing everything and maybe DoTs should be nerfed slightly. Casters have quite a few mechanics that differ from melee so trying to find a balance between them all is difficult but i don't want it to go back to just buffing and CC for casters.

Just to highlight the potential difference in dps though here is maxed out melee DPS killing epic Sobrien in about 2 mins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAUB9..._order&list=UL) and here is a caster doing the same in about 30 seconds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpNHiAvrWRc)

The caster is doing roughly 4 times the damage as the maxed out barbarian.

[Failedlegend]

The caster is doing roughly 4 times the damage as the maxed out barbarian.

Yes but the Barbarian could fight 5 or 6 sobriens the caster is pretty much out of mana....also the Barb only has a small handful of clickies/items unlike the caster counterpart who seems to be rolling in epic items...good comparison. Thanks for showing us where the skewed opinions come from.

Regardless classes should not be balanced based on a 20th Life TR with 5+ Bars full of epic/raid gear & clickies.

[Alex301]

Yes but the Barbarian could fight 5 or 6 sobriens the caster is pretty much out of mana....also he only has a small handful of clickies unlike the caster counterpart who seems to be rolling in epic items...good comparison. Thanks for showing us where the skewed opinions come from.

Regardless classes should not be balanced based on a 20th Life TR with 5+ Bars full of epic/raid gear & clickies.

Firstly, Children (the name of the barbarian) is pretty much maxed out in terms of gear and has a bard providing some buffs as well.

Secondly, did you even read my post? The videos where only meant to show the "potential" difference in dps and highlight that a caster can achieve higher dps than a melee, which i think should be the case because of their limited mana as you pointed out and i already pointed out before that.

If classes are just balanced around toons somewhere in the middle then it's hardly surprising that there is such imbalance when you are a 20th life TR. I'm saying that perhaps some changes could be put in place to help balance both, such as more mobs with deathward on epic.

[Failedlegend]

Such as more mobs with deathward on epic.

This I disagree with...the should get some sort of resistance to it...deathward just nullifys the use of instakill spells causing the pendulum to swing back to when any mobs that had more than 100HP would be immune to insta-kills.

Something like this with some trash having higher resistance and of course red names,etc. having higher as well.

Most Epic Trash : 20% chance to resist Insta-kill/debuff spells

[Alex301]

This I disagree with...the should get some sort of resistance to it...deathward just nullifys the use of instakill spells causing the pendulum to swing back to when any mobs that had more than 100HP would be immune to insta-kills.

Something like this with some trash having higher resistance and of course red names,etc. having higher as well.

Most Epic Trash : 20% chance to resist Insta-kill/debuff spells

I wouldn't suggest all mobs get deathward - blanket immunities are a cheap fix that dot really fix anything imo - but perhaps include more orange named opponents for the melee to work on. A percentage based chance to resist insta-kill would achieve a similar thing though.

[McFlay]

I'm a little confused by all the people trying to make some kind of point that gearless first life casters who don't know what they are doing suck. The same is true for melees. I just kind of assumed we've all seen some 330hp melee in shroud without a boss beater telling the healer(s) how bad they are.

I'm also a little confused about people complaining the game shouldn't be balanced around what someone said was the top 5% of players. They must have super bad luck in groups, or haven't capped a toon and run much of the high level content. Probably 95% of the casters that have been in my pug epic groups have more then enough dc to effectively cc/insta kill. Could argue that all day as I suppose its just personal experience, but regardless the game should be balanced around people that know the game well and how to play well. Otherwise it'd be like professional baseball cutting 50 feet off the field because pitchers don't hit enough home runs. Even if you are a casual player and don't have all the uber stuff and can't do what uber no life 10 hour a day player guy can do, so what? The point of the game is adventuring and having fun playing with other people, if all you can think about is how unfair it is someone has better gear then you and how they have an easier time in more content, I don't really know what to tell ya thats not going ot get me a forum infraction.

And to the dude claiming he gets more kills in epics on a melee then casters, you must be playing with the most awful casters in existence. Even if you could consistently drop epic trash in 10 swings, you still would have no prayer of keeping up with a good caster that can kill a whole group of such mobs in 1 spell. You could probably kill more then a poorly geared caster played by a moron who is totally clueless, but then again its really quite irrelevant as end game content shouldn't be balanced around poorly geared morons, not to mention a poorly geared melee being played by a clueless moron would be every bit as bad as the caster.

[Mubjon]

I'm a little confused by all the people trying to make some kind of point that gearless first life casters who don't know what they are doing suck. The same is true for melees. I just kind of assumed we've all seen some 330hp melee in shroud without a boss beater telling the healer(s) how bad they are.

I'm also a little confused about people complaining the game shouldn't be balanced around what someone said was the top 5% of players. They must have super bad luck in groups, or haven't capped a toon and run much of the high level content. Probably 95% of the casters that have been in my pug epic groups have more then enough dc to effectively cc/insta kill. Could argue that all day as I suppose its just personal experience, but regardless the game should be balanced around people that know the game well and how to play well. Otherwise it'd be like professional baseball cutting 50 feet off the field because pitchers don't hit enough home runs. Even if you are a casual player and don't have all the uber stuff and can't do what uber no life 10 hour a day player guy can do, so what? The point of the game is adventuring and having fun playing with other people, if all you can think about is how unfair it is someone has better gear then you and how they have an easier time in more content, I don't really know what to tell ya thats not going ot get me a forum infraction.

And to the dude claiming he gets more kills in epics on a melee then casters, you must be playing with the most awful casters in existence. Even if you could consistently drop epic trash in 10 swings, you still would have no prayer of keeping up with a good caster that can kill a whole group of such mobs in 1 spell. You could probably kill more then a poorly geared caster played by a moron who is totally clueless, but then again its really quite irrelevant as end game content shouldn't be balanced around poorly geared morons, not to mention a poorly geared melee being played by a clueless moron would be every bit as bad as the caster.

So what you are saying is that the game has to be balanced around the no life 10 hour a day bums?

So you want to have melees kill a whole group of mobs with one swing of the sword?

[grodon9999]

A first-life caster with minimal gear can get farther into an epic quest solo than a first-life melee... but he ain't going to finish it without help.

The ease in which it took to make my caster a viable end-game toon compared to my melees leaves me disgusted with the game-balance (or lack thereof) in DDO.

[Mubjon]

Firstly, Children (the name of the barbarian) is pretty much maxed out in terms of gear and has a bard providing some buffs as well.

Secondly, did you even read my post? The videos where only meant to show the "potential" difference in dps and highlight that a caster can achieve higher dps than a melee, which i think should be the case because of their limited mana as you pointed out and i already pointed out before that.

If classes are just balanced around toons somewhere in the middle then it's hardly surprising that there is such imbalance when you are a 20th life TR. I'm saying that perhaps some changes could be put in place to help balance both, such as more mobs with deathward on epic.

The biggest difference I saw was that the sorc was able to kite the fire giant around the area of effect of the spell, meaning that less time was needed to stop and heal the damage taken. Is that really being overpowered? How much would have changed if the Barb had a cleric or FvS there to heal them so they could just keep swinging the sword without pausing to drink a pot?

[LeLoric]

The ease in which it took to make my caster a viable end-game toon compared to my melees leaves me disgusted with the game-balance (or lack thereof) in DDO.

This is no different from any other point in the game. Pre spell pass it was just hold everything and beat it down. While much of a melee's offense comes from gear very little of a caster's does. A caaster gains survivability/uber soloability with his gear but his offensive output is very little changed compared with a melees.

[Thrudh]

This is no different from any other point in the game. Pre spell pass it was just hold everything and beat it down. While much of a melee's offense comes from gear very little of a caster's does. A caaster gains survivability/uber soloability with his gear but his offensive output is very little changed compared with a melees.

This is true... My wizard, before AND after the spell-pass was welcomed into epic groups, and has very little gear.

[Postumus]

Yeh so finally come to the realization that playing a melee DPS is utterly pointless... Honestly I think thhe only time a melee is even needed in this game anymore is toward the absolute high end like epic blades ...and its a tank. Lol good game turbine seeya on the flipside.

Did you also come to the realization that Boromir was a weak-willed, overweening blowhard who did less to distinguish himself than a country bumpkin hobbit named 'Merry.'