Melee DPS is dead:long live casters!

[Shadow7375]

Ummm, you're in the wrong thread OP.

What you're looking for is the exact same thread you posted a little under 2 weeks ago.

I surrender ...

rofl ... good catch !

[MrWizard]

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.

well by melee dps you mean a build that concentrates solely on str and con, to hit, and damage output only and nothing else...yea, well, the party probably will carry you but you should think a little bit about some kind of balance.

if you wear stuff, or use enhancements that gain Damage Reduction you can last longer and do more. AC, though difficult to get at higher ends still allow one in the 60s and higher for all classes, reducing damage from at least arrows in high end questing.
(yes, not epics).

Having raise clickies, potions that remove curse and other potions you can help yourself and your party in times of need.

If you are a class that uses intim, then build it up and use it. If you are one that is anti-intim (like a dps rouge rogue) then use it to stay alive and still kill things.

You can even switch to shattermantle and improved shattermantle weapons to lower the spell resistance of enemy combatants to help your caster blow them away faster, cause after all, that is the reason you all went in there, right?

Not gonna rag on you, sure you got enough of that in the thread. I do understand that some players do not like certain types of play. You are playing a melee and want to kill things. You want to fight. It is annoying if someone kills everything before you can and it upsets you.

As a former caster who would use inst-kills, charms, AoE clouds, and long distance spell feats to solve coming issues, I found many players who hated anything to do with that.

When with those players I would just haste, blur, sometimes displace and see how they did. If they were doing okay I would just lay back and let them have fun, selectively doing something here or there. If they were awful I would ignore them and get the quest done.

If you dislike the casters doing the work, then look only for haste and buff bot casters. They are out there (believe me) and would love to join your group.

Do what many others do and go into quests without a caster, simple. Let the 5 melee kill stuff and the cleric heal ya up.

Personally, I do not care what people do in the party but I prefer they work towards the goal of getting the quest done and not leaving stones behind.

[McFlay]

When with those players I would just haste, blur, sometimes displace and see how they did. If they were doing okay I would just lay back and let them have fun, selectively doing something here or there. If they were awful I would ignore them and get the quest done.

So if casters get so pimp they can decide to let the melees get a few kills or make them irrelevant for large portions of the content by running around insta killing everything, why should anyone bother with the melee? Just play the class thats good enough to decide to let the others have a false sense of contributing or "ignoring them and getting the quest done." WIth balance like this you push melee into the role of novelty class. Its cool to be like hey guys look what I got, but when you got to get something done just log on the caster. Its going to be faster and easier.

[slimkj]

faster and easier.

Contrary to the singular views of most arguing for caster nerfs on the forums, these are not the only, nor even primary, factors contributing to enjoyment for some players.

Just because some feel compelled to play in the most efficient way possible all the time, it does not mean everyone will, or that melee are dead, or any of the other similar hyperbole bandied around the forums.

[FengXian]

Contrary to the singular views of most arguing for caster nerfs on the forums, these are not the only, nor even primary, factors contributing to enjoyment for some players.

Just because some feel compelled to play in the most efficient way possible all the time, it does not mean everyone will, or that melee are dead, or any of the other similar hyperbole bandied around the forums.

Yes, not all players have fun in farming, grinding etc., and that's perfectly ok. This is one of the few cases where the "gimp yourself" argument can actually work.

If you want to enjoy quests, you can actually take them slow, read all the dialogues, explore all the dungeons etc., I do this sometimes too (especially in new content). You can do this even in a farmer-friendly environment, it's just about pugging with people that like to take it slow (or even better, soloing).

The point is not "to zerg or not to zerg". The point is that if you choose the option "to zerg", casters do it way better. If you do want to farm, doing it with a caster (at high levels at least) is way more efficient.
For example, melees can solo farm epic scrolls in some quests, I never tried so far but I know they can. But casters can do it way better: faster and using less consumables.

I think one of the greatest things about DDO is the charcter building system. I really enjoy spending time thinking about the best possible build I can create for a certain toon, how to fit in offense, defense, utility or whatever I'm looking for, and I think many other people enjoy this. But then your multi tr melee will be on-par with a 1st life (geared) caster. I still play melee toons A LOT more than my caster just cuz I like them more, but I realise in too many situations having (another) 1st life pale master would be better than a melee dps.

The nerf we are (I am?) asking for would have very little impact on gameplay itself. It would actually allow most casters to keep playing the way they are, it would just limit their mana so that they have to pay more attention to it (knowing they will have a hard time recharging it with torc and similar later, if able at all). And well, it would also limit (but NOT remove) DoT efficiency on enchantment/DC based builds (not really on sorcs). Wizards would still likely DOT bosses but will be dealing less damage than now, unless evocation focused.
Casters will still be able to tank raid bosses, but only on specialized builds (i.e. heavily splashed, 6 levels or so).

Those don't really affect the fun factor of playing a caster, unless you can only have fun when you can do everything.

[slimkj]

The point is not "to zerg or not to zerg". The point is that if you choose the option "to zerg", casters do it way better. If you do want to farm, doing it with a caster (at high levels at least) is way more efficient.
For example, melees can solo farm epic scrolls in some quests, I never tried so far but I know they can. But casters can do it way better: faster and using less consumables.

Casters are not necessarily better at "zerging". The run speed of a monk and invis clickies can make them far better at completing non-raids faster, for example.

The fact that casters can solo epic scrolls is fairly trivial as a barometer for deciding balance. Does it really matter what char someone solo farming uses? If they were exclusively farming on barbs it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to anyone else.

I would agree that them making good tanks in some cases is a bit of a slap in the face to melee who geared for it. However I still rarely see majority of raid groups as casters. In fact it's still rare to see 50% casters, in my experience.

The SP argument is dead. Ever since store pots were brought in and made money, the avenue of restricting SP to balance has gone and I would bet is never going to be back.

I still would rather see a buff to melee ability, personally. Perhaps a save-for-half on DOTs too to put them where they should be. Lots of ways to gently rebalance without putting those brazen bloody casters back in their place, as many seem to view it.

I don't think game balance is perfect right now, it never is, but as these threads grow in number and those who aren't listened to feel they have to repeat themselves, the arguments and basis grow wilder and are exaggerated, and the suggestions more and more punitive. Mostly unnecessarily.

Anyway, to be honest, my gripe isn't with people with sensible suggestions. It's with people who repeatedly post that melee might as well be dead... that we might as well delete all melee toons... that because you didn't have to grind six past lives and 200 raids on a caster to be able to contribute effectively that the sky is DEFINITELY FALLING IN LOOKOUTARGHHHH.

[FengXian]

Casters are not necessarily better at "zerging". The run speed of a monk and invis clickies can make them far better at completing non-raids faster, for example.

The fact that casters can solo epic scrolls is fairly trivial as a barometer for deciding balance. Does it really matter what char someone solo farming uses? If they were exclusively farming on barbs it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to anyone else.

I would agree that them making good tanks in some cases is a bit of a slap in the face to melee who geared for it. However I still rarely see majority of raid groups as casters. In fact it's still rare to see 50% casters, in my experience.

The SP argument is dead. Ever since store pots were brought in and made money, the avenue of restricting SP to balance has gone and I would bet is never going to be back.

I still would rather see a buff to melee ability, personally. Perhaps a save-for-half on DOTs too to put them where they should be. Lots of ways to gently rebalance without putting those brazen bloody casters back in their place, as many seem to view it.

I don't think game balance is perfect right now, it never is, but as these threads grow in number and those who aren't listened to feel they have to repeat themselves, the arguments and basis grow wilder and are exaggerated, and the suggestions more and more punitive. Mostly unnecessarily.

Anyway, to be honest, my gripe isn't with people with sensible suggestions. It's with people who repeatedly post that melee might as well be dead... that we might as well delete all melee toons... that because you didn't have to grind six past lives and 200 raids on a caster to be able to contribute effectively that the sky is DEFINITELY FALLING IN LOOKOUTARGHHHH.

"zerging" is in brackets because I don't just refer to the ability of running through a dungeon (altough they have the huge advantage of being able to AOE damage all the pulled mobs in the end), but to the ability to farm efficiently, you get this if you read my post as a whole.

Scroll farming was an example, I said this too. There are many, many other aspects, scroll farming is just one of them.

The fact that they can tank with little to no sacrifice is indeed a slap in the face. If most of them don't because they don't carry a shield, or because they don't even try, matters not. It takes way too little effort to get a caster ready to tank most epic bosses.

And no, most people don't live on store potions. The bad players will be drinking pots over and over, the good ones can make it without pots, or at least without buying store pots. If a caster gets infinite SP by drinking store pots, I'm super-ok with that. But you can get virtually infinite SP even w/o store pots now, and that is NOT good.

This said, we seem to agree on the "gentle rebalancing". Melees could use some buffs, but new combat feats were already announced somewhere I think. But as I said, the rebalancing needs to be done in two directions, you can't just take melees and put them on actual casters' power level, and I think we agree on that too.

Yeah this thread's title is definitely screaming for DoOoOoOoOoM! but the problem stays...

[Emili]

Casters are not necessarily better at "zerging". The run speed of a monk and invis clickies can make them far better at completing non-raids faster, for example.

The fact that casters can solo epic scrolls is fairly trivial as a barometer for deciding balance. Does it really matter what char someone solo farming uses? If they were exclusively farming on barbs it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to anyone else.

POWER!

Let's take my monk? She's not really geared up as much as my fighter nor wizard per-say... lets speak gear though, just in what she is wearing?

You see you made me think... an invisible monk is going to be quick to finish some mediocre quest get to the boss and get out for xp, or some minor item like a bloodstone or such... but that be quite a drop in the bucket. Once level 20 it's gear which keeps empowering. I want my eSoS, my eMaralith, my eClaw or my three to five piece eChronus? You'll need the scrolls...

Looking at her though eGoggles of time-sensing, eRing of Buccaneer, eBrawling Gloves, eMabar Wraps, eCloak of Night, eTorn Chitin Bracers, hmmm all her epic gear were all supplied least more than not by none other than her sibling, Sgail ... my PM.

I should not have to feel that I should "log on my PM" to make getting epic gear for my fighter, monk, etc quicker to make them a better character.

It's not to say she could not have garnered these herself ... chances are however I would NOT had been able to create 32 tier three crystal cove items the first time it was here without Sgail. Likewise Mabar farming I would deffo not have as much gear from barter system I do have without my blue-bar characters ... Sgail or Heathier will garner components quicker for barter systems, Likewise I would not be able to produce the number of epic scrolls I personally collected, is true of everyone ... no way, not in the same span of my play time-frames would my monk nor any melee gather the components and scrolls as quickly.

Supply and demand? Now shall you go to the AH and just look at a scrolls posted from eChronus, epic Deserts, etc... It is a very high possibility most of those are there - on the AH - due someones efforts on thier blue-bar character and posting things they do not need and/or duplicated. They have thier e<whatever> on thier barb so they can make a few PP or a killer trade from the second scroll that just dropped for them while farming scrolls from Epic <whatever quest>... the more blue-bar doing so the cheaper these things become.

I'd wager we would not have the number of epic items geared up nor the economy surrounding such if it were not for blue-bar farming... I'd guarentee you every scroll (and in many cases item) on that AH or in trading would be far far rarer and worth so much more...

So... blue-bar controls a significant portion of the gear levels we have in game and a significant level of our economy.

I bring such up because it is a discussion on "contributions" be it in quest or even out one may argue anything about the value a "class" brings or roles they "fill". A simple fact however as a community blue bar fulfill more, they produce more, they are more.

In raids I am often known for touting "who do you wish me to be?" (implying wishing to even up the parties merits)... There are NO doubts I can TR and cap a blue bar quicker than I may my melee... done it, and the system makes it so.

As for nerfs I do not believe in them... You all do know Melee took significant nerfs up to and including the spell pass updates - for the sake of lag control(alacrty) or asthetics(tactics). I do believe in progress however, and in such developers must produce interest not in ways of "this class/race/quest/item" is the BOMB for this update or time-frame... but keep it even and steady for all. Looking over the past I would like to recapture the hey-day of the updates surrounding Shroud or of ToD... was in these periods the developers offered options and incentives for "EVERY CLASS" in terms of play ... keep it interesting, MAKE ME WANT TO PLAY X CLASS every one of them.

Today I wonder as to why I bothered to make this Khopesh by far cannith was about Arties and Divines and Monks, well the later to some extent. The gear I made for them be the BomB but for any other ... meh. A smart person would just make some alchemy magic sticks, upgrade Tovens and alchemy wraps and toss eMa and eLoB aside.



So's just what is "class" balance? It's more to do not with the desire to play "a class" but a desire to play "all of them".

[McFlay]

So's just what is "class" balance? It's more to do not with the desire to play "a class" but a desire to play "all of them".

Which is why dots are awful. If you want this effect then every class needs something they excel in. If wizards are best class for cc/ik, alright, and if sorcs are the best for nuking, alright. Sounds legit to me. If difficulty scaling via massively inflating hp in high level content makes the game skew way in favor of cc/ik tactics vs nuke to the point where its a stupid waste of sp nuking, thats the problem that needs to be addressed, not just giving wiz/sorc easily sustainable dps. Not to mention there were already buffs in game that allowed you to contribute dps after you burned through your blue bar, sure not near the sustained dps a melee can do but you just burned through an entire blue bar..why should you?

You then run in to the problem of the main role of melees being sustained dps. However now that wiz/sorcs can do it with dots, PLUS are far superior at cc/ik/nuking, you just lost balance.

Its the same for divine dots. If you wanna be sustained dps with a bit of healing, make a ranger, paladin, or multiclass. You won't dps as good as a pure melee, or heal as good as a pure divine, but now that divines have dots you just jacked up that balance as well. A melee fvs tossing out dots and swinging in a fight can out dps a paladin easily, plus easily have a 2k mana advantage and a lot more healing power, better aoe, etc.

I'm all for a system where you can build your characters to be totally awesome at one thing, maybe average at a few things, and have a few weaknesses. Or you can go the route of trying to be good at a lot of things but have no massive strengths or weaknesses, but this type of building seems to only apply to melees in the current state of the game. If you just make a caster you end up totally awesome at a lot of things.

It just totally blows my mind why the devs ever thought dots were a good idea. Their reply to casters sucking at bosses after blowing through the blue bars should have been, use tenser, do a melee splash in your build, carry a ranged weapon for backup, or buy a bunch of shop pots because turbine likes your money.

As far as nerfs caster vs boost melee, nerfing casters is by far the way to go. Most of the content is already easy to the point it can be absolutely dismantled short manned with a few(if not solo) mildly competent people. Boosting melee would either mean pretty much the entire game is due for rebalancing, or you might as well just let players talk to an npc to skip up to level 20 at will it will be so easy. The problems not even that melee for the most part are bad, its just that casters are so much better its making melees a waste of time to bother with.

[Schwarzie]

The Blue Bar is endless? Major Mnemonics cost roughly 1000x each of what a Silver Flame Potion costs what a Melee needs to basically solo anything.

I wont go into store bought potions (which btw was the single worst thing turbine ever did to this game) which are basically pay to win.

And if you think Arcane Castgers are overpowered just go into Amrath Elite where the mobs laugh about your Archmage-Wizard if you "only" bring a DC of 44 to the table and therefore ignore him while he spends half his manabar to bring one mob down. Or reconciles himself to be the buff and webbot like he was it before the spellpass and the Arcane PREs...

I cant really judge any "opness" of sorcerers since i never played one, but i say definitely no to "opnes" of Cleric or Wizard.
Favoured Souls on the other hand are another matter. The combination of a Searing Light capstone with Avenger PRE, summonable free DPS dot on my shoulder and a Light dot (how nice that this works so excellently with my PRE...) on top of Bladebarriers combined with a huge manapool made my FVS easyly to my most powerful character, despite his severe lack of decent Endgame Equipment.

If a class needs an balacing adjustment its definitely the Fvs.

[deahamlet]

I am not going to go into whether or not wizard or FvS or whatever need balancing.
I've played RPGs with X spells/day from each level and I want to make something clear... arcanes still won the game on dmg with AOE alone. And those games didn't have DOTs. In those games you setup a party of 4... but to be honest half the time I made 2 arcanes, 1 divine/melee (paladin) and another melee or a buff bot (bard for example). Always far better than 3 melee + 1 divine. Everything went down faster, and I didn't exactly run out of spells allowed all the time.

Arcanes are meant to be insane damage, insane power of the mind. Think if magic ever existed, what the heck would a sword do against a fireball? Maybe the sneaky rogue could kill an arcane in their sleep but that's about it.

I always thought that self-healing PM was the be-all and end-all of solo-ing. I love the instadeath spells, I seriously sigh if I hear gripes about how melee doesn't get to kill (hey, I target casters and people behind the first wave, that's enough kindness out of me). But then I put my PM in one of the challenges and realized that I'm not going to be very good if the enemy is immune to insta-death AND to most elemental damage.

Enter my FvS... she waltzes in there with her mana bar and her blade barriers and does 1000 times better. Also does better than my artificer who has the same SP that FvS has at 14, but arti has it at 20 with all sorts of gear!
FvS are very powerful. At least alone. In raids, I'll get to dot and heal. I think I'd be rather angry if they took the DOT spell away since we get such nothingness for damage spells on divines.

Again though, so many advantages to being melee... I lost count. Far far more survivable at low level. Easier to level. Easier to get into any raid.

Raise you sword up. Now try blocking a fireball.

[FengXian]

Again though, so many advantages to being melee... I lost count. Far far more survivable at low level. Easier to level. Easier to get into any raid.

Easier to level? Don't spread misinformation please. And about raids, it's been already discussed that the good party leaders won't make any distinction (i.e. won't limit caster slots to 2). There are also plenty of eChrono or elite Shroud caster-only runs.

The Blue Bar is endless? Major Mnemonics cost roughly 1000x each of what a Silver Flame Potion costs what a Melee needs to basically solo anything.

I wont go into store bought potions (which btw was the single worst thing turbine ever did to this game) which are basically pay to win.

And if you think Arcane Castgers are overpowered just go into Amrath Elite where the mobs laugh about your Archmage-Wizard if you "only" bring a DC of 44 to the table and therefore ignore him while he spends half his manabar to bring one mob down. Or reconciles himself to be the buff and webbot like he was it before the spellpass and the Arcane PREs...

Elite Amrath? You can crushing despair + mass charm/symbol of persuasion, you can max+emp ice storm and turtle up in a shield etc, etc.

Which is also why the Blue Bar IS endless. NOT because of store pots, because you can shield block on some mobs (you decide which ones and how many, archers do fine but you can endure a couple of epic melees too) and recharge ALL of your mana. With torc+con opp. It never was about store pots.

[McFlay]

And if you think Arcane Castgers are overpowered just go into Amrath Elite where the mobs laugh about your Archmage-Wizard if you "only" bring a DC of 44 to the table and therefore ignore him while he spends half his manabar to bring one mob down. Or reconciles himself to be the buff and webbot like he was it before the spellpass and the Arcane PREs...

If the point you are trying to make is a caster without the proper build/gear is a total failure in some content, the same is true for all builds. I'm guessing the character would fall somewhere along the line of

1. Fail build. Made some poor choices of feats, enhancements, stat allocation at create, or a combo of factors.
2. Some kind of hybrid build that has other strengths and weaknesses then a pure build, might not be a fail build but not playable the same way as a pure.
3. Undergeared

Try bringing a melee build into the same quest without enough to hit bonus to hit anything consistently. Youll be totally useless.

[Schwarzie]

Elite Amrath? You can crushing despair + mass charm/symbol of persuasion, you can max+emp ice storm and turtle up in a shield etc, etc.

Saving Throw: Will save negates. What about DC43 Willsaves dont land there at all have you not understood? [Disclaimer: before any nitpickers point it out: yes ofc course there is the occasianal mob that is hold, charmed or whatever. But its a fair minority of hte mobs affected by one spell]

And turtling up with a torc.. yes what about the earlyer argument casters dont need any decent equipment? Besides the Madstone Boots the Torc is among the rarest piece of Raidloot you can get. And Max empowered Ice Storm istn that much of damage. Even with Eardweller. Once again you are looking at mixing a DC based wizard with a nuking sorc. A Archmage has not a single free Enhancementpoint to put into dmg lines. He lives completely from his DCs.

With torc+con opp. It never was about store pots.

And suddenly we speak about a geared caster... Please, at least stay consistent.

1. Fail build. Made some poor choices of feats, enhancements, stat allocation at create, or a combo of factors.
2. Some kind of hybrid build that has other strengths and weaknesses then a pure build, might not be a fail build but not playable the same way as a pure.
3. Undergeared

My Wizards name is Magier, you can easyly look it up on MyDDO. His Damage output or utility in amrath is basically nonexistant. None of my melees have the same problem.

Try bringing a melee build into the same quest without enough to hit bonus to hit anything consistently. Youll be totally useless.

Str8 without Str Item on a Barbarian that refuses to rage? Dont get me wrong, Melees need tons of Gear, but to hit is easyer to come by then a decent damage output.

Much of the whining i see in this Thread seems to come from Melee pure players who never played a Caster and which never seemed to recognize the problems casters once had to get into pug Raids since they were only usable as buffbots.
But the biggest retardation i read here is that it is always spoken as "casters" as if there werent 4 different kinds each with own issues. Many posts here even read as if there was a caster class in DDO with hte survivability of a PM, the damage output of a sorc and on top of that it throws Bladebarriers while using wings and is surrounded in a self healing aura.

Please, get real.

[FengXian]

Saving Throw: Will save negates. What about DC43 Willsaves dont land there at all have you not understood? [Disclaimer: before any nitpickers point it out: yes ofc course there is the occasianal mob that is hold, charmed or whatever. But its a fair minority of hte mobs affected by one spell

You know crushing despair gives AoE -5 will save right? Which is +5 dc on those spells. Or try some deleveling spells, now even AoE with circle/symbol of death.

And turtling up with a torc.. yes what about the earlyer argument casters dont need any decent equipment? Besides the Madstone Boots the Torc is among the rarest piece of Raidloot you can get. And Max empowered Ice Storm istn that much of damage. Even with Eardweller. Once again you are looking at mixing a DC based wizard with a nuking sorc. A Archmage has not a single free Enhancementpoint to put into dmg lines. He lives completely from his DCs.

And suddenly we speak about a geared caster... Please, at least stay consistent.

I NEVER ever said casters can do all this stuff naked. But Torc and a con opp item are not that rare. You can get them on 1st life easily, worst case, 20 ADQ (unless really bad luck, but still...). It's Torc, not Epic Torc we're talking about.
An Archmage has enough APs to max 2 damage lines and take 1+1 crit damage and crit chance. Unless you purposedly gimp it. Since you need a damage line for at least one dot. Do you know how much gear and experience a melee needs to solo Elite Amrath? And you're saying Torc is too rare? Don't even make such comparisons please.

Much of the whining i see in this Thread seems to come from Melee pure players who never played a Caster and which never seemed to recognize the problems casters once had to get into pug Raids since they were only usable as buffbots.
But the biggest retardation i read here is that it is always spoken as "casters" as if there werent 4 different kinds each with own issues. Many posts here even read as if there was a caster class in DDO with hte survivability of a PM, the damage output of a sorc and on top of that it throws Bladebarriers while using wings and is surrounded in a self healing aura.

Please, get real.

I have a caster, I have built it mainly to farm scrolls in chrono, but I ended up doing epics and it was EASY on 1st life, 3rd toon I didn't even like. I did get lucky with gear but nothing huge: Torc, Bauble, epic Mabar Robe, Bramble Casters, Glacier Set, Minos, CC dagger, Eardweller...Diabolist Robe was my only "real" epic item. You call them "buffbots", I see people tearing quests ahead of me and often same goes for raids. Again, you do need some gear and some experience. But if you want a melee to do the same a GOOD 1st life caster can do, you'll need 3 times the gear and the experience.

And by casters we are usually referring to WF arcanes; fleshie pale masters; FvS's; to a lesser degree fleshie sorcs. Clerics look ok but I never really checked them. If you're saying fleshie archmages have issues, WF tanks or drow rangers might have issues too, so what? Optimal, or even just "viable" caster builds or if you prefer, "the vast majority of those" are way more useful in quests/raids than their melee counterparts, assuming not naked. So yep, get real please

[Schwarzie]

worst case, 20 ADQ (unless really bad luck, but still...)

I stopped reading here and took a break since i laughed so hard. Are we playing the same game?
My toon with the fewest DQ completions got his torc on his 40th run. My Cleric needed more, my Fvs is still running. On the other Hand my Fighter (currently a Paladin) needed 3 Reavers to get Madstone boots.
Am i now stating that Madstone boots are easy to come by?

Do you know how much gear and experience a melee needs to solo Elite Amrath? And you're saying Torc is too rare? Don't even make such comparisons please.

Make or Break Item are Silver Flame Pots since Melees suffer the most from inadequate selfhealing. Those are far faster to aquire then a Torc. (ofc i wont deny that some of those quests needed are painfull to the extreme, looking at you ratmaze..)

And you're saying Torc is too rare? Don't even make such comparisons please.

But i do. Fully backend by experience. In comparsion the Epic Antique Greataxe fell my Melee into his lap. Just because you are unbelievable lucky and got your torc even before your 20th (at least you gave me this impression with your initial statement)

I wont dispute the fact that Casters (all 4 of them) need less gear to produce SOME results. But to be devastatingly worldshattering solomonsters they need the same amount of grind a Melee needs.

I did get lucky with gear but nothing huge: Torc, Bauble, epic Mabar Robe, Bramble Casters, Glacier Set, Minos, CC dagger, Eardweller...Diabolist Robe was my only "real" epic item.

Lol, please get real. Torc, Bauble (took me nearly 80 runs each on Cleric and Wizard, Fvs is still running...) and before the Eardweller also dropped in the Last Island IQ Quest, Eardweller (took me 80 runs for mine) are all extremely grindy Items. Minos is nothing rare, you can basically buy it in the AH and its a item used by everyone, its rarity is on par with Cure Serious Potions...
You seem to be unbelievably lucky with your castergear and probably unlucky with melee gear (or got the wrong expectations due to the luck before) and seem to exaggerate from that point on.
I openly dispute the fact that gearing out Melee toons is three times as grindy. I would even dispute two times. Its a blatant exaggeration.

PS: I took a second look at Crushing Despair: You are correct! I looked at it years ago and stopped reading after the willsavepart and never reached the fixed -5. Thank you

[Arctigis]

Which is also why the Blue Bar IS endless. NOT because of store pots, because you can shield block on some mobs (you decide which ones and how many, archers do fine but you can endure a couple of epic melees too) and recharge ALL of your mana. With torc+con opp. It never was about store pots.

So you're against the soloists really then? Recharging mana by turtling in a group doesn't tend to go down
very well.

I don't mind admitting that I (almost) exclusively solo. The U9 changes revamped the game massively for me as it
opened up quests and areas which I'd previously struggled with (e.g. Elite Amrath, Epics). If this is nerfed
then I'll probably not play any more. Like it or not, part of the resurgence of DDO has been Turbine's TLC
towards people who like to solo (given the changes in the game to enable this you'd be mad to try and
refute it).

The investment in obtaining a Torc and con-opp is not insignificant (you're generally looking at 20th reward lists
for the Torc unless you're lucky).

DoTs. I don't know about others but I generally only use these on red/purple named end bosses. I wouldn't
object to a fort save for half. It's disingenuous IMO to cast these as game breakers though as it takes
time to ramp up and is the only practical way a caster can contribute sustained DPS on a higher level raid boss.

Insta-kill. Tricky. The gulf between average, first life characters and epic, multi-tr characters is huge - beyond the
scope of a D20 system IMO. In fact, you can apply this observation to a lot of the complaints about OP casters
- the problem being the content itself.

We all seem to be missing the point that better AI would solve some of these problems (e.g. deathward, bless,
pathing out of AOE etc.). With meta-gaming knowledge mobs just become sacks of HP that need to be removed
before you can complete this quests. This is where casters, with their superior tools to do this on an industrial
scale, look overpowered.

They need to improve the AI to make mobs actually dangerous and give melee more options rather than nerf
casters.

[FengXian]

I openly dispute the fact that gearing out Melee toons is three times as grindy. I would even dispute two times. Its a blatant exaggeration.

Thrice or 10 times as grindy, to get the same result. Simply because you CAN'T get the same result. Can a melee solo farm epic scrolls or solo epics, or be as self sufficient as a caster? Sure. But at what cost? It's much, much harder, so you can grind all you like on a melee, anything will still be easier as a caster.

So you're against the soloists really then? Recharging mana by turtling in a group doesn't tend to go down
very well.

Does it not? Odd, I've always seen casters doing so when needed. eLoB anyone? Or anywhere else for what it matters. So no, not against soloists per se.

I don't mind admitting that I (almost) exclusively solo. The U9 changes revamped the game massively for me as it
opened up quests and areas which I'd previously struggled with (e.g. Elite Amrath, Epics). If this is nerfed
then I'll probably not play any more. Like it or not, part of the resurgence of DDO has been Turbine's TLC
towards people who like to solo (given the changes in the game to enable this you'd be mad to try and
refute it).

Again, as I said before, you can just as easily torc in parties. Why not btw? Please don't try to turn this into a Solo vs Party thread, it has nothing to do with that.

The investment in obtaining a Torc and con-opp is not insignificant (you're generally looking at 20th reward lists
for the Torc unless you're lucky).

Exactly. Besides you will have enough mana in a lot of situations where you won't even need to "torc".

DoTs. I don't know about others but I generally only use these on red/purple named end bosses. I wouldn't
object to a fort save for half. It's disingenuous IMO to cast these as game breakers though as it takes
time to ramp up and is the only practical way a caster can contribute sustained DPS on a higher level raid boss.

But you assume an instakilling CC selfhealing machine also deserves a source of sustained high level dps on raid bosses. Besides DoTs won't be killed by a save. You'll just have to build for evocation or settle for half-damage. That would be FAIR.

Insta-kill. Tricky. The gulf between average, first life characters and epic, multi-tr characters is huge - beyond the
scope of a D20 system IMO. In fact, you can apply this observation to a lot of the complaints about OP casters
- the problem being the content itself.

We all seem to be missing the point that better AI would solve some of these problems (e.g. deathward, bless,
pathing out of AOE etc.). With meta-gaming knowledge mobs just become sacks of HP that need to be removed
before you can complete this quests. This is where casters, with their superior tools to do this on an industrial
scale, look overpowered.

They need to improve the AI to make mobs actually dangerous and give melee more options rather than nerf
casters.

Instakills alone mean nothing. Making DW more common would just bring us back to old epics w/o instakill, poor solution if you ask me. The problem is the whole package: DPS, heals, tanking ability and either instakills or cc (or even both) easily achievable on the same toon. That is the problem.

Now can someone actually reply to what would be wrong with limiting shield usage by pure-ish casters? So that they can't tank and torc so easily? I see no problem with that and it also sound way simplier than overhauling AI.

[McFlay]

Instakills alone mean nothing. Making DW more common would just bring us back to old epics w/o instakill, poor solution if you ask me. The problem is the whole package: DPS, heals, tanking ability and either instakills or cc (or even both) easily achievable on the same toon. That is the problem.

Guess you pretty much sum it up here lol.

I just can't figure out why people think they should be able to run an arcane through a level being instakill/cc/nuke god through the whole run while easily self healing if your wf or pm, then get to the boss and be able to do sustained dps like a melee while sitting in the back row droppings dots. Tenser and being a second rate melee apparently isnt good enough...Really whats the point of playing a melee with the current state of the game? Your good to have in what, the new cannith quests and abbot runs, and everywhere else its alright to drag some melee along but casters do it better.

If melees were capable of doing as much on a single character as casters I'd think its every bit as stupid. What's the point of classes when you have some that do it all. You might as well just remove classes, and give everyone access to every feat/enhancement/spell/skill.

Well, I gotta be fair, there still is one good thing left about melee. It makes obtaining completionist more challenging when you have to go through all your melee lives to get there.

[TheLegendOfAra]

Casters tanking? Sure it's possible, it's been done before as well, but nine times out of ten, in a raid a real TANK is tanking the boss, not some caster with a shield. Why? Because real tank builds do it better. Sure they may not be able to self heal as well as a WF caster, or PM, but that's what the healer is for.

Also, I rarely see raids that have more than 2-3 arcane casters/2Divine; the rest of the group is generally melee. As for the whole "Nothing but caster" raids someone mentioned, sure, they exist, but so do "all ranger" raids. your argument is invalid.

Point being, caster's should not be nerfed, and melee should just be happy with there place in the party.

Hell, my main is a 28pnt first life Ranger AA(undergeared AA at that!) and in most quest/raids I have most kills. Should my AA be nerfed because I get more kills than the melee? No thank you.