Extremely overpowered melee classes

[Sephenis]

Is there any chance in the future (I'm waiting for it for some years now), that this ridiculous overpowered melee upgrading stops? In the normal D&D high level spellcasters way more powerful than melee characters, but some reason unknown to me, Turbine buffs the melee characters to extreme levels, while the casters, especially arcane casters becoming more and more useless. An epic wizard for example should be the most powerful character, and in epic levels, it becomes a joke. No more spells, the old spells can't be used (resist,immune,dancing with unicorns). And this magical resistance is the top of this nonsense. I'll tear you apart with my magical powers! No, you can't i have a big metal armor, naaaaaaaaaah. Why the hell they have to turn away from the old system? At the beginning they're done it quite well. The game is still my favorite one, but this is a very annoying issue. And it becoming worse each year.

[mobrien316]

Is there any chance in the future (I'm waiting for it for some years now), that this ridiculous overpowered melee upgrading stops? In the normal D&D high level spellcasters way more powerful than melee characters, but some reason unknown to me, Turbine buffs the melee characters to extreme levels, while the casters, especially arcane casters becoming more and more useless. An epic wizard for example should be the most powerful character, and in epic levels, it becomes a joke. No more spells, the old spells can't be used (resist,immune,dancing with unicorns). And this magical resistance is the top of this nonsense. I'll tear you apart with my magical powers! No, you can't i have a big metal armor, naaaaaaaaaah. Why the hell they have to turn away from the old system? At the beginning they're done it quite well. The game is still my favorite one, but this is a very annoying issue. And it becoming worse each year.

I have found that epics with my sorcerer are vastly different than heroics. In heroic elites I just nuked my through everything, dancing balls now and again for crowd control, but mostly just nuking the heck out of everything.

In EE, I buff, use DoT's, debuff, try to lower mob reflex saves, try to lower mob will save, try to level drain, and then try to use my damage and dancing spells while still seeing a good amount of mobs saving against them. If I just try to nuke everything I see an awful lot of saves and not a whole lot of damage.

When I hear about sorcerers with CHA of 70 or something like that, I think that those must be the people who rock their way through EE with sorcerers. My battle cleric can solo some EE's, my sorcerer wouldn't have a chance.


Edited to add:
I don't have any issue or think it's unfair that melee is generally more powerful in epics. My sorcerer can solo virtually all heroic content on elite much, much faster than my battle cleric or monk can. I don't think that's unfair, either.

[axel15810]

In DDO the goal is for all the classes to be balanced. It diverts from pen and paper in that way. How well the devs are doing in balancing them is up for debate....but...

Spellcasters are are definitely not useless. They still rock, I think a fully geared past live decked out caster is still better than melee because they can kite and damage from a distance. They for sure take more work though, needing multiple past lives to be effective in EE whereas melee can be amazing on a first life toon. But they're not dominating melee anymore, melee vrs. caster is now much more competitive. Also the past several updates and all 4 class passes (bard, pally, barb and rogue) have all focused on melee, so people are playing with the newest toys. We'll get to some caster passes soon. Favored Soul and Druids are high on the list now.

[LongshotBro]

Is there any chance in the future (I'm waiting for it for some years now), that this ridiculous overpowered melee upgrading stops? In the normal D&D high level spellcasters way more powerful than melee characters, but some reason unknown to me, Turbine buffs the melee characters to extreme levels, while the casters, especially arcane casters becoming more and more useless. An epic wizard for example should be the most powerful character, and in epic levels, it becomes a joke. No more spells, the old spells can't be used (resist,immune,dancing with unicorns). And this magical resistance is the top of this nonsense. I'll tear you apart with my magical powers! No, you can't i have a big metal armor, naaaaaaaaaah. Why the hell they have to turn away from the old system? At the beginning they're done it quite well. The game is still my favorite one, but this is a very annoying issue. And it becoming worse each year.

I am a believer that DDO has the spirit of D&D but thinking it's gonna be a faithful translation from PnP is gonna leave you disappointed. In DDO the goal is to balance the classes across the levels, so the classic paradigm of lower level no magic users protected their weaker magic using party members until higher levels where they surpass in power does not apply here.

As someone else pointed out, too, the last few passes have been on melee classes so there's a lot of these characters around enjoying what they provide.

When it comes to epics, i'm of the opinion that it's not too terribly unbalanced as regards physical vs. magical power. In EE, both playstyles need good builds and gear to support them. A wizard needs a solid mix of feats, enhancements and gear to get their DC's, crits and so forth high enough just as a fighter needs the same for DPS, AC, PRR and the like.

[FifthTime]

Paladins and Barbarians are definitely the easy button classes. I was shocked at how much easier they are to play in Epic levels over caster classes and have basically given up playing my Wizard and Favored Soul.

If the devs think they have achieved any kind of class balance then they obviously have never played a quest on EE.

[Mandelia]

Yes, melee power and armor up have dinked the game into snoozeville for most builds. Solo self reliance is the WAY now since the servers are empty most of the time. So it is really up to you to figure out how to have fun in the game, if you can find anyone to play with. If you have to play non-epics to have any fun with magic-users, that's just the way it is.

[Nestroy]

Actually, melees are not that OP... Any caster, especially arcane, can still beat them melees any day. Turn on all metamagics you have and just burn thru 100 stacks of mana pots per quest... Win-Win. You lead the kill count and Turbine gains a lot of pot sales. And isn´t that finally the reason why Turbine introduced bloated HP mobs initially? [sarcasm=OFF]

[Monkey-Boy]

Actually, melees are not that OP... Any caster, especially arcane, can still beat them melees any day. Turn on all metamagics you have and just burn thru 100 stacks of mana pots per quest... Win-Win. You lead the kill count and Turbine gains a lot of pot sales. And isn´t that finally the reason why Turbine introduced bloated HP mobs initially? [sarcasm=OFF]

The sad thing is even if you burn through a stack of mana pots you can't keep up. Casters have cooldowns, melees just have BAR BAR BAR BAR BAR BAR BAR!!!!

[Draxis]

Melee is the most popular fighting style in any MMORPG. Appealing to the broadest audience is what makes money. 'Nuff said.

That being said, the caster / ranged passes have yet to come (For reason, see above), so I will defer final judgement on balance until that happens.

Also, before the recent melee passes you have to admit melee PvE balance was pretty awful - Especially in EE content where you had to avoid getting anywhere near mobs to stay alive for more than a few seconds, or employ the services of a dedicated healer.

[patang01]

Is there any chance in the future (I'm waiting for it for some years now), that this ridiculous overpowered melee upgrading stops? In the normal D&D high level spellcasters way more powerful than melee characters, but some reason unknown to me, Turbine buffs the melee characters to extreme levels, while the casters, especially arcane casters becoming more and more useless. An epic wizard for example should be the most powerful character, and in epic levels, it becomes a joke. No more spells, the old spells can't be used (resist,immune,dancing with unicorns). And this magical resistance is the top of this nonsense. I'll tear you apart with my magical powers! No, you can't i have a big metal armor, naaaaaaaaaah. Why the hell they have to turn away from the old system? At the beginning they're done it quite well. The game is still my favorite one, but this is a very annoying issue. And it becoming worse each year.

In a PvE type game, why is it all that important that anyone is the mostest powerfullest?
Just wondering.

[Coyopa]

In a PvE type game, why is it all that important that anyone is the mostest powerfullest?
Just wondering.

Because (at least according to one person on Sarlona) PvE means "Player versus Everyone"! So, you have to be more powerful than everyone else or you're not winning!

[Draxis]

In a PvE type game, why is it all that important that anyone is the mostest powerfullest?
Just wondering.

Because no one likes feeling superfluous. Why play a game where your actual playing is seemingly inconsequential?

[axel15810]

Also, before the recent melee passes you have to admit melee PvE balance was pretty awful - Especially in EE content where you had to avoid getting anywhere near mobs to stay alive for more than a few seconds, or employ the services of a dedicated healer.

While that was broken too, atleast EE's were scary. I preferred it over what we have now. I'd rather EE be unbalanced and difficult than balanced and trivial. If melees didn't have such crazy good self-healing the situation we're in now would be OK. But with barb healing over performing and every other melee able to use bladeforged reconstruct melees have little to worry about except high spike damage.

[janave]

I agree that both melee and ranged buffs are wayway..waaay overdone, but arcanes are still very potent, just not plain godmode anymore. (Some*) players expect efficient zergability solo, and if they get less than that they want more power.


Make Holysword scale with levels
Tone down Warchanter & Swash DCs somewhat (lets face it they too good)
Barbs dont need that much hamp and flat hitpoints, the hps they get in heroics after prr/mrr completely soaks up all real threat.
Barbs dont need that good self healing that blood stenght gives
Barbs dont need capstones that do more damage than other full DPS focused trees combined.

[Coyopa]

Because no one likes feeling superfluous. Why play a game where your actual playing is seemingly inconsequential?

But everyone loved Indiana Jones and the Raider's of the Lost Ark, even though Indiana Jones was completely superfluous. He didn't do a single thing that actually mattered as relates to the story, except to tell Marian to keep her eyes closed. So, inconsequentiality *can* work!

[Sephenis]

My problem is not that I want to be more powerful as a wizard than a fighter. Okay, lets buff the melees. But since I play there's only debuffs for the arcanes, for example the skeleton pet instead of the various summonable skeleton kinds, or the ML for lich. And nothing is gained. On epic levels you can't get new spells, and even if you EE raid for a hundred times to get every powerful stuff, at best your spells will be average. Ruin and hellball are quite useful I admit, but it's just two, and at lvl 30 EE, you're meet tight limits. And those "spells(feats)", are not arcane specific. Okay, I get it, it's not PnP but it's still D&D in name, and I feel very far from it. And it's not just 1 or 2 melee upgrades. Nothing truly useful since years. It was OK before the level cap was raised above 20, but since then it's catastrophic. The divines are still very good, I liked the druid very much, but the arcanes... And now they're developing warlock, which is really awesome, but i think they should be a little bit more concerned those classes, which they're very carefully abandoned. I don't think it is a coincidence, because every other classes got a lot of things.

[Qhualor]

For the longest time casters were at the top of the food chain. A lot of changes to mobs reflected that. Now a few melee classes are on par with casters all things being equal. A class or build is only OP in the hands of a knowledgeable player that knows how to min/max, which in my experience is ~10%. You still have to do more than play a paladin or barb and throw some gear on them. I think some people confuse OP with skill and knowledge. When a pure monk is able to run circles around other players in a quest some may think the monk is a good player, but it's not the "norm". When a paladin struggles to stay alive and is killing very few mobs some may think the paladin is a poor player, but it's "unheard" of. Switch it around so the monk is struggling and the paladin is running circles and it makes more "forum sense".

[Sephenis]

I don't think the resistance rating is about knowledge. Or the fact, that the paladin can get 10000 Hp just because...because why not. And I repeat once more, my main problem is not the OP melees, but the underpowered arcanes. It's a difference.

[Powskier]

Melee is the most popular fighting style in any MMORPG. Appealing to the broadest audience is what makes money. 'Nuff said.

That being said, the caster / ranged passes have yet to come (For reason, see above), so I will defer final judgement on balance until that happens.

Also, before the recent melee passes you have to admit melee PvE balance was pretty awful - Especially in EE content where you had to avoid getting anywhere near mobs to stay alive for more than a few seconds, or employ the services of a dedicated healer.

^ oh yea; players quickly forget how gimp melee was b4 the pass...casters and archers had their limelight,it will circle back to them eventually.

[Chai]

The balance era had its chance, but nerfing + inflating HP + inflating incoming damage failed to retain players. Exclusivity of access failed to retain players. Domination of the EE loot market and shard market by a small percentage of the player population failed to retain players. Accessibility and fun to play characters which can dominate content causes players to trot out characters they had previously parked in the game balance era. Those characters need to be LR'd and also need tomes, much of which gets bought in the store.