Extremely overpowered melee classes

[dunklezhan]

My monk sure doesn't feel extremely overpowered. Fingers crossed for the handwraps pass....

[Sephenis]

The problem is, a caster pays a price for his/her powers at lower levels. Traditionally the melee chars stronger at lower levels, while the casters stronger at higher levels. That was the "OP caster time". Now the casters weak both at low and high levels. I don't see the balance in that. And if it's just a perodical change, why just the arcane casters are so weak? I think it's more believable Turbine got a lot of responds from ppl who A)can't understand D&D, B)loves melee chars.

[patang01]

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!

I see, eventho everyone profits equally when you meet the winning terms of the game?

You live to learn.

[patang01]

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

I play to profit; if I felt it was always about 'winning' within a group I'll solo. I really don't care who does the most 'winning' since if that means a quicker end to the quest so I can move onto the next when TRing or ERing it's all good.

The constant need for 'but my guy need more power' only leads to a constant explosion of player power. And yes; it's nice, but it also skews all gameplay to somehow make up for that imbalance. And that to me is a lot more problematic. You can see it in ToEE where the armored up rebalancing have lead to regular creatures now 'debuffing' players which only hurts lightly armored ones more with the consequence of people moving towards heavy armor instead.

Or the red named with a silly amount of HP so they last a few seconds more to the 4-5k critting player monsters, causing the rest of the content for regular non exploiting players to smack away at HP bloated mountains.

So, I don't really care which particular class does the most damage.

What I care about is the run away damage causing all new content to become nothing more than 5 minute HP slug fests against a pile of hit points. I do agree however that there should be more interesting spells, as long as we're not talking about more boring increase in DPS.

[DrawingGuy]

You have several caster types:

Shiradi casters that cast for free. They are very reliant on RNG as what procs and what Queen gives them dictates if they're weaker than melees or god-mode. They have the bonus of nearly limitless SP.

Draconic glass cannons. Gather everything in your fog, burst and/or breath. Everything will be dead unless they evaded or your aim sucks. Can definitely be an SP pot suck if you don't have the clickies, but if you have them, you can be agressive and still get through most without pot usage.

DC casters. This is the bane of DDO devs. You put this in reach, and the caster just runs around insta-killing everything... party members are just there to kill the boss for you. They put it higher, and by the time you cast all the debuffs needed to insta-kill, others killed it... and at that point, why bother. The other side of DC casting, CC, means you shut down quests pretty easily. As many mobs have much lower Will saves than Fort saves, this can be effectively done, but few are the type that enjoy CCing mobs for others to kill.

Divine Casters. I think they're pretty solid. With AOE stuns to set up powerful bursts, BB and piercing bolts, Evocation based AOE insta-kill spell (so you can spec all out full damage and still have effective insta-kills) and lines that play straight into Ruin... I don't think I've ever had a melee get more kills than my FvS caster (not that it's fair for a melee to challenge a caster to a kill contest when all spells hit for 4-5 figures at range making it easy to snipe).


All that said, there are several questions to ask:
Why should casters be the strongest DPS:
- They have their spells limited by an SP pool: With the abundance of clickies and ready access to potions that you can get from drops, vendors, or off AH (there's also store, but store items should not ever count as a basis of balance for everyone)... only a newbie should ever struggle with SP. I consider this a non-barrier.
- They have cooldowns: With large spell collections, generally you should never find yourself sitting there without a spell to cast. Between multiple insta-kill spells, mob preps and rays/bursts, not even long-cooldown spells that palemasters face should find them twiddling their thumbs... and insta-kills should have longer CDs.
- They're stronger in PnP: PnP was notoriously unbalanced. Melees were over-dependent on their gear as that almost completely dictates their power unless they start cheesing prestiges or play a Monk. Why should that be carried over?

1) this is not PnP, this is DDO - a MMO video game
2) You don't have the daily/encounter spell limits
3) The safety that range and positioning gives you is much more important in a video game, making range less risk and thus less deserving of high reward.
4) this is not PnP, this is DDO - a MMO video game. If they so decide that the AoE, insta-kill, utility, being at range, etc means that casters should have less DPS than melee, that is a design choice that is open to them. If they decide the SP limitations, cooldowns, and PnP roots mean they should have the highest DPS, they can ensure that when they do the class pass on the caster classes.

While I do think the power creep is a bit too much as it's making the game too easy, that is a separate discussion than Melees vs Casters. I don't think "casters should be the most powerful because they used to be" is enough of an argument. That is not to say my own points were really trying to conclude one way or the other - just that both sides have valid points, and should be actively looked at rather than defaulted.

[Powskier]

Developers made the enemy DCs way to high in epic,to compensate for the top player builds. This limits a variety of options that we could have...just beat it till it is dead-is what it comes down to.

[Zerkul]

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.

Majority of people on forums arrives always late to game changes. It's true melees are powerful now but the new ranged power and rogue mechanic already introduced another element of "balance" against caster side. The truth is that now ranged and melee are balanced while casters, latecomers in all the balance passes done till now, are loosing ground. Keep calm and wait for the Sev, he's good at balance passes he will continue to do a great job.

[Draxis]

The truth is that now ranged and melee are balanced while casters, latecomers in all the balance passes done till now, are loosing ground.

SOME ranged are balanced now while MOST melee is balanced. Please remember we have not had an official ranged pass as we did with melee. Try telling Arties or poor Arcane Archers (If any still exist) that ranged is balanced. Arties get the double-whammy of poor DPS in that they are mediocre as both casters and ranged. Rangers, despite their title, are awful at ranged DPS. The mechanic seems balanced because it was JUST balanced. And of course the reason most people think ranged is balanced (Or melee finally just caught up to ranged) is because monkchers are still way OP by comparison (Though admittedly not as much as they used to be.)

[mobrien316]

The problem is, a caster pays a price for his/her powers at lower levels. Traditionally the melee chars stronger at lower levels, while the casters stronger at higher levels. That was the "OP caster time". Now the casters weak both at low and high levels. I don't see the balance in that. And if it's just a perodical change, why just the arcane casters are so weak? I think it's more believable Turbine got a lot of responds from ppl who A)can't understand D&D, B)loves melee chars.

In my experience, my wizard and sorcerer blast their way through heroic content. I wouldn't say they are "weak at both low and high levels"; they're not even really "weak" at high levels. For most arcanes, EE becomes a place where you debuff, CC, and DoT things, rather than a place where you clear the whole room in a few seconds, as you do in heroics.

[Jsbeer]

While I do think that there is currently a disparity between melees and casters I think it would be wise to see what happens when the casters get their pass in future. Otherwise all that the subtle (and not so subtle) nerf the melees calls might end up doing is to prevent casters getting any buffs at all when their time to be reviewed comes. Although a few low SP but somewhat higher DPS 'epic' SLAs would not be amiss.

[Captain_Wizbang]

In DDO the goal is for all the classes to be balanced. .

[Qhualor]

In my experience, my wizard and sorcerer blast their way through heroic content. I wouldn't say they are "weak at both low and high levels"; they're not even really "weak" at high levels. For most arcanes, EE becomes a place where you debuff, CC, and DoT things, rather than a place where you clear the whole room in a few seconds, as you do in heroics.

That just shows how unbalanced heroics and epics are. I do believe that casters shouldn't be able to blast their way through EE that require debuffs to land spells easier and do more spell damage, but I feel the same way about melees on an equivalent level. HE should gradually increase in difficulty eventually making it so in higher heroic levels you would need to do the same as EE. However, I do come across a minority of casters that can blast their way through EE just the same as a minority of melees.

[Blackheartox]

Majority of people on forums arrives always late to game changes. It's true melees are powerful now but the new ranged power and rogue mechanic already introduced another element of "balance" against caster side. The truth is that now ranged and melee are balanced while casters, latecomers in all the balance passes done till now, are loosing ground. Keep calm and wait for the Sev, he's good at balance passes he will continue to do a great job.

Ranger as deeper build with ranger icon should be lord of 2 weapon fight.
He isnt, not even close to palie or barb.
Monks should utilite best cc and control of wisdom based attacks.
They arent, because bards to it all better with less effort.
Rogues as melles should be top dps when in sneak, they arent remotely close to barb even after pass.
Jugg arties?
Wolfs with all bugs?
How exactly is sev good at balancing?
Making palie/barb/bard the defacto holy trinitiy is not ballance, its just pick one and overbuff it, keep in mind ballancing is a thing that in mmos with pvp evolve constantly and is being worked on daily.
In ddo we get 1 pass and then the class will be stuck with what it got for years, is it lack of resources or lack of knowledge how to properly manage the game? I dont know, but resources and lack of them would be ok if not for the showproof from our devs on not understanding the basics behind the changes they propose and put into action ( Holy sword anyone?) .
Honestly, it might seem like a rant, but SEV is not good at ballancing melles.
If he was, he would first fix all the bugs, then put a line where "top dps is" and ballance around that line.
Bugs? Still here and we got a bunch more then before.
Dps line? Whats that? We got no idea what they will do with ranger, or "when and how" they will fix unarmed combat and animal forms.
Honestly, i like your positive attitude, but we both know its not realistic

Ballancing couple classes in a game should not be done over the course of 2 years /what we get in ddo/ but something that is done daily, with weekly patching while they work on new content.
Not totally give useless content because we got a class pass, or a useless class pass because we got somewhat ok content.

[Wipey]

Divine Casters. I think they're pretty solid. With AOE stuns to set up powerful bursts, BB and piercing bolts, Evocation based AOE insta-kill spell (so you can spec all out full damage and still have effective insta-kills) and lines that play straight into Ruin... I don't think I've ever had a melee get more kills than my FvS caster (not that it's fair for a melee to challenge a caster to a kill contest when all spells hit for 4-5 figures at range making it easy to snipe).

I have had 77-78 Evo cleric. Let's see, 3 x epic wisdom, Epic evo, 3 sorc lives, active Wizzy life, 2+ 3 evo twisted, constantly chugging Yugo ( and Rage pot), every single wisdom bracket in enhancement trees and Exalted.
Wanna hit drow ( for example with Soundburst ) at level ? Oh, just get another 6 lives and twink every single thing - and you can't even kill any boss without running of sp. Gogo no spell pen Comet and get carried by friends or annoying bb kiting. Symbols ? Will based evo cc ? Forget it.

All that effort and time for 2-6 kills every minute. And it's not even working in Stormhorns or Toee. Plus all deathwarded stuff and champions.
Gogo 300 Searing light SLAs and Sun bolt every 12 seconds with 450 Light spellpower.
Super tweaked "main" and I couldn't even do some stuff like EE Ranks or WGU or even GH at level - stuff that is routine on other toons. Lol, ever tried to do Cabal EE at level with 1 shrine and 700k combined ( mini ) bosses ? Stupid easy quest.

F. That. I don't think there's anyone with evo based EE divine caster on the server anymore. It's weak.
Rant over. Howgh.

[Susquehana]

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".

What you are saying was true at one time, that time is passing us by and the more classes that get revamps without mobs getting revamps the worse it will get. You dont need a ton of knowledge to make a paladin or barbarian these days. A little time looking at the wiki and understanding the enhancements is all it takes. DDO no longer requires tough build choices, the best stuff is easy to find and easy to get. It takes no effort to get a good PRR and DPS on either class.

[General_Gronker]

In the normal D&D high level spellcasters way more powerful than melee characters.

Yes, and that was a horrible design misstep by the developers in 3E. That's why they've tried to correct it every since.

[FranOhmsford]

All that said, there are several questions to ask:
Why should casters be the strongest DPS:
- They have their spells limited by an SP pool: With the abundance of clickies and ready access to potions that you can get from drops, vendors, or off AH (there's also store, but store items should not ever count as a basis of balance for everyone)... only a newbie should ever struggle with SP. I consider this a non-barrier.

Lol - Mana Pots {Especially the viable ones} are rare enough already on the AH {never mind as actual drops!} - Just imagine if every caster in the game required them?

- They have cooldowns: With large spell collections, generally you should never find yourself sitting there without a spell to cast. Between multiple insta-kill spells, mob preps and rays/bursts, not even long-cooldown spells that palemasters face should find them twiddling their thumbs... and insta-kills

How many SP have you got?

100K?

2 Energy Drains + FoD = A lot of SP!

Spamming Fireballs, Firewalls, Clouds, Disco Balls etc. = No Caster can do this without Pots for long!

SLAs are a different story but those are still on cooldown when you've finished your rotation if you're only using them!

should have longer CDs.
- They're stronger in PnP: PnP was notoriously unbalanced. Melees were over-dependent on their gear as that almost completely dictates their power unless they start cheesing prestiges or play a Monk. Why should that be carried over?

One thing no-one ever remembers about PnP is that you can literally stop and rest after every single fight if you wish!

A good DM will throw in a few random encounters of course but taking on 200+ mobs without resting would be literally unthinkable for any Group!

Heck even the shortest DDO Quests would take everything a PnP party could throw and then some! {OK maybe not Home Sweet Sewer!}.

[Knobull]

DC casting and casting in general is dead. Gave up on it a few years back. It is clear that Turbine does not want us to play casters. So the solution is simple: don't.

[Susquehana]

DC casting and casting in general is dead. Gave up on it a few years back. It is clear that Turbine does not want us to play casters. So the solution is simple: don't.

At one point casters clearly dominated this game, now they have fallen behind. To me its a good thing that they get some time as second class.

[mobrien316]

I've never thought it a problem that some classes are more powerful than others. To me, that has always just been additional choices for people. Depending on how you play, some classes are "easy" and some are more difficult. For other people with other playstyles, they might find different classes easy and difficult.

At the moment, certain classes are certainly easier to play without multiple past lives and good gear. I don't see that as a negative - I see it as a way to get new players interested in DDO by letting them have some success. If they like the game, and they want the challenge of rolling up a dwarven sorcerer with no past lives and starter gear, they can certainly do so.