Petition to Devs, rebalancing melee nerfs

[Donny_b]

It seems every update, melee characters in some way, shape or form are nerfed, while casters bask in the glory. Especially so with the nerf to improved critical, which lessened DPS outputs considerably.

So, I offer this idea for more balance, and fair gameplay.

1. Induce synergy with epic destinies and heroic enhancements by changing crit profile modifiers to exceptional bonuses with epic destinies. Divine crusader and legendary dreadnaught have gray areas for every melee class that has critical profile enhancements.

2. Introduce new, hard to obtain gear that modifies crit profiles with insightful bonus (or quality, or both - to compliment swashbucklers exploit weakness). Nothing too drastic, I think an additional +1 range or multiplier is plenty fair, and would entice more players to choose melee, instead of the insanely overpowered warlock who can wipe mobs on EE with one or two eldritch blast without touching Spell points. Perhaps this might lead to some over empowerment - maybe something to consider for next level cap increase

Or

3. Change Kensei's core 3 "Strike with no thought" crit multiplier with it's tier 5 "keen edge" crit range modifier. Allow both to stack with all other melee class crit profile enhancements. After all, the fighter -- as a classic - should be respectable in it's dps output and should compliment all melee archtypes (most classes crit profile modifiers are tier 5, so this would lock out at least overly extesive multipliers -i.e khopesh will be limited to x5 multi, 15-20 in a scenario such as kensei paladin + imp. Crit feat (would also be complimentary towards paladin's lack of do at this level - but honestly, we know paladin's do best pure vanguard so this mix will be a bit more unique). All other builds x4 multi, 16-20 ceit range at most with a khopesh. Similar profiles and mechanics on all other weapon types.


I'm not meaning for all of these to take affect together. Just separate idea bulletins to make melee more viable without gross over empowerment for particular archtypes

Just a few ideas, feel free to pitch in.

Sorry if this is in the wrong area. I'm new to the forums (but a veteran of the game at 8 years)

[Avocado]

It seems every update, melee characters in some way, shape or form are nerfed, while casters bask in the glory. Especially so with the nerf to improved critical, which lessened DPS outputs considerably.

So, I offer this idea for more balance, and fair gameplay.

1. Induce synergy with epic destinies and heroic enhancements by changing crit profile modifiers to exceptional bonuses with epic destinies. Divine crusader and legendary dreadnaught have gray areas for every melee class that has critical profile enhancements.

2. Introduce new, hard to obtain gear that modifies crit profiles with insightful bonus (or quality, or both - to compliment swashbucklers exploit weakness). Nothing too drastic, I think an additional +1 range or multiplier is plenty fair, and would entice more players to choose melee, instead of the insanely overpowered warlock who can wipe mobs on EE with one or two eldritch blast without touching Spell points. Perhaps this might lead to some over empowerment - maybe something to consider for next level cap increase

Or

3. Change Kensei's core 3 "Strike with no thought" crit multiplier with it's tier 5 "keen edge" crit range modifier. Allow both to stack with all other melee class crit profile enhancements. After all, the fighter -- as a classic - should be respectable in it's dps output and should compliment all melee archtypes (most classes crit profile modifiers are tier 5, so this would lock out at least overly extesive multipliers -i.e khopesh will be limited to x5 multi, 15-20 in a scenario such as kensei paladin + imp. Crit feat (would also be complimentary towards paladin's lack of do at this level - but honestly, we know paladin's do best pure vanguard so this mix will be a bit more unique). All other builds x4 multi, 16-20 ceit range at most with a khopesh. Similar profiles and mechanics on all other weapon types.


I'm not meaning for all of these to take affect together. Just separate idea bulletins to make melee more viable without gross over empowerment for particular archtypes

Just a few ideas, feel free to pitch in.

Sorry if this is in the wrong area. I'm new to the forums (but a veteran of the game at 8 years)

EDs already have stacking crit ranges. LD pulverizer stacks with most other things. Divine crusader gives +1 something bonus that stacks with everything.

Melee decline has nothing to do with not enough dps. It has more to do with that range classes (mostly the broken to all heck throwers) can do more damage and be more survivable.

They need to add more stunning abilites for melee and lower the cooldown of stunning blow. They need to somehow fix range damage by speeding up mobs and by fixing god throwers (i.e. slayer arrow not working with shurikens).

[AzureDragonas]

How about learning to play melee?

[Wizza]

How about learning to play melee?

How about you stop being disrespectful and rude to everyone?

[meleehater]

Melees deal more than enough damage.

They need a way to survive, doesnt matters if you do a million damage per hit if you need to get close to the mobs that hit you for a million damage too.

Today the only way to avoid damage while doing damage is run backwards jumping.

[AzureDragonas]

How about you stop being disrespectful and rude to everyone?

When someone makes a claim that non-melee does more damage than melee and solution is to buff melee, there is no other way to respond as saying that person don't know how to play melee. If he don't understand that issue is not that melee don't do damage (he does and does a lot) but issue where casters and ranged can kite while doing damage (and yes they do less) thus surviving longer and easier than melee logical conclusion would be:

#either buff melee survivability not damage
#or reduce ranged/casters survivability or damage

for a simple reason, even if you did twice as much damage as you do now, if mobs kills you too fast, next month there will be another thread with new suggestions how to "balance" melees with new "flawless logic" instead of fixing issues on your end why you die so fast. Unless you actually don't agree that by this stage of game where any class can have thousands HP, hundreds AC, multiple sources of miss chance and cc abilities, and can heal fully in non reaper with simple clickies like coccon there are still issues with melee damage but not how some ppl play them instead.

[Donny_b]

How about learning to play melee?

"Learn to play melee"

Pfft. As if melee nerfs are my fault.

1. I have one of the top tier melee dps on Orien server.

2. Each build I do has stun maintenance, my vanguard fighter DC has been all the way up to 115 for dire charge and 135 for stunning shield.

3. Crit profiles are never less than 16-18x4 19-20x6 (which I believe is the max on non-swashbuckler builds)

Do you have a fighter who bases more than 200-250 a swing not running blitz?

My survivability is plenty fair. If it weren't, this post would be about that. But when I log on, and my DPS is 15% lower than what it was prior to improved critical nerf, that tends to affect my reaper and ee runs

Yeah, no. You're being a pompous di** and utilizing a strawman based on a post I made to offer ideas to rebalance melee nerfs.

Either you've never ran a melee, or you've never ran a caster. Their dps is definitely NOT similar. Don't be such a gimp.

Better yet, how about YOU offer some enlightening ideas to rebalance classes, instead of tearing into a guy who you've NEVER witnessed a run with?

[meleehater]

They are never going to fix melees with this game we have now.

SSG have no clue about how the game works, people here come with fake tests and wrong calculations to hide broken features and keep their op builds.

SSG don't know how to test their own game properly.

Their devs don't play the game.

When someone offer help or come with real numbers they ban the person.

They don't want to improve the game, they just care about the money. I know it is a business bla bla bla...

But if they really care about it, they should understand and fix instead to add broken systems to take people money.

[FlameDiablo]

I don't play melee since 2012 and probably will never play anymore, so i don't care so much, but i noticed that:

- WL can tank better than melee and CC too
- Shoters can DPS better than melee

So... what are melee for? Probably some kind of balance is needed.

[meleehater]

To fix the game they should set a maximum damage per level then balance all difficulties around it considering solo play or group size.

Increase damage as the number of people in group and quest level and difficulty.

Making all classes/buids viable creating a balance between offense, defense and survivability/support.

Since we can multclass they should pay attention to not let people create unbalanced/broken builds and fix them asap.

But this is never going to happen because it is too much trouble and bring no incoming of money.

An easier way to start is hard cap damage, this way they stop power creep and take control over the game again.

The creating of champs to try fix the power creep is absurd. In the same quest, a mob can hit you for 20 damage while the same mob champ hits you for 200.

Champs should have buffs not damage increase, thats why people care more about champs and reapers than bosses.

Those broken mechanics implemented, op builds ignored for years without a fix, power creep are the reason for the game be dead.

Nefing to fix broken builds usually hurts more the person not playing broken builds, making more and mroe leave the game.

They need to take control over the game again instead to make all mobs hit you for twice the max hp that even a tank can get.

[SerPounce]

Melees haven't been a contender in the high end meta since spell pass in iirc update 7 that introduced Dots and they took away the original epic ward that prevented instakills. That was like 7 years ago. I have a hard time seeing that change now.

It's was really destined from when they made the basic combat and physics. Damage mitigation through jumping around is so effective that to balance melee and caster/ranged you have to effectively eliminated either boss or trash killing capacity from casters/ranged.

Melee works fine in the day-to-day grindy stuff that most people only do anyway. I think it just is what it is at this point, if you want to play one of the most effective toons for high skull reaper stuff then pick something other than melee.

[Wizza]

When someone makes a claim that non-melee does more damage than melee and solution is to buff melee, there is no other way to respond as saying that person don't know how to play melee. If he don't understand that issue is not that melee don't do damage (he does and does a lot) but issue where casters and ranged can kite while doing damage (and yes they do less) thus surviving longer and easier than melee logical conclusion would be:

#either buff melee survivability not damage
#or reduce ranged/casters survivability or damage

for a simple reason, even if you did twice as much damage as you do now, if mobs kills you too fast, next month there will be another thread with new suggestions how to "balance" melees with new "flawless logic" instead of fixing issues on your end why you die so fast. Unless you actually don't agree that by this stage of game where any class can have thousands HP, hundreds AC, multiple sources of miss chance and cc abilities, and can heal fully in non reaper with simple clickies like coccon there are still issues with melee damage but not how some ppl play them instead.

You could have simply replied with this in the first place.

[meleehater]

Melees haven't been a contender in the high end meta since spell pass in iirc update 7 that introduced Dots and they took away the original epic ward that prevented instakills. That was like 7 years ago. I have a hard time seeing that change now.

It's was really destined from when they made the basic combat and physics. Damage mitigation through jumping around is so effective that to balance melee and caster/ranged you have to effectively eliminated either boss or trash killing capacity from casters/ranged.

Melee works fine in the day-to-day grindy stuff that most people only do anyway. I think it just is what it is at this point, if you want to play one of the most effective toons for high skull reaper stuff then pick something other than melee.

You actually can play a melee in r10 and they even can do more damage then others.

But you need cc and sometimes tank and healer usually for boss figths.

The problem is you are there just to hold atack button and die if a mob save the cc.

One shot mechanics are absurd and kill the fun completely.

In a boss fight when you can avoid it ok, just see the lord of blades boss fight.

That was fun, hard and required teamplay.

Thats why i started to play this game, that is the closest we can get from D&D.

20mins fighting a bag of hp or take 30k damage with no way to avoid it is stupid. It is not D&D.

Stupid mechanics introduced and broken builds like shiradi and furyshotters moved the game to what it is today.

[chipotle47]

- WL can tank better than melee and CC too

I don't know what difficulty you are playing but I would need a video of this to believe it on R5+. 4K+ hp sword and board intim tanks are very reliable, possibly necessary to complete R5+. Warlocks get annihilated. Warlocks are great for tearing through past lives on EE and R1-3 and a very well built one can CC with support dps in R5+ but that's it.

[meleehater]

I don't know what difficulty you are playing but I would need a video of this to believe it on R5+. 4K+ hp sword and board intim tanks are very reliable, possibly necessary to complete R5+. Warlocks get annihilated. Warlocks are great for tearing through past lives on EE and R1-3 and a very well built one can CC with support dps in R5+ but that's it.

If you focus in cc/instakills warlocks can be great in higher skulls.

A guild used to kick *ss in r10 with his warlock.

[Qezuzu]

Oh boy it's this thread again.

Today the only way to avoid damage while doing damage is run backwards jumping.

Either you've never ran a melee, or you've never ran a caster. Their dps is definitely NOT similar. Don't be such a gimp.

They need to take control over the game again instead to make all mobs hit you for twice the max hp that even a tank can get.

Melees haven't been a contender in the high end meta since spell pass in iirc update 7 that introduced Dots and they took away the original epic ward that prevented instakills. That was like 7 years ago.

- WL can tank better than melee
- Shoters can DPS better than melee

I just want to be clear that we're talking about Dungeons and Dragons Online, not some other game, correct? Cause all of this is wrong. Like, really, painfully wrong.

Melee have have best damage. Ranged characters don't, casters certainly don't, and iirc melee has a less harsh damage debuff in reaper.
The tankiest tanks are all S+B melees. Warlocks are not tanky, they just don't die in few hits cause of the temp HP (which is something that should be changed tbh) and because they kite+cc. They have no ability to actually tank in a useful way unless they're really built for it (which sacrifices their CC and damage.)
Kiting is not the only way to avoid damage.

I see melees perform well in high skull reaper routinely. No they're not as easy to use as a kiter, this doesn't mean they're worse off.

[Chai]

I just want to be clear that we're talking about Dungeons and Dragons Online, not some other game, correct? Cause all of this is wrong. Like, really, painfully wrong.

Melee have have best damage. Ranged characters don't, casters certainly don't, and iirc melee has a less harsh damage debuff in reaper.
The tankiest tanks are all S+B melees. Warlocks are not tanky, they just don't die in few hits cause of the temp HP (which is something that should be changed tbh) and because they kite+cc. They have no ability to actually tank in a useful way unless they're really built for it (which sacrifices their CC and damage.)
Kiting is not the only way to avoid damage.

I see melees perform well in high skull reaper routinely. No they're not as easy to use as a kiter, this doesn't mean they're worse off.

Melee have best single target nailed to the floor in a vacuum with all boosts running damage.

Best AOE damage in this game isnt on a melee platform.

If melee need a "buff" anywhere its survivability. How to do that without also buffing everyone else, and making the easy buttons even easier buttons, is the real question.

[meleehater]

Melee have best single target nailed to the floor in a vacuum with all boosts running damage.

Best AOE damage in this game isnt on a melee platform.

If melee need a "buff" anywhere its survivability. How to do that without also buffing everyone else, and making the easy buttons even easier buttons, is the real question.

I can't believe i am going to say this but Chai is right.

Maybe melees have best damage in reaper while all buffed, blitzing and fighting cc'ed mobs.

Dodge, displacement, ghostly, prr, hp even with all this maxed lots of mobs can 1 shot you in reaper.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

It seems every update, melee characters in some way, shape or form are nerfed, while casters bask in the glory. Especially so with the nerf to improved critical, which lessened DPS outputs considerably.

So, I offer this idea for more balance, and fair gameplay.

1. Induce synergy with epic destinies and heroic enhancements by changing crit profile modifiers to exceptional bonuses with epic destinies. Divine crusader and legendary dreadnaught have gray areas for every melee class that has critical profile enhancements.

2. Introduce new, hard to obtain gear that modifies crit profiles with insightful bonus (or quality, or both - to compliment swashbucklers exploit weakness). Nothing too drastic, I think an additional +1 range or multiplier is plenty fair, and would entice more players to choose melee, instead of the insanely overpowered warlock who can wipe mobs on EE with one or two eldritch blast without touching Spell points. Perhaps this might lead to some over empowerment - maybe something to consider for next level cap increase

Or

3. Change Kensei's core 3 "Strike with no thought" crit multiplier with it's tier 5 "keen edge" crit range modifier. Allow both to stack with all other melee class crit profile enhancements. After all, the fighter -- as a classic - should be respectable in it's dps output and should compliment all melee archtypes (most classes crit profile modifiers are tier 5, so this would lock out at least overly extesive multipliers -i.e khopesh will be limited to x5 multi, 15-20 in a scenario such as kensei paladin + imp. Crit feat (would also be complimentary towards paladin's lack of do at this level - but honestly, we know paladin's do best pure vanguard so this mix will be a bit more unique). All other builds x4 multi, 16-20 ceit range at most with a khopesh. Similar profiles and mechanics on all other weapon types.


I'm not meaning for all of these to take affect together. Just separate idea bulletins to make melee more viable without gross over empowerment for particular archtypes

Just a few ideas, feel free to pitch in.

Sorry if this is in the wrong area. I'm new to the forums (but a veteran of the game at 8 years)

i am actively against all of this.

dps is not melees problem. survivability is not melees problem. before reaper they had both in spades in were stupidly strong relative to content. personally, i think that primary melee classes should be very strong in both offense and defense, but limited in utility. despite the crit nerf and the increased threat of being in melee range with reaper, melees achieve both of those goals (well, the defense on r10 is kind of a problem but...). all of the issues affecting melee at present are entirely external.

think melee dps isnt enough to justify actually being in melee range? ok, lets say thats a fair assessment for the sake of argument. but think, why is it a fair assessment? because melee dps isnt effective against the content we have? hmmm no...it is. its a fair assessment because ranged dps is massively out of control (nothing new here) and doesnt have any opportunity cost; not range/proximity to incoming damage, not resource usage, and not even the oft suggested mobility. the only reason melee dps is considered lack luster from a purely offensive perspective is because of the burst dps ranged builds are capable of, which from a game balance perspective they should not be. presently ranged builds are at the top end of what the game allows for in offense, defense, and mobility. obviously from an objective perspective that isnt balanced or desirable in a cooperative game. if you consider back in the day ranged dps was not really competitive with melee, but it was safe. personally i think in this day and age the best way to develop ranged dps into a balanced and unique style of game play would be to kill their dps while moving. melee can dps while moving, but are penalized with short range. caster can dps while moving, but have to actively cast individual spells with cool downs and sp costs. to differentiate ranged dps, leaving their dps the same but nerfing it so they cant be mobile would make them powerful ranged dps with the safety of ranged dps but with a small level of risk added, increasing their need for cc and making them unable to be the all purpose best at everything tools that they are currently. specifics on how to deal with ranged dps aside, the point here is that melee dps itself is not the problem, and doesnt need a buff. moreover i think that focusing too heavily on crits was a bad thing and has introduced an unfortunate mindset into the developers and community that pervades the game to this day (just look at the ****ing arti buffs). you want to make that worse?

How about you stop being disrespectful and rude to everyone?

well i guess we know how long it takes for you to feel you can go from doing the same to telling others to adjust their attitudes. aka too soon. lol.

[chipotle47]

If you focus in cc/instakills warlocks can be great in higher skulls.

A guild used to kick *ss in r10 with his warlock.

My guildee can kick butt in R10 too with his warlock. His instakills and CC are fabulous. My post had to do with tanking.