Why play a melee character at all?

[KingNite]

Unless all the mobs are helpless, melees really can't stand in there even with dedicated healing. Just to many mobs trying to kill them to not play a hit and run game. As they are pretty much limited to either be hitting or running, as opposed to ranged who can hit while running, their DPS is pretty much always spotty.

That's only on high skulls, in low-mid skulls they are perfectly fine. On high skulls everyone beats on CC'd mobs, ranged DPS too. Ranged DPS don't stand a chance on high skulls without CC either, you may be able to kite a few melee type mobs for a while if you are skilled enough but sooner or later you die. Hitting while running when all mobs can 1 shot you anytime is easier said than done. Also hitting non CC'd mobs often is kind of unwise and couterproductive in high skulls no matter what you play, since you are just making it harder for the casters to do mass CC by splitting mobs around...

[Clerize]

I have all of those but nothing of it makes the game more fun for a melee.



How many players they lost since LEgendary raids?

1) Fun is subjective. I enjoy thinking about who/how to attack. I enjoy having to pay attention to see what mob has broke CC or is no longer attacking the tank. I hate late reaper spawns that ruin those plans.

2) I really don't know. However you can't point the finger simply at the latest content. The data center move was hella lag and drove players away. My server had a hardware failure that essentially killed the guild I was in back then. The head in the sand approach to TR item loss and related bugs have drove players away. The reaper level xp limits has further segmented the player base. The stupid quest lockout when someone drops party has at the very least made me (and others) think twice before LFMing harder reaper quests. End game is pretty much dead thanks to the high reaper XP 1st time bonus + racial lives, driving even more people away that don't want to TR over and over. If I were to prioritize what needs fixing, I wouldn't start with melee reaper issues. Seriously how hard would it have been to adjust reaper XP at cap? Why are we suppose to wait till Ravenloft? How hard is it to change reaper xp scaling so that it is the same as the old EBB way? If we cant even get things that are apparently easy to fix done, I don't hold a lot of hope for a proper reaper fix.

[Clerize]

You mean when they start running circles and keeping distance to avoid being hit? That must be quite frustrating. Having to run circles or cast again is really frustrating. I'd say i'd rather get one-shotted, at least i know where i stand... in the dirt, with all the other non tanking melees.

You should've played a wizard or a ranged build, you'd crush most of the game while bingewatching netflix. And more power would be simply given to you by the devs without any need to work for it.

If its so easy, roll one up and post videos of you stomping the newer content on R7+. I'd suggest slavers. Most the encounters there are balanced well to give all play styles trouble

[KingNite]

You mean when they start running circles and keeping distance to avoid being hit? That must be quite frustrating. Having to run circles or cast again is really frustrating. I'd say i'd rather get one-shotted, at least i know where i stand... in the dirt, with all the other non tanking melees.
.

Not a single one vid of anyone completing R10 with just kitting. If that was so easy why no one has done it already? There are several vids of group completions, ther are some vids of caster shortman completions (using charms,CC and instakills), yet there is not a single vid of a r10 completion done by a ranged DPS kitting. Kitting is OP is a myth used by those stuck in low skulls who probably have no idea what high skulls looks like.

[GroundhogDay]

If its so easy, roll one up and post videos of you stomping the newer content on R7+. I'd suggest slavers. Most the encounters there are balanced well to give all play styles trouble

Not a single one vid of anyone completing R10 with just kitting. If that was so easy why no one has done it already? There are several vids of group completions, ther are some vids of caster shortman completions (using charms,CC and instakills), yet there is not a single vid of a r10 completion done by a ranged DPS kitting. Kitting is OP is a myth used by those stuck in low skulls who probably have no idea what high skulls looks like.

Because it's easier to do using a class that has power gifted to them? I mean, when was the last time a wizard has been successful without been gifted power by the devs? How many feats/races/ad personam quests have the devs pulled out of the hat to gift more and more power to an already op class? After nerfing everyone else because of (as some like to say) jealousy?


And to get back on topic, how do you think melees will fare after the sorc/wiz pass? Already there's no reason to play melees over other playstyles, do you think the next few passes will be the final nail in the castertown coffin?

Btw, you two don't need to be so defensive, i'm one of those that followed your advice. I stopped playing more than a year ago. I'm here just because my pen and paper group wanted to try the game asking me to get back, and i wanted to see how melees are doing before saying no. And i don't see them doing any good.

From the outside it looks very much like the bourgeois casters are trying to keep the smelly melee plebe down and teach them to know their place. A "eat cake" or "melees sleep downstairs" kind of situation. I can honestly say i'll tell my friends it's not the game for us and that we are not wanted here, unless we bend the knee and serve as tanky meatshield for the playing royals.

Hey, at least now you can say for sure that your responses to the tread costed ddo a returning player and two new customers, give yourself a pat in the back guys, well done.

[Baddesign]

1) Fun is subjective. I enjoy thinking about who/how to attack. I enjoy having to pay attention to see what mob has broke CC or is no longer attacking the tank. I hate late reaper spawns that ruin those plans.

2) I really don't know. However you can't point the finger simply at the latest content. The data center move was hella lag and drove players away. My server had a hardware failure that essentially killed the guild I was in back then. The head in the sand approach to TR item loss and related bugs have drove players away. The reaper level xp limits has further segmented the player base. The stupid quest lockout when someone drops party has at the very least made me (and others) think twice before LFMing harder reaper quests. End game is pretty much dead thanks to the high reaper XP 1st time bonus + racial lives, driving even more people away that don't want to TR over and over. If I were to prioritize what needs fixing, I wouldn't start with melee reaper issues. Seriously how hard would it have been to adjust reaper XP at cap? Why are we suppose to wait till Ravenloft? How hard is it to change reaper xp scaling so that it is the same as the old EBB way? If we cant even get things that are apparently easy to fix done, I don't hold a lot of hope for a proper reaper fix.

1) Yes, some ppl have fun playing tanks, others have fun playing healers, so why we have to go caster to have fun in high skulls?

Require tank and dedicated healer for raids is fine, for any quest in the game is just silly with this low population.

2) Abandom a system poorly implemented like they did with reaper is bad but they always do that.

It sucks to complain about the same thing over and over but what we can do if they keep doing the same mistakes?

[Marshal_Lannes]

No need to overdo it, but just a handful of things that mean you'll encounter something you can't readily kite a couple of times per quest and the balance is much better.

I really don't have a problem with ranged. Chai said it best somewhere in this thread. I echoed it on what I said this thread was about. I'll say it again, an average player can have the illusion of more success with a ranged character than an average player with a melee because they are not dying as much. A ranged character can plink away for 20 points of damage a hit while never really getting hit giving the illusion they are contributing while a melee gets smacked...dead...smacked...dead...smacked...dead. People get sick of raising them, complain melee suck and so on. No one likes to die that much in a quest. So no, I don't think ranged really need to even be tweaked all that much though you have some cool ideas.

What does need to be tweaked is R7+ work arounds. My suggestions on nerfing charm on those mobs (and making Reapers immune to charm at all levels) plus raising DCs or at least providing DCs that are not auto-success are spot on and would not give casters easy street. The more I think on this the more I like it. It keeps the integrity of Reaper and does not provide a bunch of power creep to melee. I am curious if the charm work around was ever even considered by Devs in play testing?

[Hugoleo]

Ironically I played with a swashbuckling rogue/fighter/bard mix recently. He does quite well in low skull reaper doing his own thing. Not that much of a party player but was effectively freezing groups of mobs and capable of surviving R3ish with a poor group playstyle.

It's this idea that the definition of grouping is "when you play alongside others in such a way that you don't get hit by monsters" that I disagree with.
"Melee is fine in groups" means that melee is fine only if all mob & reapers are perma cc'd and the bosses are chasing the ranged toons.

[Baddesign]

It's this idea that the definition of grouping is "when you play alongside others in such a way that you don't get hit by monsters" that I disagree with.
"Melee is fine in groups" means that melee is fine only if all mob & reapers are perma cc'd and the bosses are chasing the ranged toons.

Nailed it!

[KingNite]

It's this idea that the definition of grouping is "when you play alongside others in such a way that you don't get hit by monsters" that I disagree with.
"Melee is fine in groups" means that melee is fine only if all mob & reapers are perma cc'd and the bosses are chasing the ranged toons.

That's fine, but that only happens in high skulls and happens to everyone, ranged and casters also need all mobs CC'd to succed or avoid death in 1 shot. I personally find it boring for the non casters/tanks that's why I usually don't play high skulls unless I'm on my caster. So if you find high skulls unfun why do you insist on playing it or getting it dumbed down when you have a lot of other difficulty settings? Melees/ranged/casters don't need every mob CC'd in low-mid skulls, you can bruteforce it ala elite. So if that is what you like why don't you just stick with it instead of trying to change something others enjoy?

[DaviMOC]

That's fine, but that only happens in high skulls and happens to everyone, ranged and casters also need all mobs CC'd to succed or avoid death in 1 shot. I personally find it boring for the non casters/tanks that's why I usually don't play high skulls unless I'm on my caster. So if you find high skulls unfun why do you insist on playing it or getting it dumbed down when you have a lot of other difficulty settings? Melees/ranged/casters don't need every mob CC'd in low-mid skulls, you can bruteforce it ala elite. So if that is what you like why don't you just stick with it instead of trying to change something others enjoy?

You "melee is ok" and "one shot is ok" guys always miss the part of being in range is safer than being on melee range. Where avoiding that one shot in a ranged toon can be considered skill, in a melee is unavoidable. If kiting dont work, do you really think a fantasy positioning would?

Edit: Following what you said, they should change the name of reaper mode from 5 skulls or higher to ranged1, ranged 2, ranged 3....etc.

[Clerize]

It's this idea that the definition of grouping is "when you play alongside others in such a way that you don't get hit by monsters" that I disagree with.
"Melee is fine in groups" means that melee is fine only if all mob & reapers are perma cc'd and the bosses are chasing the ranged toons.

I'm in the you can play melee in high skull with balanced groups group. Mobs don't all have to be CC'd but they definitely all need to be "taken care of". ie. beating on the tank, cc'd some how, or simply by managing your line of sight with them. Not all bosses have to chase ranged toons, some can very well be face tanked at present. Others have anti melee mechanics which independent of reaper should be questioned if they are working as they should. ie. Does the boss in tavern brawl always broadcast his massive melee nuking AOE force attack? Given the current amount of lag in the game is the forewarning time long enough? etc..

Reaper is about grouping, or the devs said.

[Hugoleo]

I'm in the you can play melee in high skull with balanced groups group. Mobs don't all have to be CC'd but they definitely all need to be "taken care of". ie. beating on the tank, cc'd some how, or simply by managing your line of sight with them. Not all bosses have to chase ranged toons, some can very well be face tanked at present. Others have anti melee mechanics which independent of reaper should be questioned if they are working as they should. ie. Does the boss in tavern brawl always broadcast his massive melee nuking AOE force attack? Given the current amount of lag in the game is the forewarning time long enough? etc..

Reaper is about grouping, or the devs said.

What I am saying that grouping does not have to entail "Mobs don't all have to be CC'd but they definitely all need to be "taken care of". ie. beating on the tank, cc'd some how, or simply by managing your line of sight with them."
I think that way to enforce grouping makes melee a boring playstyle.

[Hugoleo]

That's fine, but that only happens in high skulls and happens to everyone, ranged and casters also need all mobs CC'd to succed or avoid death in 1 shot. I personally find it boring for the non casters/tanks that's why I usually don't play high skulls unless I'm on my caster. So if you find high skulls unfun why do you insist on playing it or getting it dumbed down when you have a lot of other difficulty settings? Melees/ranged/casters don't need every mob CC'd in low-mid skulls, you can bruteforce it ala elite. So if that is what you like why don't you just stick with it instead of trying to change something others enjoy?

Edit: Following what you said, they should change the name of reaper mode from 5 skulls or higher to ranged1, ranged 2, ranged 3....etc.

I could not have put it better myself.

[Chai]

It does not remain the same. Even if, in your perfect world, of balancing mob damage to ranged and casters this does nothing to deal with other issues. For example, I don't care if the mob has 5K or 50K HPs, if I DC kill the mob its dead. It is never gonna touch me. If you have to melee said mob that mob will get X amount of chances to damage the melee. If I charm the mob, I both neutralize it and turn it into X more DPS as it fights other mobs. Again, no amount of mob damage increase addresses this. And what addresses modern quest design of hordes of mobs coming at you? If I have CC I get a chance to deal with them. Melee are overwhelmed with only Dire Charge available to them and this is relevant is only a very small % of Reaper content since most characters running reaper don't have Dire Charge yet!

So no, I fail to see how some tweaks to AI making Ranged/Caster more prone to a Storm the Beaches type of ranged ballista attack (which also could be thrown at a melee presumably) really addresses anything.

The point remains the same.

For the would be rules lawyers:
The balista is an outlier, and the exception does not cancel the rule here. Im positive you understand what I am referring to when I say "mob ranged DPS" and that doesnt include a balista in one quest in the entire game which can one shot kill. It includes all archers in the game however, which do far less damage than their melee counterparts.

Heres where your claim falls apart. Mobs arent standing alone in DDO. Current quest design has 6-8 mobs standing together. If you insta-kill that mob, the others will all fire a shot before you get some cover. Those shots will hurt alot more if the damage is on par with what mob melee attacks do. If you turn the corner and use mass charm, and land the charm on half of the mobs, a few of the un-charmed mobs will attack you right before their charmed friends start attacking them, those shots hurt alot more if the ranged damage is on par with what mob melee attacks do. Parity between mob melee DPS and mob ranged DPS is the answer here.

The effort some put into shouting down any idea which brings parity to mob melee DPS and mob ranged DPS exposes the agenda, and regardless of what terms that agenda is being couched in this week, it becomes completely and immediately transparent nonetheless. The more people argue against this, the more the rest of us understand how ranged and caster players do not want to lose their easy buttons provided to them due to mob ranged damage being ~1/3 what mob melee damage is.

[Clerize]

1) Yes, some ppl have fun playing tanks, others have fun playing healers, so why we have to go caster to have fun in high skulls?

Require tank and dedicated healer for raids is fine, for any quest in the game is just silly with this low population.

2) Abandom a system poorly implemented like they did with reaper is bad but they always do that.

It sucks to complain about the same thing over and over but what we can do if they keep doing the same mistakes?

1) Cuz if someone didn't play a caster/tank to control the agro we can all simply go back to face stomping LE/EE with whatever junk party composition the LFM gives us.

Low skull can be played w/o a tank/healer. Everyone carries cocoon right? Heal each other. Yeah I've been in pugs where no one heals you. I've been in full parties of UMD capable toons where no one uses a heal scroll on anyone else. Why blame the mechanic when people refuse to adapt to a difficulty which is optional? I think anything over R5ish forces the party to play optimally together and that's not a bad thing.

2) Given they can't even be bother to get the LFM panel to populate properly w/o first going to the who page, do you really think there's enough resources to revisit reaper and fix its core problems? I don't.

[KingNite]

You "melee is ok" and "one shot is ok" guys always miss the part of being in range is safer than being on melee range. Where avoiding that one shot in a ranged toon can be considered skill, in a melee is unavoidable. If kiting dont work, do you really think a fantasy positioning would?

Edit: Following what you said, they should change the name of reaper mode from 5 skulls or higher to ranged1, ranged 2, ranged 3....etc.

No, I'm well aware of that. As well as I'm aware that melees have higher mitigation, HP, CC and DPS than ranged dps toons to compensate for the lack of range, which often people crying about melee coveniently forget.

Following what I said 6 skulls and higher should be named group mode. You may find the mechanics fun or not that's subjective, but you need a compensate party. Being ranged DPS doesn't mean auto-completion as a lot of people here try to make it sound, it just means you trade DPS, CC and damage mitigation for some safety.

[phillymiket]

I'm in the you can play melee in high skull with balanced groups group. Mobs don't all have to be CC'd but they definitely all need to be "taken care of". ie. beating on the tank, cc'd some how, or simply by managing your line of sight with them. Not all bosses have to chase ranged toons, some can very well be face tanked at present. Others have anti melee mechanics which independent of reaper should be questioned if they are working as they should. ie. Does the boss in tavern brawl always broadcast his massive melee nuking AOE force attack? Given the current amount of lag in the game is the forewarning time long enough? etc..

Reaper is about grouping, or the devs said.

This is a reasonable position.
High skulls should be a tough nut to crack and should require an ideal party and tactics.

Part of the issue is that the problems of melee translate to lower skulls as well and groups that aren't ideal punish melee in a way that they don't punish range and casters making it so that you only need an ideal party on a melee while you can still blast away on an arcane and range.

Also those comparing the current high skull playstyle to the time when Epics had instakill nerfed and CC became the go-to style are making a good point when they note that we all became bored of that pretty fast and it had to be changed.

Also also you can make an argument that the proof is in the pudding; the number of people using range and arcane vs melee demonstrates that things are probably out of wack.

[Hugoleo]

No, I'm well aware of that. As well as I'm aware that melees have higher mitigation, HP, CC and DPS than ranged dps toons to compensate for the lack of range, which often people crying about melee coveniently forget.

Being melee does not automatically give you any of those things. Melees tend to have more HP and mitigation only due to build choices that could also be made on ranged characters. And I see that you are back to pretenting taht repeaters doesn't exist, burst DPS doesn't matter and casters are not ranged.
That you have to make all these assumption reveals how weak your position is.

[GroundhogDay]

You "melee is ok" and "one shot is ok" guys always miss the part of being in range is safer than being on melee range. Where avoiding that one shot in a ranged toon can be considered skill, in a melee is unavoidable. If kiting dont work, do you really think a fantasy positioning would?

Edit: Following what you said, they should change the name of reaper mode from 5 skulls or higher to ranged1, ranged 2, ranged 3....etc.

You don't understand, he's not here to discuss improvements on melees, he's here to keep the status quo as it is. He doesn't care about other people as long as his caster crushes every quest with minimal effort.

I believe those in this tread opposing a fix to melees are scared the pendulum will swing back hard, forcing them to actually earn any meaningful victory.