Game Adjustments to help Melee

**JOTMON** · 05-04-2018, 02:17 PM

Some thoughts on DDO improvements to help usefulness and survivability for Melee's
we need something beyond moar HP and spam hjeals..

Fighter
Add SLA tactics on different cooldowns from regular tactics.
Add/Improve PRR/MRR to defensive Trees Core 5/6 ( its still better to build a bastardized multi class tank to benefit from multiple enhancement trees than to progress to higher tiers within a class)

Paladin
Add SLA tactics on different cooldowns from regular tactics with option to use CHA modifier instead of STR modifier..
..(cha to damage becomes a trap for Paladins since tactics are based on STR use Dire charge as an example where highest stat modifier is used)
Add/Improve PRR/MRR to defensive Trees Core 5/6 ( its still better to build a bastardized multi class tank to benefit from multiple enhancement trees than to progress to higher tiers within a class)
Paladin aura adds DR good to party melee weapons while within aura..

Barbarian
Add SLA tactics on different cooldowns from regular tactics.

Other Melee..
Add SLA tactics on different cooldowns from regular tactics.

Epic Feat
Mass tactics.. allows tactics to be applied on a mass scale similar to Dire Charge.. ( has a -x DC vs singular use or perhaps uses 2 tactics charges)

Tactics for Bosses
Allow Tactics to apply debuffs to bosses(and other immune mobs and reapers).. Trip could enact a slow effect... etc..
Crit Intimidate adds a shaken effect..

Reaper Trees.

Dread Adversary
Change the HP per point spent to 1/2d(class).. wizard would get 2hp/point.. Barbarian would get 6HP/point spent
Change all the cores Reaper's Offense +1 to damage to +1W damage
Combine the Reaper Blade (+1/2/3 Melee Power) and Reaper Shot(+1/2/3 Ranged Power) making it +1/2/3 to hit and damage with all weapons.
Move the Dodge path from Grim Barricade and put it in Dread Adversary.
T5 Reaper's Tactics add a regen timer recharge action boosts.

Grim Barricade
Change the HP per point spent to 1d(class)..
instead of the static 8HP per point players would get 1d(class)/ point spent.. Wizard would get 4HP/point.. Barbarian would get 12HP/point. (helps meatsack HP classes without overly benefitting non-melees)
Add PRR&MRR path for armor and shields(in place of the dodge line) +1/2/3 for light/medium/heavy armor and +1/2/3 for small/Large/Tower Shields

Spells..
DDO is lacking many debuff based spells that would help a party better manage endfights.
Modify existing/add spells that apply useful debuffs to Bosses.. the whole boss is basically immune to everything removes support toon usefulness or any reason to vary the spell list..
There is a whole bank of DC based Illusion spells missing from DDO that could help a a party.

Wizards no longer bother to swap out spells in preparation for a boss fight at a shrine like they used to..
back in the day waves of fatigue applied to bosses would greatly slow them down (good old DQ).. instead of adjusting it was fully nerfed to death.
Hamstring would slow boss attack and movement speed .. now worthless.
Stat damage/Slow/poison/shaken/blindness/deafening/limb chopper/..etc... pointless on Reds along with many oranges/champs....

**changelingamuck** · 05-04-2018, 03:17 PM

Fix the Whirlwind Attack feat so that it works properly with weapons other than handwraps.

**Captain_Wizbang** · 05-04-2018, 03:19 PM

They should redo most of the T5 in Kensai, Vanguard, SD, KotC,

Get rid of senseless pre-req's like combat expertise, and int for tempest whirlwind.

Start auto-granting things that are actually useful. Like built-in tactical training & expertise. We should not have to spend points on something thats a "core ability"

We could go on and on, but why bother? Melee's are secondary to everyone's pal the warlock (and for a short time druid & arti)

**Kaboom2112** · 05-04-2018, 03:31 PM

Remove the self healing penalty from Reaper.

**noobodyfool** · 05-05-2018, 05:22 AM

There is more than enough Lore and History to support the changes suggested by my Brothers in Arms

The Melee Militia

Fighters: Capable of Mastering any Martial Combat Style.

Every fighter can swing an axe, fence with a rapier, wield a longsword or a greatsword, use a bow.

Beyond that basic degree of familiarity, each fighter specializes in a certain style of combat.

Some on fighting with two weapons at once, some concentrate on archery and some adept with shields and every form of armor.

This combination of broad general ability and extensive specialization

MAKES FIGHTER SUPERIOR COMBATANTS ON BATTLEFIELDS AND DUNGEONS ALIKE

Barbarian: Defined by their Rage.

Anger with the ferocity of a cornered predator, the unrelenting assault of the Barbarian is truly amazing to behold!

Drawing from a roiling reservoir of anger every barbarians rage fuels there UNMATCHED FEATS OF STRENGTH AND POWER.

With there uncanny reflexes, resilience, and Indomitable Battle Frenzy Crushing all that find them selves in the wake of there RAGE

Paladin: The Cause of Righteousness and Divine Radiance Shines From Within

Whatever the origin of their divinity, paladins are united by their oath to stand against the forces of evil.

Clad in plate armor that gleams in the sunlight Paladins train for years mastering a variety of weapons and armor.

Even so, their martial skills are secondary to the magical power to Utterly Destroy the wicked with power smites and divine radiance

PROTECTORS OF THE INNOCENT IN THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

Are there others that will join this fight?

We shall see

**Hawkwier** · 05-05-2018, 06:17 AM

...When in death frenzy, the duration of improved uncanny dodge is doubled to 1 minute.

Would help avoiding getting 1-shotted in high reaper, without removing the risk, or interim cool-down period, entirely. Also means taking enough (18) levels in barb and spending AP in FB for death frenzy, and getting base dodge high enough to make iud as effective as possible...

**lyrecono** · 05-05-2018, 08:14 AM

Barb.
Add 3 points of prr and mrr instead of +1 dr/-, 7 times, once for ech point of dr
Replace occult slayer with runescared, a divine class just got a rage tree, now give the rage class a divine(paladin of nature) tyle of tree.
Allow for more bab to be used for power attack. Just like p&p

Create a line of feats that improves the barb rage, just. Like the fighter armor and tactics line. Barb levels required ofc.

Add epic rage feats, 18 or 20 barb levels required, something that ards raw damage, str and con whille raged?

Fix the issues with double strike, thf glancing blows and cleaves.

And as a general improvement to the game, remove reaper trees, people claimed they wanted a challange, not another grind and veiled attempt to fill the coffers of the ddo store.
They won' t reset their trees for a challange the same way they didn't play first life toons for a challange.
The trees make thins to easy for vets, a couple of moths/ years from now the whinning will start all over again and the ones suffering are those that don't exessively grind. Widdening the gap between players will hurt your bottom line in the long run.
This will also prevent the ballance issues. Currently the difficulty of the quests at a given level varies widely.
All this constant reballancing is a huge waste of time with large scale impact on the game, something that could have been prevented with a propper road map. Instead we got artificial spikes in dificulty to sell more ddo store stuff.

**blerkington** · 05-05-2018, 09:00 AM

Almost all of the difficulties melees face in reaper go away if the group also has decent crowd control and/or a tank. If you have one or both of those things, you're usually good from when you step in the door until you get to the boss. So maybe rather than us asking for the class power arms race to continue, we could just accept running in groups that cover the main tasks is the way harder content is meant to be played.

My issue with playing a melee in difficult content is mainly with boss fights. Often their attacks aren't clearly telegraphed and/or don't allow time to respond, and it's not clear exactly how large the area of effect is either. This isn't really a problem on lower skull settings. But for longer fights when dodge clickies and temp hp wear out, and the boss is capable of delivering one shot attacks on every swing even to decently built and geared melees, it is.

What might also be interesting is if the aggro control abilities tanks have could modify the way bosses attacked the party, forcing the boss to use single target attacks rather than cleaves. That would provide a great incentive to use a tank in harder content and also help the melees that group with them.

Thanks.

**Sebastrd** · 05-05-2018, 09:16 AM

Originally Posted by JOTMON

Stuff...

While I might quibble over some of the details, that's a good start. How are you supposed to have front-line melee, if they can't survive on the front line?

**Jetrule** · 05-05-2018, 09:17 AM

Lower the penalty of to hit while moving. Sure spring attack fixes it but most builds dont have the feats. Some penalty is fine but currently in the way to hit works on high end content moving means few hits and crits against many foes.

Put the vanguard capstone stunning back to what it was and ad +4 str and 10 mp. That vanguard nerf/fix was outrageous. There is no point in playing a pure pali now for sure.

Ad some more melee power to barb tree capstones and lvl 18 cores. 5-20 more total per tree.

Let sneaks Hide from things without instant spot and all monsters aggroing on them, especially assassins.

Boost glancing blow damage with thwf by 5-10-15. Boost shield mastery by adding threat/hate 10-20% and prr mrr by 5-10. Swf and twf are pretty good dps but a threat reduction of 5-10-15% would be nice.

**noobodyfool** · 05-05-2018, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by blerkington

Almost all of the difficulties melees face in reaper go away if the group also has decent crowd control and/or a tank. If you have one or both of those things, you're usually good from when you step in the door until you get to the boss. So maybe rather than us asking for the class power arms race to continue, we could just accept running in groups that cover the main tasks is the way harder content is meant to be played.

My issue with playing a melee in difficult content is mainly with boss fights. Often their attacks aren't clearly telegraphed and/or don't allow time to respond, and it's not clear exactly how large the area of effect is either. This isn't really a problem on lower skull settings. But for longer fights when dodge clickies and temp hp wear out, and the boss is capable of delivering one shot attacks on every swing even to decently built and geared melees, it is.

What might also be interesting is if the aggro control abilities tanks have could modify the way bosses attacked the party, forcing the boss to use single target attacks rather than cleaves. That would provide a great incentive to use a tank in harder content and also help the melees that group with them.

Thanks.

OK lets take this point by point

1. Almost all of the difficulties melees face in reaper go away if the group also has decent crowd control and/or a tank.

Just so i understand this means melee is to be played in a party with ccs and or a tank or face the difficulties that 1/2 the other classes dont sounds fair
especially in light of the fact that R1-2 is the new normal, R2-4=the new hard, R3-5=the new elite so maybe just log out if you cant find a group?

2. So maybe rather than us asking for the class power arms race to continue?

Can we stop the arms race when the playing field is level?
Perhaps this means you will have to farm more gear so that you can stay META?
I'm not trying to be ugly here but I can't find a rational reason for your point.

3.accept running in groups that cover the main tasks is the way harder content is meant to be played?

Unless the way the game is meant to be played by only a select few classes/players? Again lets get back to the fact the the lfm are r1 and above in 90% of LFMs as well as guild runs the only exception to this is raid where I see 50% Elite and above.

4. But for longer fights when dodge clickies and temp hp wear out,?

Ok so everyone has dodge clickies? and everyone should be playing warlock or have legendary affirmation sorry but this too is ridiculous.

5.forcing the boss to use single target attacks rather than cleaves.

And here I would have thought you dint want to play with the nerf ball cause it was too soft?

6. That would provide a great incentive to use a tank in harder content and also help the melees that group with them.

I don't know how big your guild is or how active but have you tried leveling up a tank with no dps to 30 sure it can be done event solo but takes time. Then there is a shortage of tanks and it's not a favorite of the community to play them so I guess we wait once again for a group where every need is filled. Or maybe we just don't play melee tanks which i have a sneaky suspicion you don't?

So basically you appear one sided maybe try to consider other variable and you might see things in a different light try stepping back to see the whole picture

**the_one_dwarfforged** · 05-05-2018, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by JOTMON

-classes

Epic Feat
Mass tactics.. allows tactics to be applied on a mass scale similar to Dire Charge.. ( has a -x DC vs singular use or perhaps uses 2 tactics charges)

Tactics for Bosses
Allow Tactics to apply debuffs to bosses(and other immune mobs and reapers).. Trip could enact a slow effect... etc..
Crit Intimidate adds a shaken effect..

Reaper Trees.

I don't really agree with your suggestions for melees overall. Personally I think the ability/gameplay (outside of the very fundamental mechanics of moving and fighting in DDO, which the basis of why melee is fun) aspect of how melee characters deal DPS needs to be entirely rethought and anything less will simply be a temporary band aid fix that ultimately does not help the game, if not make it worse. I do agree that the tank trees need to be more compelling for actual tank characters, rather than just being highly valuable filler points for some DPS builds to become offtanks; I do think that non tank specialized fighters, barbarians, and paladins should be offtanks somewhat inherently though.

I think just adding a bunch of "tactics" abilities to different classes is not a good idea. While I think every melee class should have an array of useful active abilities that help define the class and the gameplay, I don't think barbs should be anywhere close to fighters in regards to abilities that inherently have synergy with each other and both deal damage and apply crowd control or debuffs or otherwise enable the fighter that uses those abilities. This is because I think the flavor of each class should be greater than simply the party icon next to your HP. I'm all for barbs getting multiple high damage clickies with unique animations and possibly being able to apply debuffs that enable other classes to follow up, because I feel that fits their flavor and would not be a repeat of another classes potential playstyle entirely.

I don't really agree with making a new feat, which would essentially be mandatory, that just multiplies the number of targets hit by other cc abilities. It just seems lazy, and very binary. Honestly something I wouldn't be surprised to see come from Turbine/SSG devs. I don't think simply having all of your CC abilities being the same is a good thing because it just reduces the complexity of the game. Alternatives to dire charge or changes to it I would fully support, depending on the quality of those ideas. Personally I think dire charge should be a heroic feat and its DC should be reduced so it is not superior in literally every aspect to stunning blow (because dire charge is AoE and stunning blow is singe target), for starters.

I have long been a proponent of removing the senseless and fun killing blanket of immunities that rednames have to everything other than DPS. Bosses with high but reachable DCs allowing for multiple methods of defeating them would be fun, what we have now is not fun. I actually enjoy fighting nontrivial orange named enemies, not red names. Wonder why...

I really like your reaper suggestions overall. I think instead of converting the +1 damage to +1[w] in adversary, maybe +0.5[w] is more reasonable. I think the class hit die scaling suggestion is actually genius and should be implemented into the game right ****ing now before SSG does literally anything else, don't even wait for Wednesday, hotfix that ****. Not sure what you mean by, "add a regen timer recharge tactics." I think the prr for armor shields you suggest for barricade is a good start, but I think it would be better if the amount granted by each rank of such an enhancement was different depending on the type (unless that is what you meant, or that such enhancements would not have ranks (which i would think they should), unclear).

Originally Posted by blerkington

Almost all of the difficulties melees face in reaper go away if the group also has decent crowd control and/or a tank. If you have one or both of those things, you're usually good from when you step in the door until you get to the boss. So maybe rather than us asking for the class power arms race to continue, we could just accept running in groups that cover the main tasks is the way harder content is meant to be played.

My issue with playing a melee in difficult content is mainly with boss fights. Often their attacks aren't clearly telegraphed and/or don't allow time to respond, and it's not clear exactly how large the area of effect is either. This isn't really a problem on lower skull settings. But for longer fights when dodge clickies and temp hp wear out, and the boss is capable of delivering one shot attacks on every swing even to decently built and geared melees, it is.

What might also be interesting is if the aggro control abilities tanks have could modify the way bosses attacked the party, forcing the boss to use single target attacks rather than cleaves. That would provide a great incentive to use a tank in harder content and also help the melees that group with them.

Thanks.

So what you're saying is, *something* does *need* to be changed that will ultimately benefit primarily melees. :/ I agree that improving the melee experience with things like improved aggro control and animations is a better alternative to just buffing or nerfing stats, I think that the easier option (stats) is the one we can more realistically expect from them because they have spent a lot of time in the past few years redoing the names and numbers of enhancement trees, but not a lot of time designing or redesigning animations for already existing abilities or actually improving game mechanics.

Also, I think that every class should near-require "decent crowd control and/or a tank", but not every class faces this equally, or equally enough. I think until then, not accepting the status quo and seeking a better alternative is not just reasonable but necessary. If one was to be completely practical about the issues with melees in high reaper, they would either 1) accept the situation and not waste time debating it on the forums, 2) not play a melee, or 3) not play the game. Considering we are here on the forums, I think none of us are being explicitly practical about the situation and suggestions by such people to such people to treat it that way hold little merit.

**blerkington** · 05-05-2018, 07:05 PM