The big melee DPS issue: Grazing Hits

[Symbiont]

I agree with your position on this. Personally, I can understand losing a fourth of total strikes to grazing blows, but not with a nigh-180 attack bonus. The current AC formula is even more detrimental to other melee, as fighters receive more + to-hit bonuses than their barbarian/paladin counterparts. Though, as indicated earlier in this thread, this issue is universal throughout every class that needs to physically land attacks to deal damage. If SSG is intent on sticking with the d20 system, there's at least several things that can be done:

Weapon-fighting feats can grant combat style bonuses to % to-hit. Each tier of every line could grant +2% to hit, starting with the base TWF/THF/SWF, and progressing all the way to the "Perfect" level epic feats for a +8% total. The same can hold true for ranged weaponry; Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Improved Precise Shot could receive similar benefits - which would even fit the "Precise" portion of these feats. On top of this, the first tier of "Weapon Focus: x" can grant the same +2% (that wouldn't stack with other focus feats), as it's available to every class that meets the BaB prerequisite. While this doesn't address the massive gap between accuracy investment to graze reduction, this would be a nice boost to the lower bound, and at least a start.

[redoubt]

Some mobs with high ac is fine, bosses, named mobs, etc, trash mobs are not.

When they introduced this abomination years ago, with a toon with all pls and gear i had around 130-140 to hit and i had grazing hits with a 9 roll fighting trash mobs.

It is not like spell penetration, it is like if all mobs had a 50% chance to ignore any spell.

This system dont need adjusts, it should to be removed.

But they are doing nothing about it.

Their goal now is to steal as much money as possible from new players for a few months until they reallize they will never catch up with a 10 years player then leave.

Long term fixes or create a good and fun end game are just never going to happen.

He specifically referenced a Boss Mob Dragon on R10.

Anything less should be easier...

... and you did see where I repeatedly said I hate the system they replaced the d20 with, right?

[redoubt]

Just to add: this isn't an R10 issue, I just happened to have shown data from an R10 boss.

In fact, R1 harry has a higher AC than that R10 boss dragon.

Copy all. In this case, I'm with you. That is dumb.

I'm all for the R10 bosses being hard to hit. As the difficulty level goes down, they should be easier to hit.

This just sounds like more "slap a filter on it" and hope for the best scaling.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

3. The only way to close this gap is to forego crucial melee attributes like power attack and LD abilities to use precision or to pidgeon hole into being an elven race.
4. Why does the Kensei tree not offer direct improvements to % in landing attacks, as they are the most to-hit oriented class in the game.

On a single target with boss levels of health I wouldn't call momentum swing and lay waste crucial. Precision being better seems perfectly acceptable. Why is being an elf a problem? I'd rather play an elf over a horc if I was looking to maximize my DPS.

Why is kensei the only DPS tree for fighters and generally hot garbage outside of the inflated stats of ~4 enhancements? Why is that the general state of every enhancement tree in the game?

I don't think melee should be no-fail on To-Hit in R10. R10 is supposed to be a challenge, not an easy button.

I mostly agree that to-hit shouldn't be no-fail, not just in R10 but at any point in the game, regardless of investment. That being said, I also agree that with maximum investment 25% futility rate on a builds ONLY means of dealing damage is unacceptable. What is challenging about holding down left click and not dealing damage 5 times more than you used to simply "because"? Perhaps the mechanics of how melees deal damage are a better part of the game to direct investment vs challenge vs fun assessments, not a binary stat check.

[EllisDee37]

Two quick points:

1) The proficiency bonus is +20%, not +25%
2) Precision's +5% effectively increases the proficiency bonus to 25%

Also, the formula to determine how much more bonus you need for one more hit is:

Bonus = AC / 10

Because:

(Bonus) / (AC * 2) = 5%
Bonus = (AC * 2) * 5%
Bonus = AC * (2 * 5%)
Bonus = AC * 10%
Bonus = AC / 10

[Qhualor]

This has been around since long before reaper. The to-hit values in legendary were very high.

I was going to mention this too, except, up to then, to-hit wasn't really something players had invested in because it hadn't been an issue for years and there weren't as many ways to invest in it like we can now. there were some complaints about to-hit then, but not very loud. I believe this was the age of the Swashbuckler, Paladin, Barbarian that had recent class improvements and lots of achievements being posted.

the bigger issue then was the PRR given to mobs like in To Curse the Sky. that was where the major complaints came from with melees having a difficult time and there were a lot of confusion on how best melees needed to beat down mobs.

[Qhualor]

This would be great, until you remember that the devs have already said that whatever they decide to do for melees, it will not include any changes to the reaper trees. This despite the fact that the melee/physical DPs reaper trees are sadly lacking in comparison to the caster reaper tree.



Does anyone think that melee need any help at all in Elite (or Hard, Normal, Casual) difficulty content?

all I'm saying is that if the to-hit issue is a Reaper problem, than solutions need to be done in Reaper. I couldn't tell you if improvements could be made in the trees because I don't play Reaper, but there are ways to improve melees without affecting them outside of Reaper. I think there are specific things (namely bug fixes, enhancements and feats) that could be done to help melee generally, but I don't think they need some kind of overall big buff. I am not seeing issues with to-hit on elite content and its only been a year since I have run EE/LE content so I doubt something really needs to change there.

[Chai]

This is not an issue exclusive to reaper. This is a result of turning direct 1 to 1 formulas into a parabolic formula which rewards those in the middle the most. When to-hit vs AC used to be a 4th grade extra credit math problem of adding bonuses in order to hit specific thresholds where every single addition increased your chances, its now a low level pre-calculus test question, and kicking and scraping for another +1 more often than not leads to no change in the result.

The take away is someone can drop PRR, saves, etc...to add a few more pluses to-hit which do not alter the end result. Instead of being a trade off where something is actually gained for what is lost, other stats just got flushed down the toilet for nothing.

[Eryhn]

This is not an issue exclusive to reaper. This is a result of turning direct 1 to 1 formulas into a parabolic formula which rewards those in the middle the most.

yeah this is more or less how I would put it, too. my complaint isn't solely on the formula's *intent* as OP put it but just as much on the wonky implementation that on the one hand punishes people on very high difficulties to an amount that leaves one deeply unsatisfied when weighed against ones amount of investments while at the same time punishing first life new players with less knowledge of build, gear and play strategies as high if not even higher.

point in case from me that the low difficulty end is messed up, too would be my 3rd life 14/6 silvanus pally/kensei alt taken into normal runs of riding the storm out: I had that toon on ML27 crafted gear including insight accuracy for quite a while cause I didnt have the time to properly gear-grind it for cap. I do not remember the exact values but I think on the boss dragon I grazed up to a roll of 9. with a +19 and insight +9 to hit, on a STR around 76 or so stemming from ML27 crafted STR, CHA, insight CHA + a globe, with a +5 STR tome and a +3 CHA tome ...

now, needless to say those values are all **** for cap if you take melee half way serious, BUT, pray do tell, for a first life new to the game the stats my gear bestowed me are still quite shiny.

after I geared a bit better with a mix of named items and ML34 crafted and the resulting boost to STR and accuracy, I still graze on 3 on LN ...

what I take from this is that a somewhat meh built and geared new player power attack based melee at cap will most likely graze around 50% or even slightly higher on some L NORMAL raid bosses. that seems a bit discouraging ...



now, what I would like is to have some dev time put into that formula that makes life less frustrating both for newcomers to the game and for competetive players doing high skulls.
short of that, as it might well not happen at all:

a good improvement to me would be the afore mentioned notion of adding a to hit bonus on special attacks.

if even that is too much work, at least include a +2 to hit bonus to http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Power for another meh bandaid ...

[HungarianRhapsody]

Remember Malicia in the Big Top before this change? Most characters who weren't To Hit optimized were only hitting her on a 20 and that was only because 20 automatically hits. She had enough AC that she was "off the die" unless you were playing a character who had exceptional To Hit compared to most of the player base.

...and most enemies were getting hit on a 2+, so why would anyone bother optimizing their To Hit?

Limiting the formula to To Hit +20 vs AC was a terrible formula for an MMO. I do think that the new formula has issues, but it's a lot better than what it used to be.

[mikarddo]

I remember parsing combat logs quite a bit back in early 2016 on this issue(ranged as well as melee). I also remember twisting in Pierce the Gloom for exactly this reason.

[Chai]

Remember Malicia in the Big Top before this change? Most characters who weren't To Hit optimized were only hitting her on a 20 and that was only because 20 automatically hits. She had enough AC that she was "off the die" unless you were playing a character who had exceptional To Hit compared to most of the player base.

...and most enemies were getting hit on a 2+, so why would anyone bother optimizing their To Hit?

Limiting the formula to To Hit +20 vs AC was a terrible formula for an MMO. I do think that the new formula has issues, but it's a lot better than what it used to be.

This current implementation is nowhere near "objectively better" than what it used to be. I disagree that because melee were hitting less that means the issue is worse. Heres why:

Old way - If my character was hitting far less, every single +1 I can muster means I hit 5% more often. If I trade off a few AC points, a point or two of saves, and a few HP to get +6 more to-hit that means I hit 30% more often.

New Way - Every single +1 does not alter the result - I can trade off a few AC points, a point or two of saves, and a few HP to get ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in to-hit results.

If the logic is that hitting less often means the problem is worse, then all they needed to do to "fix" the issue in your example is lower Malicia's AC somewhat, if scoring hits on anything other than a 20 was impossible, or if it was possible (which is what I remember) it was on the player to do things to get better to-hit.

**Also** this Malicia example was in an era when buffs mattered and buff stacking was used alot more often to attain to-hit scores that worked. We stacked bard songs on top of multiple buffs and turned power attack off when needed in order to hit mobs more often. What are those buffs doing for you nowdays? Nothing - as the end result of the formula gets rounded down and you still hit the same number of times you did without them.

Old system: When buffs mattered

New system: Buffs dont matter

Still believe things are alot better now than back then?

[Cantor]

Question: Do you think a nearly maxed to-hit fighter should have a 75% success rate in landing their melee attacks on end-game bosses?

sounds about right.

[J-mann]

Yes, the formula is WAI.

The intention is what I'm trying to get re-evaluated here.

Just like melee/spell/ranged power was re-evaluated, just as melee alacrity was re-evaluated with the introduction of doublestrike, just like PRR was re-evaluated, just like DR needs re-evaluation, to-hit needs evaluation as well.

Maybe we need something like "attack power" now? Let the D20 role be confined to dictating crits on weapons.

I don't have a good suggestion yet, I just want the devs to recognize that this is actually a problem right now. This rounding functionality is taking a huge dump on moderate investments to our attack.

Melee need an overhaul, this is an integral part of it.

I agree. Also not stated is all of melees special attacks and cc need to hit to work. A comparison so our caster friends could understand is its like every mob for a melee has sr and you cannot get no fail sr checks. I know for a fact if that happened to casters they would whine to no end. Heck the whine when they couldnt get no fail dcs was epic. To hit fixes are needed or special melee attacks need to hit boosts.

[peng]

One way to fix the issue of small changes to your to-hit bonus not actually changing your to-hit chance, is get rid of the 'round to nearest 5%' part of the formula, and just cap it at 5/95%. Not sure if ac/to-hit values or the formula need to be tweaked further or not, except that active attacks should gain a significant to-hit boost.

[HungarianRhapsody]

This current implementation is nowhere near "objectively better" than what it used to be. I disagree that because melee were hitting less that means the issue is worse. Heres why:

Old way - If my character was hitting far less, every single +1 I can muster means I hit 5% more often. If I trade off a few AC points, a point or two of saves, and a few HP to get +6 more to-hit that means I hit 30% more often.

New Way - Every single +1 does not alter the result - I can trade off a few AC points, a point or two of saves, and a few HP to get ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in to-hit results.

If the logic is that hitting less often means the problem is worse, then all they needed to do to "fix" the issue in your example is lower Malicia's AC somewhat, if scoring hits on anything other than a 20 was impossible, or if it was possible (which is what I remember) it was on the player to do things to get better to-hit.

**Also** this Malicia example was in an era when buffs mattered and buff stacking was used alot more often to attain to-hit scores that worked. We stacked bard songs on top of multiple buffs and turned power attack off when needed in order to hit mobs more often. What are those buffs doing for you nowdays? Nothing - as the end result of the formula gets rounded down and you still hit the same number of times you did without them.

Old system: When buffs mattered

New system: Buffs dont matter

Still believe things are alot better now than back then?

Yes. I still believe that things are a lot better now. Mostly because you're doing the math wrong by misunderstanding percentages. Back then most To Hit buffs didn't matter either. If you need a 70 To Hit and your To Hit was 40, that +1 or even +7 did absolutely nothing for you. If you need a +50 To Hit and you have a 49 (or more) To Hit, then no buff of any kind had any meaning AT ALL for you. If you weren't "on the die", then the buffs didn't matter. And it was incredibly rare for someone to be "on the die".

Old System: Most of the time buffs did absolutely nothing, but they were game breaking a few combats.

New System: Buffs don't do as much, but they matter at least a little in most combats outside of the most extreme examples.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Old way - If my character was hitting far less, every single +1 I can muster means I hit 5% more often. If I trade off a few AC points, a point or two of saves, and a few HP to get +6 more to-hit that means I hit 30% more often.

By the way, even when you're "on the die" and the buffs actually mattered (which was rare), your numbers are still wrong. If you improve your To Hit so that you have an additional +6 of relevant attack value under the old system, you aren't hitting 30% more often. You're hitting for anywhere from 46% to 600% more often. Your math is terrible.

[JOTMON]

sounds about right.

pft. sounds like BS.

A stars aligned melee build is only hitting 75% ..
Where's the investment payoff where building to become stars aligned actually means something.


DC casters have sweet spot thresholds to build towards.. why screw the melees.

[HungarianRhapsody]

pft. sounds like BS.

A stars aligned melee build is only hitting 75% ..
Where's the investment payoff where building to become stars aligned actually means something.


DC casters have sweet spot thresholds to build towards.. why screw the melees.

DC casters also have situations where they'll only get the spell off if their opponent rolls a 1 and that essentially never happens with melee under the new formula.

It isn't a matter of screwing melee or helping melee. It's about making bonuses relevant when you are crappy at melee and having more range of To Hit scores be relevant. It isn't about screwing melee. It's about screwing COMPETENT melee.

[Gremmlynn]

This current implementation is nowhere near "objectively better" than what it used to be. I disagree that because melee were hitting less that means the issue is worse. Heres why:

Old way - If my character was hitting far less, every single +1 I can muster means I hit 5% more often. If I trade off a few AC points, a point or two of saves, and a few HP to get +6 more to-hit that means I hit 30% more often.

New Way - Every single +1 does not alter the result - I can trade off a few AC points, a point or two of saves, and a few HP to get ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in to-hit results.

If the logic is that hitting less often means the problem is worse, then all they needed to do to "fix" the issue in your example is lower Malicia's AC somewhat, if scoring hits on anything other than a 20 was impossible, or if it was possible (which is what I remember) it was on the player to do things to get better to-hit.

**Also** this Malicia example was in an era when buffs mattered and buff stacking was used alot more often to attain to-hit scores that worked. We stacked bard songs on top of multiple buffs and turned power attack off when needed in order to hit mobs more often. What are those buffs doing for you nowdays? Nothing - as the end result of the formula gets rounded down and you still hit the same number of times you did without them.

Old system: When buffs mattered

New system: Buffs dont matter

Still believe things are alot better now than back then?

I do.

Personally, I see the biggest issue with rounding to the nearest 5%, for players, to pretend we are still using a d20 system (they don't do that with mobs). If, instead of rounding to 5%, they rounded to 5 decimal places of a percent it would cause every +1 to add something to a large degree. It would just add relatively more to those who start with less. Which to my mind makes sense as the better one is at something, the harder it is to improve.