Melee Survivability Changes - Some First Steps

[ahpook]

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends.

To me the biggest problem is that movement outside of melee range is the best defense. This change doesn't address that root cause but just gives more HP that needs to be refilled. I don't think avoiding the root cause really helps to address the problem correctly.

More importantly, as a player who likes melee but is playing less, this change does not make me want to play more.

[Thar]

Checked the wiki, sacred defender stance is a scared bonus, so paladin tanks should still benefit. Fighter and Druid stances are indeed competence bonuses though so this presumably won't stack.

it makes no sense why these all wouldn't stack with any melee change.

[Captain_Wizbang]

As Torc said "first steps", It's all preliminary info, and staff knows the caster vs melee factions are going to come out swinging.

[lyrecono]

Since, other than in your imagination, that's not something I want, the question of what my motive is doesn't even arise.

Really, I don't see either caster or melee struggling, in Elite or high-skull, when they work together. My melees struggle with no CC; my casters struggle with no DPS. But together, it's great.
then join me in my neck of the woods, here casters run amok and melees are waiting for cc to join in. since healers are a raid thing only (if you're lucky), no heals unless the melees throw healing.....


You realize it's possible to, accidentally, or deliberately, make a gimp build in DDO? A decent build is one that's not like that. No past lives are required to make a sound build. You're way more out of touch than you seem to think I am if you think Completionist is any sort of requirement.
just wondering, because most veteran players that complain about the game being to easy don't play melees and never come of their uber completionist toons, again, in my neck of the woods.


I leveled a (1st-life) melee (2wf, though) a few months back, and I'm leveling a (1st-life) 2hf melee up right now, currently 27, both mostly pugs, and mostly Elite or R1, with a few higher. Why does that matter?



Why? Why do you care? What characters I play is relevant how? Why the personal innuendo attacks? If you have something to say about the actual topic, instead of my characters, go ahead & say it.

the innuendo wasn't just for you, this thread and my server channel is filled with people complaining about this and the people in those channels never play melees or haven't played melees in endgame since the cap went from 20 to 25. (motu)
Funny enough, i see most of them run r5 to r8 with no problems and a small group runs plenty of r10. with less then 5% being some form of melee, because melee isn't considered viable in the current meta.
And it's those people (who don't or rarely play melee) who are shouting the loudest in those channels (and now on discord).
That's why i asked, because the way you described things looked fine made me wonder if you played melee at all.

[SerPounce]

So, it doesn't stack with Paladin/Fighter/Druid tank stance HP, but DOES stack with Paragon Body from Renegade Mastermaker and Strength of Vitality from Unyielding Sentinel?

What type of bonus is Dwarf "Child of the Mountain" hp bonus? It doesn't say.

How does the range reduction thing work with artificer admixtures, which have a REALLY screwy range on them?

So, basically Renegade Mastermaker Arti just became the exclusive God Tank Build and Paladin/Fighter/Druid are not tanks any more because ANY melee can more than match them with a free toggle and NOT LOSE ANY DAMAGE IN THE PROCESS. Oh, and they can benefit from rage while the actual tank trees, who give up SUBSTANTIAL dps for it, cannot (apart from druid).

I bet barbarians are going to be up there in the HP department also. All that base HP to multiply.

[Shadow_Jumper]

Thanks for the feedback so far, we'll have to ponder it. A few things:

- This isn't necessarily intended to be always-on. It's a situational boost to melee builds who need a bit of help when going toe-to-toe with some enemies.

- This is not meant to be on during situations when a spellcasting melee would be casting spells on other players. So if you need to heal other players, you shouldn't be using this. If you are spot healing or buffing, this isn't for you.

Sadly, it looks like you don't even know the role of the divine class in this game. Why would a melee ever turn this off?

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends. If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that.

The devs must be behind the times. Ever since reaper was release, and especially since ravenloft was released, melee, when used right are some of the most powerful builds you can already roll.

Looking through this, I can't help but shake my head at the delusions of the devs here.

Players who have trouble in reaper, and get one shot in r4+ will probably at most see 500-750 HP increase. However the players who are already doing fine in r7-10 will be getting thousands of HP from this insanity.

the current 1800-2000 HP light dps players at cap will see increases of roughly 1000 HP
the current defensive melee who hit 3000-3500 HP will see increases upwards of 1500 to even get close to 2000
end game tanks could legitimately see HP increases of 3000-4000 HP, and I imagine after this that most will be at or near 10k HP.

This is going to ruin any challenge in the game, so mark me down as against this crazy, lazy proposal.

[Aced]

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends. If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that.

It is my belief that decent melee players with adequate past lives and actual work put into their characters handle Reaper just fine. Only under geared toons without enough past lives or reaper points have a problem with it. But that was the point of reaper, no?

If your goal is to change this, and make reaper easily run-able by 1st or 2nd life toons so that the they can play with more of the older base that has these past lives and work put in, then actually make that statement. No one can argue that. But if it's not goal, melees are fine and this is pretty bad...

[J1NG]

the more difficult content seems to be Reaper difficulty, right?

It's an Epic Feat, and not just for Reaper, although it'll impact it certainly. Many newer first lifers will have trouble on higher difficulties in Epics where enemies are just HP bloats and hit back many times harder. This feat suits these newer players perfectly.

Older and more experienced players who can pass down gear will find this to be a pointless buff for unnecessary reasons, but in all honestly, I don't think this buff is directly for those players anyway as explained above.

And of course, as the Devs have said, certain melee types are even more in need of this as well. Especially since those playing Reaper are rather elitist as well from my experience who won't hesitate to drop a newer player to tell them to "come back when you get better", or just reform around them, and sometimes even depriving them of the players who joined the new players run because of "faster xp" in a "competent" group. Which is one particularly vexing issue I hate about Reaper, the attitude and willingless to NOT help the newer players because it deprives them of THEIR time (faster xp or reaper xp), but then complain when there are less players and buffs are made.

J1NG

[SerPounce]

I wonder, why epic only? My experience is that casters dominate heroic (particularly warlocks and sorcerers) where their AoE dps is great for solo clearing and bosses have few enough HP that it's not a big issue. While melee struggles in heroic with extremely limited CC options. Once you hit epic/legendary melee's sustainable DPS advantage becomes relevant and their CC starts coming into it's own.

In the current meta I would never consider melee for a fast and easy racial life, but I'd do it end game (full disclosure, right now my end game toon is ranged).

[Kza]

Will monks get +50% hits? Arguably the strongest class
Gets this? I love barb changes, But imho this is so much
Over the top it can be.

(Or monks excluded?)

[lLockehart]

Thanks for the feedback

If it actually changes things like it did with Crystal cove which turned out really good in my opinion... I'd be thrice surprised.

This is deliberately only a buff to melee characters, not people who sometimes melee, or who cast spells predominantly, or who are ranged-focused. They are not in need of a change like this.

I don't see anyone debating this, 'tis already strange enough to give every melee 50% Hp.

- This is not meant to be on during situations when a spellcasting melee would be casting spells on other players. So if you need to heal other players, you shouldn't be using this. If you are spot healing or buffing, this isn't for you.

Again, with all the respect I can muster, if you're offering free 50% hp boost... well, I'm going to take it, the player next to me is going to take and everyone else is *obviously* going to take it... ????

Take Paladin for example... you'll always take this feat lol, obviously. Only a Cleric or a Fvs who enjoy healbotting would do otherwise and even then, you can now heal with Beacons or the Aura burst while enjoying 50% Hp, even at touch range. Animal Druids will of course take this and it will limit their identity.

- This isn't necessarily intended to be always-on. It's a situational boost to melee builds who need a bit of help when going toe-to-toe with some enemies

Can this be clarified? Does it have no cooldown? if so, what's the point?
"when going toe-to-toe with some enemies"? as in, every single type of mob? Can a scenario be given where turning 50% Hp off would be better?

This is not meant to be on during situations when a spellcasting melee would be casting spells on other players. So if you need to heal other players, you shouldn't be using this. If you are spot healing or buffing, this isn't for you.

"This isn't for you"? again with all the respect I can muster, Cordovan, you're not exactly playing on the same level as most of us are, the leap in playability is humongous, this is said with such causality that you'd think it's super normal in game. "Let me turn off my 50% Hp so I can coon my partner, there we go, back to 50% Hp again" ?????

Again, everyone will opt to use this, you'll only ever need sustain between fights which is 100% okay at touch range and you can have your DC caster heal you with coon and the Angel core when facing Reds. What kind of testing was done that made the team come up with a flat 50% boost as the 1st step in solving this issue?

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends. If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that.

Yeah, melees have been made of paper for a very long time now, it's a very real concern that should be looked into... but as I said above, they also have the stronger Dps with Dire charge included in the package which makes it difficult to strike a good balance between surviving and how they currently are on live.

"If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that." Meaning that no one actually follows the scene within the game? Does SSG have no real handle on what's happening? What is this, an ultimatum lol, if most of the forum-goers would vote for having nothing be done... you'd just do nothing? This is such a clear cut issue for anyone who plays melee, why does the team need the community to flag it for them? I can't understand.

[Odysseus2011]

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends. If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that.

Groups that consistently play endgame content at the highest level have been using melee for awhile. The highest Strahd completion to date utilized 6 melee dps builds; because bringing 6 melee dps was a much better option compared to bringing 6 ranged dps.

[tafla421]

I’m generally in favor of upping HP, but was breaking this down and began to struggle to answer the question… Who is this for?

Seriously, you say just about anyone can take it, but who would actually use it? The only classes in the game that don’t have spell or spell like abilities are Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues. Of course, that’s not including stuff from epic destines or twists… or multi-classing. Might even remove Rogues from that list if you consider wands and scrolls. So yeah, just non-sword&shield DPS focused fighters and barbarians will enjoy this feat.

A ton of races lose some serious options. Half of your vistani ability to use ranged power instead of melee power just went out the window. It heavily incentives people not bring or use a ranged weapon cause they want to keep the toggle on…

So instead of upping the hit points for most melee, you’ve only given a reason for narrow builds to stay narrow. A huge reason, now that they’ll like have more hit points than likely any other build. Add in the Barbarian DR change (a good change in my opinion, one you should consider for all sources of DR)… The Barbarian completely wins this step. They’re purely better with these changes. Fighter comes in second place, but like every other class it loses some options as it is now less efficient to take a defensive stance.

I know there are more steps to take, but this one feels like it missed its mark.

personally I think its not so bad an idea because tanks have had to make this trade off since the beginning. they needed to devote themselves to hp and survivability at the cost of almost all offence. now is there problems with who gets to use the bonus, sure there is. I mean I don't think most tanks take any of the fighting lines, on top of it not stacking with their hp boosting class enhancements. I mean they are the ones that need the hp, and currently to get to the inflated amount of hp uber reaper tanks have you need to wear a ton of legendary greensteel gear. which great for you if you were able to dup it to your hearts content but its a bit hard to come by enough legendary shroud runs to make all that gear anymore. so to the devs please come up with a better way for it to work with tanks.

[btolson]

I don't like this idea at all. The sheer number of provisos and exclusions involved should be a flashing neon sign that this is the wrong direction.


Ultimately the problem with balance is due to kiting - melee characters get hit 10x more than ranged ones do, and in effort to make mobs non-trivial to those ranged characters in the rare case they actually *do* manage to hit them, they are designed to do lethal (1 or 2-shot) damage. This creates a bad situation of spiky survivability for just about everyone.


The desired fix here is not a clunky buff to melee hp, but to provide mobs with more (or any whatsoever) tools to combat kiting.

Give them Charge abilities. Maybe even Dire Charge in Legendary. Give them long jump abilities, like Shadar-kai have. Give them teleport/blinkstep abilities like Bearded Devils have (those guys are pretty effective at dealing damage to would-be kiters).

Give them "get over here!" abilities. Chain/rope lassos for physical types. Bigby's Hands spells for caster-types. This would largely solve the issue of perch spots as well, which seems to be a high priority for you guys.

Give them root abilities. We have thrown nets in the game, let mobs have some of them.

Or if all of that is too complicated, just give melee mobs a +50% movement speed action boost clickie.


After you get melee mobs to a place where they can actually hit ranged characters more than 1x per minute, then you can scale back their damage to non-1-shot levels. And they will be dangerous to everyone.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends. If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that.

I believe this is the case.

Thanks for the feedback so far, we'll have to ponder it. A few things:

- This is not meant to be on during situations when a spellcasting melee would be casting spells on other players. So if you need to heal other players, you shouldn't be using this. If you are spot healing or buffing, this isn't for you.

I also know that all melee now carry heals. (Almost all.) I think you guys are misunderstanding how the game is played. Every melee carries heals because or else they can't reasonably expect heals---especially in an unbalanced party. If you leave the current system in place, then I believe you need to Asamir healing hands. from Otherwise you will see every melee play that P2P class---since it will be the only reliable way to spot heal. Please understand that EVERY MELEE SPOT HEALS.

Tldr
If you want to buff melee HP, then it doesn't make sense to nerf their healing at the same time.

I'm super glad you guys are tackling this real issue, but there are not many heal-bots running around and melee are expected to HEAL THEIR HEALER. <3

[Cordovan]

I believe this is the case.



I also know that all melee now carry heals. (Almost all.) I think you guys are misunderstanding how the game is played. Every melee carries heals because or else they can't reasonably expect heals---especially in an unbalanced party. If you leave the current system in place, then I believe you need to Asamir healing hands. from Otherwise you will see every melee play that P2P class---since it will be the only reliable way to spot heal. Please understand that EVERY MELEE SPOT HEALS.

Tldr
If you want to buff melee HP, then it doesn't make sense to nerf their healing at the same time.

I'm super glad you guys are tackling this real issue, but there are not many heal-bots running around and melee are expected to HEAL THEIR HEALER. <3

Just in case it isn't clear, to be explicit about it: This change would have no impact on self-healing.

[edrein]

All spell or spell like abilities that are effected by metamagics have their ranged reduced to touch range (think shocking grasp)

I'm trying to visualize how this decision was made. Particularly when the spells most melees make use of are either heals or self buffs. Not being able to heal party members is a bad decision for just about everyone but a dedicated tank.

Why not change the range to cone range. That's midway between normal spells, about a third of ray spells, and not as awful as touch range.


Additionally; how is this going to function with animal druids above all else? Does this mean cone of cold is going to be turned into a touch attack? What about Earthquake, Icestorm, other AoE spells. This sounds like druids are about to get nerfed hardcore if they use this stance. I mean there's a lot of variables not explained in this initial proposal.

Furthermore, are you going to add an official Perfect Natural Fighting with this patch?

If you want to further help melees; I'd suggest taking a look at Regeneration effects on both items and available to players such as Fury of the Wild and the Primal Pastlife. Bump the healing ticks on these, amp the heal up a bit, and make them actually usable in Reaper without a healing penalty. The same could be said for weapon vampirism. The first thing I thought when I saw Ravenloft's vampiric items was, "Why though?" due to the reduction and the cooldown on modern vampirism, these items aren't exactly viable at all. Even in non-reaper they are kind of questionable unless someone 100% dedicates to building around them and that opens another can of worms in itself.

Bloating our HP pools by a stacking 50% isn't really going to help survivability. You've just extended our lifespans by about 2-3 more hits, while simultaneously nerfing our utility in parties by reducing our ability to cast healing spells on allies.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Just in case it isn't clear, to be explicit about it: This change would have no impact on self-healing.

I feel ya. I understood that. My concern was about how healers and casters are going to get heals when the melees selfishly turn on "barbarian mode." I already don't heal myself on my melee---I heal my friends and they heal me. That's what reaper is: teamwork!

This melee buff is covered in anti-teamwork. Bad pasta.

If I use this I'm going to get the old' madstone boots out for 20% alacrity. The clerics can just worship my melee dps machine.

Hidden effect: Madstone Reaction

[blerkington]

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends. If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that.

So many questions. It's alarming that we could be so close to these changes with a whole bunch of important questions apparently not being considered.

1. Are the people who voiced this concern representative of the community as a whole?
2. What do you mean by 'not able to compete' in a cooperative game where characters have different roles?
3. Do you recognise a difference between how DPS and instakill casters perform at different difficulty levels?
4. Are all ranged builds equally 'able to compete'?
5. Why does your preferred solution involve adding yet more character power instead of making other changes?
6. Does this mean reaper is now the default instead of a challenge difficulty, since there have been few if any requests for changes below reaper?
7. What will this mean for difficulty in the game?
8. Are you trying to address a problem that doesn't actually exist?

All snark aside, please don't repeat the company's recent mistakes with respect to balancing difficulty in the game. It's a colossal waste of time and energy to keep going around in circles like this. I'm sure the people who spend time on this could be doing something else instead that is better for the game.

Thanks.

[edrein]

Thanks for the feedback so far, we'll have to ponder it. A few things:

- This is deliberately meant to not be attractive to ranged and spellcaster characters. We wouldn't want anything like this adjustment to help non-hand-to-hand-melee-focused characters. This is by design. This is deliberately only a buff to melee characters, not people who sometimes melee, or who cast spells predominantly, or who are ranged-focused. They are not in need of a change like this.

- This isn't necessarily intended to be always-on. It's a situational boost to melee builds who need a bit of help when going toe-to-toe with some enemies.

- This is not meant to be on during situations when a spellcasting melee would be casting spells on other players. So if you need to heal other players, you shouldn't be using this. If you are spot healing or buffing, this isn't for you.

- One of the reasons we are considering this change is to address the community's concern that melee are not able to compete in more difficult content with their spellcasting and ranged-using friends. If there is a larger belief that this is not the case, we'd love to hear that.

So for those who want to play a melee based warlock, what's the call? Aura is a blast shape that's supposedly not going to function with this stance.

Can you finally add Hideous Blow to the game? Make it a 'blast shape' that imbues your weapon with your EB die and effects? Pretty please. Perhaps even add this as a multiselector to Enlightened Spirit and provide actual cleaves similar to Knight of the Chalice if you take the Hideous Blow route?