Melee Survivability Changes - Some First Steps

[Thar]

• - We have periodically seen traffic on the forums from melee players complaining they’re having trouble surviving. Folks often posted counter to this, stating this could be overcome.
  
  
• - As we watch players play the game, we've noticed melee dps was under represented on high difficulty. Not gone entirely, but, noticeable more uncommon. I'm talking mostly about raids, or
  reaper 6+ skulls.
  
  
• - When the team would run play days on elite/reaper we would often experience some of what the forums seem to be talking about. "Random" deaths on our melee dps due to stray shots, even
  when the tank was on top of aggro. While better builds help, it took noticeably more work than say a ranged dps build.
  

So... We have concluded that melee dps (not counting tanks) is at least much harder to play, from a player skill point of view, if not needing some help in general.


- Don't melee have tools to solve this already? Yes they have tools, but... 1> The best ones require a shield or heavy armor, so that leaves some folks out 2> Many of these tools are generally available, and we need a durability difference in the two play styles or the monster damage is going to be wrong for someone. It's why this feat has so many odd rules to it.

- Isn't 50% too extreme? Really depends on the difficulty you play on. We could see this buff going down to 30%, making it a cheap semi alternate to the defensive stances, but when you look at 7+ skulls, it's probably only buying you a couple of hits. It will make things easier, but in our view it means certain builds will play on higher difficulties than say some other builds which were already up there.

- Why HP? Couple of reasons. 1> HP works on every damage type 2> It pushes healing gearing/trees to be more useful 3> Because its being done in a lump sum here it'd be really hard to do it as PRR/MRR which is better delivered piecemeal because it's more effective at lower values.

- This stacks with other HP sources that are not Competence typed. So while you can still run a defensive stance like Stalwarts for AC/PRR etc, you don't get both HP bonuses, just the highest.

-T

So why are tanks being excluded? do they not have the same issues as melee AND give up DPS to squeak out the extra HP and other defense to have a chance to survive AND need a healer AND someone else to kill what they agro.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I can't say how soon we'll be presenting reaper changes, (yet), but we see the desire for spicing it up a bit as more and more players have mastered the content.

-T

Reaper is going to be the proverbial thorn in your side on this. Good luck. most players are 50/50 so far in-game, too bad we cant get more feedback from them that wont post here

[Qhualor]

So: in the upcoming patch we'll be introducing a few changes to give a boost to melee build survivability, particularly in the epic range. Because of the variety of builds and playstyles, this will be a multi-step process that will involve adding some features which will be generally available to anyone, with changes that target specific classes or builds, such as the barbarian changes listed below.

Epic Defensive Fighting

Your hero has learned to enter a reactive state, protecting themselves in the chaos of battle by rolling with the punches, but this hampers their ability to engage ranged threats.

• New Epic Feat
• Auto granted at level 21
• Toggled Ability
• While Toggle is active:
  
  • 10% Competence Bonus to max hit points, with an additional 10% for every combat "fighting" style feat you have, to a max of 50%. (Exact list below)
  • All spell or spell like abilities that are effected by metamagics have their ranged reduced to touch range (think shocking grasp)
  • Reduces your Doubleshot and Ranged Power to 0 while active.
  • Exclusive from Range stances (Improved Precise Shot, Archers Focus, Shiradi stances, Warlock Blast stances.)
  • Exclusive from the Enlarge Spell Metamagic toggle
  • Remains active while dead
  • Can be used with other defensive/offensive stances & Rage
• The Complete list of "Fighting Feats" that apply:
  
  • Single Weapon Fighting
  • Improved Single Weapon Fighting
  • Greater Single Weapon Fighting
  • Perfect Single Weapon Fighting
    
    
  • Two Handed Fighting
  • Improved Two Handed Fighting
  • Greater Two Handed Fighting
  • Perfect Two Handed Fighting
    
    
  • Two Weapon Fighting
  • Improved Two Weapon Fighting
  • Greater Two Weapon Fighting
  • Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
    
    
  • Natural Fighting (Counts each time taken)
• Additional:
  
  • Paladin Defensive Stance HP buff bonus will be changed to competency (which it appears it always was, but the text was incorrect)
  • Aasimar racial hp bonus will be changed to Sacred (should now stack)

Barbarian DR Class Feature Revamp

• Barbarian DR no longer gives "classic" damage reduction like in old 3.5 of -1 damage per strike.
• Instead Barbarians now start with a 3% damage absorption to all damage except bane (this is a straight percentage of damage reduced BEFORE PRR/MRR calculation)
  
  • This resistance is increased at levels barbarians normal got DR increases, by 1%, net of 9% by level 20
  • Enhancements in the barbarian occult slayer line increase this by 1% instead of the DR they once increased for a total of 4% available from the tree.
  • The Fury of the Wild passive "Damage Reduction" increases this absorption by an additional 1% at the third rank.
• Total max: 14% damage absorption to all damage except bane. Requires a Pure Barbarian with the fifth Core in Occult Slayer and a tier 2 Fury of the Wild ability to achieve.

-T

P.S. We recognize that the general hp boost will be not be sufficient for many builds on the more extreme difficulties, and it's a wheee bit more complicated, hence this is a first step. Once we see how the current meta adjusts to these changes we'll be doing some follow up.

So this is meant to be a boost to melee, but with restrictions? When I read that there would be some improvements for melee I assumed enhancement and feat tweaks. Not adding a new epic feat that gives a percentage increase to hit points. Skip the extra work complications and worries over all builds benefitting from it and have an auto granted Toughness feat just for melees. This feat is just overly complicated for no reason.

Again, you are taking a very powerful offensive class and making them even stronger with the changes to barb DR. Maybe I would have agreed to this prior to Armor Up!, but now the melee changes are being done because of Reaper. A lot of complaints that melee can't survive Reaper and their dps is low compared to ranged and casters. Players hadn't complained about melee survivability since the release of Legendary content and how long after did we start seeing solo videos and the complaints stop? How many more times must I say history is repeating itself?

[noobodyfool]

I agree the feat could have more "scalers" on it to make it fit more snugly to the level of play, but it's pretty complex in it's current form. Still, some tweaks like this may happen as play testing continues.

-T

Kool

[Torc]

So just a few questions...
If you wanted to buffs melee survivability why not make melee classes have higher hit dice?
If you were aiming for this to be a melee only feat why not only give it to characters that have 10 or more levels in a melee class or something like that to keep from these debuffs on spellcasting?
Now assuming at endgame every melee has almost 2k at least HP,, will another 1k really do them any good? For example, my monk has about 2k HP but the only time it really does is when it gets hit for almost 2k or more DMG. I'm not saying it won't help because more HP is always welcome, but I don't think that it will buy that many more hits. (Feel free to correct me just cuz I've been playing for years doesn't mean I'm not a noob, I really am one ;-)

Answers to questions....

1> What about Class HD? Very few classes are restricted to melee by class. Fighter/Rangers/Monks/Rogues can all be very good archers. Class in DDO doesn't really define if you do damage primarily in melee or not very well. That's not something we can or want to change.

2> Make them have melee class? See above.

3> Will it really matter? Actually, as strange as it sounds, we don't think this will actually change things much at the top of the curve. In high reaper and raids this will buy you a hit, maybe two. As crazy as it sounds +50% hp (which for people already using a defensive stance, is +30%), It's not going to move the needle that much because the monsters are hitting just that hard if your on R7+. Now for people struggling in elite, or low reaper, it'll have a big impact.... but if they find things to easy, well, they can always increase their difficulty if they don't feel challenge because they still have a lot of track to use.

[Qhualor]

- 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.

1. So my barb would have no reason to toggle it off, but my Tempest ranger would have to constantly toggle off and on. He has way too many things to click on to than to also worry about a toggle for specific situations.

2. So melee rangers, paladins, bards and many different types of multi class builds shouldn't be using the toggle if they were to help spot heal, or in other words, play a supportive role that encourages teamwork?

3. Instead of power creeping melee which eventually leads to power creeping ranged which eventually leads to power creeping casters which eventually leads to going back to square 1, look into design of content and bringing things in line that need a nerf. You guys really need to stop being so afraid to nerf where its needed and let content be the true challenge for everyone.

[Kza]

Answers to questions....

1> What about Class HD? Very few classes are restricted to melee by class. Fighter/Rangers/Monks/Rogues can all be very good archers. Class in DDO doesn't really define if you do damage primarily in melee or not very well. That's not something we can or want to change.

2> Make them have melee class? See above.

3> Will it really matter? Actually, as strange as it sounds, we don't think this will actually change things much at the top of the curve. In high reaper and raids this will buy you a hit, maybe two. As crazy as it sounds +50% hp (which for people already using a defensive stance, is only +20%), It's not going to move the needle that much because the monsters are hitting just that hard if your on R7+. Now for people struggling in elite, or low reaper, it'll have a big impact.... but if they find things to easy, well, they can always increase their difficulty if they don't feel challenge because they still have a lot of track to use.

You are so reasonable. Ok, time to rethink builds :-)

[bracelet]

The problem is how hard the mobs hit. so no one, casters or not can be in melee range. HP is a easy fix but only delays the pain. you have to make AC and defense worth something again. Can this be done today? yes but to the avoidance of all dps. ie tanks with 20% dodge, 500 AC and 300 prr. Then you can survive melee in epics/reaper but you can't kill anything. so you need to double AC bonuses in epic, double prr results in epic and maybe dodge cap scales as you level to higher than today. hp's is only a plan if you do nothing else that is really needed for defense. and a shield should matter...

I didn't read past this comment but it's the first one I saw that gets to the heart of the problem. The problem I think we are trying to solve is that if you get hit in high reaper, you are going to die. If you get hit a lot of times in low reaper -especially by stuff that DoTs you, you are going to die. Casters and ranged toons thrive in reaper because they don't get hit.

Rather than creep the power up, just tone the damage down on someone wearing armor? This is what PRR was originally meant to do.But the caps and the nerfs to it when it was too much in elite, now make it pretty weak sauce in reaper. Those poor melee just get torn up. And if their hire decides it would be fun to join them in Doluruh, which they invariably do, then they just stay dead. The solution needs to be damage mitigation, not the ability to absorb even more damage.

[Odysseus2011]

Answers to questions....

1> What about Class HD? Very few classes are restricted to melee by class. Fighter/Rangers/Monks/Rogues can all be very good archers. Class in DDO doesn't really define if you do damage primarily in melee or not very well. That's not something we can or want to change.

2> Make them have melee class? See above.

3> Will it really matter? Actually, as strange as it sounds, we don't think this will actually change things much at the top of the curve. In high reaper and raids this will buy you a hit, maybe two. As crazy as it sounds +50% hp (which for people already using a defensive stance, is only +20%), It's not going to move the needle that much because the monsters are hitting just that hard if your on R7+. Now for people struggling in elite, or low reaper, it'll have a big impact.... but if they find things to easy, well, they can always increase their difficulty if they don't feel challenge because they still have a lot of track to use.

So this balance change is aimed at helping people who are struggling to do reaper? Or am I reading this incorrectly? Haven't the developers told us several times on previous occasions that they do not want to see reaper become the defacto difficulty? That reaper was suppose to be a difficulty where you could challenge yourself, and future changes would not be made in order to balance the game around reaper?

[Arkat]

The real joke is all the forumnite melee's claiming they heal. I guarantee most don't heal in the middle of combat and if they do they back out of the fight to do it anyways.

Back out??

Son, that's what Quicken is for...so you don't have to back out!

[Kza]

If you want diversity in races, I suggest that
Racial lay on hands get touch range with stance.

If not, all viable meta melee builds will be
Aasimar or scourgey.

And also that shieldfeats Grant the same bonus.

Plz Plz be careful that build diversity isnt lost. Plz?

[Kaboom2112]

[*]- As we watch players play the game, we've noticed melee dps was under represented on high difficulty. Not gone entirely, but, noticeable more uncommon. I'm talking mostly about raids, or
reaper 6+ skulls.

-T

Who are you watching exactly? I could point you to a few YouTube videos that might make you change your mind.

Look, I don't mind the HP buff, but having the stance cripple us tossing cocoons on each other is HORRRIFICLY STUPID. 18 months of practicing healing each other and now we can't do it? Terrible, terrible idea.

[Kilgrave]

[Qhualor]

So this balance change is aimed at helping people who are struggling to do reaper? Or am I reading this incorrectly? Haven't the developers told us several times on previous occasions that they do not want to see reaper become the defacto difficulty?

It's been the defacto difficulty right from the beginning. Devs wanted to wait 6 months to see how it panned out before making any, if at all, changes to Reaper. Now here we are after all this time and more power creep and it finally seems to be getting acknowledged that they need to spice things up... by adding more power creep and going by some forum posters that melee are not strong enough for really tough content.

[Mindos]

Now for people struggling in elite, or low reaper, it'll have a big impact.... but if they find things to easy, well, they can always increase their difficulty if they don't feel challenge because they still have a lot of track to use.

Or, you could not make these changes and they could try playing a LOWER difficulty.

[Kaboom2112]

Answers to questions....

1> What about Class HD? Very few classes are restricted to melee by class. Fighter/Rangers/Monks/Rogues can all be very good archers.

Nonsense, there are no GOOD archers in DDO

Monk thrower blows away every other ranged build. it's not even close.

[Sebastrd]

WARNING - WALL OF TEXT AHEAD - DESIGN LOGIC - ABANDON ALL REASON:

...but when you look at 7+ skulls, it's probably only buying you a couple of hits.

This is your problem right here. Why are you balancing the game around Reaper difficulty?

It's simple; you gave Reaper the best XP rewards in a game designed around grinding out XP ad nauseum, thereby making Reaper the default difficulty. You created the same problem with bravery bonuses that made Elite the default difficulty and necessitated a Reaper difficulty in the first place.

If you balanced the game around Normal and XP rewards were the same regardless of difficulty, the challenge problem would dissipate. Players that want challenge can have it - along with more favor, better drop rates, mythic and reaper bonuses, etc. Players that claim they want challenge but really don't will run whatever gets them the best XP/min.

Honestly, 12 years into the game's life cycle, challenge in the TR grind levels is probably unnecessary. Legendary is the perfect place to really ramp up challenge and difficulty, and it should stay there. Do we need heroic and low-epic quests that really test players? Did you ever notice that nobody runs the really difficult and time-consuming heroics like Tethyamar, Slave Lords, ToEE, etc.? The hardest content people run in heroics is Tear of Dhakaan.

[Kaboom2112]

3> Will it really matter? Actually, as strange as it sounds, we don't think this will actually change things much at the top of the curve. In high reaper and raids this will buy you a hit, maybe two. As crazy as it sounds +50% hp (which for people already using a defensive stance, is +30%), It's not going to move the needle that much because the monsters are hitting just that hard if your on R7+. Now for people struggling in elite, or low reaper, it'll have a big impact.... but if they find things to easy, well, they can always increase their difficulty if they don't feel challenge because they still have a lot of track to use.

i agree with you here. When you die in R10 you're usually gorilla F'd to like -5000. It'll make trivial content more trivial so it's really debatable if that matters.

having this now stack with Densive stance is very questionable. if this is implemented this should stack.

and I cannot over-state how stupid the penalty to healing others is, it's insanely stupid. Do not implement.

[Fezz1k]

1> What about Class HD? Very few classes are restricted to melee by class. Fighter/Rangers/Monks/Rogues can all be very good archers. Class in DDO doesn't really define if you do damage primarily in melee or not very well. That's not something we can or want to change.

You could gate access to it via the T5 enhancements of the melee trees.

Edit: I suppose VKF and Falcon etc complicate this, but I personally see fewer issues with either giving a ranged falcon hp or not giving a melee falcon the hp than all of the downsides of the current toggle.

[Arkat]

Or, you could not make these changes and they could try playing a LOWER difficulty.

Agreed. No one has a RIGHT to complete on Elite or Reaper.