Melee Survivability Changes - Some First Steps

[Rog]

The new players Ive talked to on korthos & the harbor recently had no plans on staying. My recent post is why.

Ill wave my flag here for once, I make a habit of visiting the harbor and korthos OFTEN, I give stuff away, I pay it forward like it was for me when I started. I get asked questions all the time, I teach A LOT OF NEW players how to use voice chat, and other basic functions that the new player always needs help with. I give away pltt, heal pots, weapons etc... and get feedback.

Try going to korthos, look on social panel, and find the un-guilded low level player, send a tell, and off help if they are new. Go on a quest with them. You'll soon learn how difficult a time the average new player has with difficulty settings, Being able to access them when they shouldn't and getting frustrated and leaving.

How many of you do this? Impaqt and I had the Adepts back in the day, they got so good they fired us. Its the point of spending time with the new player.

Im throwing the gauntlet down SSG, Go do what I do, Go to korthos, go to the harbor, and teach and listen, NOT one of you do that. I do, I dont give a rattss aasss if you ignore and block me here. I do more for promoting this game than 90% of staff, and what the new player tells me would make your jaw hit your keyboard everyday.
I challenge you to go do this. You'll be better informed of why you have bad new player retention, And the issue of this thread drives straight to the heart of the matter. as my previous posts reflect

the game is almost 13 years old. that is a very long time for a mmo. but your right i see new players every time i drop down to level 1. i am pretty impressed since
i do not think ddo spends a lot of money recruiting new players to the game.
your talking about level difficulty. do you think a 3 day vip account for every new player to decide if they like the game would help
i think they jump into a quest on reaper die a lot then decide they cant handle ether drop level or leave.
spend time with the new player base how it would take the server population to do something like that.
how much grind time should be invested. ddo has always had a steep learning curve the server could make something happen.
the last time i saw devs running around on my server spawning random mobs in public areas. they pointed out if you got in touch they are willing to do special thing on a server.
the only question i have for you what would be the top three things you would love to see to help a new player stay in ddo.

[Revolted]

Net Result:

1. We’re considering halving the bonus to 5%, net 25% total hp buff.

2. We are in no rush on this, AND we have many other things to do. So Lammania yes, but live TBD.

3. Reaper changes will eventually happen and the context of the meta may change.

First of all, thank you for realizing that the 1st draft of idea was not good at all. 50% extra HP would help more the top players than the newbies anyways, making the good players greater and the bad ones, well, they would still be as bad but with 50% more hp (irrelevant)

1- 25% hp buff means it's not going to be used by either fighters nor pallies who use defensive stance, in most of the cases. As they get 20% from the stances and no penalty on casting/whatever, it's a non brainer. Still, both are melees, and many are dps, if you're making a melee dps buff you should try to include everyone in the party.
Although I think this hp bonus a better way to start, I don't really think it hits the point. Having +25% HP and no dmg mitigation will still leave any melee dead in a second. Yes it's the players fault for not investing on their own defense, but this buff is for those who don't.

2- Take your time, let us test everything you want to implement on melee dps survivability so you don't break the game with non fully tested skills. Try to implement more tacticals, or improve the one's you got. Use the melee dps feats for the survivability you're trying to implement. Take every feat a melee uses and rethink it. They could give extra hp, or, better still, extra MRR/PRR/Concealment/Incorporeality/etc. Remember, rangers get some of those feats for free, so if you do something like that you might as well make it a toggle that doesn't let it be active at the same time as any ranged toggle. Rethink toughness and epic toughness, both are useless feats nowadays and they shouldn't be. Up the HP from toughness for 3 extra hp per level, for example. Get a clicky for Epic Toughness that get a short period of high dodge/dmg absorption/whatever. Something on these lines would be a nice addiction.

Now I say this, although I'm in that group that runs regularly r10's on a melee without much problems, but changes like this I would aprove!

3 Bring them on, you know we're ready for that :P

I love reaper, makes people play well and in team. Best thing that happened to this game in years. I almost stoped playing 6 times during WB years/Turbine later years, with all the p2w, the lack of direction of the game, the lack of good content for the pressure of putting a new update every 3 months. SSG and reaper difficulty brought me back to the game! Yes it divides even more the vets from the newbies, but there are other difficulties, no newbie is made to run reapers, and I still see lots of non-reaper lfm's. The "the reaper destroyed the game" choir, is the same that said earlier "everyone runs on elite and my normal/hard lfm's never fill up", so I wouldn't waste much time in those dooooooom threads

[DeltaBravo]

Great feedback guys!

Here are some of our thoughts and what we think we’re hearing.

-Get some caffeine, it’s another wall of text :P

1. The part of our community who plays high reaper is using plenty of melee dps, despite the fact they generally die in just several hits. It’s an impressive feat, and they really seem to enjoy the challenge. The extra dps seems to earn melee their place, since organized parties have developed a pattern of play that works for them. We still think melees taking even one extra hit would be a good quality of life thing, but since this will probably happen gradually with gear progression, and they seem happy, we are rethinking targeting them for a buff of this magnitude.
If you have the right melee builds and benefits you are right there is abo****ly no reason to buff DPS builds at all. But it give a limit to what kind of melee you can us ein your group.. you want someone who can. spot heal when really needed, wich leaves some out. you also wants some who can maybe stun a mob or take a beating from a boss, wich again leaves some classes and races out. Maybe some who can toss a buff or remove curse or so, when needed., Pure out DPS is not really that desired, And thats where the limit comes in. So i will again says come with some balance changes that will help with theese things. Look at what kind of healing/CC/support for other can claases do to help in high skull quests.


4. Short Range Casting + Big HP buff = GrrRrr! Don’t make me short! So the concern here seems to be, the buff is so large, it’ll be required, and with touch range I can’t heal or do the cool dps cross healing.

Second, we don’t think the limitation is as bad as some of you think it is. As long as you have a target, trying to cast at a target out of range doesn’t fire your skill or put it on cool down. It just says you’re out of range. You basically can do a drive by on the target slamming the key till it fires and run off to do whatever. It’s a limitation, but it’s a playable one, and meant to be paired with a big buff.t
If you do not think this is as bad as it sounds then iam gonna sauy you your self or your team do not play high end content on R6+ It is the worst idea. You cannot move away from the target you are on. If you as a melee wants to heal the cleric or a caster that haves the CC for some reason. and you cant reach him with your spell.. he will be dead before you get there. or your will bring the mobs you are fighting to make sure you also dies on the way.. Its a very very bad idea.. and sould not even be considered- IF i get a melee build into one of my +R6 groups and i see the person is running in this stance and just once he is not able to support the rest of the teams with heals or anything like that reliable. Well he will get kicked from the group. and i dont care if he runs with 10k HP.

I know you say this is not meant to be for players who dont stuggle and i will then ones again point out you are then makeing something that is not balanced into a game thats allready when it comes to builds in melee very unfair balanced..

Give the classes that need a hand. A helping hand. Whats wrong with adding more HP bonuses in the top tiers of the melee classes, some self healing ability and heck even more CC options for em..? give it as a free feat if you want. But please dont make it well if you use this you cant do this.. You want to help em.. not nerf em.

I typed in red so you can see my comments


Cheers DB

[Rog]

Great feedback guys!

Here are some of our thoughts and what we think we’re hearing.

-Get some caffeine, it’s another wall of text :P

1. The part of our community who plays high reaper is using plenty of melee dps, despite the fact they generally die in just several hits. It’s an impressive feat, and they really seem to enjoy the challenge. The extra dps seems to earn melee their place, since organized parties have developed a pattern of play that works for them. We still think melees taking even one extra hit would be a good quality of life thing, but since this will probably happen gradually with gear progression, and they seem happy, we are rethinking targeting them for a buff of this magnitude.

2. Another part of the community is struggling, sometimes even in Epic Hard and Elite, and of course, Reaper. We theorize this is likely exacerbated by being in pugs/groups with less organization that aren’t managing to do some of tactics from the group above. Now, getting organized is really part of what reaper/elite is about, but we are considering giving them a little help, perhaps on a smaller scale. Smooth the learning curve in.

3. DPS cross healing stuck around into the high reapers. We weren’t really sure that non-caster cocoons were going to stick around in high skulls, since healing in general is debuffed as well as personally. It seems, though, that people do, and prefer this solution to another healer, probably because dps players are easier to find then dedicated healers, and things go faster. Anyway, we view this method pretty positively, as long as a healer or two are still appreciated in a group. We’ll try to not to disrupt it.

4. Short Range Casting + Big HP buff = GrrRrr! Don’t make me short! So the concern here seems to be, the buff is so large, it’ll be required, and with touch range I can’t heal or do the cool dps cross healing.

First off, we don’t want this to feel like this feat is a requirement. If the bonus is so high you feel you must have it, we’ll likely lower it. This is much easier to do if we decide upper reaper doesn’t need much of a shift. Not using this and keeping your abilities at ranged would ideally both be a valid options based on the situation and build.

Second, we don’t think the limitation is as bad as some of you think it is. As long as you have a target, trying to cast at a target out of range doesn’t fire your skill or put it on cool down. It just says you’re out of range. You basically can do a drive by on the target slamming the key till it fires and run off to do whatever. It’s a limitation, but it’s a playable one, and meant to be paired with a big buff.

I don’t know where we’ll end up with Epic Defense, but you will likely see something that uses this limitation eventually. Perhaps in Eldritch Knight, because it creates a different style of game play, and we can give character power on different vectors because the limitation makes it interesting.

Even if we back off this feat entirely, we’ll probably run it on Lammania just to get feedback on playing with shortened spells.

Net Result:

1. We’re considering halving the bonus to 5%, net 25% total hp buff.

This should make it into a poor man’s defensive stance for melee characters who didn’t splash fighter or paladin. A touch more HP but doesn’t include the five other bonuses that come with those stances. There should be far less impact on the lower difficulties and really feel more as an optional tool in the build meta.

This shouldn’t really change the hit ratios in upper reaper much. Yes it’s still a buff to some builds, but in high reaper this might not even get you an extra hit. Healers who really want the HP without the shortened range can splash ftr/pal of course. Option, not requirement.

We are still not keen on opening up full range healing to this buff because the limitation is what makes it a build choice and not just more numbers. We want to stick with the shortened range at least until we have a Lammania run. We’ll see how folks feel about it then.

This might not be enough for some builds, but it’s easier to add later than subtract. Plus we may add to other places and we’ve gotten many good suggestions.

2. We are in no rush on this, AND we have many other things to do. So Lammania yes, but live TBD.

This may run on Lammania, change and wait for another Lammania. We will happily shelve this for an update or two to get it right.

3. Reaper changes will eventually happen and the context of the meta may change.

We original thought melee players needed a bit more help in reaper, and maybe many do but we also hear that there is some desire (in general) to see a few curve balls up in 6/7+ skulls, maybe. If this is the case, it would be our pleasure

high reaper stops the zerg team work or at lest staying together as party is necessary. this is very desirable to me.
melee kills are slim only a few can do it. i do not care about trash mobs counts.
since i will never be top on that leader bored in high reaper. its all instant kills or caster spells
living long enough to have a chance at being healed by a party member when tanking a red name
or a really mean crown is all i am hoping for.

[DeltaBravo]

Great move. But still it will not be scaling almost at all. On level 21, if you are melee you SHOULD have 3 style feat fighting (thus +20% HP always on level 21)

Why not add it as a free addition to first fighting feat style and change it to something like this:

• Base feat +1% HP
• Focus Weapon (Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing) +1% HP (total : +2% HP) (could applied only once)
• Improved feat +1% HP (total : +3% HP)
• Greater feat +1% HP (total : +4% HP)
• Perfect feat +1% HP (total : +5% HP)

And then put multiplier on Epic levels (20 and 23) with additional bonuses on Reaper Tree:

• Character level (Epic) 20 – x2
• Character level (Epic) 23 - x2 (total: x3)
• Any Reaper Core 4 (can be acquired on level 21) – x2 (total: x4) (could applied only once)
• Any Reaper Core 5 (can be acquired on level 25) – x2 (total: x5) (could applied only once)
• Any Reaper Core 6 (can be acquired on level 30) – x2 (total: x6) (could applied only once)

Assuming melee will take all required feats on time for additional bonuses to HP, on your proposal scaling will look like:

• Level 21 – All classes: 20% HP bonus
• Level 26 – All classes: 25% HP bonus

With my proposal it will be much more smoothly:

• Level 1 - 1% HP bonus (Human, Fighters and Monk can have 2% HP bonus)
• Level 3 - All classes: 2% HP bonus
• Level 6 / Level 8 - Warriors / Other melee classes: 3% HP bonus
• Level 11 / Level 15 - Warriors / Other melee classes: 4% HP bonus
• Level 20 - All classes: 8% HP bonus
• Level 21 – All classes: 12% HP bonus
• Level 23 – All classes: 16% HP bonus
• Level 25 – All classes: 20% HP bonus
• Level 26 – All classes: 25% HP bonus
• Level 30 - All classes: 30% HP bonus

So without Reaper points, you have maximum of 15% HP bonus for free. But for those who like Reaper (and I assume it’s mostly for them) it’s up to 30% HP Bonus.

this idea is kinda nice aswell.

[thomassmith2]

I agree with all of this. The problem is that handing out more HP isn't going to solve this problem. I've watched (with some amusement, I confess) puggers with 3k HP go down like a ton of bricks in just a hard run of Baba or Strahd because they aren't listening to tactics. There SHOULD be a penalty for this kind of thing. If you don't use tactics, you should die. This is Dungeons & Dragons, after all.

Now, the bigger problem - and one I've been tossing around and discussing today with others - is that there is an ever-widening divide between the mid-high reaper vets and the players that are struggling. There is too much now in the game to build towards for most players to ever even begin to catch up. It's a haves-havenot situation. I don't begrudge anyone the lives and work they have put into their toons (I've certainly put enough into mine), but there is literally no way for a player that just started playing, or plays casually, to ever be at the level of a vet. Ever. Because by the time they might start, SSG needs to offer the vets something else so they don't get bored. And it begins again. When I started playing, there was a LOT less of a divide (far less in the game). So as a newer player, I played with all the best players on the server, and I learned mechanics and tactics from them. That helped bridge that gap. It's why I don't struggle on Epic Hard or Elite, even on a first life toon. But that doesn't happen anymore, because the best players are so far away from newer/casual players in skill that their paths never cross.

For these reasons, I'd like to broach a solution that has been tossed around before. I used to oppose it, but now I think it's actually the best way to help bridge that gap. Let reaper enhancements and past lives be shared between all toons on an account.

"But I had to work for all mine, they should too!" Meh. No one is taking anything away from people that already worked for it. It's the same as when the TR XP curve was reduced. No one died. Ultimately, it allows people to catch up faster, particularly when they are still figuring out how to play and what to play. It allows people to play alts and not fall behind. It helps narrow that skill gap between the vets and the not-vets. And if the skill gap is reduced, people will feel more confident playing with vets and learning from them - tactics, communication, mechanics.

People are complaining that they can't catch up because they can't catch up with PLs, gear, and reaper points. HP doesn't solve that. HP doesn't solve any of the issues, at all. If anything, that extra buffer makes it so they have to learn FEWER tactics, because they were able to brute force their way through. That won't work at higher difficulties, and you will end up with people even more frustrated than they are now.

Edit: And btw, this would also make it a lot easier to balance content, since the gap between these two groups will narrow. That's an important bonus.

Could we not have a sort of handicap system? Reaper didn't really change the layout of quests it just made people take more damage and not be able to self heal. Couldn't those changes be imposed on a character by character basis? I.e. your veteran players can enter a normal quest with a new player but set themselves a handicap that means that quest feels like reaper for them (and maybe rewards them like reaper) but still feels normal to other players. This would encourage grouping and gets vets to share their experiences wouldn't it?

[lyrecono]

Yes, this, exactly this. SirValentine says it right.



Wait what? No. no. If the same player can comfortably do R1 on a ranged character and, on the next life on a melee character, they are failing in EE and EH, then they don't just need to get better or accept they are not good enough for reaper. Don't turn this into a noobs-need-help-in-reaper argument. It's not about reaper being too hard or too easy. The point is that either it is too easy on a ranged character or it is too hard on a melee.
Now this point could be false, but ?*f it is true, SSG should either nerf ranged style or buff melee style. To me that's basically the same thing. The R-number gets shifted a little but that is of little concern.

Me personally I feel comfortable doing R6 on most ranged characters and R4 on most melees. When I join our guild's R5 or R6 I can't contribute much. But that's just me, I would rather use some huge amount of data from the server to base decisions on.

This is what everyone seems to overlook , the statement that reaper was not seeing as much melee compared to other playstyles is constantly ovelooked. Or pushed aside by no true scotsman falacies.
No, not every well geared and build melee will do fine in high skull reaper because not every melee is a tank.

As for the short range whille in stance, why use it if you heal? Didn' t the forum fall over themselves with claims of healers returning to the game? Just get some divine healers into high skull reaper.........

I guess people have a hard time accepting different viewpoints from playstyles they don't seem to know much about.....
I wonder how they would feel when the tables were turned and any mob with an int of 10+ would target casters first with the same dots and dps a frontline tank would get. Oh and give every mob teleport. It is reaper mode after all.

But i guess they don't want more melee in reaper, they came out in droves and torc caved in.

To bad, it was nice to see a dev care about melee for once.

[sjbb87]

Melee needs defense and damage for high levels reaper and defense to low epic level(21~25)

some considerations:
Thanks for looking melee as it really needs tweaking.



1- Even though a bonus of 50% of HP is incredible, percentage is not a good mechanic to implement, remember of mortal fear?

2- Let's use the monk example, which is the best current melee. It has great AC (150+), Dodge (40 +), damage, saves, and the only weakness it should have would be prr, but it does not have (Iron Skin: While centered, you gain an additional 20 + stance ), you need to adjust the other melee classes to have more features.

3 - No matter your damage, the wizard / warlock / cleric / fvs will kill the mob directly.

4 - My suggestion, While using a melee feat (swf, 2wf, 2hf, Excluding shields) receive bonus to: when hit the enemy gain "damage reduction" equal to the CR of the enemy within 6 seconds with 6 Cooldown seconds (Scale on reaper)

[Revolted]

This is what everyone seems to overlook , the statement that reaper was not seeing as much melee compared to other playstyles is constantly ovelooked. Or pushed aside by no true scotsman falacies.
No, not every well geared and build melee will do fine in high skull reaper because not every melee is a tank.

As for the short range whille in stance, why use it if you heal? Didn' t the forum fall over themselves with claims of healers returning to the game? Just get some divine healers into high skull reaper.........

I guess people have a hard time accepting different viewpoints from playstyles they don't seem to know much about.....
I wonder how they would feel when the tables were turned and any mob with an int of 10+ would target casters first with the same dots and dps a frontline tank would get. Oh and give every mob teleport. It is reaper mode after all.

But i guess they don't want more melee in reaper, they came out in droves and torc caved in.

To bad, it was nice to see a dev care about melee for once.

The falacy is your expertise, I see! "because not every melee is a tank" I don't even know what you're talking about in here! Any melee (any at all) can get, at 30, over 1600hp and over 120prr. and to have this low hp and prr they must be a rogue assassin (which will have high dodge if it knows what it's doing), otherwise any melee can get over 2k hp and 150 prr... And for me, with these numbers, I've been grouping r10's for a long time with success.

Also do you think that these hp bonus would make a difference? Most people get 1 shoted at r10 because a) they got really low hp, b) they got no damage mitigation, c) don't know their place in high reapers, as a melee. And for both cases, 50% wouldn't make a difference. This 50% would make a difference to the top tier players. Many are using defensive stances, which they wouldn't need anymore, leaving them open to more dps. Many others invest high in hp equipment (like LGS), this way they would start using other equipment, getting, you guessed it, more dps. So, for the newbies and noobs playing melee, this would make no difference at all. For the others, it would increase their dps, a lot.
Now, and picture this with me, imagine a tank. A tank nowadays can get to 4k hp without much problems. It's PRR will be around 75-80% dr, but with low dodge. Now see a barb. With this change a barb would get to 3-4k hp (and remember the 50% bonus don't stack with fighter/pally/bear stance, being both competence), and getting 60% dr from prr ain't hard. This plus the 14% it can get from the dr changes on barb. So, with this change, you don't only get the top tiers way better, you'll also get to destroy tanks altogether, as they're no needed anymore.

You see, devs are in a rollercoaster. They hear people like you, that think that a flavour melee, away from a min/max build should be able to do r10's without problems. Then they listen to people like me, who say that melees aren't in bad shape whatsoever, and I could roll a 1st lifer fighter/barb/monk/pally and play everything on HE to show you that. Obviously everything starts to go wrong if I think that, as a first lifer, I should be able to run r6+ without the proper gear. I love to see melees in high reaper, and I usually see them there. I also see rogue assassins with 800 hp at cap, and for those, there's no salvation. I also see barbs with 3k hp without prr, and for those, no salvation again. I see then people playing dps builds in US, and for those even less salvation. You want to contribute in r10? Bring your A game, be it ranged, caster or melee. The amount of times I see people saying a caster has an easy life and I see them failing miserably is way too high, the amount of time I see people making the FOTM ranged build thinking they'll automatically be top killers in r10 and actually being top killed and totally worthless there, is also way too high.

[noobodyfool]

The falacy is your expertise, I see! "because not every melee is a tank" I don't even know what you're talking about in here! Any melee (any at all) can get, at 30, over 1600hp and over 120prr. and to have this low hp and prr they must be a rogue assassin (which will have high dodge if it knows what it's doing), otherwise any melee can get over 2k hp and 150 prr... And for me, with these numbers, I've been grouping r10's for a long time with success.

Also do you think that these hp bonus would make a difference? Most people get 1 shoted at r10 because a) they got really low hp, b) they got no damage mitigation, c) don't know their place in high reapers, as a melee. And for both cases, 50% wouldn't make a difference. This 50% would make a difference to the top tier players. Many are using defensive stances, which they wouldn't need anymore, leaving them open to more dps. Many others invest high in hp equipment (like LGS), this way they would start using other equipment, getting, you guessed it, more dps. So, for the newbies and noobs playing melee, this would make no difference at all. For the others, it would increase their dps, a lot.
Now, and picture this with me, imagine a tank. A tank nowadays can get to 4k hp without much problems. It's PRR will be around 75-80% dr, but with low dodge. Now see a barb. With this change a barb would get to 3-4k hp (and remember the 50% bonus don't stack with fighter/pally/bear stance, being both competence), and getting 60% dr from prr ain't hard. This plus the 14% it can get from the dr changes on barb. So, with this change, you don't only get the top tiers way better, you'll also get to destroy tanks altogether, as they're no needed anymore.

You see, devs are in a rollercoaster. They hear people like you, that think that a flavour melee, away from a min/max build should be able to do r10's without problems. Then they listen to people like me, who say that melees aren't in bad shape whatsoever, and I could roll a 1st lifer fighter/barb/monk/pally and play everything on HE to show you that. Obviously everything starts to go wrong if I think that, as a first lifer, I should be able to run r6+ without the proper gear. I love to see melees in high reaper, and I usually see them there. I also see rogue assassins with 800 hp at cap, and for those, there's no salvation. I also see barbs with 3k hp without prr, and for those, no salvation again. I see then people playing dps builds in US, and for those even less salvation. You want to contribute in r10? Bring your A game, be it ranged, caster or melee. The amount of times I see people saying a caster has an easy life and I see them failing miserably is way too high, the amount of time I see people making the FOTM ranged build thinking they'll automatically be top killers in r10 and actually being top killed and totally worthless there, is also way too high.

2000hp and 150prr is straight garbage you must be playing monk or monk splash for those numbers to work and playing with training wheels aka cc's deadicated heals and excellent dps my numbers are twice as high yours and r3-4 is about it unless I'm being carried. Before you start with you false over stated skill and this gos out to all of you elitist drop your exploits gear meta builds and perfect party composition and you would know reality everyone is not in your shoes.

[korgzz_bloodaxe]

The falacy is your expertise, I see! "because not every melee is a tank" I don't even know what you're talking about in here! Any melee (any at all) can get, at 30, over 1600hp and over 120prr. and to have this low hp and prr they must be a rogue assassin (which will have high dodge if it knows what it's doing), otherwise any melee can get over 2k hp and 150 prr... And for me, with these numbers, I've been grouping r10's for a long time with success.

You do realise the guy you are talking to has more than double the numbers you are talking about? If you are a melee in r10 with the numbers you are talking about (2k hp and 150 prr) you are a tombstone unless you are hiding in a corner or waiting for a caster to CC in most quests unless you have a 100% Dire charge and you are fighting mobs that can be stunned. On my non-tank non-monk melee dps I have over 300prr and over 2.5k hp and i struggle at r6+ on any quest where I can't use dire charge. Please post a video of the contribution you are making on r10. I bet it is waiting for mass hold or exploiting Dire charge.

Lyrecono and most other melee dps (non-monk) want more than just beating on mobs that are standing around CC'ed.

[lLockehart]

1. The part of our community who plays high reaper is using plenty of melee dps, despite the fact they generally die in just several hits. It’s an impressive feat, and they really seem to enjoy the challenge.

...
What. Was this drawn solely from the responses in this thread? They seem pretty happy? impressive feat? what, clicking Dire charge? I guess ~
Undressing the sarcasm... come on, doesn't the team have their own thoughts on the matter, aren't we testing things in-game to have an idea and then mesh with the general community...
Here's what I think, player's haven't "mastered" Reaper because there's few things to master, you CC your way to the red names, then you safe spot them. That's it. If your Tank logs in, that's great! if they don't you're limited to running this pattern because... there's nothing else to do..... A healer which should have been a high draw for Reaper isn't much welcomed because they only ever work if there's a Tank online (and even then). I guess you can now Raise dead Sla which really puts your Platinum account in thrift mode so there's that.

This is R7 beyond which does deserve some balancing (in the dungeon department), <R7 has a larger leeway to receive punishment but only if you're already super powercrept and the main premise remains the same: Avoid getting hit, spam Dire charge/hold monsters and there we go because there's little room for anything else if you're short of a dedicated Tank which you'll probably be since we aren't getting server mergers anytime soon.

The problem with the % feat is that (as said multiple times) it helps much more established players than those struggling. Along with robbing further identity from some classes like an Animal druid, Paladins, etc which rely on their spells to not only feel different but in their balance department. This line of changes will incentivize to run more focused melees like Monks, Ftr, Rogues and even Tempest's which do have their healing repertoire from Ranger spells but that's not why you're playing them. These are the classes that are already well represented, especially Monk and while I hate getting on the Monk hate bandwagon because it's really one of the more unique and fun things in this game... it's really awkward at the same time.

I'm not saying a one-hit kill difficulty doesn't have its appeal, there's multiple games that boast this premise and it's pretty neat there but this should be reserved for R10. It's an exercise in discipline and muscle memory rather than game mechanics which you're already familiar and an expert with. This is where even R3 in legendary quests fails to achieve where a wolf chomps you down faster than a healer can put you back up. It's not properly balanced. And yes, an HP buffer will help in this regard but the way it's being implemented is just overly complex, limiting and strange, it's something that should exist in base classes rather than a D10 hit die for a game with 5 digit numbers.

2. Another part of the community is struggling, sometimes even in Epic Hard and Elite, and of course, Reaper. We theorize this is likely exacerbated by being in pugs/groups with less organization that aren’t managing to do some of tactics from the group above. Now, getting organized is really part of what reaper/elite is about, but we are considering giving them a little help, perhaps on a smaller scale. Smooth the learning curve in.

Some of the tactics, Like Dire charging non stop, yeah it's pretty hard to click the button sometimes. It's an MMO, if we had a larger playing base, it would draw more Tanks which in turn would draw a lot more healers. "A little help on a smaller scale"? by smoothing the learning curve, of what, spamming Dire charges and Hold monsters? what does this mean?
What would immensely help is greater incentives to group and a new LFM UI. Of course merging the servers is the main dish but yeah, improving grouping would help this issue much more than slapping extra HP.

3. DPS cross healing stuck around into the high reapers. We weren’t really sure that non-caster cocoons were going to stick around in high skulls, since healing in general is debuffed as well as personally. It seems, though, that people do, and prefer this solution to another healer, probably because dps players are easier to find then dedicated healers, and things go faster. Anyway, we view this method pretty positively, as long as a healer or two are still appreciated in a group. We’ll try to not to disrupt it.

I'm pretty divided here because I think Cocoon was a huge mistake and it alarms me to this day that it isn't nerfed to a Tier 4 or 3, Reaper was supposed to be a big draw for Healers which do have their place in the early levels but then are still outperformed in the same fashion as how they were in EE. Maybe not so much with a Raise dead sla okay I'll stop with this. Point being, I too enjoy giving and receiving Coons and at this point in the game, removing that aspect would probably hurt more than it solves, in the same vein that removing Dire charge would also hurt the same even factoring the 50% Hp buff so yeah, this is where I'm happy I'm not developing the game.

4. Short Range Casting + Big HP buff = GrrRrr! Don’t make me short! So the concern here seems to be, the buff is so large, it’ll be required, and with touch range I can’t heal or do the cool dps cross healing.

First off, we don’t want this to feel like this feat is a requirement. If the bonus is so high you feel you must have it, we’ll likely lower it. This is much easier to do if we decide upper reaper doesn’t need much of a shift. Not using this and keeping your abilities at ranged would ideally both be a valid options based on the situation and build.

Second, we don’t think the limitation is as bad as some of you think it is. As long as you have a target, trying to cast at a target out of range doesn’t fire your skill or put it on cool down. It just says you’re out of range. You basically can do a drive by on the target slamming the key till it fires and run off to do whatever. It’s a limitation, but it’s a playable one, and meant to be paired with a big buff.

"First off, we don’t want this to feel like this feat is a requirement. If the bonus is so high you feel you must have it, we’ll likely lower it."
"It’s a limitation, but it’s a playable one, and meant to be paired with a big buff."

Which is it? It's either a big buff or something you feel you can toggle on and off between some encounters. Can't speak for anyone else but I'm iffy about this because it restricts a lot of things going forward and it's just a bad idea with a clear red flag of issues, added to this is that it's overly complex, weird and straight unintuitive. The real reason this is designed like this is because we don't want it in Ranged characters or Healers, it's almost as if this is something supposed to exist in the main melee classes in the game. It would be sooooo much better to slowly work on this and revamp the Hit dice but this just feels like slapping a patch on another patch that's been patched with a patch, it's very patchy. What about PPR, AC, Dodge, they've all also been overly patched in all these years, PRR has become so mundane that achieving a 150-200 is something that's very doable and (again) helps a lot more powercrept players.

This is something that should've existed in place of the Reaper tree as a playstyle tree with these kind of drawbacks and boons or even in Epic destinies which haven't been updated for years. Most of them, even at their inception, have been super poor.

My favourite solution to this is really to do away with the Reaper tree and implement a new one with much more nuanced and powerful options. We could have this HP buff for straight melees, we could implement a way for magical damage to have some Dps in high end content, etc. It would just be much easier to balance and would provide good, balanced and much needed building blocks for different playstyles.

... Or why not do away with all of this and slap everyone with more HP, ranged spellcasters and physical Dps'er could have 3k, everyone else with 7-10k, there we go, now we have proper HP buffers and can freely slide dungeon damage meters.

I don’t know where we’ll end up with Epic Defense, but you will likely see something that uses this limitation eventually. Perhaps in Eldritch Knight, because it creates a different style of game play, and we can give character power on different vectors because the limitation makes it interesting.

???????
Okay so, the main draw of an Eldritch Knight (supposedly) is that you can dial between casting and melee'ing and sometimes both, this is muuuuch better represented in Rune arms but whatever, let's say you have the Quick draw going on and there's a ton more feats alike Arcane warrior that actually incentivize you to play into your role, firing off Polar rays, lightly CC'ing things while stabbing mobs with your hopefully spellpower scaling magical blade of yore... and you can now trade all of this for a beefy HP% and that's... interesting? it creates a different style of gameplay? can an example be given of this, I just see it as you becoming a worse Fighter or whatever melee is floating the boat.

And yeah, if everyone is going to hang around with more HP, the buffs on EK better be mountainous. This is such a big design restrictions that the team is self-inflicting on themselves, the power level that you'd have to give an EK so that it retains identity and performs well in the front lines without this HP buff is huge.

1. We’re considering halving the bonus to 5%, net 25% total hp buff.

I'd much rather have Tanks stacking with this HP buff but this is a good compromise too. Not instantly overshadowing a Tanks's Ap choice in the HP department is... a good first step I guess.

Overall... I wish the team would perform some internal testing and see how Reaper fares for them using multiple classes and combinations. There's a distinct lack of info and an incredible divide in these forums between casual players and players who feel like cheesing >R7 runs is the norm (at some level it really is) but an issue of this calibre should be known by the team. There are sandbox MMO's but this is not one of them, the team should have a coherent idea of what they want, of what difficulty they're aiming for and what to leave open for the future.

What I feel from this is that all we do is get a general consensuses from the forums, try to mish-mash the changes to appease to everyone and throw some sandboxy tools to entertain people which really only results in over inflated damage and Hp numbers on dungeons. I don't think the team really has an idea of what's happening in the end game and even in mid-level Reapers.

[Ballrus]

1. More HP compromise of 25% is good

2. 25% AC for Heavy Armor or Shield.

3. Tatics improved by 25% ether cool down reduced or effect time increased

4.Glancing Blows looked at

5. STEALTH!!!

6. Make this new 25% hp stacks with instances (sacred and stalwart) to make tanks happy (45% total, not the original 50% but it is a thing for heavy tanks);

7. Allow shiels bashes (auto and manual) proc doublestrikes;

8. Allow glancing blows proc doublestrikes;

9. Add the new DR to shields.

Ps. Make my Vanguard happy!!

[Revolted]

2000hp and 150prr is straight garbage you must be playing monk or monk splash for those numbers to work and playing with training wheels aka cc's deadicated heals and excellent dps my numbers are twice as high yours and r3-4 is about it unless I'm being carried. Before you start with you false over stated skill and this gos out to all of you elitist drop your exploits gear meta builds and perfect party composition and you would know reality everyone is not in your shoes.

Actually right now I got around 2k hp, 180prr on a pure fighter twf with khopeshes. I got 3 heroic past lifes and 2 epic past lifes (it's my alt). I usually am top killer on any party I ran, unless there's a good/great dc caster there. If you think that's impossible than you gotta learn some playing skills. You know how you do it? Organized party. People wait to attack, no zergs. I run dailies r10 and the only ones I got some issues are the ones where not i nor anyone else in the party can aoe cc mobs. R10's are not about soloing/zerging, is about doing the job. If you guys can't understand that, if you rush ahead in dungeons, if you don't pull mobs away from archers, then you deserve to die, and the problem is not about melees or ranged or whatever, it's about not understanding the game. If you have a good CC in party, you wait for cc, if you got dire charge you wait for the timer to go off to engage. Dedicated healer does nothing if you are, as every doomer states, getting one-shoted, and I'm surely not! You know what devs saw with all this drama? That they were about to give a huge hp boost to melees, because the doomers said melees couldn't play at r10, when in fact there's a bunch of them that can because they know how to play melee.

Now don't get the idea I'm saying you don't know how to play, just not melees. I know how to play melees and every ranged/caster toon I make sucks, so should they get boosted too?

[lyrecono]

The falacy is your expertise, I see! "because not every melee is a tank" I don't even know what you're talking about in here! Any melee (any at all) can get, at 30, over 1600hp and over 120prr. and to have this low hp and prr they must be a rogue assassin (which will have high dodge if it knows what it's doing), otherwise any melee can get over 2k hp and 150 prr... And for me, with these numbers, I've been grouping r10's for a long time with success.

Also do you think that these hp bonus would make a difference? Most people get 1 shoted at r10 because a) they got really low hp, b) they got no damage mitigation, c) don't know their place in high reapers, as a melee. And for both cases, 50% wouldn't make a difference. This 50% would make a difference to the top tier players. Many are using defensive stances, which they wouldn't need anymore, leaving them open to more dps. Many others invest high in hp equipment (like LGS), this way they would start using other equipment, getting, you guessed it, more dps. So, for the newbies and noobs playing melee, this would make no difference at all. For the others, it would increase their dps, a lot.
Now, and picture this with me, imagine a tank. A tank nowadays can get to 4k hp without much problems. It's PRR will be around 75-80% dr, but with low dodge. Now see a barb. With this change a barb would get to 3-4k hp (and remember the 50% bonus don't stack with fighter/pally/bear stance, being both competence), and getting 60% dr from prr ain't hard. This plus the 14% it can get from the dr changes on barb. So, with this change, you don't only get the top tiers way better, you'll also get to destroy tanks altogether, as they're no needed anymore.

You see, devs are in a rollercoaster. They hear people like you, that think that a flavour melee, away from a min/max build should be able to do r10's without problems. Then they listen to people like me, who say that melees aren't in bad shape whatsoever, and I could roll a 1st lifer fighter/barb/monk/pally and play everything on HE to show you that. Obviously everything starts to go wrong if I think that, as a first lifer, I should be able to run r6+ without the proper gear. I love to see melees in high reaper, and I usually see them there. I also see rogue assassins with 800 hp at cap, and for those, there's no salvation. I also see barbs with 3k hp without prr, and for those, no salvation again. I see then people playing dps builds in US, and for those even less salvation. You want to contribute in r10? Bring your A game, be it ranged, caster or melee. The amount of times I see people saying a caster has an easy life and I see them failing miserably is way too high, the amount of time I see people making the FOTM ranged build thinking they'll automatically be top killers in r10 and actually being top killed and totally worthless there, is also way too high.

Blalbla bold statement bla bla
I get it, you mean stand behind the caster and jump in when he has cc everything and having a perma healbot.
How is this 2k hp/150 prr working out on r10 when a stray mob or champ escapes the cc? Wait for a rez again?

Btw, the no true scotsman falacies were pointed out because people claimed that if you needed this hp buff, you simply weren't playing a good melee, like their idea of melee is the only way to play a good melee.
Basicly stating, no real melee would need this.
Yet when i asked azure about his build i never got a reply....

2000hp and 150prr is straight garbage you must be playing monk or monk splash for those numbers to work and playing with training wheels aka cc's deadicated heals and excellent dps my numbers are twice as high yours and r3-4 is about it unless I'm being carried. Before you start with you false over stated skill and this gos out to all of you elitist drop your exploits gear meta builds and perfect party composition and you would know reality everyone is not in your shoes.

Well, i stayed away from the more ugly truth, if they ever did a scan on my server and looked for dupped exp, sp and heal pots, xp stones, astral shards, cackes etc, half, if not more of the end game reaper farmers on my server would disapear overnight after some perma bans.
They even have dedicated chat programs to discuss exploits and quest shortcuts, safe spots and **** talk about others that aren't in on this.
Looking down on others from a mountain top made of exploits must give such a sence of acomplishment.

You do realise the guy you are talking to has more than double the numbers you are talking about? If you are a melee in r10 with the numbers you are talking about (2k hp and 150 prr) you are a tombstone unless you are hiding in a corner or waiting for a caster to CC in most quests unless you have a 100% Dire charge and you are fighting mobs that can be stunned. On my non-tank non-monk melee dps I have over 300prr and over 2.5k hp and i struggle at r6+ on any quest where I can't use dire charge. Please post a video of the contribution you are making on r10. I bet it is waiting for mass hold or exploiting Dire charge.

Lyrecono and most other melee dps (non-monk) want more than just beating on mobs that are standing around CC'ed.

Thank you, nice to get some support here.

[Revolted]

Lyrecono and most other melee dps (non-monk) want more than just beating on mobs that are standing around CC'ed.

So let me just clear this, what you guys want is something neither a non-exploiting ranged nor a non-exploiting caster can do: solo r10's. You can do that in Elite, did you try that out already?

[axel15810]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-Melee-HP-Buff

^ See above link, it's a video of me talking about this and giving detailed feedback for almost an hour.

But to summarize:

- I like the idea of shrinking the effective survivability gap between melee and ranged, makes sense.

- While I'm concerned about some of the power creep collateral damage of this change (particularly making standard difficulties even easier that don't need to be made easier), I grudgingly think the pros do outweigh the cons if a few changes are made:

- Don't leave hybrid builds further behind in the meta (Eldritch Knights, Warpriest, Warsoul). How about putting an ability in tier 4 of these trees to allow them to cast/heal/buff simultaneously while also using the toggle? I don't think we need to worry about this being OP, these trees are all some of the weaker ones in the game, even after the warsoul/priest pass. And the access to the toggle can be taken into account in future balance tweeks for these trees. Atleast let them heal/buff. Why discourage the melee divine or melee arcane playstyles so much? These classes are meant to be up front meleeing, yet they can't benefit from this new toggle? From a balance perspective - why? Constantly dealing with turning the toggle on and off will be a huge burden that goes against the entire concept of these trees which is being able to be versatle and do many types of things, and not using the toggle at all leaves them further behind in the meta as I said above. Just doesn't make sense to leave these hybrid class trees that are already behind in the meta, even further behind. There's plenty of ways you could let hybrid trees benefit from the toggle without the range penalty while making it cost prohibitive for backline offensive casters who shouldn't have it. Put an ability in the upper end of the hybrid trees to let these characters have their range with the toggle, and add some basic melee feats as prerequisites for good measure to make sure that it's far too cost prohibitive for pure offensive caster types to get it.

- Don't exclude tanks. Let this stack with their HP stance bonuses. Why spend AP on competence HP bonuses in stances when you can get more HP with no AP cost and better DPS by just taking offensive feats instead? It’s a disadvantage that tanking builds have to spend AP on HP bonuses at non-tanks get for free. There’s a big opportunity cost non-tank builds are gaining that others aren’t. Tanks are supposed to have a HP advantage over DPS melee types, that's why many players build them and sacrifice DPS in their build, to have that HP advantage. Taking that away really discourages building a tank because you can now go melee DPS and have your cake and eat it too. If you think tank HP will be too ridiculous, make mob DPS in reaper harder to compensate as a solution.

- As referenced above, I think reaper challenge level needs to be reevaluated after this change. Power creep over the past year or so since its implementation has made it easier. It may be time to up the challenge.

I think overall the idea is worth doing despite some of the power creep issues it causes, but please consider making these above changes.

[Revolted]

Blalbla bold statement bla bla
I get it, you mean stand behind the caster and jump in when he has cc everything and having a perma healbot.
How is this 2k hp/150 prr working out on r10 when a stray mob or champ escapes the cc? Wait for a rez again?

Btw, the no true scotsman falacies were pointed out because people claimed that if you needed this hp buff, you simply weren't playing a good melee, like their idea of melee is the only way to play a good melee.
Basicly stating, no real melee would need this.
Yet when i asked azure about his build i never got a reply....


Well, i stayed away from the more ugly truth, if they ever did a scan on my server and looked for dupped exp, sp and heal pots, xp stones, astral shards, cackes etc, half, if not more of the end game reaper farmers on my server would disapear overnight after some perma bans.
They even have dedicated chat programs to discuss exploits and quest shortcuts, safe spots and **** talk about others that aren't in on this.
Looking down on others from a mountain top made of exploits must give such a sence of acomplishment.



Thank you, nice to get some support here.

Bring it on baby, never did nor want to do an exploit in this game. Playing it melee only since 2009. Yes melees die on r10, wasn't that supposed to happen? And you know what happens when that stray champ kills the melee? either someone kills it, or it'll kill the whole party.

You guys are very funny, I can assure you I know my place in a r10 run, and that I die sometimes, and that I see nothing wrong with it. Still most of the times I'm top killer, if that means something in this game, unless theres a great necro/illusionist there. Yes sometimes I wait for cc (which is not a dumb thing to do, you know? you don't remember old epics, but that was how most of them were done), sometimes I backup cc with dire charge, sometimes I intim a champ just so in dying I save the caster(s).

I'll retire from this conversation, no point in argueing with the great melees in their servers that think melees are in grave need of a boost. If devs bring some boosts to melee they'll make my life easier (not really to people who doesn't know how to play a melee, but what do I care?).

[lyrecono]

Actually right now I got around 2k hp, 180prr on a pure fighter twf with khopeshes. I got 3 heroic past lifes and 2 epic past lifes (it's my alt). I usually am top killer on any party I ran,

what does that mean? Do you solo, play with noobs, people who are stoned? A party with cc and healers, no instakill party members? In on normal? You give no aditional data to work with. You are aware that kills mean nothing? It just loi tz out who got the last in.,

unless there's a good/great dc caster there. If you think that's impossible than you gotta learn some playing skills. You know how you do it? Organized party. People wait to attack, no zergs. I run dailies r10 and the only ones I got some issues are the ones where not i nor anyone else in the party can aoe cc mobs.
so by your admission its not playerskill, build or gear but hiding behind the cc, thanks for clearing that up.
It explains a lot, you don't get hit, wow, that adresses all our issuess, oh wait, it doesn't, your sollution is to get caried by a party member that did all the work on his cc work for you.
Funny, when people troll the vault forum by saying they pike reaper mode i never knew they meant it.

R10's are not about soloing/zerging, is about doing the job. If you guys can't understand that, if you rush ahead in dungeons, if you don't pull mobs away from archers, then you deserve to die, and the problem is not about melees or ranged or whatever, it's about not understanding the game. If you have a good CC in party, you wait for cc, if you got dire charge you wait for the timer to go off to engage. Dedicated healer does nothing if you are, as every doomer states, getting one-shoted, and I'm surely not! You know what devs saw with all this drama? That they were about to give a huge hp boost to melees, because the doomers said melees couldn't play at r10, when in fact there's a bunch of them that can because they know how to play melee.
by essentially picking and not get hit, great sollution!

Now don't get the idea I'm saying you don't know how to play, just not melees. I know how to play melees and every ranged/caster toon I make sucks, so should they get boosted too?

Thanks for the info, really helpfull and adresses all the issuess we all mentioned the last year....

[LightBear]

Barbarian DR Class Feature Revamp

Concerning that:
- What does this mean for the half-elf dilly Barbarian?
- What does this mean for thunder-forged heavy armor with Shadow Guardian?

I can understand the second being ignored (for now ) but hoping that the half-elf dilly isn't being overlooked.