Melee Survivability Changes - Some First Steps

[noobodyfool]

I agree with anyone else who may have said this should only affect reaper content. It shouldn't be a feat. If anything it should be logic built into the reaper system.

You say some people are having trouble with EH and EE as possibly justification for making it available outside of reaper. But, EN and EC exist. If someone is having trouble with EH or EE, they can run EN or EC until they grow strong enough (or familiar enough) to be able to complete EH or EE. It's a point of player growth. Just giving someone a feat doesn't make them better players. What it does do is further devalue the existence of the Normal and Casual difficulty settings. If normal isn't normal, why have it at all?

And if they play en of eh who will be playing with them u going to come down from your throne to teach them the game? Last I checked this was a mmo. I look forward to when the rare few make it to the point to get in your raids and cause a party whip or keep u in a group for 5* the time it should. Keep up the good work getting thos worlds first bla bla bla then you can tell us how great u are. Next I see you going for who can do the newest raids on r10 the fastest.

[Odysseus2011]

One of the unintended consequences from implementing this change in this manner is in my opinion how far behind both Paladin and Fighter dps builds will be because Epic Defenses does not stack with their enhancement stance. For other dps builds like Monk, Rogue, Tempest, and Barbarian who do not have similar stances in their enhancement tree; they will get a significant boost from these changes. However, for Paladins/Fighters they will effectively be forced to choose the higher of the two stances and will end up getting much less from these changes than other builds.

Fighters can generally hit higher defensive stats than most other dps builds, I'm excluding a pure tank from this, but their dps is not necessarily equal to that of Monks/Assassins/Barbarians and if Epic Defenses does not stack with their current defense stance then they could be falling behind on both dps and survivability.

[noobodyfool]

This is the best thing I got out of your response. Take your time, think it through. Be careful you do not listen to just the vocal majority here, but to as many different sources as possible. Test test test

+1

[Odysseus2011]

It's being hinted at, but could more more directly address why you've decided to make this bonus non stacking with pally/fighter stances? Sounds like you want this to be a defensive buff for "melee dps," but not "tanks." But defensive stance HP isn't a "tank" thing, it's something basically all fighters and paladins use and is baked into the current defensive landscape. And that landscape doesn't particularly favor fighters and paladins. If this stance doesn't stack with the current ftr/pally stances then classes with defensive profiles that do stack, such as monks, are going to surge ahead.

I'm not seeing the problem that the decision to make epic defense not stack with defensive stance is trying to solve.

+1

I can see their desire not to give massive boosts to tanks; but in the process of doing this it will make Fighter and Paladin dps builds at a significant disadvantage to other dps classes who will see a much larger bonus from these changes. The devs will either have to make the stances stack; or just admit that Fighters and Paladins are now just solely the tanking classes.

[Amundir]

And if they play en of eh who will be playing with them u going to come down from your throne to teach them the game? Last I checked this was a mmo. I look forward to when the rare few make it to the point to get in your raids and cause a party whip or keep u in a group for 5* the time it should. Keep up the good work getting thos worlds first bla bla bla then you can tell us how great u are. Next I see you going for who can do the newest raids on r10 the fastest.

This feat will do nothing towards improving grouping. Those players who were having a hard time completing EH will have an easier time completing EH, and those already doing EH because EE was too much for them, will simply move up to trying to do EE, because they also get the same bonus. The change that is proposed, isn't proposed to happen to just a subset of people in a vacuum. All this will do is potentially shift up the lowest rung of the difficulty scale that people are trying to play, further devaluing the lower difficulty settings. A shift does not equate to a consolidation.

[mr420247]

Monks, twf rangers, barbs are pretty near the top of the power spectrum epics these days

With ranged rangers having the worst dps of all those melee, ranged, who needs help more

Who's completely locked out of this, now why go hp when 1 or 2 aoe cc abilities would solve almost all melee problems

1 heroic, 1 epic level 21, that actually works on reapers

then maybe work on increasing horrible epic caster dps

[noobodyfool]

+1

I can see their desire not to give massive boosts to tanks; but in the process of doing this it will make Fighter and Paladin dps builds at a significant disadvantage to other dps classes who will see a much larger bonus from these changes. The devs will either have to make the stances stack; or just admit that Fighters and Paladins are now just solely the tanking classes.

yes Dr. Monkey if they will just admit that fighters and pally are for tank only then we could move the coversation forward.

But since you guys are all ready doing r10 on everything I think u need r11 and new to mid players need a buff to tanks unless they play warlock.

[SerPounce]

the end game community on my server that runs the highest setting asap, the type that wants to be the first to do a r10 raid, the part of the community that thinks interacting with toons that lack this dedication they have is a waste of time. The type that rins your home number, demanding you join their raid in the midle of the night. The type that boots you if you haven't been online in 2-3 days without a good explanation, the type that is dedicated and laughs at the "r8 lfm".
Do i have to go on or did i make my point? These are judgemental people, pull up or drop out is their motto.

You make it sound so appealing...

[noobodyfool]

This feat will do nothing towards improving grouping. Those players who were having a hard time completing EH will have an easier time completing EH, and those already doing EH because EE was too much for them, will simply move up to trying to do EE, because they also get the same bonus. The change that is proposed, isn't proposed to happen to just a subset of people in a vacuum. All this will do is potentially shift up the lowest rung of the difficulty scale that people are trying to play, further devaluing the lower difficulty settings. A shift does not equate to a consolidation.

Wrong

[J-mann]

I think a lot of you completely misunderstand the reason the devs want to do this. The issue stems from the fact that hp totals between melee and ranged/casters have become almost the same due to the bloat of nonclass based hp. They want to get us back to the days when melee builds had clear hp advantages over ranged since they are exposed to much more damage. They want to be able to lessen the defensive benefits ranged recieve when compared to melee so they can make other changes as well. It has nothing to really do with difficulties in general except they demonstrate the issues more fully as the difference exists at all play levels but is just more exasperated at higher didficulty.

The way they are going about it may be a bit ham handed but in all honesty it needs done. In every other mmo ive played melee types definately can take more hits than ranged to make up for the higher risk. In ddo gear bloat has gotten to the point that it pretty much masks any difference defensively between 2 dps classes. Personally i would rather they lower mob damage but give mobs more tools to counter range, but ai programming is harder so it wont get done that way. The other solution would be to give melee more/better tactics tools to shore up some of their shortfall. Some real control abilities or at least much shorter cds before 29 would be great.

[sephiroth1084]

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.

For the players who are struggling with Hard (really?!) or Elite, this would be a big deal for them, while for those who breeze through, this likely doesn't make a difference, or trivializes the content that they were slightly threatened in.

I'm not sure where the balance lies, but I can say this: my characters are fairly well geared, but not fully optimized yet (no Ravenloft set bonuses on anyone, no Slavers set bonuses, no Legendary Greensteel at all).
My paladin in Unyielding Sentinel has around 2500 HP, and over 200 PRR and AC, and feels nigh-invulnerable in a lot of quests on elite and even R1, but I also have invested a lot in healing (Empower Healing, Quicken, Extra Lay On Hands from both enhancements and Destiny trees, Light the Dark, and twisted in Consecration and Sacred Ground).

Meanwhile, I struggled mightily when i came back to DDO after a year-long break to not die constantly on my monk and rogue.

The monk has kind of gotten to a good place, largely by reincarnating into an Aasimar and maxing out the Healing Hands enhancements--he runs in Grandmaster of Flowers and has around 1,000 HP, 46% Dodge, 120ish AC, 100 PRR, and 25% miss chance from both concealment and incorporeality. He still gets smushed, but not so often that I'm really frustrated. +50% HP would probably put him a little over the top, and I would worry far less about dying/have enough of a buffer to almost always prevent death in Legendary elite and R1.

My rogue is another matter. I've gotten her up to around 800 HP, around 100 PRR, and have 20% concealment, and 25% incorporeal miss chance, along with a little less than 30% Dodge. I try to never have aggro, to attack from behind, to use Bluff, Shiv, and Improved Feint (so glad this is working now!)...and she dies entirely too much! If something looks at her funny, stray swings at someone running by, brief acquisition of aggro, stray shots from archers, Disintegrate (almost any spell that doesn't allow a Reflex save). I realize I have a bit of work to do here, but it is incredibly frustrating to play the rogue sometimes (not to mention how ridiculously high Fort saves run vs. how high I've been able to get my Assassinate DC--not helped by the reaper trees providing no bonus there). +50% HP would be a huge boon, and would greatly improve my enjoyment of the character.

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.

My friend who is playing a rogue on his first life (just hit 29!) is incredibly frustrated by how often he dies, and how little he feels he can do about it, since any stray hit tends to one-shot him. This is in Epic Elite, generally at level, or a level over. We don't run Hard, because I find it boring as **** (again, there is too small a gap between Normal and Hard, and too large a gap between Hard and Elite), and we don't run Reaper because saves scale up while Assassinate doesn't, and he's already getting squished too much in Elite. +50% HP would probably be the single best quality of life improvement for him. Right now, he has expressed a desire to reincarnate ASAP upon hitting level 30 into a ranged character, despite enjoying the sneaky Assassin gameplay, only because he can't stand dying all the time. I'm sure he is not alone in feeling this way.

Not being in an organized group certainly contributes, but isn't the whole problem. When my friends are on, we run (usually) as a paladin tank (my aforementioned character) who does a solid job of grabbing and holding aggro along with a little CC from Trip, Stunning Shield, and Dire Charge, the Assassin rogue, and a bard focused on healing and CC (also a first time first-lifer so DCs need improvement). I also tend to PUG out the remaining spots for anything that I don't consider easy. Both the rogue and bard die frequently, even though we are fairly organized.

For groups that have strong CC and are well-organized, an extra 50% HP is generally going to be trivial, because the whole idea to is not be swung at, let alone hit. Not always possible, but frequently enough that for those groups the HP would likely go unnoticed much of the time.

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.

With the huge self-healing penalties in reaper this is a necessity, and making this more difficult would be a problem. I would recommend exempting healing spells/effects from the range debuff.

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.

You say it wouldn't be a necessity, but in a year from now, when you find characters are dying far less frequently, and completing higher skull reaper quests with more regularity, can you say for certain that you won't make adjustments under the assumption that every has 50% more HP? After playing DDO for a decade, I feel confident in saying that this would absolutely become a necessity for many characters.

Your scenario of "drive by" healing doesn't jive with my experience in game. Most of the time, that cross-healing comes when, as a melee, I'm toe-to-toe with one or more monsters and notice that another party member is suddenly on the verge of death or incapacitated. Now, for most players, the first reaction to going from almost full HP to almost dead is to get away from the attacker, which usually means moving away from the melee with cross heals as well. That also means that if I want to heal them, I have to run to them, dragging aggro with me, which puts everyone else at risk of stray hits from guys chasing me. It also means that, as I get into range to make a touch-range heal on the ally in question, there is a good chance that the monsters chasing me will end up hitting them. Running to get close enough to heal someone in need before they get killed is likely to get other people killed, or kill my intended target. That's just one scenario.

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

I'd like to see the HP inflation in reaper go away. High skulls requires a ton of reaper XP, while those high-XP players trivialize low skulls. Get rid of that HP inflation, reduce the accordingly scaled higher-skulls damage multiplication on monsters, and then +50% HP doesn't look so ludicrous.

[Grace_ana]

Hmmm, argument from ignorance? If you don't know for sure you get to make something up?

Um, no. Because when you say things like this:

the end game community on my server that runs the highest setting asap, the type that wants to be the first to do a r10 raid, the part of the community that thinks interacting with toons that lack this dedication they have is a waste of time. The type that rins your home number, demanding you join their raid in the midle of the night. The type that boots you if you haven't been online in 2-3 days without a good explanation, the type that is dedicated and laughs at the "r8 lfm".
Do i have to go on or did i make my point? These are judgemental people, pull up or drop out is their motto.

it's not speculation. One of two things is happening: Either you choose to run with a bunch of psychopaths, or you're exaggerating. The game shouldn't be balanced around either psychopaths or exaggeration. If this is the place you're coming from, stop trying to change the game for the vast, VAST majority of us who are having an entirely different experience. And do yourself a favor and find different people to run with.

[J-mann]

Monks, twf rangers, barbs are pretty near the top of the power spectrum epics these days

With ranged rangers having the worst dps of all those melee, ranged, who needs help more

Who's completely locked out of this, now why go hp when 1 or 2 aoe cc abilities would solve almost all melee problems

1 heroic, 1 epic level 21, that actually works on reapers

then maybe work on increasing horrible epic caster dps

Or at least if our tactics were not on rediculously long cds for their durations it would help too. But yes, giving melee acess to some aoe cc and especially cc that works on reapers would help. Even some soft ccs that can help control and reduce incoming damage would be great.

As for caster dps i am all for a toggle that increases spell power by whatever amount works for epics 150 percent or 200 but lowers necro dcs by the same ammount. Being able to do great dps as well as having great iks though.... im pretty sure that would get op.

[noobodyfool]

I think a lot of you completely misunderstand the reason the devs want to do this. The issue stems from the fact that hp totals between melee and ranged/casters have become almost the same due to the bloat of nonclass based hp. They want to get us back to the days when melee builds had clear hp advantages over ranged since they are exposed to much more damage. They want to be able to lessen the defensive benefits ranged recieve when compared to melee so they can make other changes as well. It has nothing to really do with difficulties in general except they demonstrate the issues more fully as the difference exists at all play levels but is just more exasperated at higher didficulty.

The way they are going about it may be a bit ham handed but in all honesty it needs done. In every other mmo ive played melee types definately can take more hits than ranged to make up for the higher risk. In ddo gear bloat has gotten to the point that it pretty much masks any difference defensively between 2 dps classes. Personally i would rather they lower mob damage but give mobs more tools to counter range, but ai programming is harder so it wont get done that way. The other solution would be to give melee more/better tactics tools to shore up some of their shortfall. Some real control abilities or at least much shorter cds before 29 would be great.

Yes yes yes and they all know this and they are fighting it for this very reason because DPS is king!!!
Most of the ones fighting this zerg through content as fast as possible and than tell anyone who will listen how the devs don't know what there doing, their not interested in role playing or enjoying the newest quests they just want to be the best.
They keep saying the want build deversity but they all play the same builds they say don't trivialize reaper when their responsible for doing this themselves.
When someone suggests help for new players they fight it when they never in counter new players and this doesn't effect them what so ever.

[sjbb87]

Monks, twf rangers, barbs are pretty near the top of the power spectrum epics these days

With ranged rangers having the worst dps of all those melee, ranged, who needs help more

Who's completely locked out of this, now why go hp when 1 or 2 aoe cc abilities would solve almost all melee problems

1 heroic, 1 epic level 21, that actually works on reapers

then maybe work on increasing horrible epic caster dps

Ranger is not melee or ranged, it's hybrid.

If you do only melee or ranged you dont know how to play as ranger

[blerkington]

Aswers in Orange

Is it by hidding behind cc on r10? If so, no but thanks for the offer.

So now the cat is well and truly out of the bag. Both you and another person who have strongly been pushing for these changes have made this comment now. Hiding behind CC, indeed. If CC isn't used in r10 content, where should it be used?

It's crystal clear now that you think you should be able to run mid to high reaper without healers and/or crowd control. So essentially turning reaper into an easy solo or shortman difficulty. Exactly what happened with elite, causing much dissatisfaction among people seeking challenge and an exodus of better players who felt they were no longer getting that.

Reaper has many flaws, but its value is in increased difficulty providing an incentive for cooperative play. If it becomes a solo difficulty, then by definition it won't be hard enough to challenge people who want something hard to play cooperatively.

But guess what - you can already solo lower reaper or even elite with things as they are now. So right now you are catered for and so are people who want content that is hard enough to require cooperative play. If you get what you want, the other group loses their niche in the game. That means giving in to this campaign to buff melees even further is obviously the wrong thing to do.

I really hope the developers are still reading this, because you have just given your game away and lost all of your credibility. The problem is not that melees can't do well in reaper, because people are already doing that. The real problem, in your mind anyway, is reaper is not easy enough for you now and you just want it to be made easier. There's no hiding that fact now.

Thanks.

[Kaboom2112]

CC isn't a problem, charms are broken as F.

If you're redoing reaper nerf the bejesus out of charms.

[Kaboom2112]

Ranger is not melee or ranged, it's hybrid.

If you do only melee or ranged you dont know how to play as ranger

Bows suck 31 flavors of donkey toes. They aren't worth using at all on a Tempest unless you absolutely have no other option.

[Selvera]

Seems like some people haven't being paying attention to detail while they run higher reapers. All healing is debuffed, even healing party members, but it is significantly less debuffed then self healing.

Honestly I first noticed this when running a warforged, since healing was rather difficult in any situation, but bringing it into high reaper made even healers start complaining. Lots of HP, only wearing 2 heal amp items and only 1 pally pastlife warforged melee in R7+ = lots of mana drain on healers

Now back to the main point of the thread.

25% seems more inline with what is needed; although it should come with other balancing factors such as bringing in some of the outliers which high dps melees are using right now and/or bringing in harder reaper difficulties; so as to not erode the higher difficulties that vets are currently enjoying.

I also don't think healing spells should have a range penalty; although enhancements in Tier 4 warpriest, warsoul, swashbuckler, warchanter, and nature's warrior that allow longer ranges while using this feat could be a good compromise. Tier 5 eldritch knight could even have one which allows ranged damage spells (evocation only?). None of these enhancement trees are currently overperforming in high reaper.

[FuryFlash]

Ranger is not melee or ranged, it's hybrid.

If you do only melee or ranged you dont know how to play as ranger

I've been playing my Tempest wrong for the last 6 months! D: