Melee Survivability Changes Feedback Thread

[Qhualor]

check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxxxc6g-wvw it shows the distance

If you didnt test it on Lamannia than did you at least watch this video? The touch range is about 10 feet or 4 or 5 characters standing side by side. That is hardly what I would call really large.

[noobodyfool]

If you didnt test it on Lamannia than did you at least watch this video? The touch range is about 10 feet or 4 or 5 characters standing side by side. That is hardly what I would call really large.

I not sure how long your toons arms are but 10 feet is octopus arms if your a battle cleric thats in you range if your in the back than you wouldn't use hp feat.

I understand your point and it seems like the devs feel theres a reason for this idk but as a fighter I HATE no self heal in reaper and wish i had a blue bar

o well we cant have it all.

[Baldred]

The point of this buff was to improve surviviability on people who play melee, not tanks, tanks dont need more hp

So to be fair, Tanks should get a 25% boost to damage from the stance to keep things balanced? Seems like that would make things fair... or just make the stance stack with fighter and Paladin stances and make shield feats apply as others are saying!

[Grace_ana]

Touch range is really large and if you don't fight on the front lines you should be the one healing anyway

I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm running around the end fight in Baba, trying to backup heal the cleric that got hut aggro and still stay far enough away from the hut that I don't get overrun too.

Or the next time I try to run trash past a card room in Strahd while casting a rez to someone at a torch without letting the trash aggro on him.

Or the next time I...oh, screw it. It's not like you care about facts.

[bloodnose13]

i have to say that i dont like this idea one bit, simply its one of those duct tape fixes that we see from time to time, and i dont think its a right way to go.
if i wanted to be boring i would repeat what i posted multiple times before in all sorts of conversations, that ddo first needs a rescale of ac, prr, to lower their effective values to 100+, so value of one point would be actualy worth it. but i dont want to bore anyone....

as for this, i think more reasonable way to do this, IF it has to be done would be to do it as temporary hp granted by attacking in melee (following values are example, dont bash me for them):

lets say its 5% chance + 5% per every combat style feat, to gain a temporary 100 hp + another 100 per combat style feat (OR 10% maybe? if it REALY has to be percentage), maxed out at 5 stacks so it would be 25% chance to gain 500 temp hp for duration of 6 seconds, does not stack, it could even be made to scale based on diffculty, so value could be higher for reaper, while lower for elite. would work with all combat styles, shield included, the only thing to block would be all the caster stances, like warlock blast stances and so on, makeing it on MELEE attack would work as a user filter itself.

its just a thought, like i said, values would need to be adjusted, since those are JUST EXAMPLE.

[GimpyPaw]

This all seems like a lot of coding effort and reworking of melee that just plain wasn't needed. You want to give more hp to the front lines, why didn't you just double the value of the already existing Toughness feat? Then make taking Toughness somehow unsavory to casters, like -1 dc per feat. Not that Toughness is a feat casters are typically taking multiple times anyway.

Or you could make some sort of "Combat Hardened" feat that goes along the same lines of Toughness, but is exclusive to any metamagic feats and prevents defensive stances.

I'm just confused as to why, after all the effort that went into getting groups to finally understand that they need to work together and heal each other, that the development team suddenly feels it's time to lock that out and force players to choose between having more hit points or having their other party members alive?




As for the nerf on fighters and the Kensei Power Surge, that's an odd one too. I get that somehow Power Surge was messing with things related to action boosts, and so I gather it was easier to make Power Surge not be an action boost or something. OK, that's cool, but from what I understand Power Surge is also getting knocked into the realm of "not worth spending points on" and dropping to just 5 charges. Why only 5 charges? It goes from a current state as an enhancement fighters can maintain from one shrine to another down to an enhancement that gets used to meet the reqs for pulling levers or activating runes. Didn't fighters already get less hp from the new survivability changes than other melee classes? Are fighters the new paladins now?

[Grace_ana]

I really have a problem with these changes for classes that are by nature hybrids - bard, druid, and artificer. To insist they can gain survivability, but only at the expense of half of what makes their class effective/fun to play is shortsighted at best.

And I'm sorry, but this is NOT an optional feat. It will ultimately become required, because come on guys, we all know how this game works. It's exactly why the devs changed the toughness feat - the little bump in HP was seen as so necessary it negatively impacted build diversity.

This is just a terrible idea.

[elvesunited]

I really have a problem with these changes for classes that are by nature hybrids - bard, druid, and artificer. To insist they can gain survivability, but only at the expense of half of what makes their class effective/fun to play is shortsighted at best.

And I'm sorry, but this is NOT an optional feat. It will ultimately become required, because come on guys, we all know how this game works. It's exactly why the devs changed the toughness feat - the little bump in HP was seen as so necessary it negatively impacted build diversity.

This is just a terrible idea.

Reduces build diversity
Hybrid melee/casters are a thing or at least a concept. And because they have to split feats and enhancements between spellcasting and melee they operate at a major disadvantage anyway. In some cases like eldritch knight they are basically a dead build.

Reduces teamwork
You can now expect animal-form druids, cleric melees, bards , tempest rangers, etc. to throw a lot less healing around. And for buffs everyone gather up real close.

Plays favorites with fighting styles
All fighting styles get the feat benefits except for shield mastery. I get that having someone take both two-handed/single weapon fighting and shield mastery and getting hp from both feat lines is undesirable. But it seems that making them not stack would be an easy solution. Already being done with combat style melee power bonus.


The idea is sound. Melees need more survivability. It just the application of the idea seems like it's being needlessly over-complicated. Get rid of the new feat. Add +6% hp bonus to each combat style feat ( different lines do not stack ). No restrictions. If a non-melee is so desperate for hp they take a combat style feat for the sole benefit of getting an hp bonus then it's effectively the same as them taking the toughness feat. ( which they're allowed to take multiple times anyway )

[Grace_ana]

Reduces build diversity
Hybrid melee/casters are a thing or at least a concept. And because they have to split feats and enhancements between spellcasting and melee they operate at a major disadvantage anyway. In some cases like eldritch knight they are basically a dead build.

Reduces teamwork
You can now expect animal-form druids, cleric melees, bards , tempest rangers, etc. to throw a lot less healing around. And for buffs everyone gather up real close.

Plays favorites with fighting styles
All fighting styles get the feat benefits except for shield mastery. I get that having someone take both two-handed/single weapon fighting and shield mastery and getting hp from both feat lines is undesirable. But it seems that making them not stack would be an easy solution. Already being down with combat style melee power bonus.


The idea is sound. Melees need more survivability. It just the application of the idea seems like it's being needlessly over-complicated. Get rid of the new feat. Add +6% hp bonus to each combat style feat ( different lines do not stack ). No restrictions. If a non-melee is so desperate for hp they take a combat style feat for the sole benefit of getting an hp bonus then it's effectively the same as them taking the toughness feat. ( which they're allowed to take multiple times anyway )

All of this works for me.

[Nubom70]

Reduces teamwork
You can now expect animal-form druids, cleric melees, bards , tempest rangers, etc. to throw a lot less healing around.


You got that right, everyone I've known who's tested this, doesn't bother to heal anymore, other than dropping AOE's. If you're out of range, you're on your own.

[red_kain]

Personally, scrap the new feat, rework epic toughness. Something like 5-10% HP and you can take it multiple times. The epic feats that casters take (master of / epic spell penetration) should be a decent deterrent for a lot of casters to not stack it. Alternatively, do some reworking in the destiny HP bonuses. We have several trees that give plenty of flat HP bonuses, you could add something there, as casters take caster trees and melee take melee trees. Exceptions will always break rules and take advantage, but so what. I do think the reaper points give enough bonus HP, and the best solution is to get down and dirty on the mob side of things as some have already suggested.

The hard truth is, trying to fix this on the player side is the easy way out, and will hurt the game long term. I realize its a lot of work, but it needs to be done, rework the individual quests, and while you're at it, replace some of the modifiers with global modifiers that make changes easy in the future. Work with players to get lists of bugs/missed enemies ect.

Vote U40, the monster rework.

[noobodyfool]

Devs its a great feat and you have about 25% in favor of it as is and that's a lot since many don't play melee but it could be better here are the concerns.

1 Cant cross heal because everyone must take it.(Although I think this is a false theory)
Solution meet heal issues half way allow cocoon or extend range some how.

2. Shield users should not be left out
Solution give it to shield user by way of shield feats and let tanks have it also. (this would be my choice)

3. Meta Uber elitist buzzkilling feat from hell or something like that.
Solution ignore the naysayers and move forward with it as you see fit. (wait can I change my favorite)

If you were to do 1 or 2 you would pick up about 30% more and with a feat although needed that doesn't go to ranged and casters that's ALOT

Congrats on Standing Up in the Paint when you know its the right thing to do for the long-term, event if its unpopular among the shortsighted.

[LurkingVeteran]

As somebody who has played on and off since release, range vs. melee has always had a survivability disparity in DDO. A big reason is that it ignored key mechanics of D&D - you only retain full AC bonus by wielding a melee weapon, and using ranged attacks would risk attacks of opportunity against you.

An elegant way to implement a similar mechanic in DDO would be to boost damage mitigation (think new barb %DR) while swinging a melee weapon (in last X seconds). This will exclude any ranged martial DPS, and casters are deterred by the wasted time of melee animations. For additional effect, you could also make ranged/spell casts temporarily inhibit this mitigation for a small duration, filling the same role as attacks of opportunity in D&D.

Optionally, one could even make this DR higher from the front, evolving more positional melee gameplay (c.f. flanking).

While the SSG proposed mechanic will likely help, it is undeniably complex, and may have undesirable side effects and loop holes. The reasoning behind this suggestion is on the other hand very simple. Every archetype, whether melee, ranged or caster, has to use some animation to fight. Swinging melee weapons is what defines melee. If anybody else swings melee weapons a significant amount of time they are neglecting their other roles.

[noobodyfool]

Strimtom does math for new players

[Garthog77]

Watched part of that strimtom video, a couple minutes in and he is already wrong, he says something to the effect of people are complaining that "this new feat is too powerful", but that is not what people are complaining about. The complaint is it is not needed and/or working against people cooperating in groups. Skipped ahead a bit and listened and he clearly does not really understand what this new feat is about, or how it will potentially affect the game.

Bottom line, this feat is a very bad idea to fix a problem that does not exist. Melee's can survive just fine in reaper if built/played right.

[lyrecono]

I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm running around the end fight in Baba, trying to backup heal the cleric that got hut aggro and still stay far enough away from the hut that I don't get overrun too.

Or the next time I try to run trash past a card room in Strahd while casting a rez to someone at a torch without letting the trash aggro on him.

Or the next time I...oh, screw it. It's not like you care about facts.

Invis to loose hut agro? Deactivate the hp feat when in that spacious area? (Compared to turning it back on for the totem/puzzle bits), have a ranged toon back up heal the healer?

This all seems like a lot of coding effort and reworking of melee that just plain wasn't needed. You want to give more hp to the front lines, why didn't you just double the value of the already existing Toughness feat? Then make taking Toughness somehow unsavory to casters, like -1 dc per feat. Not that Toughness is a feat casters are typically taking multiple times anyway.

Or you could make some sort of "Combat Hardened" feat that goes along the same lines of Toughness, but is exclusive to any metamagic feats and prevents defensive stances.

I'm just confused as to why, after all the effort that went into getting groups to finally understand that they need to work together and heal each other, that the development team suddenly feels it's time to lock that out and force players to choose between having more hit points or having their other party members alive?




As for the nerf on fighters and the Kensei Power Surge, that's an odd one too. I get that somehow Power Surge was messing with things related to action boosts, and so I gather it was easier to make Power Surge not be an action boost or something. OK, that's cool, but from what I understand Power Surge is also getting knocked into the realm of "not worth spending points on" and dropping to just 5 charges. Why only 5 charges? It goes from a current state as an enhancement fighters can maintain from one shrine to another down to an enhancement that gets used to meet the reqs for pulling levers or activating runes. Didn't fighters already get less hp from the new survivability changes than other melee classes? Are fighters the new paladins now?

Hmmm, i agree that its a blanket sollution, however, we need to play the hand we're dealt, i can't ask the cassino to redesign the game fron scratch
As for thoughness, i haven't picked it up on a dps melee in 6 years, i don''t have the room for it. What should i drop?
Power attack? Lol
On a fighter? Only when i build a tank.
Why should a dps melee give up dps?
What happens to a caster that doesn't meet the DC's required? What about a healer that heals poorly? What about a rog that can't get the locks and traps?
Those people are passed up for someone that can, just like dps melees that do bad dps. Some time ago i had a new player in party, a first life barbarian with n impressive amount of hp, untill i learned he had taken thoughness for all his feats and con for his level ups, i asked him if he was using "throw your weight around", he said no, he took as many barb cores as possible for more hp.
Why? Because people kept booting him from lfm parties all the time for having a low hp.
Moral of the story? Thoughness isn't a good replacement for dps, if thats your chosen role

"Combat hardened", your sugestion, would screw over paladins and any other hybrid melee out there.

As for working together, just no, when the frontline is turned into a 1 hit pony in r10 and is only allowed to hit cc-ed mobs, you might as well hang up yout great axe and pick up daggers like the other glass cannons, what good is getting 2- 3k hp outside of reaper, by means of significant sacrifices, only to be a 1 hit wonder, a pet for the cc caster?
Why not let melees live long enough for heals to matter? Maybe we can now actually bring heal specced divine casters?

As for the kensai, i agree, maybe 5 is fine, in heroics and give m 1 charge from the lv18 and 20 core enh, maybe 1for every 2-3 epic levels?

I really have a problem with these changes for classes that are by nature hybrids - bard, druid, and artificer. To insist they can gain survivability, but only at the expense of half of what makes their class effective/fun to play is shortsighted at best.

And I'm sorry, but this is NOT an optional feat. It will ultimately become required, because come on guys, we all know how this game works. so emotional....It's exactly why the devs changed the toughness feat - the little bump in HP was seen as so necessary it negatively impacted build diversity.

This is just a terrible idea.

You mean the bard? The jack of all trades, master of none?
Isn't that the entire premise of hybrid playstyles?
Isn't that the price they pay for dipping in all the styles?
It's a choice, focus or flail helplessly.

Reduces build diversity
Hybrid melee/casters are a thing or at least a concept. And because they have to split feats and enhancements between spellcasting and melee they operate at a major disadvantage anyway. In some cases like eldritch knight they are basically a dead build.

Reduces teamwork
You can now expect animal-form druids, cleric melees, bards , tempest rangers, etc. to throw a lot less healing around. And for buffs everyone gather up real close.
you can turn it on after casting buffs, however, most mass buffs are short range when targeting yourself at the beginning of a quest anyway. If you accept the role of healing or being ranged, you shouldn't be using this feat, it is meant for those who are up close and personal. Ps, most melee clerics get booted in epic elite&high skull reaper if they don't stay back well enough to heal, how many frontline melee bards and tempest rangers do you see in high skull nowedays and how will this feat change that?

Plays favorites with fighting styles
All fighting styles get the feat benefits except for shield mastery. I get that having someone take both two-handed/single weapon fighting and shield mastery and getting hp from both feat lines is undesirable. But it seems that making them not stack would be an easy solution. Already being done with combat style melee power bonus.
there is already a max, you can take all the feats you want, once you hit that hard cap, you don't gain any more hp. Ps, shield feats get an update, look on the front page, some podcast was discussing it

The idea is sound. Melees need more survivability. It just the application of the idea seems like it's being needlessly over-complicated. Get rid of the new feat. Add +6% hp bonus to each combat style feat ( different lines do not stack ). No restrictions. If a non-melee is so desperate for hp they take a combat style feat for the sole benefit of getting an hp bonus then it's effectively the same as them taking the toughness feat. ( which they're allowed to take multiple times anyway )

Fitting them in on a non fighter is an issue though and the fighter has 11 feats over any other melee, thats 66% hpon top of the 7 standard ones, that migh be a tad bit much, even for me.

Personally, scrap the new feat, rework epic toughness. Something like 5-10% HP and you can take it multiple times. The epic feats that casters take (master of / epic spell penetration) should be a decent deterrent for a lot of casters to not stack it. Alternatively, do some reworking in the destiny HP bonuses. We have several trees that give plenty of flat HP bonuses, you could add something there, as casters take caster trees and melee take melee trees. Exceptions will always break rules and take advantage, but so what. I do think the reaper points give enough bonus HP, and the best solution is to get down and dirty on the mob side of things as some have already suggested.

The hard truth is, trying to fix this on the player side is the easy way out, and will hurt the game long term. I realize its a lot of work, but it needs to be done, rework the individual quests, and while you're at it, replace some of the modifiers with global modifiers that make changes easy in the future. Work with players to get lists of bugs/missed enemies ect.

Vote U40, the monster rework.

Loosing dps or cc for basic hp that is required to trade blows ad use that dps? That won't go over well.
Being in melee range is a requirement to deliver melee dps, asking players to give iup even more to do that job.
We already have to invest a lot to hit the hp we have now.
Whats next? A line of feats to allow casters to cast on the run instead of standing in 1 spot for 3 full minutes to cast 1 spell like they do in some other mmo's? No more running and casting... You would have an uproar on the forum.
You can't expect people to give up (more)feats to essentially do their job.

Maybe thats the sollution, lower dps on mobs so melees can take the hits(but not casters) and pin casters on the spot for a whille to take away that not getting hit advantage. No more spells on the run unless you spend 4 or 5 feats to compensate.

Yeah maybe not.

[Grace_ana]

Invis to loose hut agro? Deactivate the hp feat when in that spacious area? (Compared to turning it back on for the totem/puzzle bits), have a ranged toon back up heal the healer?

Well, let's see: to invis someone, I have to get as close to the hut as with a heal, because it's a rogue and so scrolls are the only way. Deactivating the HP feat in a fight where you can get hit with a significant HP reduction as part of the mechanics seems...well, moronic. And if the ranged toon could do it, I wouldn't be running after the person under the hut, now would I?

I'm sorry you don't understand/want to understand people's concerns in your headlong rush to get more HP. Maybe you should just take more toughness feats.

[noobodyfool]

Well, let's see: to invis someone, I have to get as close to the hut as with a heal, because it's a rogue and so scrolls are the only way. Deactivating the HP feat in a fight where you can get hit with a significant HP reduction as part of the mechanics seems...well, moronic. And if the ranged toon could do it, I wouldn't be running after the person under the hut, now would I?

I'm sorry you don't understand/want to understand people's concerns in your headlong rush to get more HP. Maybe you should just take more toughness feats.

well I cant speak for my friend but Ill take the new Feat instead thanks anyway

[Silverleafeon]

Watched the video and it has some good points about hp numbers.

However, it is very dismissive on the effects of reducing spells to touch range.


Healing or casting in general at touch range is VERY DIFFICULT in the reality of an active battlefield.

Some of my builds picked up enlarge simply to make Otto's Irresistible Dancing more consistent to land.


Let us be honest, what is the first action of a good melee dps player the moment they drop below acceptable health?

They jump backward out of combat hoping for a heal.
What just happened?
They jumped out of your touch range if they were beside you.
They jumped out of the drive by zone if a healer was zooming in.


Let us be honest, do melee ever cooperate and group up for mass heals during a room fight?

Often they are intent on reducing threats and chasing monsters, not the dynamics of making themselves easier to heal.


Let us be honest, how many melee dps including hybrid builds will actually stop dps to chase down anyone to drop a heal on them during combat?

Hmmm....be honest now....its going to be close to zero.


I loved playing a Kensei Vanguard Fighter, it was a joy to play, but player would never drop me enough/any heals...and I am sure that I am not the only one, which is why players like to see my toon as a druid or favored soul or cleric build.

Let us be honest, reducing the teamwork window in any amount is just bad reality, and touch spells are very difficult to land on actively moving targets of any type.


Let us be honest, its extremely difficult to buff a monk after it starts running off at the entrance to a dungeon, because it moves faster than you can normally move even before one starts casting.



The other point that is totally dismissed is that casting REDUCES YOUR MOVEMENT SPEED BY HALF and one can start casting on a toon which can easily move out of range thereby costing you spell point and cooldown while yielding a "target out of range error".



Given grouping averages and typical responses to forum threads, about 2/3 of the player base very much enjoys dps melee toons.
That is a huge amount of players to remove from the teamwork brackets.

[lyrecono]

Well, let's see: to invis someone, I have to get as close to the hut as with a heal, because it's a rogue and so scrolls are the only way. Deactivating the HP feat in a fight where you can get hit with a significant HP reduction as part of the mechanics seems...well, moronic. And if the ranged toon could do it, I wouldn't be running after the person under the hut, now would I?

I'm sorry you don't understand/want to understand people's concerns in your headlong rush to get more HP. Maybe you should just take more toughness feats.

Why, casting invis from a scroll on yourself or others isn't affected by the hp stance.
Nor is a clicky on yourself, if there is a problem with getting a scroll off.

And again, if you're not a frontline dps melee, why use the stance? What are you compensating for?
Why not have a ranged toon heal the healer? Or ... Get a second healer? Gasp......


You're looking for excuses, either play a frontline melee with the feat on or don't.
Stop hiding behind pretent melee toons to justify these poor attempts to derail the dev attempts to correct their game.
Baba, though looking like a frail old hag, is a raid boss, if the frontline melee needs to turn around and heal the healer there is something wrong with party tactics or party make up. Pretend melees shouldn't be using this feat to compensate for poor build or play choices. Stand back while the burly men and women who spend every build option to be a frontline dps melee(including classes) roll up their sleeves and do their job, whille support classes can stay back safely and hold the healers hand or do something usefull.

Maybe we should link this hp feat to bab, if you can't reach 18 bab by lv 20 this feat doesn't work, making sure that spells, enh, items and other buffs don't count, this way we can hedge out all the part time melees and they can now safely stand back and heal the healer.

Would that make you happy?

Edit; next time read my entire post, i explained why loosing feats to thoughness causes a problem.
I expected more from your reading skills