Melee Survivability Changes Feedback Thread

[Silverleafeon]

On the plus side of the video, the math makes it very clear that new players benefit far more from this new feat concept than vets.

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that in high reaper this new feat provides very little extra benefits.
{Making spell penalties actually seem unnecessary.}

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that high hit point toons including tanks gain very little compared to new players.
{Sort of making the play for shield mastery inclusion very clear.}

On the plus side, the math explains why new players need to be able to group with vets in epic dungeons.
{Justifying the theory behind the feat as being solid.?


So all in all, well done on the video.

[noobodyfool]

On the plus side of the video, the math makes it very clear that new players benefit far more from this new feat concept than vets.

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that in high reaper this new feat provides very little extra benefits.
{Making spell penalties actually seem unnecessary.}

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that high hit point toons including tanks gain very little compared to new players.
{Sort of making the play for shield mastery inclusion very clear.}

On the plus side, the math explains why new players need to be able to group with vets in epic dungeons.
{Justifying the theory behind the feat as being solid.?


So all in all, well done on the video.

Im really starting to like you

[elvesunited]

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?

The feat will give bards and tempests a better chance to disengage and heal themselves before jumping back into melee combat. ( as it will take more to kill them ) In a way that makes the additional hp more valuable for them than for the melee juggernauts who are already designed to stand firm and trade damage with the enemy and this feat simply makes them more capable of doing that.

Personally I'd like to more of a variety of melees than less. And all melees should be able to take advantage of the additional hp. That even includes those melees who are active casters like warpriests/warsouls. And who knows maybe someday the eldritch knight will get his enhancement pass and become viable again.

Melee clerics get booted? Oh if only the number of healers playing was so deep that you could be so picky. ( Not that I've ever booted a character. okay maybe that constitution 6 elf .... ) But once again its sacrificing build diversity by forcing clerics into ranged healer mode.

[Melondrop]

If you ask me this is all the wrong way to go. The solution to melee dying in reaper isnt
giving melee more hp or messing with its core abilities.

The real problem is the bad design of hp/damage mob inflation that reaper itself is.

You can nerf and patch player abilities all you want, but in the end you will have to face the fact
that reaper itself is a bad design.

Sorry to all those who think hitting held mobs in high reaper is fun, but there really isnt any challenge in
beating on a helpless mob, or getting killed in one shot if its not helpless....

[lyrecono]

The feat will give bards and tempests a better chance to disengage and heal themselves before jumping back into melee combat. ( as it will take more to kill them ) In a way that makes the additional hp more valuable for them than for the melee juggernauts who are already designed to stand firm and trade damage with the enemy and this feat simply makes them more capable of doing that.

Personally I'd like to more of a variety of melees than less. And all melees should be able to take advantage of the additional hp. That even includes those melees who are active casters like warpriests/warsouls. And who knows maybe someday the eldritch knight will get his enhancement pass and become viable again.

Melee clerics get booted? Oh if only the number of healers playing was so deep that you could be so picky. ( Not that I've ever booted a character. okay maybe that constitution 6 elf .... ) But once again its sacrificing build diversity by forcing clerics into ranged healer mode.

If they melee, they should stay in the fray and melee and let the healer throw his mass heals, getting out of range only makes them miss the mass heals, and since you mention this; self heals are not affected by the hp feat, i don't see the problem until you reach reaper mode and self heals are nerfed anyway
The point people bring up is that due to this feat, all the melees won't heal the other party members anymmore due to the short range, invalidating a few tactics in reaper, where healers are rare and casters and ranged toons are now dependent on each other for heals. They fear all the hybrid melee builds will rake the hp feat and no longer heal others, news flash, most tempest rangers are still a glass canon in r8+, even with 25% hp, with maybe a rare exeption made by an extremely dedicated player.

So are bards, even with 25%hp, tanking baba is a bad idea, her dots&polar ray hurt too much, they are better of hitting her in the back or staying back to heal(pending on build). And again, self healing doesn't require stepping back, self heals aren't affected by the hp feat.

The other thinh peole keep forgetting, in a convinient maner, is that even when your cleric usually rocks that feat in the front lines, he or she can actually turn it of prior to a raid/realy hard quest and adapt their playstyle for a short whille, standing back and heal if the situation require so

If i would play a barb with all the power attack&2hf melee dps feats step into a raid and only use a bow, i will end up getting blacklisted, the same goes for healers that, when agreed upon, don't heal.

I know healers are rare, even though forum users kept insisting people would start playing them again due to the enh changes, that doesn' mean i will pick up anyone, i couldn't justify it to the other 10party members if a "healer" role is filled up by a half baked melee attempt.

[lyrecono]

If you ask me this is all the wrong way to go. The solution to melee dying in reaper isnt
giving melee more hp or messing with its core abilities.

The real problem is the bad design of hp/damage mob inflation that reaper itself is.

You can nerf and patch player abilities all you want, but in the end you will have to face the fact
that reaper itself is a bad design.

Sorry to all those who think hitting held mobs in high reaper is fun, but there really isnt any challenge in
beating on a helpless mob, or getting killed in one shot if its not helpless....

I agree, to a degree, reaper is poorly designed for dps melee classes that were designed to take hits and keep on rolling. Worse is when charmed mobs hit harder then you do, a lot of melee get bored when having to sit on their hands untill big mama CC changed the mobs into test dummies, the whole risk reward part of a dps focussed melee is gone, no longer are you playing a game of russian roulete with the mobs, its either get 1 -3 shotted rapidly or beat safely on held trash.

The devs recognised this and tried to fix this, the first dev attempt in a year to do so.
I rather have this then them spending another year coding changes to reaper mode.
The devs let the problems fester and now the damage is done. I doubt they have the brass to wipe reaper exp, trees and mode to start from scratch.

[Tilomere]

On the plus side of the video, the math makes it very clear that new players benefit far more from this new feat concept than vets.

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that high hit point toons including tanks gain very little compared to new players.

Vets will benefit from any system changes more than new players, because they will know how to build around it. For example:

Spell range healing penalties: sure no problem I'll drop them and pick up healing hands, dropping any build without wisdom synergy or AP for falconry.

Spell range CC/instankill penalties: sure no problem I'll drop them and pick up PBAoE Mass Frog and swap to dire charge instead of spell DC casting, dropping bard, since vets don't need bard past lives anymore.

Doesn't stack with fighter/paladin defensive stance % hp? Sure, no problem I'll drop them and swap to barbarian or monk. Vets don't need fighter or paladin past lives anymore.

Plus, new players don't have the hitpoints where a small % really matters. Instead of dying in 2 seconds in reaper groups, they will die in 2.5 seconds, while the vet with triple their hit points goes from 6 to 7.5 seconds. The new player, well, they still die before anyone can blink. The vet gets 1.5 extra seconds to react or do something, or have someone in the group do something.

If you want a new player bonus, give some flat bonus hit points based on how bad a players gear is. Handicap hit points.

[Vish]

So we got chicken instead of steak
I know 25% will be quite tasty on my monk, but 50% would have been delicious.
They screwed over fighter and pally, guess they'll take con instead of hp. Oh well, I do consider that fubar on the devs side.
And as for new players. It's not gonna help them. I had a first life warlock running with us this morning and we were like 9 and he had 150hp in reaper. When everybody else in team was vet and had like 500. Monster sneezing and he died, all over the place. So the only thing saving him would be some epics and some reaper points. We were doing like r2. Felt sorry for him, he was trying, but with hp so low no way he could hang.
I don't think this will change in epics. ESP with only monks and barbs getting full benefit out of this.
If it means I lose my ranged cocoon and healing hands, I guess I'll have to live with it. Frees up a twist, unless I use it for self heal.
Maybe they will adjust the reaper trees. That's where the changes need to be. And introduce new reaper tree.
Other than that, clerics are still your best friend.

[McFlay]

If you ask me this is all the wrong way to go. The solution to melee dying in reaper isnt
giving melee more hp or messing with its core abilities.

The real problem is the bad design of hp/damage mob inflation that reaper itself is.

You can nerf and patch player abilities all you want, but in the end you will have to face the fact
that reaper itself is a bad design.

Sorry to all those who think hitting held mobs in high reaper is fun, but there really isnt any challenge in
beating on a helpless mob, or getting killed in one shot if its not helpless....

Its the broken kiting/ranged mechanics in this game that is the real problem. The game wouldn't have to depend on characters getting wrecked in a couple hits to make it difficult if it didn't have to balance around broken mechanics. Throwing a few more hp on melees while doing nothing to address the real problem is a band aid on a gun shot wound.

[Shadow_Jumper]

On the plus side of the video, the math makes it very clear that new players benefit far more from this new feat concept than vets.

False. The video assumes that all veteran players are running in Sentinal when they hit epics. This is pretty hilariously false. Dreadnought and Fury are way better leveling EDs for low epic content, and at cap for melee, LD is still supreme. Trying to claim that this buff helps lower players more while benefiting vet players less by assuming that they all have % based hitpoints is disingenuous at best when almost 0 vets run US as a leveling ED. US isn’t even the best leveling ED in the Divine sphere for melees.

Most end game dps players are playing light dps builds. With very few % based hp hp increases. And since most lvl 20 vet players are running with at least 600 hp outside of Sentinal, those players will receive at least double the HP of a low life build.

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that in high reaper this new feat provides very little extra benefits.
{Making spell penalties actually seem unnecessary.}

This has yet to be seen. However, again, due to the current standard meta, the players playing light dps builds with no % based hp modifiers benefit the most. (Standard end game high reaper dps build has aroun 1800-2000 hp without any modifiers FYI)

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that high hit point toons including tanks gain very little compared to new players.
{Sort of making the play for shield mastery inclusion very clear.}

I agree and disagree.

I agree that fighters and paladins won’t see much, if any benefit from these changes. Tanks won’t really care, because they’re not going to change their shield lines for an extra 5% HP, and THF at most gain 5% HP, though as Strim pointed out, it’s probably less than that.

But where I disagree is your statement that all high hp builds will not see benefits. Again, the current melee meta is mainly light dps builds, with a few fighter builds. Those players who use tempests, monk, and rogues hitting 1800+ hp without modifiers will see the most from this change. A 2000 HP light dps will see 500 HP. Probably more than double what a non endgame player will receive. And all the while the fighters and paladins will loose a large defense edge that they currently have.

So all in all, well done on the video.

All in all, this is a brick ontop of the house of cards that is DDO’s design. Instead of using enhancements and EDs to improve melee classes and lock out caster by virtue of them obviously not choosing Shadowdancer as an ED, or taking Kensai APs, they have decided to add another, more heavily weighted card to the top.

The devs have the right concept here. Melee obviously should be more survivable than ranged and casters, but they are going the wrong way about it. And it’s sad because the two classes that are supposed to be the main melee classes see 0 to little benefit from these changes.

[Kilgrave]

Originally Posted by noobodyfool
My new favorite version....


Epic Defensive Fighting:

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

New Epic Feat
Auto granted at level 21
Toggled Ability
While Toggle is active:
10% Competence Bonus to max hit points, with an additional 10% for every combat "fighting" style feat you have, to a max of 50%. (Exact list below)
All spell or spell like abilities that are effected by metamagics have their ranged reduced to touch range (think shocking grasp)
Reduces your Doubleshot and Ranged Power to 0 while active.
Exclusive from Range stances (Improved Precise Shot, Archers Focus, Shiradi stances, Warlock Blast stances.)
Exclusive from the Enlarge Spell Metamagic toggle
Remains active while dead
Can be used with other defensive/offensive stances & Rage
Exclusive fromSHIELD DEFLECTION


The Complete list of "Fighting Feats" that apply:

Single Weapon Fighting
Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Perfect Single Weapon Fighting

Two Handed Fighting
Improved Two Handed Fighting
Greater Two Handed Fighting
Perfect Two Handed Fighting

Two Weapon Fighting
Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Greater Two Weapon Fighting
Perfect Two Weapon Fighting

Shield Mastery
Improved Shield Mastery
Perfect Shield Mastery
Improved Shield Bash


Natural Fighting (Counts each time taken)


Additional:
Paladin Defensive Stance HP buff bonus will be changed to sacred (which it appears it always was, but the application was incorrect should now stack)
Aasimar Racial hp bonus will be changed to Sacred (should now stack)
Fighter Defensive Stance HP buff bonus will be changed to Athletic (should now stack)

+1

[lLockehart]

Cord and Design Team: Hey, we want you to test this and see if it's a good idea!

Everyone: Bad idea, design horrible, start over.

Cord and Design Team: Great, it'll be live shortly!

I feel this is a pretty standard procedure at this point and I'm not sure what to think about it, I'm neither sad or disappointed anymore. I've yet to abandon ship and jump off the S.S. Hope but I'm flirting the icy waters for sure. This because I can see it happening very casually:

50% Hp > 25% Hp #done.

[Niminae]

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.

I would agree with you completely, except for the parts of this implementation which make zero sense when considered next to your words above. Why don't Paladins enjoy the same benefit? Do you consider the entire Paladin class to be a "pretend build" with a "poor build" which isn't "burly enough" to deserve the benefit? There has been no dev statement of which I am aware which addresses the fact that Paladins will not see the major part of the benefit from this feat. Why is that? They are taking the same disadvantage, and as a class which can throw a memorized heal in an emergency as opposed to just scrolling it or using Cocoon they are taking more than the same disadvantage. Why don't Fighters enjoy the same benefit? They don't throw spells at all, no one can confuse a 20 Fighter with some crummy hybrid build which ought to stay out of the front lines, and yet they are excluded from the major part of the HP benefit for no logical reason. Why don't shield users enjoy the same benefit? Why is this tied entirely to the offensive weapon feat chains, but excluding other melee builds who are in melee range for their entire play time and should logically enjoy the same benefit? Tanky builds have an even stronger claim to a need for this benefit, as they are intended to stand within the melee hit box of opponents. All other melee can stand behind the big, scary monster while the tank is the only one being actually exposed to melee attacks. And I know that isn't possible in all situations, but there are a great many where it is. And in both of those situations the tanks are standing in the melee hit box 100% of the time while the other melee are not.

I'm not behind this, and it isn't only for the reasons I gave above. I don't think it is the right change, but if it is to be the change we get it should at least have some symmetry of applicability, some logic, and some common sense behind how it works. And right now it has none of that.

[Niminae]

On the plus side, the math makes it very clear that in high reaper this new feat provides very little extra benefits.
{Making spell penalties actually seem unnecessary.}

I would say instead "making the feat as previewed seem unnecessary."

[Niminae]

The feat will give bards and tempests a better chance to disengage and heal themselves before jumping back into melee combat.

Don't kid yourself. This is a change intended for reaper. It is a direct nerf to reaper mode play. No one is "disengaging and healing themselves" in reaper mode, and no one needs or should need the additional HP in C/N/H/E play.

[noobodyfool]

Don't kid yourself. This is a change intended for reaper. It is a direct nerf to reaper mode play. No one is "disengaging and healing themselves" in reaper mode, and no one needs or should need the additional HP in C/N/H/E play.

One man's trash is another man's treasure, thank you for the melee buff looking forward to the additional changes you all have in store for melee. Dev's have said they don't want to nerf reaper and R10 was supposed to be a pie in the sky and if your doing it GOOD FOR YOU.

It bears repeating One man's trash is another man's treasure, thank you.

[Nubom70]

I told you. I flat out said they wouldn't take any input, and they'd push out this crappy patch.

Even the core tanks in our raids can't use this, because they tag team heals in reaper as cross-support, AND it's not supported for S/B.

Way to go, SSG. Shortbus ahoy! *Meep-meep!*

[Niminae]

One man's trash is another man's treasure, thank you for the melee buff looking forward to the additional changes you all have in store for melee.

And yet this isn't a melee buff. It is a Monk/Ranger/Barbarian DPS buff. Fighters, Paladins, and tank builds which don't buy a weapon line of feats can go jump in a lake. A change intended for melee which excludes 2/5 of the melee classes and any build which isn't purely DPS isn't a 'melee buff' and should not be referred to as such.

Dev's have said they don't want to nerf reaper

And yet they are still doing exactly that. If reaper didn't exist there would be zero cry for melee buffs. Before reaper existed there was a little consternation over how to handle a very few mobs such as Sorjek in Legendary Tempest's Spine. But the devs didn't nerf Sorjeck, they instead allowed the player community figure out how to handle that fight. This is a direct nerf to reaper mode, and should not be implemented. Dumbing down the highest difficulty level cannot be a winning strategy for a game.

Why was reaper implemented in the first place? Because Elite was becoming trivial for the veteran players. So what is the logic behind implementing a change that makes things easier in reaper mode, when there is ample evidence that reaper mode is already becoming trivial due to the reaper enhancement trees? This is a pointless nerf to reaper.

[Wipey]

It is a Monk/Ranger/Barbarian DPS buff.

At least for me, the big advantage and part of the "whole ranger package" was potent CSW and alright ranged burst on demand.
On my tank, I always kept Renewal on cooldown hjealing others.
Paladin got completely ****ed with this change. Lol as it wasn't on the bottom of the food chain already.

But p2w aasimar hjeal is not affected. So yay more grind !
Meanwhile, with alright group 6 - 8 skulls is a routine and 10 is not that hard. And melee rock high skulls epic.

[blerkington]

But p2w aasimar hjeal is not affected. So yay more grind !

Yes, this is by far the most egregious pay-to-win option in the game right now. No judgement on those people using it but it should never, ever have been let in, not in its current form.

I used to think developers were doing an adequate job of keeping ignore the rules nonsense like this out of the game. Not perfect, but certainly not as bad as some other games were. But some of the more recent class and racial additions to the store have shown that our DM no longer has any principles at all.

It's not needed to make money and it only means the next new thing will have to be even more ridiculous to seem more desirable. And it feels like another step closer to some of the other least principled industry practices being introduced, like lockboxes.

Thanks.