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  1. #1
    Community Member Souless's Avatar
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    Default Melee OP

    Is it just me, or have any other ranged builds noticed that the melee's are now crushing content?

    I'm just asking because while running R-10's last night, I would click NHB....and before I would fire a shot, everything would be dead.

    I know everyone playing melee were screaming for changes, but I think just like the hammering of ranged builds, Inquisitive in particular that were so overpowered...running last night I watched a Melee in the portrait end fight with Strahd...And, he was crushed (in seconds) before I even fired a single shot at his ugly mug. Even on my best (in R-10) I was unable to solo the portrait fight. And somehow my Inquisitive Xbow user is overpowered?!?!

    Maybe I'm just having sour grapes. But if the complaint that ranged inquisitive builds were waltzing through content, SSG should take a hard look at what the changes you have made have wrought.
    Last edited by Souless; 06-12-2020 at 04:03 PM.

  2. #2
    Community Member SiliconScout's Avatar
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    I think it's just you.

    Are the in a good place, better for sure, maybe good depending on the build, but are the OP. Nope and I say that as someone who still doesn't play melee as often as I'd like to. Plenty of other builds can dominate. Could just be the particular melee's you are running with as there will always be "that one guy/gal" who outperforms the average by a large margin.
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  3. #3
    Community Member Valerianus's Avatar
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    would we pretty please (i say we, as community) just stop screaming words like OP and NERF?
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  4. #4
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    The melee you saw you probably has some or all of the following (and more):

    • Best in slot gear / raid gear.
    • Tomes out the wazoo!
    • Past lives out the wazoo!
    • Consuimables out the wazoo! (like pots of various sorts to boost Melee Power etc).
    • Other stuff I can't think of.

    Some players are very very good at building strong characters, it's just the way it is.

    Stoner81.

  5. #5
    Community Member Torkzed's Avatar
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    I think that the pendulum has swung back towards melee, but it is not out of control.

    I have both an inquisitive and a melee paladin at cap with comparable gear sets (most of the common good stuff for their respective builds, but both could still use a piece of raid gear or two to fully optimize). The paladin feels stronger to me right now, but not a lot.

    Inquisitive is definitely not what it was, and I agree that the delay on NHB is annoying as heck. I have experienced the same thing you have, and if I don't anticipate the situation well, I waste a lot of NHB charges.

    It would be so nice if the devs would scale the delay down a bit. They have shown that they can make tweaks like this (see recent change to Confront Any Foe); maybe they could make the delay only 1 second or something.

  6. #6
    Community Member Souless's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Torkzed View Post
    I think that the pendulum has swung back towards melee, but it is not out of control.

    I have both an inquisitive and a melee paladin at cap with comparable gear sets (most of the common good stuff for their respective builds, but both could still use a piece of raid gear or two to fully optimize). The paladin feels stronger to me right now, but not a lot.

    Inquisitive is definitely not what it was, and I agree that the delay on NHB is annoying as heck. I have experienced the same thing you have, and if I don't anticipate the situation well, I waste a lot of NHB charges.

    It would be so nice if the devs would scale the delay down a bit. They have shown that they can make tweaks like this (see recent change to Confront Any Foe); maybe they could make the delay only 1 second or something.
    First, I guess I have not stated my issue correctly. Or maybe I'm understating it. So here it is:

    About the delay: ENTIRE ROOMS ARE DEAD BE4 THE FIRST SHOT FIRES! I would also add here that I am well versed in ranged toons. I know how to anticipate fights.

    About the OP-ness of melee: ON R-10: ENTIRE ROOMS ARE DEAD BE4 a 3 SEC (or 2 sec or whatever they claim) DELAY OCCURS!

    R-10 Doom Reapers Crushed in <3 secs! I NEVER saw that kind of DPS on my Inquisitive, and had my ranged build HAMMERED by players screaming that they were OP.

    I'm just wondering has anyone else seen this?

    Thanks

  7. #7
    Community Member J1NG's Avatar
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    My first thoughts are:

    Bugged 10hp enemies in place of actual numbers on R10.

    Or

    Bugged Damage Boosts (ala the old stacking damage bug on weapons and arrows) done to the extreme.

    Given the many issues with Reaper lately, I'm not sure which one I'd go for more as the likely candidate.

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  8. #8
    Community Member timmy9999's Avatar
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    Default Yes

    Quote Originally Posted by Souless View Post
    First, I guess I have not stated my issue correctly. Or maybe I'm understating it. So here it is:

    About the delay: ENTIRE ROOMS ARE DEAD BE4 THE FIRST SHOT FIRES! I would also add here that I am well versed in ranged toons. I know how to anticipate fights.

    About the OP-ness of melee: ON R-10: ENTIRE ROOMS ARE DEAD BE4 a 3 SEC (or 2 sec or whatever they claim) DELAY OCCURS!

    R-10 Doom Reapers Crushed in <3 secs! I NEVER saw that kind of DPS on my Inquisitive, and had my ranged build HAMMERED by players screaming that they were OP.

    I'm just wondering has anyone else seen this?

    Thanks
    Yes being an r10 fan yes pallys are destroying stuff fast. One of the problems or the cause is some bug. They swap gear and weapons non stop. I don’t know why, if it’s a cheat or what. But I’m shooting no numbers are comming up for 3-4 secs and they are able to clear the room and I didn’t even get a hit. This is the problem! It seems to lag out all players except the player doing the swapping, or what ever they are doing. Let’s then win the kill count though, not much fun for other players.
    Last edited by timmy9999; 06-12-2020 at 07:44 PM.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Valerianus View Post
    would we pretty please (i say we, as community) just stop screaming words like OP and NERF?
    +1

    It never ends well...

  10. #10
    Community Member count_spicoli's Avatar
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    You were prob running with some melee that have it all. The whole kit and kabudle. I just ran some r10s a few days ago with melee that were struggling mightily getting one shot quickly. Really depends on the player and the past lives. Generally still in r10s some melee are struggling with being one shot. Where as inquis still good dps but not getting anywhere near mobs. I feel melee in better spot but any build i the hands of full tilt player is rampaging r10s. Just ran full group of pms doing newcomers and black and blue and it was insanely easy. Not a single melee in group. Even thentank was wizzie. Think twf now is in badplace tho. Strikethru is so powerful really no need to not thf.
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Valerianus View Post
    would we pretty please (i say we, as community) just stop screaming words like OP and NERF?
    No thanks.

    Melee, ranged, caster are all OP and should all be nerfed!
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  12. #12
    Community Member HungarianRhapsody's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Valerianus View Post
    would we pretty please (i say we, as community) just stop screaming words like OP and NERF?
    No one in this thread is screaming at all. Hyperbole isn’t needed.
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  13. #13
    Community Member Jerevth's Avatar
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    That's the heady, rarefied heights of what's possible.
    98% of melee builds don't approach that.
    Mine sure don't, though I haven't earned the PLs, RPs and gear Cetus has.

    Looks like a lot of factors went into play to make a top tier melee toon. Grinding gear, grinding PLs, earning the reaper points, perfecting the build and years of experience learning the game.
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  14. #14
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    Default Same old, same old

    A couple of uber players make op (whatever class) toons then when other people see them destroy content, they get jealous then they cry for nerfs. Then the devs oblige and the run of the mill players like me pay the price. Will anyone ever just stop crying for nerfs and play the game for fun??? The only thing I will agree with the op on is the delay for NHB and the arty equivelant. It does take way too long to start shooting.

  15. #15
    Community Member SerPounce's Avatar
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    Something is always going to be the flavor of the month. Personally I like it thematically a lot more when it's something iconic like 2HF barbarians, fireball chucking sorcerers, and paladins in heavy armor than when it's walking spreadsheets like throwers and inquisitives.
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  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Strider1963 View Post
    A couple of uber players make op (whatever class) toons then when other people see them destroy content, they get jealous then they cry for nerfs. Then the devs oblige and the run of the mill players like me pay the price.
    When every group has 50%-80% of the same flavor of the month - yes, nerf that specific build. Nerfs are sometimes necessary (see: warlocks, inquisitive) for the health of the game.

    When the same usual handful of players on your server faceroll R10? Yes, they are clearly overpowered don't pretend otherwise. But there's no point nerfing their thing as they'd just move on to some other thing nearly as OP within a day.

    The best solution I've found is to not group with those players if you want to have fun playing the game. Do group with them if you want a free pile of reaper points.
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  17. #17
    Community Member Souless's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Strider1963 View Post
    A couple of uber players make op (whatever class) toons then when other people see them destroy content, they get jealous then they cry for nerfs. Then the devs oblige and the run of the mill players like me pay the price. Will anyone ever just stop crying for nerfs and play the game for fun??? The only thing I will agree with the op on is the delay for NHB and the arty equivelant. It does take way too long to start shooting.
    I was not jealous. And yes I was with Cetus during that fight. I was just pointing out that the xbow builds I used Pre Nerf could NOT shatter the portal like what I witnessed. And my builds were called OP. As a "run of the mill" player, over the last day I have been shouted at, reticuled, and generally worked over with statements like the above, and some of the following statements:

    Ranged should NEVER have the DPS output of melee.....Why? Because your safe at range (and that's the ultimate defense)...I say balderdash. Content has proved time and again that they can get to me no matter where I am inside the dungeon. Also, that it is inherently harder (and therefore must be rewarded) to run up to a mob and swing a sword -VS- fire from range. Why? Because the mobs hit back? I get hit too.

    I didn't primitively start my boost 2-3 secs be4 the fight started...Why? Oh, because of the NHB EF nerf (my mistake...realignment to bring it in balance). Since the nerf, I have wasted countless boosts or had my boost severely reduced in an attempt to predict when the fight will start.

    The "burst" DPS of ranged far out performs melee DPS....How? I'm not sure one shot from Hunt's End can qualify as "burst" DPS.

    At any rate, I was wondering if other Xbow guys were feeling the same sour grapes that I felt. I withdraw my complaint. Melee is wai.

    Flame on.
    Last edited by Souless; 06-13-2020 at 12:58 PM.

  18. 06-13-2020, 03:51 PM

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  19. #19
    Community Member CSQ's Avatar
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    My opinion is that non-tank melee should be doing more damage than ranged anyway, not that that's the tradition in DDO or that SSG necessarily designs around this. My reason for thinking this is roughly as follows:

    Characters have three basic elements- damage, durability, and utility.

    Elements that go into damage are things like raw DPS, resistance mitigation, debuffs that increase the damage targets take (though this can also be in utility if it's designed as a party support role instead of single target damage boosters), and death effects that eliminate targets regardless of health left.

    Elements that go into durability are things like health point pools, mitigating damage when hit, not getting hit in the first place, protection against debuffs and status effects, and ability to fight for long periods of time without compromising combat viability.

    Elements that go into utility are things like party buffs to increase damage or durability, control effects that don't directly damage mobs but do result in easier damage or mitigation, and healing.

    Leaving aside how that should look for casters and melee, which is quite debatable in DDO given the diversity and differences inside those two categories, let's look at how ranged characters generally stack up. Obviously, there are different ranged builds, and some do better at some of these than others, but here's a bit of generalization. Don't hate me for not touching on support/crowd control builds for rangers or janky hybrid builds- I'm just going to talk about a generic ranged build that's primarily focused on damage, since that's what most people are talking about when they have a damage measuring contest with other archetypes. Again, this is my opinion of how these builds look at the moment, from someone who has played several different ranged builds. For argument's sake, I'm going to work with a hypothetical build in line with an Inquisitive or a well built Arcane Archer.

    Damage- 4/5- decent DPS, especially on Inquisitive builds or effective Ranger builds. While these builds are not usually the best builds in the game for damage, their relatively easy play style and the safety of ranged DPS in general makes them able to do sustained damage over a long period of time. Usually, resources are a trivial concern, with the ability to summon or bring enough arrows or bolts to continue shooting constantly. There is basically no resource management, aside from the occasional need to replenish ammunition which by endgame is trivial. We're not considering hybrid ranged-caster builds here, because I don't think those really are borne out as being the best ranged DPS and they kind of defeat the biggest advantage of building a ranged character- simplicity and reliability. Almost all ranged builds depend on Improved Precise Shot to do huge amounts of damage compared to single target builds, and range allows them to hit many targets at once. Point Blank Shot and other feats and abilities frequently found in ranged builds also gives high damage early on, making dedicated ranged builds quite effective at most level ranges. There are builds that easily do more damage than generic ranged builds, but they usually rely on sacrificing defensive ability, lengthy farming for a perfect BIS gear list, or require very active, involved, and technical gameplay that often results in significant DPS loss if poorly executed.

    Utility- 2/5- most ranged trees do not have great control options, with the exception of some Arcane Archer choices that really compromise damage output. That said, they don't have nothing. Ranger builds probably can qualify for 3/5 with their buffs and healing spells (not that you're not just going to be using potions or UMD'ing scrolls, but let's focus mostly on what the characters can do and not DDO's meta), but there are some disabling, slowing, and other controlling effects that occasionally pop up in ranged trees or on equipment that make ranged builds somewhat useful, even if they're pretty bad at it compared to an utility caster or even just a decent UMD score.

    Durability- 4/5- durability in DDO comes down to the following three factors, which I've ordered in the list of things I consider to be the most valuable to the least valuable. The first is not getting hit. While ranged builds, on paper, usually have less evasion than dedicated melee evasion builds, relatively poor AC (which is almost always below the threshold for AC to be a useful metric), and mediocre at best HP. However, ranged combatants in DDO are able to simply not engage with melee based enemies. Even enemies with ranged damage, which ranged builds struggle to mitigate, tend to hit much more gently than the brutal meat grinders that melee occasionally encounter. Any crowd control options that ranged builds have also helps much more here, since ranged builds, unlike melee builds, can apply those effects without entering danger zones. With the proliferation of ghostly/ethereal/blur/displacement items, ranged builds can get sufficient effective miss chances to be able to mostly survive without major compromises to damage, since the rarity of the most dangerous attacks actually rolling against those defenses and the relative weakness of most ranged attacks puts most ranged characters into a decently acceptable spot with just a little work, compared to insane gearing needed for AC tanking or the ludicrous defensive array required for evasion type defense to be viable. Couple this with the fact that ranged can kite, take advantage of unpathed spots, and fire before enemies have a chance to react and you've got some really great resources to not get hit in the first place. The second most important function for durability is saving against effects. Since control, death, and other nasty effects can ruin your day, having strong saves is important. While ranged builds aren't necessarily the best here, I think they do well enough by having options to operate outside of some spell ranges, avoiding touch range debuffs, and dealing with casters before they get their nastiest spells off. It is also significant that both ranger and rogue get access to evasion, and these are two of the most accessible classes for building ranged characters. Ranged monk builds also benefit from evasion. This is a huge bonus for damage mitigation, as many damage effects that cannot be mitigated by physical defenses can be completely nullified with evasion, while builds without evasion will always take half damage (which can then be further mitigated, but that's a story for another time and this is getting quite long already). However, the greatest advantage that ranged builds have in this category is definitely their ability to strike before targets can react. While you can't always kill casters before they do nasty things, being able to get first strikes on targets really reduces the amount of risk. This gives ranged a huge advantage, beyond also being able to avoid some spells, like Ray of Enfeeblement, much more easily than close combat builds. The final element of durability, and the one ranged builds usually do the worst at, is surviving the hits you do take. Unless you have such blistering damage that you're killing everything before it can react, you will probably end up taking at least a few hits, and ranged builds are pretty squishy. Even here, though, they significantly outperform most casters. Even if you wear light armor instead of just taking the relatively meaningless heavy armor penalty (which only meaningfully punishes arcane casters), you still have at least some PRR and MRR, and most ranged builds that aren't just shoving a casting class into Inquisitive have decent hit dice compared to sorcerer or wizard. Combine this with the fact that the majority of damage you'll be taking will hopefully be relatively weak ranged attacks and you should still have passable defenses, though probably not quite 5/5 worth overall. That said, optimized builds can probably pass this threshold, and I would say that outside of dedicated tank builds that sacrifice damage for durability, ranged builds are almost always innately second best just because of kiting and ranged shenanigans.

    So, long story short, even though I derailed the thread a bit, ranged DPS probably shouldn't be in the number one spot. Even fairly easy to build and generic ranged damage builds like any random Inquisitive or the sorely in need of an update Arcane Archer can do highly competitive damage while eschewing the risk of trading hits regularly. I think ranged is perhaps overperforming, and definitely not in need of buffs. The idea that ranged should be the holy grail of damage is not really valid- if you look at the three elements of a character build, ranged builds almost fundamentally have a huge durability advantage that comes from shooting at things instead of going toe to toe. I certainly think dedicated, non-support ranged builds should do good damage, and I don't necessarily like some of the changes like the Improved Precise Shot nerf (which disproportionately impacted already poorly performing builds instead of actually addressing the brokenness of additional damage dice on Inquisitive). That said, I do think melee could use a bit more love than it's had recently, even with progress in the right direction.
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  20. #20
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    Default The OP is Correct IMO

    The original post is spot-on, IMO. I am seeing melees do over 1 million points of damage, frequently, and destroying R10 content. Had SSG just left Inquisitive alone, today it would be on-par with, and no stronger than, the current builds for Sorc, Alchemist, and yes THF melee. Please return Inquisitive to its original form, the form that people paid for. And please stop over-reacting with the nerfs. Nerfs will happen naturally as you introduce more powerful stuff.

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