Would better blocking mechanics help melees?

[Oliphant]

In some games holding a defense button really makes a difference in most situations. Assassin's Creed block functions are god tier compared to blocking in DDO. Wondering if it would help and be somewhat fun to really up the defensive boosts from blocking, like a bunch of PRR/MRR, MRR cap boost, or something. Maybe works really good on PRR/MRR depending on the shield but anything bigger than buckler cancel's your dodge bonus or something. Seems like giving melees something skill based and situational to do to make melees more defensible could be a fun solution for melee survivability. My idea to bring dodge into could be terrible since clothy monks would benefit most from the MRR cap increase but IDK.

Current top tier tanks would have folks catching up to them but they could possibly use the extra defense to allow them to spend on something else, or perhaps our best tanks could push skulls a bit more.

[PedXing20]

Current mechanics would require you to stand still a push a single key.

It might help, but wouldn't that really dumb down the play style?

[Oxarhamar]

Current mechanics would require you to stand still a push a single key.

It might help, but wouldn't that really dumb down the play style?

Yeah others might argue that actively blocking might make the play more exciting

I’ve played very few games where blocking was fun mobs have to have a tell that an attack is incoming and DDO is really bad visually half the time anyway

Melee should just be able to passively shrug off damage with a shield without needing to turtle up

Blocking already gives more

[Sqrlmonger]

Yeah others might argue that actively blocking might make the play more exciting

I’ve played very few games where blocking was fun mobs have to have a tell that an attack is incoming and DDO is really bad visually half the time anyway

Melee should just be able to passively shrug off damage with a shield without needing to turtle up

Blocking already gives more

Yep and the visual issues are also plagued by wild variations in how well sync'd those visuals are to what the server thinks is happening at that moment.

Sometimes the NPC is roughly where it shows and sometimes its not even close to that position. So trying to block based on animations is basically doomed to failure in a lot of situations where that sync is not behaving.

I think even if designed and implemented well this would lead to quite a bit of frustration.

[KoobTheProud]

At higher Reaper levels the problem is that the mobs are deadly when they get their hands on you. For melee this means that unless the build is very tanky it is very likely to get two-shot when in proximity and with aggro.

The solution is not to give melee better defenses. Doing that would just largely invalidate the difficulty level and bring inevitable calls for a "more challenging" difficulty, many of them coming from the same people calling for better melee defenses now.

Part of the solution is to give tanks better aggro mechanisms that allow them to capture and maintain aggro more reliably. Part of the solution is for other melee to accept the roles that melee DPS have always accepted in MMO's - doers of damage without getting aggro in the process. Part of the solution is to have effects that more reliably damage casters and ranged at distance when they pull aggro from the tank.

The aggro mechanism that is most missing from DDO at this point is a reliable threat meter. This is the piece of the puzzle that would allow tanks to reliably acquire and maintain aggro. It would give *all* DPS more information about what their next action was most likely to cause. It would significantly assist parties and raids in controlling the pace of play. Once this is available nobody is going to sympathize with a non-tank melee or any other DPS who acts prematurely, gets aggro and dies. This won't be about defenses or lack of such, it will be about poor play and the consequences involved.

As to effects more likely to balance the playing field between melee and casters and ranged there are many options that would be simple to implement.

One of these would be mirroring damage on a target if it survived the damage and if the character causing the damage was not in proximity and #1 on the threat list. People would stop engaging early if they took the same damage in return automatically. Melee already have this problem because if they engage a high damage target and do not kill it they take a lot of damage in return. Adding the effect to ranged and casters would help the group mechanic significantly and level the playing field.

One big caveat of all of the above though is that soloing high skulls would be out.

Anybody have a problem with that? Not being able to solo the "challenging" difficulty put in the game to encourage group play against challenge?

[Oxarhamar]

Yep and the visual issues are also plagued by wild variations in how well sync'd those visuals are to what the server thinks is happening at that moment.

Sometimes the NPC is roughly where it shows and sometimes its not even close to that position. So trying to block based on animations is basically doomed to failure in a lot of situations where that sync is not behaving.

I think even if designed and implemented well this would lead to quite a bit of frustration.

Yep & sometimes view is blocked by standing too close to a wall or an action boost over head or even the terribly blinding spell effects

Then there’s things like sky circles

[Oxarhamar]

At higher Reaper levels the problem is that the mobs are deadly when they get their hands on you. For melee this means that unless the build is very tanky it is very likely to get two-shot when in proximity and with aggro.

The solution is not to give melee better defenses. Doing that would just largely invalidate the difficulty level and bring inevitable calls for a "more challenging" difficulty, many of them coming from the same people calling for better melee defenses now.

Part of the solution is to give tanks better aggro mechanisms that allow them to capture and maintain aggro more reliably. Part of the solution is for other melee to accept the roles that melee DPS have always accepted in MMO's - doers of damage without getting aggro in the process. Part of the solution is to have effects that more reliably damage casters and ranged at distance when they pull aggro from the tank.

The aggro mechanism that is most missing from DDO at this point is a reliable threat meter. This is the piece of the puzzle that would allow tanks to reliably acquire and maintain aggro. It would give *all* DPS more information about what their next action was most likely to cause. It would significantly assist parties and raids in controlling the pace of play. Once this is available nobody is going to sympathize with a non-tank melee or any other DPS who acts prematurely, gets aggro and dies. This won't be about defenses or lack of such, it will be about poor play and the consequences involved.

As to effects more likely to balance the playing field between melee and casters and ranged there are many options that would be simple to implement.

One of these would be mirroring damage on a target if it survived the damage and if the character causing the damage was not in proximity and #1 on the threat list. People would stop engaging early if they took the same damage in return automatically. Melee already have this problem because if they engage a high damage target and do not kill it they take a lot of damage in return. Adding the effect to ranged and casters would help the group mechanic significantly and level the playing field.

One big caveat of all of the above though is that soloing high skulls would be out.

Anybody have a problem with that? Not being able to solo the "challenging" difficulty put in the game to encourage group play against challenge?

I don’t think that penalizing ranged or casters will fix melee

Ranged or casters are already in pretty bad shape if they pull agro

I do agree agro needs to be looked at since a while back agro was already changed to so ranged pulling more agro it hasn’t fixed melee

No the problem is with melee

Why these threads go from buff melee defense to nerf ranged & caster is beyond me

[KoobTheProud]

I don’t think that penalizing ranged or casters will fix melee

Ranged or casters are already in pretty bad shape if they pull agro

I do agree agro needs to be looked at since a while back agro was already changed to so ranged pulling more agro it hasn’t fixed melee

No the problem is with melee

Why these threads go from buff melee defense to nerf ranged & caster is beyond me

I wouldn't nerf ranged and caster at all. I think the effects they cause are largely appropriate for the difficulty levels in question.

However I believe that the consequences of their actions in these difficulty levels are well below the consequences for any character that has to be in proximity to have an effect. I think that imbalance in consequences is not healthy for the meta nor for the player base. I think it makes sense to create similar consequences for similar actions when you are talking about the highest difficulty levels in the game.

That more than anything else would create the balance that people have repeatedly called for over the years.

The notion of "fixing" melee just creates the likelihood of making Reaper trivial at all levels and we all know where that leads.

Just editing to say that if the devs implemented something along the lines I suggested above it would instantly create that next level of difficulty we all know we are headed for. We'd probably get years of actually challenging play out of the attempt.

[Zuldar]

The solution is not to give melee better defenses. Doing that would just largely invalidate the difficulty level and bring inevitable calls for a "more challenging" difficulty, many of them coming from the same people calling for better melee defenses now.

Giving them better defense that requires some level of skill and situational awareness would be a good way to do it though. Blocking is a game mechanic that is rarely used, buffing it to be useful would reward players who know when to attack and when to be on the defensive. Additionally I wouldn't mind tumble seeing some actual combat use, possibly by giving some additional dodge based on your tumble skill during the animation.

A bad player would block at the wrong times (losing out on damage) or not block at all, so it would require some level of player skill and thus provide it's own challenge to get the most out of it.

[Eantarus]

I hate active blocking mechanics. Making melee more about blocking would make it so much worse to play.

[KoobTheProud]

Active blocking is only good against attacks with a long animation, like Spinner of Shadows poison attack.

Giving melee active blocking would do one thing reliably, which is to reduce their DPS - probably to fatal levels anyway.

What melee needs is a reliable tank.

[Oxarhamar]

I wouldn't nerf ranged and caster at all. I think the effects they cause are largely appropriate for the difficulty levels in question.

However I believe that the consequences of their actions in these difficulty levels are well below the consequences for any character that has to be in proximity to have an effect. I think that imbalance in consequences is not healthy for the meta nor for the player base. I think it makes sense to create similar consequences for similar actions when you are talking about the highest difficulty levels in the game.

That more than anything else would create the balance that people have repeatedly called for over the years.

The notion of "fixing" melee just creates the likelihood of making Reaper trivial at all levels and we all know where that leads.

Just editing to say that if the devs implemented something along the lines I suggested above it would instantly create that next level of difficulty we all know we are headed for. We'd probably get years of actually challenging play out of the attempt.

Yeah you are talking about nerfing Ranged & Casters they already have penalize for pulling aggro & have increased aggro over melee

You can’t fix melee by nerfing other classes melee will still be just as broken as they are now

The Devs have already implemented multiple things along the lines of what you are asking for one of them being a change to make ranged aggro a larger aoe that melee aggro and increased aggro over melee before reductions

The consequences are already similar the difference is melee has to stand in melee range if there is a dedicated tank then melee can do that

maybe instead of trying nerf others because more dps melee are squishy build a tank

[Eantarus]

Active blocking is only good against attacks with a long animation, like Spinner of Shadows poison attack.

Giving melee active blocking would do one thing reliably, which is to reduce their DPS - probably to fatal levels anyway.

What melee needs is a reliable tank.

My understanding is its already pretty easy to make a good tank, and the only problem is being a tank "tanks" your DPS. DPS melees don't also need to be tanks, that kind of defeats the purpose of the tank/dps/healing holy trinity.

What would be nice is if they could adjust things so tanking is primarily a gear swap. EG "I'm here with my DPS melee. Oh, you needed a tank? Let me put on my tank outfit."

Tanks aren't useful enough in DDO to warrant dedicated "tank builds" for all but the most dedicated of players. Being able to fluidly switch from "DPS mode" to "Tank mode" would be a serious advantage.

[Oliphant]

Non-squish is not the same tier as Tank though. We have a melee dps squish problem. They made melee dps so squishy they had to send all the aggro to wizards to hide it (or something).

[Oxarhamar]

My understanding is its already pretty easy to make a good tank, and the only problem is being a tank "tanks" your DPS. DPS melees don't also need to be tanks, that kind of defeats the purpose of the tank/dps/healing holy trinity.

What would be nice is if they could adjust things so tanking is primarily a gear swap. EG "I'm here with my DPS melee. Oh, you needed a tank? Let me put on my tank outfit."

Tanks aren't useful enough in DDO to warrant dedicated "tank builds" for all but the most dedicated of players. Being able to fluidly switch from "DPS mode" to "Tank mode" would be a serious advantage.

The old ED system made switching to be more tanky much easier

[Zretch]

Active blocking is only good against attacks with a long animation, like Spinner of Shadows poison attack.

Giving melee active blocking would do one thing reliably, which is to reduce their DPS - probably to fatal levels anyway.

What melee needs is a reliable tank.

Agro isn't the problem. Not having a tank isn't the problem. I have -100% melee threat generation, I don't take agro...not even when I want to.

The problem is that mobs, especially doom, carnage, and plague reapers, cleave. The tank can have agro and you still get hit. Add to that the caster mobs that drop AoE nukes on top of the tank, and mobs that drop circles that force you to stop DPS to move, and mobs that throw up slow patches that tank your DPS, etc, etc, etc. No end of mechanics that make it cancer to stand in melee range of a mob, even without agro. In lower difficulties, those aren't an issue, you just patch yourself up after the fight. In R10, those mechanics can kill you unless everything is CC'd. If everything is CC'd, who needs a tank?

Splash damage is the issue. If I get agro, by all means, kill me. If i'm doing my job right, letting the tank get agro, coming in behind only when I'm sure he has agro locked in, gearing specifically for low threat, not charging in and leading with my largest damage cooldown, then I shouldn't get 2 shot by standard mob mechanics. When you play the game right, play it as it was intended, and still die, then at what point do you concede that melee is no longer playing the game the way it's intended?

This is all a function of reaper mode scaling mob damage up as a proxy for difficulty. It is a mechanic that punishes people in melee range far more than people outside of it. It would be nice if that damage scaling would be toned down if you didn't have direct mob agro. Cleaves and AoE standard spells would hit their primary target full, but secondary targets for far less. Exceptions made, of course, for things like Vengeance circles. I don't have a perfect answer, it's a corner that the game painted itself into with how they implemented reaper.

[archest]

currently you press shift to block. and there is also a defensive fighting stance feat and improved defensive fighting stance feat.

I have no problems with using shift to block and shield bash < you can also use a shield and block at the same time.

you must not be actively using the melee blocking defense correctly.

[voxson5]

I'd love to see an active block / parry mechanic in DDO, a la shadow of mordor or similar.

I don't think the netcode nor the virtualized (?low thread) servers could make it acceptable though.

[Weemadarthur]

In some games holding a defense button really makes a difference in most situations. Assassin's Creed block functions are god tier compared to blocking in DDO. Wondering if it would help and be somewhat fun to really up the defensive boosts from blocking, like a bunch of PRR/MRR, MRR cap boost, or something. Maybe works really good on PRR/MRR depending on the shield but anything bigger than buckler cancel's your dodge bonus or something. Seems like giving melees something skill based and situational to do to make melees more defensible could be a fun solution for melee survivability. My idea to bring dodge into could be terrible since clothy monks would benefit most from the MRR cap increase but IDK.

Current top tier tanks would have folks catching up to them but they could possibly use the extra defense to allow them to spend on something else, or perhaps our best tanks could push skulls a bit more.

Rather than just improve blocking I think it would be better to overhaul the whole DR system in the game currently (this could in turn vastly improve blocking by proxy). Currently Barb DR works quite well and if they changed all DR to work along the same lines with each point of DR being a 1% damage reduction you could alter the blocking formula to add either a set % bonus to stack with other sources or multiply your base DR by an amount based on shield type.

[droid327]

Yeah I think blocking as an active playstyle that rewards you for blocking at the right time is a good idea, but the DDO engine just isnt up to it, with how desynchronous it can get

Plus, I find its hard to actually watch for telegraphs while also keeping track of your cooldowns. The GUI just isnt set up in a way that makes it easy to monitor your enemy's actions that closely. I try to block the charge of the Nightmare boss in Back to Basics to negate the annoying KD...and that's a fairly well-telegraphed attack, but even then I often end up missing it, because my eyes were on my hotbar, or because the game just didnt think I blocked in time...

I think what's really needed is just a Shield overhaul, so they provide much more passive defenses than they currently do - particularly with the appropriate shield feats, and for larger shields - commensurate with their opportunity cost. That'll make tanking and S&B builds more competitive, and create more appropriate rolespace between "tankier" melees and "glass cannon" melees