A Realistic Start To Buffing Melee DPS

Chab

Chab

Well-known member
So at first like most, when seeing the new Feats I asked "Where's the melee dps buffs?" or, "Where's the melee version of Trick Shot?". I gave it some thought, as nice as it'd be it's sort of unrealistic. The timer for Trick Shot starts as soon as you tumble. Ranged, which can just tumble and continue using actives, can get off probably 3-4 attacks before its over. Melee, will have to tumble out, tumble in, and depending on the animations of the attacks, might be able to get off 2-3 if lucky. I don't believe the Living Shadow Dark Gift or Shadowdancer's Improved Imbuement makes a difference. Yes, you could just increase the duration. Then the ranged mains complain. So, I came up with what i think can be the start to buffing endgame Melee DPS.

Reworking Fury of the Wild and Adrenaline. How? Make it the same as Shiradi/Hunts End, almost.

A few years ago, the melee meta shifted from THF + Adren, to TWF + Cutter. Which is why I believe that this would be a valid change. So, where do we start? First, look at the two. Adrenaline, including its upgrades is 225% bonus damage with an increase in 16 critical threat range. Hunt's End, has no upgrades and is 250% bonus damage with it being an auto crit. Now yes, with Adren you can obviously prep it with an attack like you used to with Hunt's End, and with most, crit profiles, +16 range will still auto crit, however i think it just makes sense. But as I said, a majority of players are using Cutter at endgame so that is irrelevant. Here we go:

Get rid of the Adren/Cutter multiselector in T1, keep Cutter the way it is.
You could argue they could make another Epic Strike to use, or make it closer to Pin. If anything, I think they could reduce to cost to 1 point and make it a flat 30% + 3 additional range. But I don't want the trees to be too similar.

Change the T3 "Fury Selector" multiselector.
I don't think this should be too hard to change around, i think they can do something like this:
Furious: +1/2/3 Strength while Raging. Rank 1: Cutter effect from Quick Cutter increased to 2d6. Rank 3: The effects of Ram's Might and Animal Growth spells cast on you are doubled. Note: Does not apply to the Ram's Might item enhancement.
Spirit of the Beast: +2/3/4 attack bonus. Rank 1: Cutter effect from Quick Cutter increased to 2d6. Rank 3: The effects of Ram's Might and Animal Growth spells cast on you are doubled. Note: Does not apply to the Ram's Might item enhancement.

Change the T4 "Top Dog" option, to Adrenaline.
Now yes, you'd get it a bit later in comparison to Hunt's End. I don't see any T3's to get rid of, MAYBE, Embrace The Pain. Also, this is about Endgame DPS, not the leveling process. They can just keep it real simple:
Adrenaline: Melee Attack, Deals +250% damage. +20 Critical Threat Range (Automatically Crits.) Cooldown: 9 Seconds. "Make your enemies feel your adrenaline with a single blow"

Now you're probably wondering, "What about all the Trip stuff?" Easy, Change it to Stunning, Sunder, Assassinate or Highest of any Tactical Feat DC.
I don't see anyone using Trip at endgame, maybe I'm in the wrong groups. But I feel like most people would not miss this if it was changed. So, how do we do that? Working our way up:

Change Savage Takedown in T1
Like above, just change the DC of whatever Tactic they may choose for this. The name can obviously change depending on the tactic, but heres an example:
Sundering Strikes: +1/2/3 Sunder DC's. Rank 3: While wearing Medium or Light Armor, additional bonuses to +3 to Sunder DC's.

Next, The Great Leveler DC. I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this but:

Change it to whatever Tactic they choose to replace Trip
It's that simple, I don't know what there is to explain.

Then there's Core 4: Be the Whirlwind: Using any of the feats Trip, Improved Trip, or Whirlwind Attack, or Quick Cutter causes a whirlwind of force to burst from you striking nearby enemies for 1d10 bludgeon damage per character level. Scales with 200% Melee Power. Improved Trip also causes all affected enemies to be tripped unless they succeed at a balance check (DC equal to Improved Trip). Which requires just a tad more work:

Remove Trip/Improved, Insert Other Tactics.
This one to me is a bit more tricky. The WWA/QC portion makes sense to keep. The Active Feat/Attack part might be a little harder to figure out. This is one where I think they need to pick a Tactic to go off of, or let it be any. Sadly, I believe because of this part it makes assassinate not viable here. Given it's a more rage focused tree, it does make sense. Here's a version that includes using any Tactic:
Be The Fury: Using any of the feats Stunning Blow, Stunning Fist, Sunder, Improved Sunder, Whirlwind Attack, or Quick Cutter causes a whirlwind of force to burst from you striking nearby enemies for 1d10 Bludgeon/Slash/Pierce (Determined by Weapon used) Damage per character level. Scales with 200% Melee Power. The Attack used has additional benefits:
Stunning Blow/Fist: Causes enemies in AOE range to be stunned, unless saved
Sunder/Improved Sunder: Causes enemies in an Extended AOE range to be sundered, unless saved OR: Causes enemies affected to be Cowered
Whirlwind Attack/Quick Cutter: Causes enemies affected to be knocked down, unless saved

Closing this out:
While I don't think this will entirely solve the DPS gap, and I do believe Ranged should be tuned down. I think this might be able to close that gap a bit. Don't get me wrong, I like the new melee feats. +1W when centered for all weapons and Temp HP based on Melee Power x3 is sweet. But take Endgame High Skull Raid Comps for example: You look at the DPS, it's all ranged. No matter the raid nowadays, if it's an old one, a new one, full group or shortman. The DPS 99% of the time, is all Ranged. I'm not saying or asking for all of the sudden the meta shifts to only Melee DPS, but variety would be nice. Also I do take into account that everything post Fire Over Morgrave (past 2 years) has been relatively anti-melee. In terms of both mechanics and Boss Attacks. If they dropped enemy fort bypass, that would be awesome. Aside from that, I think Melee is in a fine spot defensively when geared out.

I hope people take the time to read this, and let me know your thoughts. Maybe it gets seen by the right person, and Melee see's some DPS buffs soon. While I am not sure if this may be the right way to approach this, I think it may be a start. Maybe we do get a melee version of Trick Shot added at some point, who knows.

Stay Centered, Stay Raged, Stay Stronk, Go Bonk.
 
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in4theride75

Well-known member
Realistically melee doesn't need a buff but rather the out performing ranged builds need to be reigned in. Any build that relies on no holds barred, endless fusillade, or 10kstars/multitude simply outperforms all other builds. If those skills were nerfed to be in the same realm of haste boost all martial DPS would be at similar parity.
 
L

l_remmie

Well-known member
The strong melee builds are doing fine, great even. It's anti-melee mechanics in raids that hold them back compared to the crossbows. That is not a problem that needs solving.
Crossbows overshadowing everything is.

The weaker melee builds should be improved with better enhancement trees as do the bow and Gxbow trees.

Besides. Any dev time should go to casters before handling this.
 
Bjond

Bjond

Well-known member
l_remmie said:
The strong melee builds are doing fine, great even. It's anti-melee mechanics in raids that hold them back
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This is it exactly. Mechs like the fire disease pulses hitting others and relentless whirl have no strategic or tactical work-around other than "don't play melee". Kicking an entire style out of a raid is a disgusting lack of dev care in designing a raid that harkens back to the worst of EQ1.

The only balancing I'd do for physical DPS trees is to make other than Shiradi just as good for ranged and other than FOTW just as good for melee, especially the activated abilities. Physicals don't need to be stronger, but more variety would be very welcome.
 
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Dulkhan

Well-known member
for the ppl that say melee don't need a buff I would like to see a melee build that is close 10% to a crossbow/shuri build...
 
voenixa121

voenixa121

Well-known member
I don't understand. Shiradi is obviously broken. So we want other destinies be the same now? I really wonder where this "DPS gap" believe is coming from. We can't even measure dps in this game and it is mostly irrelevant outside of raids.
One problem with melee right now is you can't play without fury destiny. Just like you can't play ranged without shiradi. I'd rather be able to have more variety instead of pressuring everyone even more into it.
If every build would get the broken damage of repeater/inquisitive shiradi, what would that even accomplish? Now that a balance patch has been announced everyone is just waiting to get their 8-digit damage numbers. I really have to wonder to what end.
 
paddymaxson

paddymaxson

Deliberately obtuse
Honestly I'd rather do anything than use Adrenaline. I was thrilled when cutter became the better choice because I hate dealing with:

Stop attacking
Press adrenaline
Make damn sure it's definitely worked and there's no delay due to GCD or whatever
Then hit an actual attack

DDO's a bit too janky for me to like doing buttons that enhance my next button.
 
kmoustakas

kmoustakas

Scourge of Xaos
paddymaxson said:
Honestly I'd rather do anything than use Adrenaline. I was thrilled when cutter became the better choice because I hate dealing with:

Stop attacking
Press adrenaline
Make damn sure it's definitely worked and there's no delay due to GCD or whatever
Then hit an actual attack

DDO's a bit too janky for me to like doing buttons that enhance my next button.
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Someone's still using adrenaline???
 
G

Greywolf

Well-known member
I think Melee in general is fine for DPS. There are some outliers that need buffs. I am playing a Warchanter Bard now, and it definitely feels weaker than other melee that I have played recently. You buff the party, but I am not sure that really makes up for how weak the tree is on it's own.

A bigger issue, in my opinion is defenses. They have addressed this somewhat, adding HP bonus to melee combat styles, etc. but could go further. Sacred Fist for example, wearing cloth, gets zero ways to boost MRR cap in the trees; Trickster and Dragon Disciple have rather generous MRR cap boosts available, and Trickster starts with Base 100 vs Base 50. Cloth should get more MRR in general, and the Melee Sets using cloth should get something like what the caster cloth sets get.

I keep hearing that Quick Cutter is the only strike that people take. I end up using some others as well. I am using Sword Sings on my Bard now, I also like Drifting Lotus on Ki builds, and sometimes Consecrate on Paladin or Sacred Fist.
 
S

Sarandra

Well-known member
Svirfneblin said:
👎

Melee does not need a buff.

caster needs buff.

warlock needs buffs badly. Warlock is about to die.
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I think melee need buffs in the sense that they can better handle taking damage.

Dulkhan said:
for the ppl that say melee don't need a buff I would like to see a melee build that is close 10% to a crossbow/shuri build...
Click to expand...
You haven't played enough then, I know a few melee that outshine even ranged. Now bring out the pitchforks!
 
Lazuli

Lazuli

Well-known member
Melee DPS generally don't need buffs. Some melee builds do need help, but those should be adjusted individually, not where top-tier builds might benefit. Overall, melee builds are great for R10 quests.

Raids are another story. Raids need a redesign to be inclusive of all builds, meaning no ridiculous anti-melee mechanics and a proper role for casters.
 
woq

woq

Well-known member
Epic destinies are the wrong place to go to for melee changes.

Sword Sings is a good single target dps epic strike - for twf builds in particular it is better than quick cutter, it's just not as general-purpose and easy to use, and FOTW is a funnier tree to be in (better general purpose - and more defensive). Fatesinger tree is despair inducing defensively, and ranged provide the harmonic resonance so melee don't have to.

Top melee builds are fine and making FOTW better than it is is not the way. I'd even say some of the top melee builds are completely too strong for regular r10 questing. It is the unfair raid design that is causing despair in melees - as well as certain trees that do not stand up to modern gameplay. Ranger tempest / deep wood stalker, Warchanter, Swashbuckler past t2 core / t3s, Warpriest / Warsoul, Paladin KOTC, even Natures Protector and Natures warrior in their high cores and T5 could use help. Maybe we could even benefit from a THF -specialized universal tree. If they get a facelift similar to what Monk trees received, they'll be fine.

But before any of that, casters need help more - and IMO raid scaling and spongey design in raids means it would be perfectly fine to give some underperforming classes/archetypes more group oriented benefits to make them less useless in raid scenarios. Group defenses to let melee stay in melee. Debuffs / buffs to increase raid damage in general that aren't just epic destiny stuff (available to everyone) - instead add some to t5s or high cores in enhancement trees or lvl 8/9 spells.
 
K

Krishna Devi

Well-known member
Greywolf said:
I think Melee in general is fine for DPS. There are some outliers that need buffs. I am playing a Warchanter Bard now, and it definitely feels weaker than other melee that I have played recently. You buff the party, but I am not sure that really makes up for how weak the tree is on it's own.

A bigger issue, in my opinion is defenses. They have addressed this somewhat, adding HP bonus to melee combat styles, etc. but could go further. Sacred Fist for example, wearing cloth, gets zero ways to boost MRR cap in the trees; Trickster and Dragon Disciple have rather generous MRR cap boosts available, and Trickster starts with Base 100 vs Base 50. Cloth should get more MRR in general, and the Melee Sets using cloth should get something like what the caster cloth sets get.

I keep hearing that Quick Cutter is the only strike that people take. I end up using some others as well. I am using Sword Sings on my Bard now, I also like Drifting Lotus on Ki builds, and sometimes Consecrate on Paladin or Sacred Fist.
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I do like the idea of buffing the mrr cap on cloth and light armor a little. I thought it was fairly balanced with medium and heavy up until Myth Drannor and Sun/Moon. But now I feel a boost is needed, and that will only increase as we approach lvl 40.
 
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