A Realistic Start To Buffing Melee DPS

[Custodian]

There is no melee anymore.

There is only *pew* *pew*

you mean

ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
ting ting ting
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ting ting ting

I've stopped partying with crossbow users because of that noise. (or complained so much they leave the party)
That and their ability to kill mobs before anybody else gets close ruins the party vibe for everyone else involved, except those that like to be carried, when inquisitives join my party I audibly groan

 

[Rusty_helmet]

It’d be far simpler to treat melee dps like ranged dps. Remove the cap on doublestrike and give two weapon fighters full doublestrike on off hand attacks. Give two handed weapon users another +50% DS as well. Then all those ranged feats that give ranged power allow them to be taken and used for melee power too. Why can’t a melee tumble for 80 MP?

But crossbow plushies are way more important.

 

[Finngon]

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

...

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.

> Realistic start to buff Melee DPS
> Talk only about FotW and the broken epic strike
> Want to keep the QC the same

Yeah... no. QC needs a nerf IMO. It overshadows all other epic strikes with not just being a beefed up WWA, but also having that bleed that's disgustingly high DoT. IMO the way to nerf it is to reduce the crit threat range, and that doublestrikes would not double the bleed damage as well.

I would rather buff the other melee epic strikes that see less uses.
- Dire Charge needs a massive damage buff, and the upgrades not make the trip only last 6 seconds and be more like normal trip/improved trip.
- Shadowstrike needs something way more. Personally, making them be Sneak Attackable a la Exposing Strike would already go a long way for it, but I'd say cooldown reduction would also be appreciated.
- Sword Sings is IMO fine, although it favors TWF more than others. You could change the animation to be the En Pointe animation, with the double hit and cleave, but that might be too strong then
- Consecration's damage part just needs a huge damage buff, and it should either scale either with your melee power or fire/light spell power.

 

[EinarMal]

Ever adjusting upwards is madness.

Over-performing stuff needs to be nerfed.

What I expect SSG to do is somehow make crossbows more powerful while nerfing THFing.

I suspect we will just get a wave of cosmetics for your crossbows!

So you can get "fireball" crossbows, where you can shoot out fireballs.
Crossbows that look like you are holding a bow.
Crossbows that shoot out khopesh (bringing back the old school khopesh meta).
Crossbows that shoot out spinning greatswords (if you want to bring back the THF feel)

 

[Custodian]

I suspect we will just get a wave of cosmetics for your crossbows!

So you can get "fireball" crossbows, where you can shoot out fireballs.
Crossbows that look like you are holding a bow.
Crossbows that shoot out khopesh (bringing back the old school khopesh meta).
Crossbows that shoot out spinning greatswords (if you want to bring back the THF feel)

I've heard the next crossbow update automatically completes the dungeon and awards you the rarest of loot when you fire it.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

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.

This takes ~every melee from using Fury with QC to every melee using Fury with QC, but also getting a strong active as well, no? This is a +melee DPS suggestion, forcing Fury even further as a side effect.

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.

Getting a bunch of extra single-target melee DPS would push a lot more melees into casual raiding, but won't change the high skull meta at all. So this suggestion is pointless for your stated goal, unless I'm missing something.

Ranged DPS is so much safer and avoids so many more raid mechanics that even if it was a fair bit lower in output than melee DPS (which it isn't) it would still be the pick in many/most cases. A melee DPS that's dead 80% of the time needs to be dealing 5x the DPS of a ranged character to compete lol. And that's obviously not reasonable.

IMO the fixes need to start with raid mechanics in more than just anti-melee directions (like Skellies & FoM sorta try), and in figuring out how melees are supposed to fit into raids with anti-melee mechanics. Also probably need to balance RXB/DXB/Shuri (IMO multi-hit active attacks being the obvious overperformer), as they're the metric that all DPS is judged against when talking push raids.

 

[l_remmie]

Honestly, I believe the problem with crossbows comes from allowing dual wielders to have a rune arm also. If they remove those benefits, it will be more balanced. No rune arm can be tested to see if that works. They get extra benefits from the rune arm's effects, and that's an extra power that they don't need.

It is not the runearm.
Even for pure artificers it's just ok...

It's decent fire rate with a lot of imbue dice with high doubleshot and 9+ activations of fusilade.

Sometimes it is exactly what it is.

 

[Drachmor]

Idk if this is a troll but, as a melee main, this post makes me mad I don’t like seeing posts for buffs that aren’t needed; it makes me nervous they’ll add some power we didn’t need then nerf us into the ground.

Melee is doing fine. I’m not even that sympathetic to the whining about “anti-melee raid mechanics.” You play melee because you want to be up close and personal; raid bosses sometimes demand quick reflexes, selective engage, and admittedly sometimes a lot of healing support (part remedied by upcoming feats). If you don’t want that, that’s why ranged exists, but yeah. Melee are strong in leveling + endgame questing, plenty viable in raiding (if sub-optimal for certain R10 pushes).

Anyway, the most ridiculous argument I’ve been seeing time and again is that it’s unfair that melee isn’t getting a damage buff with the new feats. _what_. Strength of arms *is a DPS buff.* Straight up. Not to mention the extra sneak dice feat, the fact that the new precision feat will serve melee as well as ranged, or the new unarmed dice feat.

The Power Attack upgrade is underwhelming, but. The headline is this: STRENGTH OF ARMS IS A DPS BUFF. It just is

 

[Custodian]

Yeah I think melee should be the current baseline and the caster's should be brought up to their level and ranged characters should be brought down to it.

 

[Drachmor]

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.

I’ve never understood this argument - why does an increasing level cap necessitate an increase in a defense stat that acts proportionally on incoming damage?

Maybe the incoming damage is growing faster than player HP is growing… anyway, solar aug of MRR cap increase is an option for those looking for higher MRR in legendary content.

As Fox once suggested, maybe there could be a feat that allows you a greater MRR cap in light / cloth armor, *at the expense of evasion.* Which, we remember, is a 50-100% reduction in elemental damage in many contexts.

FWIW, I do hope ultimate Epic Destiny cores continue in the trend of some MRR cap increases.

 

[Bjond]

It’d be far simpler to treat melee dps like ranted dps.

??

No one wants to be treated like a caster.

 

[Blerkington]

There's a pretty large gulf between meta builds and everyone else.

What that means is that people arguing for QC to be nerfed run the risk of making the same mistake there was with casters, ie, weaker builds reliant upon the best epic strike become disproportionately much worse off.

If it were up to me the only buffs I'd do are improvements to the weaker epic strikes, and maybe some enhancement tree changes too. The better melee builds certainly do not need to be any stronger.

 

[Drachmor]

There's a pretty large gulf between meta builds and everyone else.

What that means is that people arguing for QC to be nerfed run the risk of making the same mistake there was with casters, ie, weaker builds reliant upon the best epic strike become disproportionately much worse off.

If it were up to me the only buffs I'd do are improvements to the weaker epic strikes, and maybe some enhancement tree changes too. The better melee builds certainly do not need to be any stronger.

I like suggestions for other strikes that aren’t just about power, but style. Like, if they made a strike that was clearly superior against bosses but not as good at clearing, or a strike revolving around survivability, CC, or mobility.

There are some options in these domains, kinda, but hard to compete with QC. They were right to require more investment in Fury to obtain its proper power. I agree with you they should not nerf it and make the same mistakes they did with casters.

 

[Bjond]

a strike revolving around survivability

Like QC with it's 6+ dodge, dodgecap, & mdb?

 

[Rusty_helmet]

??

No one wants to be treated like a caster.

fat fingers. Ranged

 

[mikarddo]

Buffing melee dps?

Why do you think that needed?

The best melee builds are great dps already.

That said the buff to ranged dps is beyond redicules.

 

[Svirfneblin]

“Crossbows and Bolts Online Unlimited Stormreach”

Jajajajaja

 

[Rage]

All I ever hear when I get online is . . .

*twing twing twing*

*twing twing twing*

*twing twing twing*

 

[voenixa121]

There's a pretty large gulf between meta builds and everyone else.

What that means is that people arguing for QC to be nerfed run the risk of making the same mistake there was with casters, ie, weaker builds reliant upon the best epic strike become disproportionately much worse off.

If it were up to me the only buffs I'd do are improvements to the weaker epic strikes, and maybe some enhancement tree changes too. The better melee builds certainly do not need to be any stronger.

That is not what happened. Other epic strikes were buffed simultaneously with the energy burst nerf. The current weakness of casters is not the result of that nerf, but of all the buffs to physical styles: imbues, percent damage bonus to active attacks, buffs to chains and cleave/greater cleave, ranged aoe attacks etc.
If everything gets buffed to that level, what content are we supposed to play then that is still a challenge? Only raids? Running into a room and pressing one button to destroy everything barely qualifies as gameplay in my eye. That is why I can really not understand all the tears for the old energy burst. It's also why I can't understand why chains/qc are now supposed to be untouchable.
And yes, the fact that the game is so extremely focused on end rewards is part of that problem. Many players don't want challenge that keeps them from getting to the rewards as quickly as possible.
Most of the satisfying gameplay happens before a quest and right at the end of a quest. That can't just be solved by number buffs though.

If I had a game and were to realize how many people play by simply running through and minimizing interaction with the actual elements of a level/quest, I would ask myself what I did to either make the gameplay too boring/dull or the rewards too rewarding. I wish the developers of this game would start at that point when planning balance changes.

 

[Fisto Mk I]

I need a buff, everyone else needs a nerf!

Exactly!

+100500

Shiradi is obviously broken.

Sure. It planned as hybrid ranged/casters tree, but casters part underwhelmed so gravely, that almost absolutely unusable. And it must be fixed of course. 8)