Make Melee strong, pt Deux/ no poll, no nerfs

[PraetorPlato]

Shrines everywhere. Plenty of items to recover SP. Lots of POT too. No sustainability issue? That's a thing of the past. In today's quests, you'll never run out of SP.

The issue isn't that casters run out of SP, it's that casters literally don't have the DPS to match melees even at full nova (or spike single target damage, for that matter)

To be clear, this is a good thing.

 

[Ying]

With the way some ED stuff works off "best stat", I wonder how people would feel about the basic tactical feats doing the same; there's a lot of builds that use alternative stats to hit/dam.

In the balance refresh thread I suggested Improved Trip use the highest stat. That may seem weird, but when you have Sacred Fist that uses CHA as a primary stat, Artificers that use INT, Monks that use WIS, Rogues that use DEX it makes sense.

 

[Ying]

Mp values are kind of fine to be quite honest.

Maybe at end game but not when heroic leveling. At level 7 I have 200+ spellpower in both force and fire (or acid, etc). The same level melee and ranged don't come anywhere near half of that for MP/RP.

 

[Griglok]

1. Every melee class should have a version of Deatheater. This is so obviously a melee ability.
2. Every melee class should have some version of Uncanny Dodge. It's laborious and frankly not worth it to play any melee that doesn't have UD in high reaper.
3. Heavy Armor needs massive buffs.
4. The way FVS and SOR get double spell points from Wizardry, BARB, FIGHT, and PAL should get double PRR/MRR from Sheltering.
5. AOE, AOE, AOE. Give melee AOE attacks. People like AOE because its fun. Ultimately no changes made to melee will every offset the pure fun that AOE attacks provide. This more than anything is why people are drawn to casters.

1. I agree with you, however there are a lot of temp HP abilities in the game. Barbarian has Blood Tribute. Bards have Inspire Greatness and Words of Encouragement. Clerics get Bliss, Aid and Implaccable Foe. Fighters have Last Stand and get quality/competence HP boosts earlier in the cores/levels of the Stalwart Defender tree. FvS get Implaccable Foe. Monks get Impending Doom. Paladins get Divine Righteousness. Ranger and Rogue don't have anything that I can think of and a lot of the abilities listed don't provide enough temp HP to make them useful- especially at cap. It would be nice if Legendary Affirmation was available on an aug- one we could craft from a piece of raid gear and slot into a red/orange slot.
2. UD or a bonus to concealment, incoporeal or DR.
3. Yes- though tough to see a path forward here.
4. Fighter gets extra feats and access to the Heavy Armor Champion line. These feats should be consolidated and buffed. Same with the Shield Mastery line. Instead of a flat bonus to values- it would be interesting to see the armor types (cloth, light, medium, heavy) each offer more variance in the type of defense. If light armor is for dodge, heavy armor is for PRR/MRR, maybe medium armor is for DR?
5. Cleaves and Strikethrough. Not to mention many of the ED abilities. Melee DPS is "endless" so long as you don't run out of red bar.

Maybe at end game but not when heroic leveling. At level 7 I have 200+ spellpower in both force and fire (or acid, etc). The same level melee and ranged don't come anywhere near half of that for MP/RP.

This. A lot of MP comes from filigrees. If you don't have an optimal setup, even if the rest of build is fine, you'll be really far behind.

 

[DBZ]

Maybe at end game but not when heroic leveling. At level 7 I have 200+ spellpower in both force and fire (or acid, etc). The same level melee and ranged don't come anywhere near half of that for MP/RP.

Melee power scales completely different then spell end game 400 melee power roughly equal to 1200 spell power they should be rebalanced aligned and 100 percent double strike shot vs 0 double cast and 33 percent more nerfage on the top end so more li,ke 1600 spell power

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

That is great. Just to be able to add on some more specifics, at what reaper level do you think heavy armor melee survivability currently is fine?

Currently, it's adequate for experienced players up to around R4. After that, especially against champions, defenses simply get shredded. This is for characters with above 200 PRR. A champion in R6 will decimate the PRR of 200-250 range characters. PRR being an all-or-nothing formula isn't working. A melee should not have to have Tank levels of PRR to stay alive in a combat zone.

1. Cleaves and Strikethrough. Not to mention many of the ED abilities. Melee DPS is "endless" so long as you don't run out of red bar.

What ED abilities? One of the problems with EDs is that few of them give a core attack to melee. Adrenaline, I suppose, but things like Fast n Furious, Dire Charge, or the Great Leveler all suffer from targeting issues. There are the better (because they are AOE) strikes from Grandmaster but that requires a rather specific setup. I think one of the problems we have is the antiquated view that melee DPS is endless and caster DPS is constrained by the blue bar. This might have been true at one time but it is no longer accurate. Caster DPS is effectively endless in 99% of the game. And this all still goes back to AOE and how to deal with mobs rushing at you in high reaper. Here is a combat example I regularly face:

My Bearbarian can charge into combat on R6 and adrenaline strikethrough an incoming mob and decimate it, unless there is a champion in it, in which case I can get killed (with over 4000 HPs) rather quickly if it isn't neutralized fast. Now, I have Stunning Blow and Improved Trip for this but these are single target and stop landing consistently after R6 against non-caster mobs. Since adrenaline and dire charge share the same cooldown I'll never be able to use both in that initial combat rush.

Moving this up to R8, I start to have to rely upon my defenses more because not as many of the mobs are going to be killed in the initial rush. This is where PRR, Damage reduction, and dodge come into play. This is where things like Deatheater are needed for melee. Unquenchable rage helps somewhat at this point for high HAMP characters (you're in combat so still take a hefty self-healing penalty). Champions at this level will blow through every defense I have.

Moving this up to R10 and I can't rush into that mob without being killed. The mob has to have been grouped around a Tank or CC'd to some degree. Now I'm more of a flank fighter and picking things off with adrenaline. Defenses now protect from a couple of hits. Damage spikes of 3000+ are common. This is my experience with a melee character that has 60 reaper points, a 247 PRR, and over 4,000 HPs.

 

[DBZ]

You don't raid shrines def do matter and casters do run out

 

[Griglok]

What ED abilities? One of the problems with EDs is that few of them give a core attack to melee. Adrenaline, I suppose, but things like Fast n Furious, Dire Charge, or the Great Leveler all suffer from targeting issues. There are the better (because they are AOE) strikes from Grandmaster but that requires a rather specific setup. I think one of the problems we have is the antiquated view that melee DPS is endless and caster DPS is constrained by the blue bar. This might have been true at one time but it is no longer accurate. Caster DPS is effectively endless in 99% of the game. And this all still goes back to AOE and how to deal with mobs rushing at you in high reaper. Here is a combat example I regularly face:

My Bearbarian can charge into combat on R6 and adrenaline strikethrough an incoming mob and decimate it, unless there is a champion in it, in which case I can get killed (with over 4000 HPs) rather quickly if it isn't neutralized fast. Now, I have Stunning Blow and Improved Trip for this but these are single target and stop landing consistently after R6 against non-caster mobs. Since adrenaline and dire charge share the same cooldown I'll never be able to use both in that initial combat rush.

Moving this up to R8, I start to have to rely upon my defenses more because not as many of the mobs are going to be killed in the initial rush. This is where PRR, Damage reduction, and dodge come into play. This is where things like Deatheater are needed for melee. Unquenchable rage helps somewhat at this point for high HAMP characters (you're in combat so still take a hefty self-healing penalty). Champions at this level will blow through every defense I have.

Moving this up to R10 and I can't rush into that mob without being killed. The mob has to have been grouped around a Tank or CC'd to some degree. Now I'm more of a flank fighter and picking things off with adrenaline. Defenses now protect from a couple of hits. Damage spikes of 3000+ are common. This is my experience with a melee character that has 60 reaper points, a 247 PRR, and over 4,000 HPs.

Not engaging with this. So far the thread has been "what would you like to see" and I'd rather it not turn into "what is currently possible". Happy to discuss if you post a build in the builds section though.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Currently, it's adequate for experienced players up to around R4. After that, especially against champions, defenses simply get shredded. This is for characters with above 200 PRR. A champion in R6 will decimate the PRR of 200-250 range characters. PRR being an all-or-nothing formula isn't working. A melee should not have to have Tank levels of PRR to stay alive in a combat zone.

It's not an all-or-nothing forumla, it's a linear formula exactly like melee power, for example. Every PRR increases your EHP by 1%. If you change the forumula so that every additional PRR is worth more than the last you will break the game very quickly by increasing it.

The actual problem is the damage multiplier in reaper. It simply scales too much.

The damage player takes in R10 is multiplied by 11.1 and in R4 by 2.7. That means you take 4.1 times as much damage in R10 as you do in R4.

If you have 250 PRR your EHP is effectively 350% (base 100% + 250% increase from PRR).

Looking only at PRR, in R10 your EHP needs to be 350%*4,1=1435% to achieve the same survivability as in R4. Counting backwards we can deduce that it requires a PRR of 1435-100=1335. So even if you got 1000 extra PRR you would still not be as survivable in R10 as you are in R4, but you would become essentially immortal in low/mid reaper and it would break the game.

Ofcourse you can come up with buffs outside of PRR, but you can do the same excercise for any EHP buff you can imagine. The result will always be the same, buffing melee to what you are asking for in R10 will trivialize low/mid reaper.

What this means is that you cannot buff melee out of this problem. The problem is the damage scaling.

 

[Col Kurtz]

It's not an all-or-nothing forumla, it's a linear formula exactly like melee power, for example. Every PRR increases your EHP by 1%. If you change the forumula so that every additional PRR is worth more than the last you will break the game very quickly by increasing it.

The actual problem is the damage multiplier in reaper. It simply scales too much.

The damage player takes in R10 is multiplied by 11.1 and in R4 by 2.7. That means you take 4.1 times as much damage in R10 as you do in R4.

If you have 250 PRR your EHP is effectively 350% (base 100% + 250% increase from PRR).

Looking only at PRR, in R10 your EHP needs to be 350%*4,1=1435% to achieve the same survivability as in R4. Counting backwards we can deduce that it requires a PRR of 1435-100=1335. So even if you got 1000 extra PRR you would still not be as survivable in R10 as you are in R4, but you would become essentially immortal in low/mid reaper and it would break the game.

Ofcourse you can come up with buffs outside of PRR, but you can do the same excercise for any EHP buff you can imagine. The result will always be the same, buffing melee to what you are asking for in R10 will trivialize low/mid reaper.

What this means is that you cannot buff melee out of this problem. The problem is the damage scaling.

good point!

what this shows is R10 is close to what devs wanted to create in the 1st place.

*Melee may need a little update to perform low-mid lvl, but no character is supposed to solo R10 regularly.

The fact there are R10 groups that perform well is a testament to how successful good players can be when working together/kudos

R10 discussion feels like a different discussion than ''make melee strong'' >If melee could 1 shot mobs at R10 that would more of a balance problem than mobs 1 shotting players in the hardest difficulty.

I'm all for melee updates..I'd love to go back to melee. But, I dont stick around to just play at CAP long, where melee performs 'fine' according to many other posts I've read.

 

[Shear-buckler]

good point!

what this shows is R10 is close to what devs wanted to create in the 1st place.

*Melee may need a little update to perform low-mid lvl, but no character is supposed to solo R10 regularly.

The fact there are R10 groups that perform well is a testament to how successful good players can be when working together/kudos

R10 discussion feels like a different discussion than ''make melee strong'' >If melee could 1 shot mobs at R10 that would more of a balance problem than mobs 1 shotting players in the hardest difficulty.

I'm all for melee updates..I'd love to go back to melee. But, I dont stick around to just play at CAP long, where melee performs 'fine' according to many other posts I've read.

Yeah it's a testament to how much damage you can avoid by running circles around slow mobs and bad AI, relying on permanent cc and op dodge clickies. Don't get me wrong, it still takes serious skill. It is just very different from the rest of the game, so it is not surprising that it is unappealing for so many of us.

 

[Col Kurtz]

Yeah it's a testament to how much damage you can avoid by running circles around slow mobs and bad AI, relying on permanent cc and op dodge clickies. Don't get me wrong, it still takes serious skill. It is just very different from the rest of the game, so it is not surprising that it is unappealing for so many of us.

indeed! People usually only want to do r10 for the reaper points! Maybe the challenge could be an argument>but there's so many comments like yours that says how unfun it really is.

You and many others have some great melee suggestions...I'll try stay focused, and not derail this thread any further w the R10 BS.

 

[Volarr]

Sentient armor is the answer here for melee improvement and augment slots should be limited to only taking defensive filigrees. ( will, reflex, fort, dodge, Prr, Mrr and so on) this would give better defense for all but would really help thf and twf the most.

 

[Shear-buckler]

indeed! People usually only want to do r10 for the reaper points! Maybe the challenge could be an argument>but there's so many comments like yours that says how unfun it really is.

You and many others have some great melee suggestions...I'll try stay focused, and not derail this thread any further w the R10 BS.

I don't think it is derailment, it is rather getting to the root of the problem.

What exactly do people want when they say "make melee strong"?
More survivability seems to be a common request.
How survivable should you be?
Ok, that requires this level of buffs. If that is the goal then suggestions like defensive filigrees would miss the mark by orders of magnitude.

 

[festasha]

indeed! People usually only want to do r10 for the reaper points! Maybe the challenge could be an argument>but there's so many comments like yours that says how unfun it really is.

You and many others have some great melee suggestions...I'll try stay focused, and not derail this thread any further w the R10 BS.

Thankyou for not wanting this thread to be derailed any further, I feel it has been going quite well so far.
We can always hope that a dev will read and consider the ideas that have been presented so far but if people want to go off track this will probably be a thread that will be closed down like the previous threads in the past week.

 

[festasha]

I don't think it is derailment, it is rather getting to the root of the problem.

What exactly do people want when they say "make melee strong"?
More survivability seems to be a common request.
How survivable should you be?
Ok, that requires this level of buffs. If that is the goal then suggestions like defensive filigrees would miss the mark by orders of magnitude.

As said previously, the post is for those who feel something is missing from their melee class. If you feel you have a valid contribution please go ahead and say but please bare in mind this is not a make my melee capable of soloing an R10 thread.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

I don't think it is derailment, it is rather getting to the root of the problem.

What exactly do people want when they say "make melee strong"?
More survivability seems to be a common request.
How survivable should you be?
Ok, that requires this level of buffs. If that is the goal then suggestions like defensive filigrees would miss the mark by orders of magnitude.

I would argue that most meta melee builds right now are actually far too survivable, even in r10. Put on spell absorb and hit a dodge clicky and you become virtually unkillable. Heavy armor vs dodge is the only unbalanced thing right now.

I'd like to see reaper scale down ALL forms of avoidance defenses by a percentage, rather than the flat amount for blurry/incorporeal only.
Something like 5% per skull as a multiplier rather than flat reduction, so if your character had 10% incorporeal, 20% blur and 50% dodge, on r10 you would get 5%, 10% and 25% respectively. (instead of 0%, 0% and 50% like on live). This wouldn't result in a huge change to survivability overall, but would tone down the top tier 95% dodge builds and buff the lesser used defenses. (and hopefully make more builds defensively viable)

 

[Shear-buckler]

I would argue that most meta melee builds right now are actually far too survivable, even in r10. Put on spell absorb and hit a dodge clicky and you become virtually unkillable. Heavy armor vs dodge is the only unbalanced thing right now.

I'd like to see reaper scale down ALL forms of avoidance defenses by a percentage, rather than the flat amount for blurry/incorporeal only.
Something like 5% per skull as a multiplier rather than flat reduction, so if your character had 10% incorporeal, 20% blur and 50% dodge, on r10 you would get 5%, 10% and 25% respectively. (instead of 0%, 0% and 50% like on live). This wouldn't result in a huge change to survivability overall, but would tone down the top tier 95% dodge builds and buff the lesser used defenses. (and hopefully make more builds defensively viable)

I agree with your suggestions. Dodge is op and the flat reduction to incorp/displace is bad game design.

 

[Shear-buckler]

As said previously, the post is for those who feel something is missing from their melee class. If you feel you have a valid contribution please go ahead and say but please bare in mind this is not a make my melee capable of soloing an R10 thread.

Yeah and a fellow poster said that what he is missing from his melee class is the ability to survive in high reaper as he do in R4 with a suggestion to buff melee armor. It seems only fair to investigate what that would take.

 

[Skjoldofr]

I'd like to throw out a non-gameplay related change/request.
Can Melee get some more varied special attack animations? Ideally this would include the return of the old Confront Any Foe animation to (Paladin's specifically! I recognize my bias!) melee characters because it looked really cool.
Almost all the special attacks being cleave animations is somewhat dull. (I'm aware that special attacks are by and large DPS losses but they look cool and often feel impactful).

I keep playing around with a horrifying melee split solely so I can use the GMoF strike because it looks cool.

On more gameplay changes and requests... as someone who isn't running cutting edge R10s and does often turn into a soulstone when I overextend in R4 and R6s... I think Tactical DCs is my primary want/need. (especially on non-fighters!)
The only reliable CC I have is the vanguard shield stun. Stunning blow doesn't scale well into endgame and Improved Trip doesn't scale super well either. AoE CC (that isn't Dire Charge or Consecration) would also be very welcome.

I'd also like to echo the 'Heavy Armor needs more' sentiment. In low reapers, I find Heavy Armor superior to Medium for the PRR. I usually (low past lives) have enough HP that I can survive a hit or two, and PRR makes a more frequent impression on how often I survive. Dodge is absolutely superior. I like Heavy Armor more because I know I don't have the gear or the past lives to get my dodge up to good enough levels on a Paladin or Fighter Vanguard.
In higher reapers, this paradigm flips completely around because I cannot survive one hit anymore. If heavy armor scaled up in higher reapers, or had a clicky, or something more than it had now I think it'd help a lot more with my survivability.
(Grim Barricade suggestion - make the MRR/PRR multiselectors give +1/+2/+3/+4 based on armor type? i.e. if I'm cloth I get the MRR/PRR I get right now, If I'm in Medium armor I get +3 per point in those enhancements instead of +1. Likely imbalanced, but a possible avenue for thought).

Splitting out the Epic Strike and the CC ability would also be very welcome. Similar to how Magus gets the ice or shadow puddle AND an epic strike, and Primal Avatar gets the Epic Strike AND rejuvenation cocoon AND a secondary spell.

• Using consecration feels bad. It's very useful, and a great party boon, but it doesn't make me feel strong. (especially with reaper self-healing penalties).
• Using dire charge feels bad. It's very useful, and fantastic CC when it lands, but it doesn't make me feel like I'm contributing meaningfully to the parties DPS, it puts me out of position, and its almost immediately overshadowed by a DC caster tossing out a mass hold.
• Using Adrenaline feels great... if you get all the enhancements. No fail knockdown on a single target is amazing. I wish this cleaved if you use it on a cleave.

EDIT: Oh, and a mobility option. Spring Attack is wonderful, the feat tax to get to Spring Attack isn't wonderful. Spring Attack has pretty meaningless damage for me, I solely use it as a non-targeted charge. If we could get more of this, or replace things like the vanguard shield charge or the paladin lead the charge with a non-targeted version I'd be much much happier.