About Warriors..

[vinnyq]

Heavy Armors will absorb up to 50% of mobs damage.

You need high constitution to wear Heavy Armor.

To have high constitution you have to be a warrior (level melee).

It seems pretty clear to me that Melee isn't worthless.

Also, the Melee Shield Aura is one of the best skill to have in SoR. It makes your whole group nearly invulnerable while still being able to attack. It saves my group from group wipe lotsa time. And as far as I know, Melee Shield is a warrior skill only.

[amcyr]

OK, first off stop whining about missing the occasional XP. Why don't you try to lvl Def. aff. sometime. I miss the XP at times on 50%+ of the mobs. There are only 3 options, and only 2 of them can be used in a group situation. (fear is not an option).

-------8< (snip)

EDIT: and btw, a nuker hit by a mobs special attack goes down easier than a offensive melee or a tank!

As a melee, I don't mind not getting xp if I don't hit. If I didn't hit, then I don't deserve xp. It stinks when I cause 90% of the damage, and then lose all xp because I died and didn't get rezzed in time to hit again, which is so easy to happen the way mob damage currently occurs.

I could even accept losing partial xp for having died (and the healer I trusted to keep me alive should lose xp too, but I don't see how that could be implemented). (As mentioned in a different thread, xp-wise it is in the healer's best interest not to rez me in time, lol.)

And just because Def Aff is nerfed worse, doesn't mean melee is great as is.

EDIT: and btw, nukers and tanks often go down to special attacks just the same. One hit.

[varelse]

As a melee, I don't mind not getting xp if I don't hit. If I didn't hit, then I don't deserve xp. It stinks when I cause 90% of the damage, and then lose all xp because I died and didn't get rezzed in time to hit again, which is so easy to happen the way mob damage currently occurs.

I could even accept losing partial xp for having died (and the healer I trusted to keep me alive should lose xp too, but I don't see how that could be implemented). (As mentioned in a different thread, xp-wise it is in the healer's best interest not to rez me in time, lol.)

And just because Def Aff is nerfed worse, doesn't mean melee is great as is.

EDIT: and btw, nukers and tanks often go down to special attacks just the same. One hit.

As hard as it seems to be to get team healers, you sure you really want to punish the few that do step up, for letting you drop once in a while? Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes it simply isn't the healers fault people drop. There are things that melees and nukers can do to help us keep all team members healthy - but that should really be in a thread on its own.

I'd also like to see high melee grant a greater degree of defense ability than it does. It would certainly make healing a team a little less frantic.

[usinuk]

A little history for those of you new to the game.

Patch 1 did a nice job of destroying whatever balance there was between nukers/healers and the rest of the fight classes. With spell costs reduced and damage raised to reflect increased mob damage introduced in patch 1, both nukers and healers got a huge boost to reflect more difficult combat conditions.

Unfortunately, the only change that happened to 2h meleers with patch 1 was to eliminate the blind 1-enchanted-weapon-exploit (you could use blind 1 on level 250 mobs and kill a 3k mob easily) and not attempt to rebalance the class to reflect the new reality of the world. Protection factors and armor absorption rates weren't changed one iota, and neither was damage from weapons. Weaker DPS (damage-per-second) melee classes like 1h and close combat, not to mention the disaster that is and was ranged, fared even worse.

Besides destroying crafting as a solo profession, the other lasting legacy of patch 1 was to throw balance across fight classes completely out of whack. Changing mobs to do 10x the damage with 3-4x less hit points (I still have my old comparison sheet testing the changes with a few scowling gingos on the ATS) was all well and good, but it also required a real hard look at DPS, DPS absorption, and even doing things like increasing hp potential that had been pretty balanced across beta. This was clearly never done except for 2 out of the 30 or so melee/ranged/magic fight lines.

Its well time for an overhaul of balancing DPS and DPS absorption across the system. 2H Melee isn't useless the way, say, ranged largely is - but there is a reason there are a number of Avatars of Destruction and Celestial Guardians and no level 250 meleers. I don't blame those who have taken the quick nuke/healer route for doing it, since it was the easiest option presented to become a powerful player. Its just that some of us might like to have another option to become one besides being nuker #10252.

[caitiff]

and no level 250 meleers.

There is at least 1 lvl 250 meleer that I know of on windermeer

[systemv]

Its just that some of us might like to have another option to become one besides being nuker #10252.

Very well said, and thank you for the history lesson - explains quite a bit of things I was annoyed about actually.

Hopefully after the next content dump they'll have time to rehaul the skills that need rehauling.

[usinuk]

There is at least 1 lvl 250 meleer that I know of on windermeer

I congratulate them on their patience.

Point still stands though.

[madnak]

Alegra spent a very very long time getting there. It took Always 4 days to go from 215 to 250. I believe it took Alegra over a month of dedicated play to accomplish the same.

I think Sekhmet is still below 250, and she even has Lathaniel following her around doing nothing but helping her up.

It literally takes many times as long for a melee. Also, a nuker/healer combo is all you need up to the top. I've seen plenty of nukers who can solo great najabs in seconds flat, and clear the whole spawn in a couple minutes. It takes a melee five times that long, and it puts more stress on the healer too (generally enough that you have to heal the healer, which makes it even worse). If you can find a nuker kind enough to group with you in a group of three you get terrible experience, and you still go at a slower rate than just healer/nuker.

Armor isn't made above q200. And even if it were, the difference is pretty negligible. Up to 175 melee does serve a useful role, but at that point it's not very worthwhile to raise it as a mage (certainly not after 200), and your capability as a tank doesn't go up much.

At low levels melee is great, but trust me, at high levels it might as well be ranged for all the good it does.

[amcyr]

you sure you really want to punish the few that do step up, for letting you drop once in a while?

I don't want to "punish" anyone, but I want to reward performance. Why should the melee be the only one "punished" for doing his job well (damaging the mob) while the healer gets "rewarded" for not doing his job?

I thought about it some more, and I think maybe the team as a whole should lose xp if anyone in the team dies. That way healers have to do their job healing, and melees have to protect the healers. If xp was reduced 10% say for every team member that died (after 10 deaths, no xp would be received), I think that would more accurately reward team performance.

Of course, that causes problems of its own. It might then be better to let weaker players rest in the dirt, rather than rez them and allow another death to reduce xp. I guess there is no 'perfect' solution.

[varelse]

I don't want to "punish" anyone, but I want to reward performance. Why should the melee be the only one "punished" for doing his job well (damaging the mob) while the healer gets "rewarded" for not doing his job?

I thought about it some more, and I think maybe the team as a whole should lose xp if anyone in the team dies. That way healers have to do their job healing, and melees have to protect the healers. If xp was reduced 10% say for every team member that died (after 10 deaths, no xp would be received), I think that would more accurately reward team performance.

Of course, that causes problems of its own. It might then be better to let weaker players rest in the dirt, rather than rez them and allow another death to reduce xp. I guess there is no 'perfect' solution.

My point is, it's already difficult to find anyone willing to heal a team. Doing this would make for 1) much smaller, more exclusive teams and 2) make it even more difficult to get team healers.