Fun Fact:
4.21% are Duelists inside the top 15k in Torment League (631).
3.30% are Duelists inside the top 15k in Bloodlines League (495).
better than I expected it to be
Duelist start is - still, after last minute 'fixes' - garbage and the whole idea of class that does not take RT but also is not Crit is a stupid one. this forces Duelist to a) go mara/templar start (and both have better starts) or b) go ranger/shadow start (and again - both have better starts). so why bother at all?
i play 4 respec'ed duelists right now and both manage fine due to legacy gear and cheeze builds (you cannot go wrong with soultaker) but i do not expect to start Duelist char in the forseeable future as there is just no point
Agreed.
Also, to the guy who posted the stats, you can't just look at total representation, you need to look at distribution in the higher brackets to see how they end up.
And for duelists, I tried to find one alive somewhere at the top and had to go all the way down to 184 (in bloodlines). First living duelist in bloodlines is at position 184. God help his soul for suffering through all that on his way up there too.
my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes
-----
Bug Fixes:
People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it.
Last edited by Legatus1982 on Dec 27, 2014, 2:14:33 PM
It's simple. GGG should add better armor drops for mele characters and better elemental protection drops.
Then give us better mele damage clusters in the passive tree.
It's simple. GGG should add better armor drops for mele characters and better elemental protection drops.
Then give us better mele damage clusters in the passive tree.
+ make the flicker strike more powerful.
Lol, agreed
But seriously, you can't change some of this stuff without altering other things, like ST.
What the game needs is to make changes, specifically defensive ones, that affect only melee. While dps and having to physically walk over to a mob is somewhat an issue, the bigger issue is that melee is forced to eat damage from stuff ranged can avoid altogether.
Some kind of defensive buffs on the melee gems themselves would probably be the only thing you can do here. Adding more leech or dps or utility won't really cut it, because as you can see from the bloodlines league, the new gems did nothing for melee (duelists). It has to be something defensive, making melee tankier than ranged/caster, and possibly some help for mobility. Because if melee can still get one-shotted then there is no point to having melee in the game at all as ranged will always be better.
my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes
-----
Bug Fixes:
People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it.
Last edited by Legatus1982 on Dec 27, 2014, 9:06:52 PM
While dps and having to physically walk over to a mob is somewhat an issue, the bigger issue is that melee is forced to eat damage from stuff ranged can avoid altogether.
That's why flicker strike should be based on strenght and have more range and damage.
I would add a roll/evade ability.
Better elemental protection in the passive tree.
Better armor with strength requirements.
"
It has to be something defensive, making melee tankier than ranged/caster, and possibly some help for mobility.
I still dont think its a problem. People are saying they need to do this or that in order to make melee good, its already really good they dont need to do anything. Some of the suggestions are good and would make the game better, sure, not knocking peoples suggestions at all, but the basic premiss that something is broken and needs fixed is fundamentally wrong.
Like determination becoming a flat armour aura rather than a more multiplier, thats a great suggestion, I will always support that when I see it brought up. But at the same time, you can get 10-15k armour without using Iron Reflexes or Determination atm, meaning you can still have 8k+ evasion with ondars on top of that and block. If people dont prioritise investing in armour nodes or gear with high armour values then thats their own fault.
The defense layers are there in the game, the potential exists to make defensively strong melee builds. If you start as marauder theres no reason not to spread all the way over to the Ranger through the Duelist and you have armour, endurance, evasion, ondars and block all at your disposal. People are talking a lot about ele damage, I think physical is just as scary but ele can be really crazy no doubt. Spells are spells, cap your resists and play properly, use res flasks situationally if you need to. Some people have spell block, some spell dodge, you dont really need either to map at any level and theres nothing to stop you using a saffells/lazwhar/purity of x aura etc just like a caster might. Elemental attacks can also be scary, well armour is doing fuck all against them where evasion is dealing with ele attacks just like physical, if you are completely skipping evasion and ondars as a marauder or a duelist despite having open access to these defense layers then again, whos fault is that?
The south of the tree is like a bastion of op defenses while the top half is just a desert, characters who camp out in the bottom half have so much more mechanical survivability than those in the top. Theres vastly more life, elemental resist, armour, evasion, endurance charges and block in the bottom half. Theres more energy shield and mana in the top half, which is basically an either or situation defensively speaking unlike the stuff in the bottom where you can literally stack every one of those mechanics together.
I still dont think its a problem. People are saying they need to do this or that in order to make melee good, its already really good they dont need to do anything. Some of the suggestions are good and would make the game better, sure, not knocking peoples suggestions at all, but the basic premiss that something is broken and needs fixed is fundamentally wrong.
Like determination becoming a flat armour aura rather than a more multiplier, thats a great suggestion, I will always support that when I see it brought up. But at the same time, you can get 10-15k armour without using Iron Reflexes or Determination atm, meaning you can still have 8k+ evasion with ondars on top of that and block. If people dont prioritise investing in armour nodes or gear with high armour values then thats their own fault.
The defense layers are there in the game, the potential exists to make defensively strong melee builds. If you start as marauder theres no reason not to spread all the way over to the Ranger through the Duelist and you have armour, endurance, evasion, ondars and block all at your disposal. People are talking a lot about ele damage, I think physical is just as scary but ele can be really crazy no doubt. Spells are spells, cap your resists and play properly, use res flasks situationally if you need to. Some people have spell block, some spell dodge, you dont really need either to map at any level and theres nothing to stop you using a saffells/lazwhar/purity of x aura etc just like a caster might. Elemental attacks can also be scary, well armour is doing fuck all against them where evasion is dealing with ele attacks just like physical, if you are completely skipping evasion and ondars as a marauder or a duelist despite having open access to these defense layers then again, whos fault is that?
The south of the tree is like a bastion of op defenses while the top half is just a desert, characters who camp out in the bottom half have so much more mechanical survivability than those in the top. Theres vastly more life, elemental resist, armour, evasion, endurance charges and block in the bottom half. Theres more energy shield and mana in the top half, which is basically an either or situation defensively speaking unlike the stuff in the bottom where you can literally stack every one of those mechanics together.
nice preachment but somehow i get the feeling this would be a totally different written text if there wasnt a Spectral Throw skill.
I still dont think its a problem. People are saying they need to do this or that in order to make melee good, its already really good they dont need to do anything. Some of the suggestions are good and would make the game better, sure, not knocking peoples suggestions at all, but the basic premiss that something is broken and needs fixed is fundamentally wrong.
Like determination becoming a flat armour aura rather than a more multiplier, thats a great suggestion, I will always support that when I see it brought up. But at the same time, you can get 10-15k armour without using Iron Reflexes or Determination atm, meaning you can still have 8k+ evasion with ondars on top of that and block. If people dont prioritise investing in armour nodes or gear with high armour values then thats their own fault.
The defense layers are there in the game, the potential exists to make defensively strong melee builds. If you start as marauder theres no reason not to spread all the way over to the Ranger through the Duelist and you have armour, endurance, evasion, ondars and block all at your disposal. People are talking a lot about ele damage, I think physical is just as scary but ele can be really crazy no doubt. Spells are spells, cap your resists and play properly, use res flasks situationally if you need to. Some people have spell block, some spell dodge, you dont really need either to map at any level and theres nothing to stop you using a saffells/lazwhar/purity of x aura etc just like a caster might. Elemental attacks can also be scary, well armour is doing fuck all against them where evasion is dealing with ele attacks just like physical, if you are completely skipping evasion and ondars as a marauder or a duelist despite having open access to these defense layers then again, whos fault is that?
The south of the tree is like a bastion of op defenses while the top half is just a desert, characters who camp out in the bottom half have so much more mechanical survivability than those in the top. Theres vastly more life, elemental resist, armour, evasion, endurance charges and block in the bottom half. Theres more energy shield and mana in the top half, which is basically an either or situation defensively speaking unlike the stuff in the bottom where you can literally stack every one of those mechanics together.
TL;DR
Fix Mara by making him Ranger.
Ever heard of Opportunity Cost? Should one apply themselves to all your suggestions they would leave themselves scare room to achieve any meaningful dps.....
IGN: Victory_Or_Sovngarde
It's not a 13 week development cycle, it's a 13 week supporter-pack cycle.
You can play any build you want, as long as it's the current meta.
I still dont think its a problem. People are saying they need to do this or that in order to make melee good, its already really good they dont need to do anything. Some of the suggestions are good and would make the game better, sure, not knocking peoples suggestions at all, but the basic premiss that something is broken and needs fixed is fundamentally wrong.
Like determination becoming a flat armour aura rather than a more multiplier, thats a great suggestion, I will always support that when I see it brought up. But at the same time, you can get 10-15k armour without using Iron Reflexes or Determination atm, meaning you can still have 8k+ evasion with ondars on top of that and block. If people dont prioritise investing in armour nodes or gear with high armour values then thats their own fault.
The defense layers are there in the game, the potential exists to make defensively strong melee builds. If you start as marauder theres no reason not to spread all the way over to the Ranger through the Duelist and you have armour, endurance, evasion, ondars and block all at your disposal. People are talking a lot about ele damage, I think physical is just as scary but ele can be really crazy no doubt. Spells are spells, cap your resists and play properly, use res flasks situationally if you need to. Some people have spell block, some spell dodge, you dont really need either to map at any level and theres nothing to stop you using a saffells/lazwhar/purity of x aura etc just like a caster might. Elemental attacks can also be scary, well armour is doing fuck all against them where evasion is dealing with ele attacks just like physical, if you are completely skipping evasion and ondars as a marauder or a duelist despite having open access to these defense layers then again, whos fault is that?
The south of the tree is like a bastion of op defenses while the top half is just a desert, characters who camp out in the bottom half have so much more mechanical survivability than those in the top. Theres vastly more life, elemental resist, armour, evasion, endurance charges and block in the bottom half. Theres more energy shield and mana in the top half, which is basically an either or situation defensively speaking unlike the stuff in the bottom where you can literally stack every one of those mechanics together.
sorry to say but this is just theorycraft noone takes seriously as we've all tried this stuff and it all boils down to 'use ranged, preferably bow as these are pretty much immune to reflect due to evasion/ondars'
the most noteworthy semi-truth is 'there is more life in the southern part' - it is not true. GGG normalized life clusters and now all races start with ~20% initial group and ~20% nearby group. it applies to all classes except scion. what is interesting is that southern clusters are 4-node while northern are mostly 3-node.
same applies to resistances - it is pretty evenly distributed with notable exception of scion starting nodes that are amazing. basic defences are normalized across the tree. armor/ev/es are located in their respectable areas while block is dotted in all strange places
wonder what kind of damage nodes and output marauder ending in templar and ranger areas can get as the travel cost alone is tremendous. why not start ranger in the first place? can go crit ending with better damage and survivability..
I still dont think its a problem. People are saying they need to do this or that in order to make melee good, its already really good they dont need to do anything. Some of the suggestions are good and would make the game better, sure, not knocking peoples suggestions at all, but the basic premiss that something is broken and needs fixed is fundamentally wrong.
Like determination becoming a flat armour aura rather than a more multiplier, thats a great suggestion, I will always support that when I see it brought up. But at the same time, you can get 10-15k armour without using Iron Reflexes or Determination atm, meaning you can still have 8k+ evasion with ondars on top of that and block. If people dont prioritise investing in armour nodes or gear with high armour values then thats their own fault.
The defense layers are there in the game, the potential exists to make defensively strong melee builds. If you start as marauder theres no reason not to spread all the way over to the Ranger through the Duelist and you have armour, endurance, evasion, ondars and block all at your disposal. People are talking a lot about ele damage, I think physical is just as scary but ele can be really crazy no doubt. Spells are spells, cap your resists and play properly, use res flasks situationally if you need to. Some people have spell block, some spell dodge, you dont really need either to map at any level and theres nothing to stop you using a saffells/lazwhar/purity of x aura etc just like a caster might. Elemental attacks can also be scary, well armour is doing fuck all against them where evasion is dealing with ele attacks just like physical, if you are completely skipping evasion and ondars as a marauder or a duelist despite having open access to these defense layers then again, whos fault is that?
The south of the tree is like a bastion of op defenses while the top half is just a desert, characters who camp out in the bottom half have so much more mechanical survivability than those in the top. Theres vastly more life, elemental resist, armour, evasion, endurance charges and block in the bottom half. Theres more energy shield and mana in the top half, which is basically an either or situation defensively speaking unlike the stuff in the bottom where you can literally stack every one of those mechanics together.
The issue with all the layers you just mentioned is that they are all available to ranged as well as melee. And people can still get one shotted or instagibbed through some stacking mechanism even if you have all of them. Any time these two situations exist together ranged will be the superior option in HC (and by extension, SC at levels where the penalty becomes large) because melee is just extending/adding exposure to these sitations where ranged is avoiding them. There's no arguing that point.
In fact, the current game state actually favors ranged slightly due to the fact that bow users don't get penalized for taking acrobatics. This is a flat out attack on melee characters and I've been vocal about this in the acrobatics thread for quite some time. You trade your block chance for a ranged 6L and still being able to use your off-slot. It's a fair trade off, but with acrobatics now melee gets penalized and ranged does not. In fact this describes the entire patch: everyone got nerfed except bow users. It's a terrible design choice given the current state the game is already in.
my evasion is so high i only insta rip sometimes
-----
Bug Fixes:
People were using cyclone for actual melee builds, so we nerfed it and made blade vortex. Also, we went ahead and made cyclone great for CoC casters while we were at it.
Last edited by Legatus1982 on Dec 28, 2014, 10:08:09 AM
