melee
Latest
Newest Ask Cryptic on Champions Online
For whatever people may fault them on, Cryptic Studios has an excellent track record for trying to keep communications open between the company and the fans. Champions Online regularly allows players to ask any number and breadth of questions in the Ask Cryptic feature, and hot on the heels of the melee powerset developer diary comes the latest batch of questions. While the focus tends toward the Supernatural power set, a wide variety of topics are included, as well as a bit more talk about the issues of melee characters versus ranged ones. Players excited by the new changes can take heart in the news that the entire Super Powers Patch (of which both the upcoming Supernatural changes and the melee changes are a part) should be hitting the test server soon. There's a fairly detailed breakdown of many affected Supernatural powers, as well as more abstract issues like why there aren't more cosmetic variants to power effects. The answers also discuss briefly how melee damage had already been tuned higher than ranged damage in hopes of balancing the two. Any Champions Online player should take a look at the answers, as they cover a variety of topics -- and may well give you ideas for when the next edition of Ask Cryptic rolls around.
Champions Online dev diary brings good tidings to meleers
In a world of guns, atomic blasters, telekinetic blows and eye lasers, the superhero who relies on getting up close and personal with fists or weapons becomes the underdog. Ever since launch, melee heroes in Champions Online have struggled with the disadvantage -- perceived or real -- of having to close the gap to an enemy and wail away, as well as generally feeling Superman-levels of powerful while doing it. Enter Matt "Akinos" Danuser, who jumps on the stage for the latest Champions Dev Diary. Six months after launch, Matt and the team spent a lot of time reworking the melee power set, with the simple yet encouraging motto of "Make it fun, make it competitive, and make it fun."
Ghostcrawler on DKs: "It is a melee class"
No, it's not just a case of the obvious being stated. In a discussion of DK design in arenas, Dr. Street comments to clarify the intended role of death knights in arena and other factors. He also makes a good point about the forums in general that bears repeating for emphasis. "We don't intend for these forums to be the primary way the team communicates our vision for the game and upcoming changes to the community. You'll get a little of that on a few select subjects through the forums and sadly that's all you're ever going to get. It's not that we don't care. It's that forums are not a great medium for that kind of mass communication. I wish sometimes you guys could be satisfied with the fact that we used to not communicate at all and now are able to communicate a little." Moving on to the specific issue at hand in this thread, the discussion is the old shadow/frost spec that turned the death knight into a much more ranged caster, generating runic power quickly and then converting that runic power into Death Coils at range. It wasn't intended for the class. They have no problem with Death Coil itself being a popular attack, as long as the death knight has to put an effort into staying in melee with its attendant disadvantages to do so. "The DK that runs around and does nothing but Icy Touch or Howling Blast or Death Coil feels like a rogue who forgoes combo points and openers and everything just to spam Fan of Knives and nothing else." It's interesting to see players managing to find ways to bend the class out of the original design intent and how Blizzard responds to that: specs like shadow/frost or diseaseless blood DPS were adjusted quickly to put the class back to where Blizzard intended it.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Slight leveling Priest buffs
So we got some patch 3.3 PTR notes and information on our hands. Let's talk about these buffs. Do they help us do our job in some way? Well, no not really. We're not getting any spell power buffs or mana buffs or anything remotely useful. Instead, we get this: Glancing Blows: The mage, warlock, and priest classes no longer have an increased chance for their melee attacks to be glancing blows; and the damage penalty due to their glancing blows is the same as for other classes. How's that, eh? This was a much needed buff for the Priest class. Now I can finally become a battle priest and not be completely handicapped if I have to resort to hand to hand combat!
Armor Penetration to be capped at 100%
I'll admit it: Armor Penetration has always confused me. I understand it moderately well - it makes your attacks act as if your opponent had less armor. The conversions from numbers to percentages, and the corresponding DPS increase, can be found at various places on the internet. But due to the fact that armor doesn't scale linearly, neither does ArP: going from 50% to 51% ArP helps you much more than going from 10% to 11%. This makes it pretty hard for me to get a good feel for. As a consequence of the non-linear nature of ArP, getting very high amounts of it can lead to insanely boosted damage - as an unattainable example, I'm told that 300% ArP would mean thousands of times more damage. To keep ArP from getting out of control, then, Ghostcrawler has announced that they plan on capping ArP at 100%, meaning armor could no longer go negative (which it can now). This was made with an eye towards future tiers; at the moment, it's impossible to get to 100% unless you have very specific gear and two trinkets proc at the same time. So this should have very little impact, if any, on current DPS. However, we may see a day in Icecrown when ArP, like Hit, is a completely worthless stat after you have enough of it. This strikes me as an awkward situation, but short of removing the stat entirely (which, sadly, I don't think they're going to do), I can't see a much better solution.
Phat Loot Phriday: Ironsoul
As much as Martin Fury would have been appropriate here today, we'll stick to actual player items for now. Here's a nice big scary mace to hope for from Ulduar's first boss this weekend.Name: Ironsoul (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)Type: Two-hand Epic MaceDamage/Speed: 594 - 892 / 3.50 (212.3 DPS)Attributes: +105 Strength, +126 Stamina Improves crit strike rating by 69 and armor penetration rating by 84. %Gallery-33600%
Further weapon balance blogging for Fallen Earth
Realtime guns, knives, grenades, pipes and all sorts of other weapons tend to make for an interesting challenge when it comes to balancing them, which is exactly what the most recent Fallen Earth developer diary discusses. It appears to have been a long road for the developers, but after much play testing and some clever re-categorizing they seem to have come upon a good method.Smart choices like allowing everyone to use grenades (thus giving melee-focused characters a little range) mark a very well thought-out system. Insuring that an sandbox style MMO still have a good sense of structure and meaning is imporatant, because without it everyone simply opts for the winning weapon. It's developer diaries like this that make us excited for upcoming games, which wasn't really necessary for Fallen Earth but helps nonetheless.
Crygil wants to know what you think of class roles
CM Crygil has posted a very general thread over on the forums asking players what they think of the various class roles out there: "Ranged/Melee/DPS, Tanking and Healing." As you probably have noticed, those three roles make up what are often called the Holy Trinity in role-playing games and MMOs: either you do damage, prevent damage, or recover from damage, and those three roles make up the basics of most roleplaying combat systems, including the battles in World of Warcraft.But as quite a few people in the thread say, they're not quite sure just why Crygil is asking for this information. Sure, there are lots of good and informative answers in here (most people actually spread out "the trinity" to four roles, splitting melee/close combat and ranged/magic combat into two parts), but as there has always been, there's really nothing outside of the kind of thinking that's been done before on the subject -- anytime developers try to break out a new part of the trinity of roles, they either fall right back into the stereotypes (a bard that casts magic damage "songs" is really just a dressed up Mage), or they end up breaking the game (mind control/crowd controller is a new class idea that's been played around with before, but as Blizzard has discovered, it's extremely hard to balance that exactly right).As Crygil later says, these questions are his, not Blizzard's -- he just wants to get some perspective on what the forums dwellers think of how the current roles work. And he promises that CC is "on its way back," so maybe Blizzard will try to do some more experimenting with the different types of roles classes can play.
Ghostcrawler explains the DK aura changes
When the first set of 3.1 patch notes popped up, many Death Knights were surprised to see that their auras were being reworked into something that, well, just isn't an aura at all.Instead, the effects are being rolled into talents so that, if talented, the Death Knight herself still gains the benefit, but does not extend it to party or raid members. Although they will now be called, for example, Improved Blood Presence, the benefits will be applied regardless of the presence assumed by the character.I have to admit that my first reaction to the change was a negative one. It feels weird to me switching from a Holy Paladin to a character that simply does not have a comparable range of buffs and auras to offer. That's when my roomie and addict of WoW forums and websites, piped in with the why. Today, Ghostcrawler gives an official explanation. Unholy Aura, which grants a 15% movement speed increase, was slowly "becoming mandatory as a raid buff." The ability is not only handy for long corpse runs, as well as fights where movement speed and reaction time are critical, but it seriously impacts the overall damage done by the meleeing crowd. Melee characters spend an annoying amount of time backing out of range because of AoE or ground effects, running around the mobs to always stay behind them, following after a mobile tank, and the like. This disrupts their damage, and because this has always been the case, classes and encounters are balanced assuming that this is still going on.
The Ten Commandments for DPS
As you might expect, I tend to be on the lookout for sites that talk about DPSing as a warrior. My blog overlord recently pointed out DPS Plate to me. It's a solid site that for now seems to be arms warrior focused and is even looking for paladin and DK contributors to help expand what they talk about. Since I'm all for a one stop shop for DPS discussion among the plate wearing set, I figured I would mention that. Go send Weryl an email if you're interested.The post that caught my attention first was this set of commandments for DPS. While it's clearly focused on melee, a lot of it can be useful for anyone just starting out in raids as a damage dealer. My personal favorites are: III. Do not overtax your healers by taking undue raid damage. In this spirit, do not stand in front of the Big Nasty, nor should you stand in any nastiness the Big Nasty has strewn on the floor VII. If you have a buff to share with melee, use it. This includes debuffs to the Big Nasty and anything that mitigates damage on the Tank. Though he is unintelligent and stands in front of the Big Nasty and probably smells a little funny, he is your melee brethren. As I have been (and still am) unintelligent enough to slap on a shield and stand in front of the big nasty from time to time, I laughed. All in all it's a good basic primer for anyone starting out as DPS, things you should know after a few raids but it won't hurt you to be reminded of them either.
Rogue, cat, arms warrior DPS to be buffed
As of WoW 3.0, all DPS specs are supposed to be providing competitive DPS; this is one component of "bring the player, not the class." Overall I'd say this has turned out pretty well, although within class it still has some issues - almost every mage seems to be Frostfire right now, for instance, and Mutilate rogues are far and away out-damaging other rogue specs. To a certain extent this is probably by design; Subtlety's strengths in PvP, for instance, might make up for its lower raid DPS. However, there are some melee that Ghostcrawler has just said are "a little low" in DPS: Rogue Cat Druid Arms Warrior The more awake among you may have noticed that "Rogue" is not a spec. However, I'm reading that as "Combat (and possibly Subtlety) rogue," since the blues have said in a few other places that they're pretty happy with where Mut is right now and that Combat is underperforming. Ghostcrawler goes on to say that changes are coming to these classes/specs, although of course we don't have specifics to share with you at this time. When we do, you know where to find us. But until then, what changes do you think would help even out the low DPS? And no, "reroll Death Knight" doesn't count (as much as I love mine).
GC on the Deterrence change and the future of Hunter melee
When the Hunter changes dropped earlier this week, I understood the Volley change, and I even got the Kill Shot cooldown drop, but the one I really didn't understand was the Deterrence change. Like BRK said, it seemed pretty useless: sure, becoming immune to damage for five seconds helps survivability in the Arenas, but what's to stop people from just continuing the kill after that. And the directional effect was just perplexing as well.Now, Ghostcrawler has provided some background on the change, and while it still doesn't make much sense, at least we have an idea of where Blizzard is coming from. First things last, the directional ability is still being tested and may not make it to the live game. But the ability itself is designed specifically for Arena, as we'd guessed. And even more strangely, he says the reason they wanted to change the spell was to make it different visually -- letting the Hunter see themselves parrying every single attack while their backup helps them out. That argument may not find much ground in the numbers-driven Arena crowd, but GC says lots of times, a strong visual can give what seems like a useless spell a lot of use. Interesting look into Blizzard's design philosophy -- they don't program the numbers, they program how it plays.Finally, he says that Hunter melee damage is being looked at -- they are primarily a ranged class, but the problem now is that it's all or nothing. Either you're in a Hunter's barrage or you've closed to melee and they're not a threat. If they can put the sting back in melee, GC says (within a few patches -- this is long term), then they'll give them more viability "to flee or stand and fight." We'll have to see what Hunter's think about that one when we get more specifics.
Lichborne: A Death Knight statistics primer
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly Death Knight column by professor Daniel Whitcomb, who totally has a PhD in Death-Knightology from Ebon Hold University. It's the truth, I swear. I've seen a lot of people asking these questions as we've been getting into the expansion: Now that I am trying to gear by Death Knights, what stats should I get? What's good for a Death Knight? Which armor should I take. We've started getting in that somewhat in the last few columns, with advice on reputation gear and starting zone gear, but I figured today we should delve a little bit more into the why of Death Knight stats. Today's column will double as a little bit of primer on how Death Knights get their power, and what stats you should be looking for on armor in general to make your Death Knight the best it can be. It's not completely in depth, but it should get you well on the road to understanding just how Death Knights get all that awesome power and sexiness. We'll have 3 sections today. The Good are stats that are excellent choices for DPS, Tanks, or both. The So-So are stats which still do us some good, but are pretty situational or conditional in their usefulness. The Outcasts are those stats that you should avoid -- Well, I'd say avoid like the plague, but we're Death Knights. We like the plague around here. So I'll just say you should avoid them.
A Death Knight's first dungeon: Dos and don'ts, part one
Since day one of Wrath of the Lich King, people have been rolling Death Knights. While many seem to be getting along just great, many others are in need of guidance. This will be a two-part article, and will focus on the things that you will need to know when working with others in a dungeon setting. Today, I will be discussing the basic things that any meleer should know when entering a dungeon. Many Death Knights have never had a melee character, and may not know how to avoid aggro while dealing high damage and staying out of the tank's way.In part two, I will discuss your AoE abilities and their place in a dungeon setting, as well as covering the buttons you should never, ever push while in an instance. I will also run down some very basic rule of thumbs for your gear and talents, as well as including a discussion about some of the group-oriented talents that you could acquire.
Checking your caps: Defense, Block, Hit, Expertise
Honor's Code has a great post up about the secondary gear stats that often get overlooked in favor of the main attributes. Everyone knows that Hunters need Agility and Warriors need Strength, but after that, things tend to get a little fuzzy -- just what does Expertise or Hit do for you? HC breaks it down from a Pally perspective, but what they say about these stats is helpful for any class that has to deal with attacking the bad guys.Defense comes first -- defense rating, for tanks, allows you to make sure that bosses can't crit you. Each class has its own defense cap, and the cap has changed from 70 to 80, so you'll have to keep an eye out for your own cap when you get that far. Block is next -- a high Block rating means you're pushing other attack options off the table when you're hit, so that when something does hit you, you block the damage on it. Both of those stats are mainly for tanks -- other classes, who aren't getting hit, won't have to worry about them at all.But Hit and Expertise you will have to worry about if you're DPS -- Hit will make sure that you don't miss your target (the fewer misses you have, the higher your DPS), and Expertise makes sure that those hits don't become dodges or parries. This is tough stuff, and it shows up much earlier in Wrath, it seems, than it did in Burning Crusade, But the good news is that there's a lot of help around -- Honor's Code offers a great overview for what everything means, and from there, you can search our site or others for what you need to know about each stat and how it works with your class.
Blood Sport: Cleave carnage
So. Arenas. How have your Arena campaigns been coming along? Lately, we've been encountering a lot of melee teams in our bracket. Melee has been enjoying a rise in popularity since Season 3, when Armor Penetration made its debut in Arena gear. Of course, with Armor Penetration stats maintaining status quo across the board in Season 4 while Armor values went up, this has become less of a factor. Nonetheless, the melee pain train continues to chug along, with more double melee teams having a strong showing in 3v3 and of course the popular triple melee Cleave setup in 5v5. For the most part, any team comp with two or more physical DPS classes is technically a Cleave team.Melee in 5v5 was popularized by Serennia in his Warrior / Rogue / Enh. Shaman and 2-healer set-up which he tried to dub 'Trifecta'. Trifecta never stuck, of course, so Cleave became a more popular term coming both from the Warrior ability and the fact that a target descended upon by multiple melee will feel like she's being cleaved in half. More than a few clothies have cried foul, and some have accused such comps as being brainless, skill-less, and -- pardon me quoting the term -- "gay". [EDIT: No, it is not okay to use the term "gay" in a derogatory manner, let's just make that clear.]
Forum post of the day: Pushback on Pushback
I remember the day that patch 2.3 was released. I got out of work at six PM as was stoked to get home and try some of the glorious improvements. I had a 25 minute commute then, north on I-15 right past the Las Vegas Strip. Usually by six most of the traffic had cleared and it was pretty smooth sailing- except that day. Some genius decided that it was a good idea to reduce the four-lane freeway to one. My left leg aching from working the clutch and blood pressure rising from impatience and a bit of road rage, it took me about an hour and a half to get home. I should be used to pushback though; I play a caster in WoW. Debigmacca of Aman'Thul believes that Wrath would be a good time to do away with spell pushback. His argument is based on the number of stuns, fears, and assorted other of immobilization effects that abound in the current state of the game. There was some agreement with the original poster that spell pushback is unnecessary as casters often quickly fall prey to melee DPS. There's only so much a trinket can do.
MMO MMOnkey: Comparing active attack and auto attack
In the opening sentence of a previous column I compared Age of Conan's active style of combat in which the player must instigate every attack with a keypress to the auto-attack combat common to most MMOs. I characterized auto attack as a go-make-a-cup-of-coffee type of combat which, as one commenter pointed out, was a bit of hyperbole designed to accentuate the difference between active and auto attack but which offended several other people who thought their combat skills were being denigrated. The earlier column had nothing to do with styles of combat but all the combat-related comments got me thinking about some of the differences between active and auto attack. The two types of combat appear to have few, if any, important differences for the experienced player at the operational level (deployment of unit or squads in raids) or the strategic level (player-controlled access to important game resources as in EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot and possibly Warhammer Online). When we look at game mechanics and individual unit tactics, however, important and potentially interesting differences begin to emerge.
WWI '08 Panel: Warlock
Warlocks got a few mentions at this morning's WWI class panel, not only with confirmation of some previously mentioned spells in the form of Demon Form and the Demonic Circle, but in relation to the Mage, confirming the eternal struggle that seems to go on between the two classes. Still, what these mentioned changes do for the class, I believe, is mostly unclear. Demon Form and Damage Demon Form, otherwise known as Illidan form to the dev team, is something that a lot of Warlocks having been asking for for quite some time. Admittedly, it's pretty cool. Being able to morph into a Demon and gaining temporary access to a whole new skill set to devastate the enemy with? Yeah, I can't see that not being fun. But the question remains: How will it perform?%Gallery-26320%
Totem Talk: Scraping off the rust
One of the interesting aspects to playing a class as varied as the shaman (or any hybrid, really, but Hybrid Theory's on weekends, you should read that too) is the disparate roles you can end up playing. For example, on my slowly leveling paladin, I'm constantly forced to look at quest drops and say "Well, it's a healing drop, but it would be an upgrade to my healing set, so I'll hold onto it." On my shamans, even though I rarely see a quest drop nowadays, I've worked to assemble elemental, enhancement and restoration sets for each: my restoration shaman has been getting some love lately, with certain new drops and enchants helping increase his plus heal to around 1800 or so, but at the same time I've been forced to realize something.I went three months playing nothing but enhancement and man, I was rusty. The first Magisters' Terrace run I did on the orc was a parade of dead tank, dead me, dead DPS. Now, admittedly, this is entirely due to my own foolishness in trying to heal MgT my first run back on the job, so to speak, and subsequent runs in Shattered Halls and Black Morass went much better, helping me to get my legs back under me. It's not like you actually forget the role so much as you have to take the time for it to become familiar again.
