Any viable R19 Melee PvP builds?

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Mastese, Jul 12, 2015.

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  1. Mastese

    Mastese Avatar

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    Just curious if anyone is having any reasonable Melee success against Mage builds in R19. I've been experimenting a little bit with a DPS, Blugeon, Earth spec...and it 'feels' close to viable, though my record states otherwise.

    My philosophy is that 'if' I can get the Mage on the ground, and keep them in a fairly persistent state of Stun/Prone...I will be able to overwhelm them quickly with 50-100 HP crits. It's awesome to watch a Mage in an obvious state of panic...however if they can get away for even a few moments, they tend to turn it around pretty quickly.

    I was considering a max HP/Resist build instead, but was curious what others may have found (if at all) success with.
     
  2. Bambino

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    Without magic damage being mitigated by armor and melee damage being refactored, we will see no melee warrior builds winning any tournaments. I will say that @blaquerogue & @EMPstrike seem to be persistent in messing with melee warrior builds. In fact, @blaquerogue was once successful in owning me in a matter of seconds. He would have to give you the details on his build.
     
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  3. Xail

    Xail Avatar

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    You have cumulative buff (and changing the king of crowd control does not help because it is a buff against everything) against crowd control...you can not keep the opponent prone/stunned for any reasonable time for what I know...
     
  4. Arkah EMPstrike

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    Melee doesn't do as well as magic yet but it can be viable as a support build. Your damage is persistant but not great, but its enough to help a buddy win a fight.

    The knockdowns are all on the same resistance buff now so it's neccessary to choose the right time to use them.

    Heavy armor gives you more health, but mages kite you effortlessly and indefinately, so light armorchest piece allows you to get swing speed and movment bonuses that are invaluable.

    Douse is neccessary and some way to keep healed. Even with that, tho, your still better suited for combat support and might not win many 1v1 fights unless your target is lower level.


    As far as offensive spells, earthquake is probably the best. You dont need any intelligence for it to hit hard and it can stun, and it doesnt suffer from armor fizzle penalties too much. I like stone fist as well just because i already have it for getting other earth skills, and it gives you a quick armor penetrating attack to spam which is quick enough to use in succession with auto/free attacks.
     
  5. Womby

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    I don't do PVP, so my opinion is possibly not relevant, but I have found that Body Slam does the following:
    1. frees you from root
    2. instantly closes distance between you and opponent, and leaves you facing opponent
    3. stuns your opponent
    4. deals reasonable damage, and can be spammed
    5. I use it with hand crafted plate, a big hammer, lots of strength and earthquake with plenty of Mandrake Root, Nightshade and Sulfurous Ash in my inventory.

    Results:
    [​IMG]
     
  6. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    For R20 melee will get a huge amount of love. Among other things, cooldown timers for locked melee elements will be reduced a greater amount that comparable magic. Currently the locked and random cool down numbers are the same on the data side but we'll be adding a second cool down for locked stuff. This will allow us to make melee more powerful than magic in a locked deck but still favor some powerful magics in dealt decks.
     
  7. jiirc

    jiirc Avatar

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    So you are forcing melee into locked decks and magic into dealt decks? Why would you do that? Seems like another reason not to bother being melee.
     
  8. Drake Aedus

    Drake Aedus Avatar

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    "We want locked decks to be viable!!!"

    *makes locked decks viable*

    "ZOMG why are you forcing us to use locked decks?!?"

    ~sigh~
     
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  9. jiirc

    jiirc Avatar

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    If that was as hot at y comments, never once lobbied in favor of locked decks.

    That said, the change regarding melee and magic is not about making one deck viable. The comments indicate a change to make one deck more viable than the other for a specific play style. That is a totally different direction. Making licked decks viable should make it viable for magic and melee, not favoring one combat style over another.

    So far as they've revamped combat, melee changes have included:
    1) the desire to remove auto attack in favor of a swing style attack that requires you to stop attacking
    2) the desire to remove targeted attacks for attacks that hit someone standing in front of you (good for 1v1 but not so great when you are in a crowd and want to hit a specific player or mob)
    3) the desire to allow ranged combat to target attacks to specific people or mobs
    4) the desire for combos to be magic based only (although they can be combined with melee skills, but there won't be melee skills combined with melee skill combos)
    5) if I understand it correctly, power combos won't be possible for melee skills any longer

    And now magic will be favored over melee in random decks. So unless melee can use melee skills as rapidly and be as powerful in a locked deck scenario as in the random deck, a melee fighter has no reason to use a random deck. It is a similar scenario, just in reverse.
     
  10. Mastese

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    I get what you're saying, but I've grown to actually prefer locked primaries on my melee, so I can actually dig this.
     
  11. Mastese

    Mastese Avatar

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    Much appreciated Chris. Looks like I'll get something I actually want on my B-Day July 30th (though feel free to upgrade my pledge to Citizen as an added bonus on my 45th!)
     
  12. Drake Aedus

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    I'm just having some fun with the whole situation as a semi-casual observer, but at your expense jiirc. I apologize for that.

    Of course you do make valid points, and I'm not exactly a fan of free attack (I used it for about 30 seconds then switched it off).

    All I can think to do is wait and see what we look like in R20 and then go from there. It's hard to critique how much fun it might be until I actually commit to trying out the new implementation. :D
     
  13. Lord Baldrith

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    I find melee already to be more powerful than magic...
     
  14. jiirc

    jiirc Avatar

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    I've had similar thoughts to myself when people post comments regarding changes in direction.

    Like you my mind isn't completely made up about the R20 combat changes. I'll keep an openn mind, but I've seen most of the chances go in favor of magic and againstmelee, as I pointed out, that I'm not sure that mêlée will be an alternative to magic combat.
     
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  15. Drake Aedus

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    It's not a good alternative already, lol. Any nudges will be a good start.
     
  16. jiirc

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    That would be why most people n pvp use magic or why you can easily kill 12 spiders at a time, the big ones worth over 1000 XP each without worrying about dieing. Sorry but I've done both mêlée and magic, and in my opinion magic is much more preferred if you get your build right.
     
  17. Mastese

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    In PvE, yes...In PvP, no...

    It's a paradox and needs to be leveled out on both sides of the equation.

    I honestly think most of the balancing will come by way of crafted gear once (or, "if", I suppose) a more diverse selection of buffs/resists are able to be woven into the framework of equipment.

    Got my fingers crossed that someday we'll be able to craft gear that can buff/resist from the very general (+melee damage/-projectile damage) to the very specific (+ two handed weapon damage/- cold damage) to specific combat and non-combat skill buffs (+1 level Earthquake/+1 level Blacksmithing).

    Gear adds an arguably necessary dimension to the diversity and, ultimately, identity of our Avatars and we've barely scratched the surface of it.
     
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  18. Lord Baldrith

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    Ooops I don't PvP so maybe it's different. I can fight 6-7 elves at a time with my halberd and plate armor...in cloth with my mage 1 at a time or 2 at a time if I really feel like kiting :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2015
  19. Lord Andernut

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    I'd just like to add that right now if you play melee with a 2-handed sword you are pretty limited in your skills. You have shield abilities, you have offhand abilities, but there are no 2-handed moves. I always feel like all I can do is use thrust and doubleslash and the less fun rend. I'm not really a fan of abilities that reduce damage for the next hit on caster.

    Mages can pull spells from multiple trees for damage but one cannot pull skills from multiple melee trees because you are stuck with your weapon of choice.

    It would also be nice if quadruple slash did more damage than thrust or doubleslash once you have any inherent strength.
     
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  20. jiirc

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    As a test I thought I'd run around and kill some elves to see if there is a difference. They die real fast using magic and I just stood there and took it from them. Saw the same result when I went after the hardened ones. Fought about 6 or 7 at a time as a mage. The worst thing about them is that there is way more ranged than fighters so it's hard to round them to AoE them.

    I suspect that avatar level and build is going to bias the discussion about which one is over powered. I suspect it is still the case that at some point the combat style that is overpowered relates back to how many skill points you have to spend and where you spend them.
     
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