Melee are incredibly weak

All i know is i looked at the stuff, set my gear up based on that, and crit quite a bit without having to put crit chance on my gear

 

It is true but I stopped using that build for my current grind. Only use range now.

 

Unless you're simply referring to Control Points, I disagree. And unless you're ONLY using archery, you should be able to bring something else to the table if you wanted to. Right now Archers still do very good single target damage, sure AoE'ing mobs with only archer skills gives you just ONE AoE if you don't branch out. That's your choice tho, but I wouldn't say its a hindrance, plenty of places for group play where you need to burn down boss types and Archers are very good at that. I don't see what the problem is, unless this is Control Point focus... even then archers are usually singling out ranged types as well. Everyone can have a role to play.

 

Unless you're running in a group chasing them down. I still think too much emphasis is on the 1 on 1 aspect, which I understand, most of the game is generally solo. Would just like to see more group action and pvp team hubs instead of what most people complain about for pvp. Still think a reduction to player vs player damage would help a little.

 

Attack speed does indeed increase your overall all dps no matter how you look at it. If you spend all your time on your back then you're doing something wrong. Again, is this some sort of PvP thing, comparing all the mechanics to just 1 vs 1 pvp situations? I'm hardly always down, even with multiple troll scenarios. So unless youre not auto-attacking and spend most of your time turned away from the enemy running, you should be doing great damage. Not really sure what you're doing here but it could be a tactics problem.

Crit rate matters. Boost your crit rate and you'll definitely see a lot more dps. The faster attacks from bows with light armor and other skills, means even those quick succession shots from auto-attack can get big hits too. This isn't theorycrafting... see it all the time in game. STR may help some, but depending on build it's not the BE ALL stat you think it is. Definitely helps with blades and now polearms ever since they boosted the damage on it and additional dmg passives, but you also need to hit targets consistently and fairly quickly to compete. One big hit every now and then doesn't cut it much if we're talking about dps. People wanting to just focus on one good hit in a 1-vs-1 pvp situation need to chill on that. PvP isnt the only aspect of the game and is actually just a small part of it.

People complaining about 1 vs 1 situations in pvp is why game skill trees get screwed up in the first place always trying to knee-jerk fix what ppl complain about. The problem is that PvE and PvP should be two separate things. You don't run around finding Tier 12 players with 6000+ hit points, it's not the same and shouldn't be.

 

Also, complaining about having only one skill type in a tree... hell, look at MOON. Before the damage boost to Meteor Swarm... That's all they had and it wasn't that great. Still, it's a Moon users ONLY damage spell. It's a good thing you can pick and choose various builds to play with instead of adhering to only ONE tree.

 

According to recent hit chance math, for melee it uses main weapon skill and STR which makes it really important. DEX is only contributing to crit chance with people seeing 1% of crit per 40 Dex making it not very important.

 

OP:
I would stick with heavy armor + blades if I were you. I switched to this around level 40 or so because I found it to be the best generalist play style. It's not THE BEST in every single situation, but overall I find it ideal for fighting 1-3 mobs at a time. I personally don't like fighting 4+ melee at a time, especially at higher levels.

Archery (i.e. light armor + ranged) is good for 1 target if you can kite it. Or if you want to use cover against harder hitting ranged enemies.

Magic, specifically AoE spells, is great for 4+ mobs if you like doing this. I found it wasn't as good against 1-3 mobs compared to blades, but maybe my magic skills weren't good enough. You also run into problems of mobs being resistant/immune to certain schools. On the other hand, no one resists physical melee damage -- it's good for every single enemy in the game.

Heavy armor has several skills to resist/counter stuns.

Also, if it matters to you, heavy armor + melee also seems to be the most resistant to build-destroying balancing changes.

FYI I have a simple deck where every skill is locked. I fully stack the offensive skills (thrust, double slash, rend, coup de grace/bash, riposte) when I use them. Defensive skills I use, in order: defensive stance (or berserker stance depending on situation), glancing blow, parry, fortify defenses. I refresh them every minute or so. Knight's grace is my tenth skill to get out of stuns.

 

OP, This might help

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...guide-to-becoming-an-epic-swordswoman.114134/

Btw, Thanks Sara!

 

That guide is fantastic for all melee characters! Even if you don’t use swords, the rest of the info is very helpful.

 

OP; I will try to be brief as many experts just gave you a dissertation to absorb. I was in your same shoes and thought I was big and bad until I stepped into the rise about 6 months ago unprepared. Result, I wanted to quit swords after getting my ass handed to me by those elves.

@Sara Dreygon gave me the advice, @Mac2 got me the gear and more advice and I added my own flavor to my build. My build still low for my liking at adv level 110 is a seek and destroy dual wield blades, bronze chain with everything geared towards str and damage. It’s hit fast, hit hard and hit often. Body slam, thrust, coup or offhand attack then coup. There are very few pleasures like picking out your target out of stealth and dropping a 120 zerker body slam while finishing them with a four digit coup.

I cannot talk about PVP yet due to lack of experience but the day i decide to indulge in it I will come out of the shadows with the objective of killing you before you get to see my face. I tried light armor and GMd all those skills but it took to long killing stuff and chasing it down with engage opponent. Feel free to cherrypick from all magic trees but don’t overlook the water tree and specifically the water ellie. She drops 100 point heals which keeps me alive when u run into 10 elves/skellies at a time. When that happens it’s archers/mages/melee dropped in a neat, orderly and proficient military manner. R/Boris/El Pirata.

 

Sorry about bailing on the thread i forgot about it cause I did it late before I went to bed, the thing about it is i feel my build works really really well in groups, for adv lvl 73 I do pretty decent damage, but that is the only real time I feel good. While soloing i find i mostly have to fight green mobs because the amount of damage yellow mobs resist( armor) and their hp is tripled, my damage has not gone up tha much, and that is a problem.The problem with this is the reduced XP from the mobs, it is entirely unfair to make melee grind lower lvl mobs and get less experience. I do not blame the blades tree, it's my favorite tree by far. I have 800 skill points in blades, and around 805 in subterfuge, and around 650 in light armor and am specialized. I guess my biggest problem is honestly with how stealth works, that and I did incorporate some magic, like ignite weapon, trip was extremely reliable i have it up to like 140% effectiveness, but for some reason it just seems to have stopped being reliable all the sudden. Poison is really good, but i definitely think it needs to last longer while the skill is low, 20 seconds is ridiculous for the price of poisons for newer palyers, i make my own and thats fine but, I definitely think looking at increasing the base duration of poisons would be something to consider.

As for shields other weapons etc, if there was a way to macro in this game that would be a considerable option, but without it I feel that will not work well unless u simply switch decks, but you can only have 2 decks, so my back bar is archery. Macro'ing is actually one of the things WoW did right. a macro menu would be awesome, but I think it would detract from using an open deck so they might not want to do it. After everything said, it seems people agree with me enough i think, but bringing up the point that light armor(leather) is the real problem, I for some reason did not consider enough. And yes I think overall light armor could probably be my biggest problem, but again, for a game with weight and encumberance, shouldn't armor weight affect your stealth ability? Thats a big problem with ESO. I played ESO for the first 2 years it was out and wow it is a **** show. They had to nerf the bejesus out of heavy armor and buff light armor in that game as well. After 18 years of playing MMO's I have seen majority of developers fall into a pattern and lots of games have similar imbalances, I find it intersting but also extremely frustrating. I just do not get how in this game magic is SO insanely overtuned while melee is just not, wow ironically was the opposite at launch just as a little side note. But the fact that i feel i ahve to go to lower zones to grind even though 10-15 levels back i was literally saying damn my build is awesome i did a good job picking the skills i wanted to do, all the sudden it walled and its the exact opposite, has anyone else found this? Provided you are still playing that original build you were trying to make, because if you changed it at a certain point to something else that is "better" you just proved my point basically.

 

I really like this idea Brugas, the game needs more group content for sure. Group content makes a strong community that is close, and it is a must for a MMO community to survive and grow.

 

Also, on your poison issue, be sure to try and GM your poison skill, I know it may take a while, but the higher the skill the longer the duration of the poison and it is well worth it, especially for blade users. Just keep trying different areas for better "yellow" conning mobs. You may find some hotspots that are easier for you and your playstyle. I know I have to atm.
Good luck Maliced!

 

Yes, I've enjoyed PvP in several games and was disappointed that one-shot stealthing is so absurdly out of bounds. For instance, I was a B- PvPer in WoW as a rogue but that initial strike just softened up the enemy. It wasn't a game ender. That this exists in SotA has pretty much been a deterrent to ever flag as PvP or enter Ruins zones and submit to having absolutely no defense against unseen and ridiculous 1-shot or 2-shot damage. I hadn't even considered the oddity of stealth attacking being mixable with heavy armor as a build - ugh.

 

The three problems I see with Light armor are 1. Heavy armor strikes me so much better in multiple ways, which would be fine for primary damage mitigation "classes" but what's the payoff for melee rogues/duelists/kensai type characters going light instead of heavy, Flurry?!; 2. Light armor as a skill tree is super underdeveloped at a mere 7 skills + 1 specialization; 3. the whole left side of the tree requires maintaining buffs, which is time consuming before/in combat when you are trying to maintain DPS and the fickleness of a card based draw system makes keeping those buffs up often tricky (and you certainly don't have the slots to just lock them).

 

I was sorta thinking what they might have thought about this concept, making it really shitty to level a 'rogue-like' character really hard on purpose, because of the power of it in pvp later on.

 

I don't have any evidence that this was deliberate on the part of developers (it's easy to overlook something being weak without any intent). But whatever the case, unfortunately light armor's weakness (esp. if you aren't min/maxing fizzle for the spellcasting benefit) also stifles an array of builds like pure archers and the variety of imagined light-n-agile meleers.

And it absolutely should be viable and competitive to not have to play a heavy splash caster in a fantasy genre game where there is a lot of precedent for that.

 

No yeah, that is pretty much the jist of my point. It's obviously the seemingly prefered style of play that was intended to be used.

 

I seem to have a very similar build to yours @Maliced, and while I totally suck now in my 80s adv lvl, I have seen players with that build at adv lvl 100+ that are doing great both in PvP and in PvE, so I stick with it for now, waiting for the turning point when I will be rewarded for my efforts.

I think, as has been stated in this thread, it's all about picking the right place to hunt. Obviously, a place with many critters, some of them stunning meeleers, plus archers and mages, is NOT the right place for a light-armor using toon that has no ranged attacks. We need a place where we can take them on one-on-one, and where we have the time to sneak up and attack from behind. I'd be eternally grateful for suggestions about such a farming place that gives decent XP, too. Seems a little unfair that farming XP is so ridiculously easy for AoE mages wielding dual wands, but probably there are equally good places for us sneaky venomous dual-blade people and I simply have not discovered them yet. Please tell me!

Personally, I want to have light armor. I want to be fast. And stealthing plate users just stretch the limits of my imagination a tad too far. I wish light armor got some improvements. It could be an awesome tree, but keeping all those skills up requires either a combat bar of which more than half is defensive skills or a lot of drawing luck (because, let's face it, dodge and evasion do their magic only when charged).