Melee Needs some Love

I think its hard to do this sort of comparison because most ranged and melee characters splash into magic as well so effectiveness varies.
When the economy was really bad last month and you couldn't make any gold, I got myself a 2h mace and some heavier armor and went bashing things.
Supplemented with no-regs-cost magic I had a grand time smashing things and while it wasn't as effective as full aoe mage in terms of kill speed, the only thing it cost me was a couple repair kits.
So I disagree that melee should be "as strong as" pure mage, quite simply but because they don't have a mage's cost for regs, or an archer's cost for arrows (not to mention the weight of said arrows).

If melee could use a buff, from my personal experience and from watching my husband (who is pure melee) play, I would suggest that it be to heavy armor, as I was kind of underwhelmed with the increase in protection over wearing cloth and leather. If you're all encased in platemail, you should get hurt less.

 

I think a lot could be fixed by taking away the auto-attack hit chance penalty for melee. Range get Eagle Eye to boost their auto-attacks, we get squat.

 

Its funny just how many people that keeps insisting on being a melee, despite melee being so "nerf"'ed... Usually that actually tells the truth of what class to be

I have changed to Melee, and survive much much better now... go figure...

 

I do melee because it's usually a lot less involved then ranged, in most games you end up either having to move around constantly or in freeform games like this your spamming all buffs possible for ranged, melee you can just slug it out in a tank build. At the moment at around lvl 47 and with a Two Handed Sword, I can take on 2 earth elementals but its pretty rough, and the only spells I use being healing touch and the healing ray, but after a fight like that I am sitting at 100-50 focus out of 312 and about 50% of my health.

 

I've started with a pole arms build and find it quite fun. No real complaints.

 

Melee two-handers make my water magic look quite paltry. The most effective builds right now seem to mix 2H weapons and magic.

 

I don't actually use any spells while in combat, I even stopped using ignite weapon, takes to much time and focus to keep going during a fight.

 

Yes, a big buff to Heavy Armour would be good as well. Although I am quite certain that mages and archers will then take advantage of this buff and switch to Heavy armour. This negates the effective benefit to melee in the end as nothing stops mages or archers from wearing Heavy armour as well.

The problem Melee faces is the need to face-tank mobs in order to land a hit. Ranged and Magic attacks do not require close proximity, they can easily dance around the enemy avoiding any hits, especially against melee mobs that die even before they reach the ranged player. Also, there is nothing stopping players from adopting ranged and magic spells AND wearing Heavy Armour (assuming they can manage their fizzle rates properly with appropriate armour pieces and skills). Together with the ability to learn spells that improve damage resistance, it is simply far superior to be Ranged or Magic focused compared to a pure melee player.

Thus, in relation to the inherent risk a melee character faces in terms of face tanking, I would strongly push for Melee weapons damage to be at least brought on par with ranged and magic since they do not need to face such risks. For now, I have also hung up my two handed axe and am focusing on pure Magic skills as it's simply a lot more fun and much easier to play. Yes, I am also wearing a full set of Heavy Armour, so I would still benefit from a Heavy armour buff lol.

 

It's not really the damage that is a factor I think Glantor, think its all the bloody attacks missing.

 

Perhaps it is the responsiveness. What if there was a nearness effect that increased magic fizzle chance and ranged accuracy as well? I.E. While at distance you can focus on aiming and incantation, yet while up close the focus should moreso be on preventing your organs from spilling on the floor.

Also, another thought would be to make the + on masterwork etc. increase the damage of melee weapons.