More than "Critical" is wrong with Melee in R34

Friends,

Melee is broken down into several subtypes one of them is Blades. Blades relies more on Critical's than any of the other types, this change has significantly nerfed Blades not just in comparison to other forms of DPS but within the melee subtypes as well.

In addition there was a reduction in base damage to 2 hand weapons and an increase in 1 hand weapons. This reduction in base damage for 2 handers on top of the crit change has significantly altered game balance in an unwelcome direction.

And finally the small decrease in Focus Regen and Health combined with these changes has greatly impacted the viability of all melee, but especially Blades as these changes are currently implemented. The planed for additional reduction in focus will make melee unpleasant in the extreme to play.

The current implementation has BROKEN the melee sub-system balance that was previously in place.

The current implementation is not conducive to harmony, balance, or a fun experience for melee.

I understand what was being attempted by the design changes, the implementation however is FLAWED.

Solutions (which are many)
A straight raise back of the reduced 2 handed base damage with a further increase in 1 handers "could" be a first good step. However, consideration needs to be placed upon the fact that as designed and implemented that would still leave in place a significantly nerfed experience for Blades. Some additional change either to individual skills and/or weapons need to be done in addition if the overall reduction in crits remains in effect.

To emphasize the change in how damage works (dps/focus/base damage/crits etc..) with regards to melee is not viable as implemented (with the proposed additional changes to focus), and further the subtype blades is now nerfed in comparison with other melee do to its reliance on crits.

I rarely write on the forums about in game balance changes, however, this change needs to be revisited, ASAP, in some form.

Thank you

 

Hopefully that will mean that we will see fewer blades now. It was so attractive before that it was almost ridiculous how many people that went melee.

 

2 suggestions on top of this. Prioritize the fix of hitting multiple opponents with melee attacks which will offset the loss. Next take a second look at the ignite weapon nerf.

 

Can you explain what "Nerf" occurred with Ignite Weapon skill?

 

@Yipp i agree that the two handed weapons didnt need to come down. And that the crit "fix" may have ended up nerfing both bows and blades. Im confident this is still being looked at, however. The base "crit" stat before bonuses on a longsword is 13%. Hiwever, the actual crit chance ive been getting (with an additional 7% crit from skills) is 9%.

That along with the state archery is in has me suspicious about preveous balance nerfs to these two weapon types that were made withing crit's previously broken state, which now manifest as unintentional nerfs.

An interesting side note: as a dual wielder, daggers seem to be the highest damage 1 hand blade at the moment

 

Ignite weapon had two effects. Effect 1: Add 6 fire damage to weapon damage. Effect 2: Add a 2-4/2-5 point burning dot for a short period of time. Duration and burning DoT increase as level increases.
Effect 1 was removed as of this release.

I.E. Ignite weapon now is a minor DoT with a short duration and has the typical problem of not really doing anything damage-wise because the effect keeps restarting as it gets reapplied.

 

And here i am with my hammer, looking how blades are currently op
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...mistake-on-bludgeon-2-handed-str-bonus.64927/

 

@Jefe
Thank you for the clarity.

@EMPstrike
To be crystal clear... MAYBE they felt 2 handed weapons needed to come down in damage and/or 1 handed weapons needed to be increased in damage in comparison between the two. I in fact could agree with that in R33.
However, the reduction in base damage of 2 handers + the change in crit combined has unbalanced the melee/sub sets and melee as a dps class.

@Swan
Bludgeon weapons as previously designed in R33 did more base damage and had other effects different than Blades. I am unable to argue nor am I arguing that bludgeon weapons are in their proper place in R34, as 100% of my experience with them is in R33 and prior. "IF" Bludgeon has also been impacted by the changes to melee, Please express that information exactly as you have in this forum.

On whole, I am baffled by the change/nerf towards melee when as a dps class it was at the bottom of in game effectiveness (comparison's feel free to look at the 1% who almost exclusively use magic abilities such as Corpse Explosion and Chain Lightening)

Alas I rarely take to the boards as I mentioned, on balance change issues, and do not want this thread to be misunderstood as a whoa is me thread as it related to melee and blades. Rather it is a notice to hopefully developers that something between what was intended and what was implemented might have gone wrong, especially when you consider the impact of future Focus changes being suggested

 

Thanx for mentioning that its Crit overall, once agian.
Still waiting to see a dev/mod ackowledge that its broken just for some reassurance . (continues to farm greens since his Crit archer is broken)

 

Seems like my miss rate went up, too.

 

Here I thought it was the devs increasing the difficulty of the game, and adjusting the way I play the game to the increased difficulty.

 

It's not so much that they changed it as that the change doesn't seem to match what we were told. We are supposed to be finding bugs, after all.

 

Great feedback @Yipp ! I've used 2H blades for many releases now and the latest nerfs are incredibly frustrating. I'm almost at the point where I'd simply like to know what build the devs prefer to play so I can focus my character's skills there.

 

@Scraps MacMutt
I am willing to accept thoughtful change. I in fact felt that 1 handed (w/shield) damage was too weak in comparison with 2 handers and I am grateful the developers made the change to close the gap. However, how they did it and the addition issues have caused "probably" unintended issues. 1 hand weapon with shield drains focus very quickly when fighting mobs in comparison with two hand weapon with shield for obvious reasons, my hope is these issues are addressed before R35.

 

, this is all really upsetting. I hate the change to 2h weapons and I hate what they did to ignite weapon. It sounds like as closer we get to December as more Port messes up the game... And the changes they are making seems to be based on a very small minority of people who found a way to really benefit from these two things that got badly nerfed. I'll keep my faith that they will balance it though.

 

Well, if you are a new player, the game suggests archery as a "more polished experience". Pretty soon I discovered that a fighter type is at disadvantage in general. I started as a fighter because that's the type I like for a role-playing aspect, not for some benefits. Realistically it took me a lot of time and experience to understand how blades position against different types of enemies. Before that I had an excuse of being "not good enough", and "probably I am missing something important".

I dig when people go "pure necromancer", or "pure archer, no magic" --- not everything is required to have benefits, more money, bigger DPS, and so on. I would like SotA to be a game where people could be what they want without major adverse effects, not "a game with fewer blades".

 

Yep, I am getting more misses, less critical hits, stopped using Ignite Weapon for not being worth precious Focus (don't forget that it is magic, which fizzles a lot for fighters with their armor) --- interesting that Melee getting nerfed, while it is practically a consensus that Magic and Ranged are already superior classes. Do devs even play the game, and/or read posts here?

 

I did some testing in Graff Gem Mines a couple weeks ago to try to figure out which was better, high damage or high crit chance weapon. So I used those results and did another run in R34 to compare crit percentage.

Each run was about 2 hours and some time was spent going to the mines from Soltown. I used a copper 2-handed sword +6 with 14% crit chance, the same armor which is copper augmented chain with a bronze chest piece.

The numbers only include melee attacks, skills and auto. Removed Earth Elemental because their damage resist is really high so throws the numbers off quite a bit.

R33:
Webberan Hits: 909 Damage per hit: 19.856985698569858 Crits: 257 Crit %: 0.28272827282728275 Crit Damage/hit: 31.311284046692606
vs. Kobold Warrior Hits: 630 Damage per hit: 19.334920634920636 Crits: 181 Crit %: 0.2873015873015873 Crit Damage/hit: 29.364640883977902

Mobs attacking me:
Hardened Skeleton Archer Hits: 75 Damage per hit: 17.68 Crits: 12 Crit %: 0.16 Crit Damage/hit: 33.166666666666664
Hardened Skeleton Footman Hits: 40 Damage per hit: 14.05 Crits: 9 Crit %: 0.225 Crit Damage/hit: 23.11111111111111
Kobold Warrior Hits: 280 Damage per hit: 13.617857142857142 Crits: 32 Crit %: 0.11428571428571428 Crit Damage/hit: 26.84375


R34:
Webberan Hits: 1499 Damage per hit: 13.09606404269513 Crits: 150 Crit %: 0.1000667111407605 Crit Damage/hit: 25.253333333333334
vs. Kobold Warrior Hits: 821 Damage per hit: 13.05115712545676 Crits: 76 Crit %: 0.0925700365408039 Crit Damage/hit: 23.986842105263158

Mobs attacking me:
Hardened Skeleton Archer Hits: 36 Damage per hit: 18.0 Crits: 7 Crit %: 0.19444444444444445 Crit Damage/hit: 26.571428571428573
Hardened Skeleton Footman Hits: 48 Damage per hit: 14.3125 Crits: 11 Crit %: 0.22916666666666666 Crit Damage/hit: 26.363636363636363
Kobold Warrior Hits: 481 Damage per hit: 13.627858627858627 Crits: 68 Crit %: 0.14137214137214138 Crit Damage/hit: 24.86764705882353


Damage per hit is way down 19.8 to 13.1.
Crit % is way down, 28% to 10%
Damage per crit hit is down, 33.2 to 25.3

Enemy damage and crit % is basically the same.

I did not parse the logs for misses, but just searching the log for attacks and missed:
R33:
Total attacks 1839, misses 280

R34:
Total attacks 3060, misses 918

I can post all the stats if anyone is interested. vs. each mob type, damage per skill and attacks from each mob type.

 

Thats just it, you can choose the combination of skills you find suits you. But you have to think about the combination you choose, not everything will work for you. If you find pure Blade is not "enough", maybe combine it with some of the other skills. The thing is, having an open design like we do here, makes the game absolutely balanced per definition. But if you choose to only go with specific skills, instead of being flexible in your choice, you might not get the best effect. Thats exactly how it is supposed to be. Your choice, but you have to live with your choice.

 

The devs have statistics and know exactly where to nerf. If they choose to nerf Melee, it is becuase melee, despite "consensus", is the strongest... They dont do something like that blindly.