It's been my long-held belief that Fighters have been getting the short end of the stick. Which is disappointing to me, because Kensei is one of my favorite trees. But I wanted to hear other people's thoughts because A) I get bored by post-20 stuff so I only really play heroics and B) I'm curious in hearing others' thoughts.

My impression for Heroics is
S tier: Barbarians, Paladins
A tier: Eldritch Knights, Wolves, Bears
B tier: Warpriests/Warsouls, Bards, Artificers
C tier: Tempest, Monks, Thief Acrobat Rogues
D tier: Fighters, Assassin Rogues

This is when factoring in sustainability, DPS, team support, and also compatibility with THF (the best fighting style because Turbine's idea of game balance = 99% of content is "kill massive waves of mobs"). Barb/Paladin unquestionably pull ahead of all other melee classes and I'm not sure any sane person would dispute that. But on some others, I'm not 100% sure. Like EK + animal builds: I haven't touched those classes in probably 7 years, and they're possibly better/worse than I realize.

Probably the most decisive factor which separates the viable classes (B tier and above) from the chaff (C/D tier) is sustainability. Every class in C/D tier has no real way of keeping up with reaper mode's healing debuff, and requires external support - which isn't viable because DDO has been a solo game for the past decade almost. This predictably spells doom for Assassins because you're not getting any sneak attacks in a solo game. The one exception to my general rule is EK because even if they don't have innate self-heals, their AoE is unrivaled and they can merk pretty much any trash in the game, which is why I tentatively put them in A tier.

How far off am I for heroics? Also, does game balance actually get any better post-20, or is it even more stultifying to build diversity? The main reason I quit playing epics years ago is because it felt that the problems with class balance were amplified tenfold: Heroic Reaper is already incredibly punishing for several classes, and epics made the problem even worse. Maybe it's changed in recent years, idk.

Have you ever played a pen and paper game where the fighter didn't spent half the campaign at 5 HP with his head in the cleric's lap? Fighters belong in Tier D.

Quote:


Nobody worth their salt fucking "plays" epics anymore, its just a stepping stone, a delay before the real game starts at 30 (now 32).
Which is why everyone drinks Major slayer + 30% xp pot and zergs wilderness slayers to cap asap.

There's no such thing as class balance, there never was.

Bruh.

This game has basically three modes:

1. Casuals (anything works so the discussion is irrelevant)
2. TR train. This is really what you're talking about. The giveaway is mentioning "heals" at all. You're more/less right here I suppose in terms of your ranking.
3. "End game"= lvl 32 mid-high reaper and raiding.

Self heals are pretty lol when it comes to #3. So, you have a good mix of builds. Melee isn't hot here atm. Lots of ranged and casters when you're running reapers. BUT, you'll see the odd tank. As far as melee DPS, I mostly see your "S", "A", and "D", tiers or some combination of those. I don't see Bs and Cs much. Still some. But it's less common.

I've spent most of the last year+ playing mode #3. Take it for what its worth. My sphere of play is decently wide. I'll pug low to mid reapers with randos, and I'll zerg r10 isle of dread with leets at times (zerg r10s = zero melee IME. Just sayin').

eighnuss wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 9:51am:



When's the last time you actually played?

Head-Meat wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 10:28am:

after ravenloft, b4 house j rage chain, brief return in HC season 2 to get in the hall of homos

Head-Meat wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 9:23am:


Well, I admitted in my original post that post-20 stuff bores me and that things COULD change after that. How well would you say #3 is balanced? What are the best melee classes at that point? If class balance eventually does get better, I guess that's a good sign. But either way, I'm not a fan of how overcentralizing certain builds are for the majority of the leveling process - which is a game in itself.

I'm open to the idea of being wrong, especially when it comes to the epic/legendary game, and am interested in hearing if/how things change then.

eighnuss wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 9:51am:


You know, I don't think I ever mentioned this, but I love your username, lmao.

Anyway, melee FVS/Clr is actually damn solid because of the mix of strong sustainability, decent offense, team support, and the ability to dip into offensive spellcasting as needed. Monks are idk; admittedly I don't know a whole lot about them, but unarmed really doesn't seem that good right now. EKs are amazing right now because of offense which is essentially unparalleled: strong AoE nukes like traditional spellcasters, plus the ridiculous T5 cleave with +3 crit multiplier and gobs of elemental damage.

Melee Artificer is a similar story to melee FVS/Clr. It can actually work well, given strong offense and 10% move speed from Battle Engineer, plus strong sustainability from Renegade Mastermaker. You get the typical arti stuff like Blade Barrier, Tactical Detonation, Curative Admixtures, Deadly Weapons, and all that jazz. Plus cure serious admixture SLA @ 6, oodles of HP, the option for heal/repair spells as needed, and the Reconstruct SLA at T4. Overall I don't think Melee Artificers are the best at any one thing, but they're generalists who check all the boxes needed to be a viable option: good damage, good heals/self-sustain, good party support, and even offensive spellcasting. Also, you can feasibly do int builds via Harper, so that everything runs off of your int: trapping, stun from RMM, spell DCs, damage/hit rolls.

More or less yes, I was thinking "how good is this class pure," or at least "how good of an idea is it to PRIMARILY play this class/tree?" And at that, yeah, fighters are awful and have been for a few years now. Zero sustainability and their offense is worse than what Pal/Animals/EKs have. No mobility enhancements outside of Vanguard (which Pal also gets), inferior tank tree to Paladin, no team support aside from CCs which aren't even that great, etc. Fighter is godawful right now when compared to the fold.

Justanotherlurker wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 10:36am:


Fair enough. I should've made that distinction earlier but yea, staves do seem better than unarmed because of how much the meta favors THF.

At end game, it's not about heals so much as it's about NOT GETTING HIT. My recent r10 Isle of Dread zerg was pure casters. You go into a room, and 6 casters nuke with AOEs. Packs just straight melt. Dooms are the only thing that slow us down, and those aren't too much longer. Invariably someone will randomly get 1-2 shotted, and so someone grabs your stone and moves on. Every. Single. Caster. had EA wings. So, we were winging all the time to keep up speed. lol. It was both fun and sad (at how badly we spanked the hardest content). However, it should be noted these are all toons with almost perfect gear, a billion PLs, etc. 4/6 had reaper wings. I'm still 5-6 RPs short of wings. Soon enough.


When you run melee it's best to have a tank. If you don't have that, you want really good CC. If you don't have that, you can STILL complete.

I ran a silly r10 awhile back. We had no CC and no tank. I was the only caster. The guy leading the run was a stealth rogue. It was a mess. Tons of deaths. I actually had a lot of fun. Our main CC consisted of salt clouds and or sleet storm. It was a good time.

But, back to melee for a second: The problem with melee is literally melee range. Getting close means getting hit. You just can't get hit on R10s. You might have enough defenses to get hit three times on a solid melee. So, you have to have some other larger-party strategy to prevent that. (tank or cc).

The one other exception is coordinated heavy use of dodge/meld/uncanny mechanics. But, that keeps getting nerfed.. because I guess the devs hate melee?

Bigjunk wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 2:28pm:


I'd love for that to happen, but who are we kidding. Turbine has had a raging hard on against melee for awhile now. They have zero concept of good game balance, and it doesn't help that retards on the mobos and reddit will unquestionably dickride every dumb change Turbine makes.

Head-Meat wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 1:05pm:


Sounds to me like melee class balance gets even worse lategame. Disappointing. But it's good to hear from people who are more experienced in that than I am. Thanks.

Guess I'll be sticking to what I've been doing the past several years: play for a few weeks, get some racial lives, take another hiatus and play better-designed games, etc. At least Heroic Elite is relatively untouched, and I can still enjoy the "play whatever the fuck you want" mode that I enjoyed 10 years ago. Build diversity and customization is what drew me to the game after all. Elite is often too easy, but at least it's not degenerate game design like reaper is...

Still, given that everyone who still plays the game would rather play reaper, it gets depressing having to solo shit on elite. Sure, I can steamroll fine in reaper mode if I just splash Barbarian or go full Paladin, but I don't want to do that every life. (Or I could use a hireling, but those are so annoying and not fun to use.) This game keeps getting worse and worse when it comes to build variety and ease-of-grouping. Oh well. Maybe it's time I quit the game for good.

...Been telling myself that for years. Honestly feels like an abusive relationship at this point. I don't know why I still play this game.

Bigjunk wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 2:28pm:


DPS is not the issue with melees tho, EK sorc already beats every single DPS build out there, even nukers, especially in longer content like raids.
Its the constant shitting on melee defenses by introducihng unavoidable mechanics and AoE circles that force melee to disengage or die.

No patch notes reaper damage scaling increased (incoming damage) and it was snuck in with stat squish happened didnt help the matters at all.
So, not only melees lost their defenses but also incoming damage increased by huge number.
Most tanky melees went from 4-5 hits comfortably tanking R10 Dooms to getting 1-2 shot, 3500HP and 150MRR + 33% evil absorb builds could tank R10 Venge circles and walk away, now even a sub 8k+ HP tank can die from those. R10 Fear DoT used to hit for 200 bane damage now it does 300 bane damage.

And now these shit-for-brains devs wanna come after dodge too? Fuck those braindead monkeys.

Alex DeLarge wrote on Jul 13^th, 2022 at 2:51pm:



Solid take.

Tiefling for stripper?

Alex DeLarge wrote on Jul 14^th, 2022 at 11:35pm:


But why?