Melee classes

[Grunelda]

Here on some thought on melee from a new player:

Distribute melee along class and race lines, give them special proc. Also give them a offense or defense specialization but do not take skills away - but extend thier caps by specialization.

1)For Paladins (which are languishing worse than rangers at 3w - do a who pal nowadays)-

Give them dragonfighting specializations and procs. Give them a niche in that area. If a defense pallie is in the group then thier "battle aura" when fighting a dragon decreases the chances of being roared out. Give them a "call to battle" that is like a small group vit that can be stacked - only useable in a dragon fight. If a offense pallie give them crit procs that limit dragons abilities. Such as slowing buffets, and breaths. Pally_A strikes valiantly at the Copper Dragon pinioning a massive wing momentarily to its heaving side with his insert_weapon. With selfless abandon Pally_B charges a silver dragon thrusting his mighty insert_weapon in the throat of the wyrm

2) Give warriors lots of loving! By race and defense/offense specializations, and racial procs.

Racial procs: These are not called or controlled by the player and have a "limited" chance of happening in combat - like a proc.

Ogre - floor bash, like a crit bash. Do a skill check to see if they power through the room knocking everything down.
Dwarf - In fighting, the ability to come in close pummeling thier foe body to body making it difficult to defend against all other melee attacks.
Barb - charge, slamming into a foe with crushing force and wild strength both stunning and doing massive damage.
Human - Ignore humans they suck :P they have Antis/Pallies so concentrate there. Pallies Dragons, Anti's Demons/Angelic's
Gnome - Dunno about this one, throw me a bone! Delete Gnomes! Only let gnomes be rangers.
Elf/Drow - Sword dancing, make them more difficult to hit like a "blur" spell.
Halfling - Flurry some kind of flurry of extra attacks beyond thier racial extra.
Trolls - a limited zerker action, pumped hps. its not like a cloud wont eat the hps anyway!
Yuan-ti - a slithering undulating fighting stance that slows thier opponents.

Specializations: two - with the choices adding several types of skill additions.

Offense specialization - gets you things that are random and much like vital strikes to rogues but mmore varied "Shield shatter" the ability (damn mobs can bash with or w/o shields so give well skilled warriors the chance to slow thier bashing abilities or stop them completely. "Throat slash" a variable silence proc that has a variable time span. "Armor damage" Damages armor all slots with a chance of rendering worn eq worthless (see: disentigrate) - rare. Caps on defense skills lowered while offense caps are raised.
Defense specialization - gets you things that are random like enhanced rescue, calling a pc to guard for incmoing mob rescues, a chance to rescue all group members throwing them out of the room one at a time to sacrifice themselves pre-spank. Also you get your caps on defense raised, offense lowered a bit.

I dont have any really good answers to melee, except give melee classes a chance at a racially based random proc during comabt to enhance them - and give them some specializations let them choose which direction in the art of combat they wish to go.

And give Pallies a chance at a niche so they are dusted off and played again.

My margarita is empty so I will stop rambling here. :P

Discuss amongst yourselves...

Grunelda

[Sarell]

Personally I really don't think making tanking/melee even more convoluded is the solution to making melee more enjoyable. I absolutely think that the idea to give yuan-ti and elves skills to make them get hit less would be totally out of line as these two races are already some of the most agile warriors.

Perhaps make parry defense increase significantly with a 2 handed weapon. But only by half if you are mounted aswell. This would mean warriors could use 2 handers not just for style. And pallies would get a slight boost in tanking ability. However you don't wan't to boost pallies too much, atthe start of wipe when flankblock was the ultimate defense pallies were ridiculously good.

Personally i'd like to see a bit more depth and study put into the partially getting hit code. Make it on a more linear scale so that warriors might take average hits of 50%, mages 100%, warrior subclasses 75%. So sometimes you might block anything to 0 - 100% of a hit if you are a good warrior. To compensate for this increase in tanking i'd suggest lowering the number of hits stoneskin and dragonscales can take and possibly reduce the boost displace gives. This would put more ownice on the tanks tanking and lower (however not change) the fact that any mage/rogue is infinately more useful that a tank in small or single player groups.

[Grunelda]

I posted mostly at the frustration at playing a melee class. Never having really played a warrior/ranger, I popped off thinking maybe spiffy = better.

I have played a Anti/Pallie to 45th each. Also a Dire for a bit. Of those three classes on the Anti gets played on Toril with great regularity. I do see a few pallies around Selzan, Pril , Calad. But for the most part do a who pal and you get nothing but leveling pals that dont seem to hit zone levels.

Anti's have fewer restrictions than Pallies so they are the obvious choice to play. I'm sure you are right about wipes and flankblock, but as the mud ages its a great skill but loses that "contribution" element in groups.

To balance the restrictions on Pallies they need a niche of somekind to make them attractive in varied groups. They have the offense/defense skills but why bring one that cant fight in good neutral based zones, when you can drag along a anti?

A terrific after wipe class with no sustainability in the late game.

They have dropped of the radar like a rock.

Now I dont see why warriors get smoked in seconds if not totally buffed up. They should at least have a chance at survival w/o buffs of any kind. Thats what I was poking at with racial and class prcs/specials.

Thanks for the post S, you got me thinking - good advice.

G