Discussion of melee changes.

[Heavyporker]

I'm kinda wierded out by the changes to melee...

while its quite nice to see changes and updates to melee...

I'm kinda worried because a lot of the damage changes to the higher-level blades and such are across resists that are almost universally specced (fire and xray, not to mention energy/pierce). Poison seems to be the only thing that seems like a out and out positive change (and its good that they limited the poison to the physical blades)

Would this make melee weaker overall? the laserblades, at the very least, I mean.

[jernau]

I hear they are doing a lot lower damage now even after the TL boost.

Probably more to do with spreading out the damage types allowing more resists to have a greater effect than anything else.

I haven't tested it myself though so I can't confirm the source data.

[J. Folsom]

I think that in general, the laserblades will indeed be outclassed by those rare melee weapons which do a bit of poison damage.

While the poison damage they do isn't much, player defences against poison are far lower, thus giving a bit of "guaranteed" damage to your attacks.

But I can't really say until someone goes to properly test it.

[Heavyporker]

yeah, though poison is pretty nerfed those days, plus there's handy poison armor around..

ESPECIALLY for PEs... I mean, whoo, viper king AND medium poison belt!

[J. Folsom]

It shouldn't be too troubled by the poison nerfs, considering it's not the usual stacking poison, it's direct damage poison. Much like the chaos caves creatures do. (Or at least, I assume it is, considering there's no ticking poison damage which you get after hitting something with one)

That's also why I was originally slightly concerned it was going to be a large amount of that kind of damage, but it's not. It's a very minor part of the damage.

[Heavyporker]

that's exactly it... with the poison being much less than the force component of the bladed weapons, any sort of poison armor would make the poison component of damage almost irrelevant to the total damage.

Also, isn't force MORE resisted than pierce in the STR/CON resist? Hence, the changes further weaken bladed weapons....

so on a whole, I'd say that melee has been strongly blunted. Where's the 1:1.5 damage advantage of melee over heavy weapons?

[steweygrrr]

that's exactly it... with the poison being much less than the force component of the bladed weapons, any sort of poison armor would make the poison component of damage almost irrelevant to the total damage.


Agreed. Let's put it this way. My APU with capped con, FH, med poison belt and ~ 50 poison resist takes a grand total of *drumroll* 20 damage from a chaos creeper/minion and 40-50 from a bat/leiutenant/soldier.

I can't see the melee's doing much more than that damage wise, and with a deflector up to combat the force/pierce aspect they aren't really that much to be afraid of.

[J. Folsom]

On the other hands, Monks and spies will have to give up their heavy energy/fire belts in trade off for a heavy poison belt.

Which in turn, means they have lower defences against fire (In the case of monks) or energy (In the case of spies), which in turns ups damage somewhat for the high-tech melee weapons.

The only exception are PE's, but even they will have to sacrifice some in trade off for either a poison belt or viper king armour.
No one will be using both, since that's not point efficient.

[Strych9]

I'm kinda worried because a lot of the damage changes to the higher-level blades and such are across resists that are almost universally specced (fire and xray, not to mention energy/pierce).HP, read over this again...

You say that the damages are types that are often specced... fire/xray/energy/pierce...

Um, thats like every resist in the GAME except poison.

So yes, you are correct, now melee does damage in common resist types. But ask yourself what other weapons happen to primarily do fire/xray/enbergy/pierce? JUST ABOUT ALL OF EM. :)

Think of it this way- before it was JUST energy and pierce, which is by far the most common and easy two to resist against. So now it will call into play the other resists.

[Heavyporker]

read the whole thread over again, strych.

[Strych9]

read the whole thread over again, strych.Just did, and nothing is different second time around.

Before patch, melee just did THE most protected against damage types.

After patch, melee now does some less protected damage types.

Not everyone can wear Viper King and Titan and PA all at the same time.

So what am I missing that prompted you to tell me to read the thread again?

[Heavyporker]

the point that the damage they do are *still* protected against, and that the damage overall will be lower than what they did before.

Before, you could only put so much into two resists. That meant if something did a lot of that particular damage type, you'd still do a lot of damage. But now with all that damage broken down further and spread around, more resists are coming into play and further shaving off those weaker damage types, meaning you're gonna do a shitload less damage in total.

[Mirco]

I hear they are doing a lot lower damage now even after the TL boost.

Probably more to do with spreading out the damage types allowing more resists to have a greater effect than anything else.

I haven't tested it myself though so I can't confirm the source data.

If this turns out to be true, my MC PE is going to get some hard times in the days to come and it isnt like it is easy as it is. How about some rare Strength/Dex melee weapons that is only for the PE?

[Strych9]

the point that the damage they do are *still* protected against, and that the damage overall will be lower than what they did before.

Before, you could only put so much into two resists. That meant if something did a lot of that particular damage type, you'd still do a lot of damage. But now with all that damage broken down further and spread around, more resists are coming into play and further shaving off those weaker damage types, meaning you're gonna do a shitload less damage in total.Well I dont agree that is necessarily the case.

Take monk armor. Combined with PA, energy protection is a gimme. Its always there, no matter what. So a laserblade doing energy damage is not gonna do jack. Now the monk can have resists in Xray, and a filter heart 1, to give xray resist, but it still wont be as much as he has in energy. So if you break up melee to do energy/xray, then there is a good chance it will do more damage.

Its the armor that throws this off. Energy armor in the game almost always provides the best pierce, so people wear a lot of energy armor and then use resists for other stuff. And even then they still add a lot of energy resists on top of that because SOOOOO many weapons do energy damage.

So by allowing melee to do xray and poison, you allow it to have a better chance, I think, to avoid the supreme protection most people have vs energy and pierce.

Now in terms of a "shitload less damage"... I assume this is based on TS tests?

And if what you said was true, wouldnt people always use the mods on energy weapons that give additional energy, instead of breaking up the damage type into additional types?

[Heavyporker]

I'll give you that people don't like to mod for more energy on energy weapons.

But that's on the assumption (isn't it always) that essentially splitting your damage into about 1/2 each of two damage types will do more than 120% of one type...

Now, with melee, we're taking THIS (this being the *ammo mod dual damage type style*forumula (the 1.5:1 eenrgy/peirce damage of laserblade) then splitting it up EVEN FURTHER...

let's try some hard numbers. Say laserblade does 75 energy and 50 pierce. Energy and Pierce Resists shave 1/3 off each, meaning that 50 energy and 30 peirce goes through. Thats 80 total. Now with this new scheme, lets say laserblade does, what, 60 energy, 40 pierce, and 25 fire. You have resists for all three, and they take 1/3 off each. That means 40 energy, 24 pierce, and 15 fire goes through, for 79 total. I know that barely makes a difference, but we're using relatively small numbers here and the dmaage calculations are simplistic, but the arguement's valid. For the same number of weapon damage, splitting the types further exposes it further to resistance, further reducing ACTUAL effect on target!

[Shadow Dancer]

Melee tanks are gonna be the ultimate APU killers. :(

[Strych9]

let's try some hard numbers. Say laserblade does 75 energy and 50 pierce. Energy and Pierce Resists shave 1/3 off each, meaning that 50 energy and 30 peirce goes through. Thats 80 total. Now with this new scheme, lets say laserblade does, what, 60 energy, 40 pierce, and 25 fire. You have resists for all three, and they take 1/3 off each. That means 40 energy, 24 pierce, and 15 fire goes through, for 79 total. I know that barely makes a difference, but we're using relatively small numbers here and the dmaage calculations are simplistic, but the arguement's valid. For the same number of weapon damage, splitting the types further exposes it further to resistance, further reducing ACTUAL effect on target!Thats correct

BUT

no one has as much fire protection as they have energy. Or if they do they are seriously lacking somewhere else.

You see, your idea assumes all protections levels are identical. And if they all were, then yes I would agree with you.

But that is why I dont agree- because people simply have better protection against energy and pierce that most of anything else. So any damage you do NOT of those types is LESS likely to be properly resisted against. So how would your numbers turn out if energy and pierce were 1/3 resisted against but fire was say only 1/4?? That is more realistic I think.

[RayBob]

...Also, isn't force MORE resisted than pierce in the STR/CON resist? Hence, the changes further weaken bladed weapons....I was also thinking about this. One of the main strengths of the claws was their pure piercing damage but now that is being split into pierce/force.

[Heavyporker]

well, actually, if you take hard numbers of resistances...

energy+pierce armor, when someone's fully outfitted with them, will typically give you about 50-60% damage reduction.

50 in fire resist will give you 1/4, yes, but someone could VERY well go up to 75 in fire resist, which takes 1/3 off.

Monks essentially live in energy armor, its good enough to take about 60%+ off the damage from *edit/ *energy. Not to mention said monk armor in total gives you 1/4 damage reduction from fire in its own right.

Spies, they can get excellent pierce resist, can spec energy up a LOT, not to mention a PA that says 'fuck you" to xray.

So really, if you want to look at hard numbers, the situation for melee looks quite dire. Very dire.

Not to mention ppl still saying that running away from melee guy makes hits not register.

[Strych9]

well, actually, if you take hard numbers of resistances...

energy+pierce armor, when someone's fully outfitted with them, will typically give you about 50-60% damage reduction.

50 in fire resist will give you 1/4, yes, but someone could VERY well go up to 75 in fire resist, which takes 1/3 off.

Monks essentially live in energy armor, its good enough to take about 60%+ off the damage from *edit/ *energy. Not to mention said monk armor in total gives you 1/4 damage reduction from fire in its own right.

Spies, they can get excellent pierce resist, can spec energy up a LOT, not to mention a PA that says 'fuck you" to xray.

So really, if you want to look at hard numbers, the situation for melee looks quite dire. Very dire.I still dont see how its any more dire. All other things considered, you are still shifting some damage into less-resisted types, that have a higher chance of having low resistances in the enemy.

Okay, so spies have Xray protection. So dont use melee that does Xray damage. Thats part of the beauty of the new system- now people will have reasons to use something other than the PoB or DG.

Again- I apologize if I am sounding obtuse, but I dont see what makes this any more dire for melee than it already is for other weapons.

Besides, part of the overall idea is that melee will do slightly more damage than a comparable TL heavy weapon will. If they stick to that, I cant see how this is really dire.

Still watching for threads in the TS forum about this though.
Not to mention ppl still saying that running away from melee guy makes hits not register.Thats not a coded feature, its a side effect of lag. We shouldnt base any damage type discussions on THAT, since its not intentionally coded and it affects everyone the same.