APU's and Melee tanks are... good?

So it turns out that Melee tanks and APUs are actually fairly strong, let me explain why.

APU's and melee tanks don't have the reticle issues that everyone else has, so in a game where speed is everything they actually have the advantage in landing hits (yes apus have a reticule but it doesn't need to close in order to land a hit every time)

This actually means that right now, if you had a damage meter for op wars APU's and Melee tanks could probably come out top even though their overall dps is lower than other classes as they can land hits very reliably and only need to use boosters to reload.

The reason I have brought this up is that In the coming balance patch I'm concerned that there will be a huge buff for the apu bringing neocron back to monkocron just because its so much easier to land hits. I would therefore suggest that

APU Cast freq is moved to 40-45 per min from 35 on fire apoc/HL and Melee tank damage is increased by around 10%. That would make both classes very viable pvp classes. Please Discuss.

We're never going to know just how effective these numbers people keep throwing out there really are until we sit and test it extensively on Vedeena.

What I will say, is that even the best melee weapons are relatively ineffective against fully-PPU-buffed players. 10% would do very little in that scenario.

Balancing melee isn't just about damage buffs. Take weapon mods for example. They need to be able to poison mod that laserblade, or have the ability to put a frequency mod on that Paw of Bear that came out at 111% freq. Really, Melee users have a bum deal. The ONLY area they excel in is runspeed, and as you rightly say, the lack of reticule.

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Originally Posted by L0KI

We're never going to know just how effective these numbers people keep throwing out there really are until we sit and test it extensively on Vedeena.

What I will say, is that even the best melee weapons are relatively ineffective against fully-PPU-buffed players. 10% would do very little in that scenario.

Balancing melee isn't just about damage buffs. Take weapon mods for example. They need to be able to poison mod that laserblade, or have the ability to put a frequency mod on that Paw of Bear that came out at 111% freq. Really, Melee users have a bum deal. The ONLY area they excel in is runspeed, and as you rightly say, the lack of reticule.

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I wasn't talking about spercific balancing issues

but if you want to talk spercifics I think the Melee PA needs a rework to not remove runspeed and there needs to be a freq mod added also all damage needs to be increased by around 10%. Melee tanks already have access to fire poison and xray damage through pob zsusun and dg.

Actually Melee tanks can do damage through ppu buffs even if it isnt much, I kept getting my legs swiped out by an LG melee tank recently :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by L0KI

We're never going to know just how effective these numbers people keep throwing out there really are until we sit and test it extensively on Vedeena.

What I will say, is that even the best melee weapons are ineffective against fully-PPU-buffed players. 10% would do very little in that scenario.

Balancing melee isn't just about damage buffs. Take weapon mods for example. They need to be able to poison mod that laserblade, or have the ability to put a frequency mod on that Paw of Bear that came out at 111% freq. Really, Melee users have a bum deal. The ONLY area they excel in is runspeed, and as you rightly say, the lack of reticule.

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L0KI is dead on with his point on melee tanks. The highest TL melee weapons are seemingly useless. The Paw of Bear is the highest low-tech melee weapon and it does absolutely nothing to PPU buffed players. Is it still a viable weapon? Sure...if people don't bring PPUs to Op-fights & P2 fights..lol..like that'll ever happen.

The Devil's Grace is the highest TL high-tech weapon and you should be able to mod it to do certain damage, however even though the DG has a higher TL than the PoB, it still does less damage to PPU buffed players.

The Thunderbolt? You might as well just /set kill_self 1. That's basically all you're doing by using it.

Melee tanks need to be able to mod their weapons with some kind of mods to help give them SOME hope of living in a balanced world. Their damage needs to be increased by a huge %. Looking at spys with a Disruptor and seeing the amount of damage they can do to a tank with PPU buffs and resists, and including all energy armor.. a Disruptor should be able to take off ~150 damage from a capped tank, no problem. Meanwhile... Devil's Grace which I believe would fall under the same tier as a Disruptor probably peels off ~15-30 damage to someone in the same situation (buffs, shields, energy armor, resists).

The supposed-to-be WoC melee weapon- The Hurler Knuckles, are completely pointless in using. You may as well go back to the PoB. The fact that tanks don't have any real PvP routine WoC weapons like Spys/PE's do, makes the game imbalanced.

As the DEV's said in another post, they are working on a "balancing project". Melee Tanks need to be looked at.

APU's.. that's a whole different story.. lol

perhaps you dont have enough experience in OP wars right now but constant damage is

A melee tank will probably land 10 swipes for each time a spy lands 1 dissy burst. A dissy burst from my spy does 20-30 to a buffed ppu...

With a small increase in damage melee tanks will be pretty dangerous, they are already useful now, they just take a lot of aim and timing to play.

I had a friendly fight with a low tech melee tank the other day on my PE.

If I could aim, then I would have probably won. With less than end-game resist piercing (too much TRA at the moment for hunting) and mediocre poison resist, it was painfully slow to drop me. PPU buffs and heal? I would have simply ignored him at an OP fight.