The brokenness of Ghost Widow and fears of the Incarnate

That was my understanding of what the tradeoff is supposed to be, myself. The problem arises when mobs are designed to discourage attacking them in melee, or deny melee ATs the self-protection they are supposed to have. More of this than already exists would be undesirable.

Yes, yes... the game is so horribly unfair to those poor meleers. The soloing of archvillains. The soloing of TF/SFs. Soloing paper/scanners at +4/x8 difficulty. We do have it soooo hard. <sniffle>

Honest question, Heraclea.... you really just miss the days of herding entire maps into dumpsters, don't you?

Look, i don't dislike you, or think you're stupid per se, or anything like that, but yes, the biggest problem is that in this thread you do come across as being inflexible and hidebound. All this content you keep describing as unplayable by melee types i've at worst found slightly more challenging on meleers compared to the rest of the game's challenges that my meleers barely notice. Vanguard Sword are tough on melee, but no more so than 95%+ of the rest of the game's content is on other AT's compared to melee types.

The first time 5+ years ago that i encountered Malta on my DM/regen Scrapper it resulted in a very quick faceplant. i was stunned to have encountered an enemy that was actually a threat in anything less than overwhelming numbers, an enemy that could actually defeat me if i charged blindly into battle. That lasted all of a few minutes. It just took a few minutes thought, actually scanning the group before charging in and making judicious use of my control powers and/or which enemy to take down quickly. i did not start whinging on the boards about how Malta were too hard and unfair, instead i was overjoyed to find an enemy group that offered a challenge.

Of course now Malta, and Carnies, and Vanguard Sword, are all little more than a slightly greater challenge for any of my alts. Occasionally frustrating to a character whose powerset particularly weak against a given enemy group, but even then i find ways to compensate.

It doesn't seem like rocket surgery to me, but perhaps brain science is a factor.


Edit: To be fair, i must concede that i am not necessarily totally sane. When running paper/scanner missions i always prefer to take missions with Thorns, Carnies and Arachnos over the other groups. Malta not as much only because the goodies they drop aren't as nice.

Doesn't even need to be defense heavy. I have done it on a regen scrapper, a fire armour brute, even a blapper and a blaptroller.

The healing nictus is a wuss damage wise.

True, true. But when it's a defense user, the fluffy's heal can't hit you so it can't heal itself. Makes soloing it to death a lot easier.

What I'm actually saying is that I am somewhat unsettled by the apparent trend to add more of this "challenging" material. My perception, which I gather is not universally shared, is that some of the material seems to be squeezing out the role of melee DPS on teams.

I don't want to face a situation where scrappers are only for soloing, more than one tanker is too many, and if you want to run team content you need to get on a defender, controller, or blaster. And I understand, at least in part, the issues that defenders, controllers, and blasters have with a lot of the content. Even my higher level defenders, controllers, or blasters have to be very, very careful about enemy group selection if they're going to try to solo. They rely heavily on stealth, and hope their endurance holds out to be able to defeat whatever it is they have to. "Defeat all" is their bane.

They don't earn tickets in the AE, and don't earn merits outside of task forces (which, I admit, is the most efficient way). I just don't enjoy playing them that much, not in comparison. At least the blasters can now do something now when they get mezzed, so they're probably not my least favorite AT. I must admit that I struggled mightily to come up with a controller I could stand playing.

If further "challenge" is added, I want it to be creative, and less obvious than "huge sack of hitpoints and regen, so bring a rad or go make a pot of coffee", "let's cut defense/regen/resistance to shreds", "let's force everyone to stay out of melee range", or "let's give it a PBAoE self heal".

Think on it like this: If those enemies can make it so that it even seems like your melee AT's self-protection powers are nonexistent, what is it like for the ATs that don't have those powers?


The thing is, I personally believe a player should always stop every now and then to ask themselves, "Do I need to change my tactics?" Generally this question gets brought up after a team wipe or something, but whatever.

But this entire thread has seemed like your assertion that, "Melee ATs should never have to change tactics." That since the question you should be asking yourself has often come up as "No," then it should always be "No."

And I think that's probably the worst possible way to look at and work with any AT, be they melee or not.

IMO, the more this game presents "Do I need to change my tactics?" situations, the better.

This. Especially solo, scrappers and tanks are easy mode. I actually love it when I find something that really does present a challenge to my scrappers. The first time I was defeated by 2 Carnie Master Illusionists and a DRM after jumping into a x8 spawn on my Fire/Shield scrapper, I thought it was freakin' awesome.

I completely agree.

Add me to the list of those who agree with the above!

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

/Agree
and explicit (rather than the implied) extension that to 'our' tactics on teams

8 Mind/Emps would SHRED Ghost Widow.

Everyone on the team Forted at least twice? Check.
Constant double RA's? Check.
Adrenaline Boost on everyone? Check.
+120% damage from 8 Assaults? Check.
Ranged damage/mez powers that deal all their damage at once instead of DoT? Check.

Ghost Widow would be TOAST against that team.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Yep. Mind/Empathy is an unpopular combo because it doesn't solo very well compared to both Mind/Something Else Controllers and Something Else/Empathy Controllers, it's fine on a team though. Similarly Empathy is regarded as a poor set since it can only buff a few team members but it's buffs are very powerful so when you start stacking Emps...

Fix't

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

We need more challenging material. You'll notice that I don't put the word challenging in quotes since I'm not using the word sarcastically. Challenge is good. Variety is good. Give me lots of new content and make a portion of it so it really screws over one particular AT (at a time). As long as each AT gets hosed equally, I'll be happy.

P.S. So far, I'm *NOT* seeing that melee AT's are getting 'squeezed out'.


Oh, hell yes!

OP struck a nerve clearly. While I don't have anything to say about the point of the thread because I don't have the time to read it, just wanted to point out that OP is very helpful and friendly in the tanker area.

So maybe torches and pitchforks are a bit heavy.

AAAAAARGH! No! Not yet! Er...

I've only led scanner teams.

I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable trying to communicate changes in tactics in Guild Wars which has minimap pings and Ctrl-clicking on anything makes you say something about it.

Since the new quickchat menu currently lacks accelerators, I've been silent on teams.


I'm suprised no-one else has, well, picked on this yet. The charitable reading is trying to be readable by being brief backfiring again; I could see some Controllers matching the description, but not Blasters. The not-charitable reading is 'Blasters don't run Weave' and other 'is the computer plugged in?'-level things.)

That literally just happened to me for the first time less than ten minutes ago. I was very excited because that meant I wasn't just gonna steam roll through every single mob.

If a BS/WP scrapper can go do a quick shop in oro and tank LR with a kin healing him via a tower then i think a tanker could do the same.
They are not all autohit(only exceptions i can think of is TK and Howling Twilight) they do detoggle offensive auras though.
Also neither shivs or nukes are necessary for STF

if there are no def buffs available scrappers can click those funny little purple boxes with shields on them.

Unfortunately, the AI in this game is really really bad, so they only way they can make encounters "challenging" is to give NPCs brokenly good powers (or in the case of MA mobs, clones of player powers). A far, far better solution would be to rewrite the AI to make NPCs more intelligent, but then we'd never hear the end of "BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW THE NPC'S AREN'T LETTING ME HERD THEM AROUND A CORNER TO AoE THEM TO DEATH."

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

You're right. It's *not* shared. If your "role" is "jump into the middle, don't think, smash buttons," then yes, the role is (and should be!) squeezed out. Something makes you have to approach it a bit differently? GREAT!

Fortunately the only reason you need to get anyone else is to have a team, not because they're a certain AT or powerset.
"Rely heavily on stealth? Have to be careful about group selection?" No. You need to *pay attention to the enemy group and change your tactics as needed.* That might mean "Open with a hold instead of a blast" (such as my Electric/ or Ice/ blasters versus Malta.) Or "Pull instead of just running in and standing in the middle of the hall. Or "Don't aim into a wall, use knockback to keep X enemy out of the fight while I deal with his friends."

Really? It doesn't sound like you want a challenge at all, to be blunt, or do anything different. The devs have put in groups that force you to stop and say "Wait, what I do 90% of the time isn't a good idea here, how should I approach it," and those are the very encounters you're complaining about. You know, the ones that might... oh... pose a challenge.

The GDN took place years ago, as did ED. The day of "I'm going to stand in the middle of the map full of enemies and never be touched, nothing can ever harm me" are, thankfully, *over.* Most people have adjusted. It sounds, honestly, like you still need to. Adjusting your playstyle - to groups, to AT, what have you - is not a weakness or something to be ashamed of.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Actually, given the number of people playing at any one time, the number of mobs they'd be fighting (anything from +0 to +8, solo or teamed,) and going by dev statements, we'd probably hear more "OMG, why is this game suddenly so laggy all the time? It isn't this bad on a crowded Rikti invasion!" because of all the new processing the servers would have to do.

See my Guides and Tutorials