mele openings update

[Lenardo]

excerpt from what Kahvok posted on Monkly-business:

Sorry for not posting earlier. We've been busy with expansion issues since returning to work. We are still working on melee issues, though.


We are in the process of adding +endurance to existing items. It will be about as prevalent as +mana is for hybrids.

The opening system as it was on Test will probably not return. The goal was to make combat more interesting and add some reactiveness, but the attention required and randomness of it didn't do much to help with the class balance aspect. We'd rather use skills like the Phantom and Incite line, disciplines, and innate abilities to define and refine the class' role.


I edited out the Monk specific parts.

[Goanad]

but the attention required and randomness of it didn't do much to help with the class balance aspect.

duh.

I think Live Chat in Nov established that the openings deal wasnt really a big balancing experiment.

Is it just me or does anyone else think SOE is trying to do too many things at once? I mean, you have GOD(major expansion) and then supposedly all this balancing stuff for melee ontop of tuning and expanding the openings "Feature"........

Im thinking too many irons in the fire......

[Xaen]

Dont worry, the end zones will just have to sit on the back burner till people get there as usual .. By then, they might have 70% of the other issues worked out and another expansion in the works.

[Grimmlokk]

It will be about as prevalent as +mana is for hybrids.

So like 125+ end on every item? Seems a bit over the top. I think someone on TSW figured out that you have 3200ish end with maxed melee stats. Add a few thousand more and it just seems a touch high. *shrug*

[Pokn]

Originally posted by Grimmlokk
So like 125+ end on every item? Seems a bit over the top. I think someone on TSW figured out that you have 3200ish end with maxed melee stats. Add a few thousand more and it just seems a touch high. *shrug*

Why does that seem over the top?

On my Rogue with 300 sta if I use Duelist/TwistedChance and then Deadly Precision back to back it drains my entire Endurance pool. In the 5 mins it takes to Deadly Precision to reset I don't regen enough Endurance to run Deadly Precision for it's full duration.

One of the biggest benefits of splitting the Reuse Timers was so that Offensive and Defensive /discs could be used when needed, as opposed to having to always "save" your /disc just in case you needed the Defensive aspect of it (especially for Warriors).

If you take into account Openings using Endurance as well (or whatever skills they put in that replaces openings) most level 65 classes would be fairly drained constantly using an offensive disc, a defensive disc, and trying to spend Endurance on "openings" or whatever it'll be (that is supposed to balance out the differntial in classes).

I definitely could use a bigger Endurance pool as it is with the slight revamp of the old disc system NOW, not to mention a higher Endurance regen.

A better question is are they going to tag current All/All or All melee items with endurance like they tag them with mana? As it is, apart from Class specific armor and Weps there are very few melee only items.



P.S. Also Hybrids are clearing 5k+ manapools. I don't think it's a huge deal for melees to be able to match that. Not to mention that on top of the endurance cost there is also a reuse time that makes it much easier to limit the power of /discs.

[Makata]

The size of your endurance pool isn't going to mean squat. In your example, you do disc A, directly followed by disc B. When A is back up you can't use it to it's full potential. This means endurance output is higher than regen. So even with a pool of 100,000 you're eventually going to run out. So unless you regularly go on lengthy period of disuse, size isn't nearly as important as regeneration. Expect Enduring Thought I-X effects coming out real soon!

[Grimmlokk]

Granted I haven't played in a few weeks. However when I did I know going full defensive disc, chain-inciting, and then popping mighty strike would drain my full bar before Mighty finished. I think that was the order. Anyhoo, that's how it should be. As it is it's hard to drain the bar through normal disc/skill usage. If you almost double the size of the mana pool(20 slots x 140 END + 100 for charm = 2900) than even having Endurance bars at all becomes basically a joke.

As for hybrids having 5k mana, so the fuck what? It's apples and...well, not oranges. Pears. Apples and Pears. Yeah it's our version of mana, but:

A> If you *do* view it just as mana, then they should have more.

B> We're not "casting" the same "spells" in any way, shape, or form unless you're extremely anal. So relative cost is not an issue. If a paladin could say, go defensive twice as often as me, then it would matter.

All of course possibly moot depending on openings and whatever other new stuff they add. Just commenting on the current situation.

[Takrolimus]

Endurance is fucking retarded, now that they have unchained the discs just leave it as that. Get rid of endurance altogether unless they actually make a way to use it effectively.

Oh and they scrapped our melee upgrade system? Thk god it sounded gay. Anyone else think that we will have to buy GoD to get any of the melee DPS upgrades promised for the patch that brought us this beloved endurance shit? Essentially all we have gotten so far is some new revamped discs that are unchained (sorta) but still limited by gimped endurance pools with no way to regen.

They are thinking of making monks immune to riposte damage. Many fanboy monks are thrilled at this. I am not since it doesn't actually increase our DPS, just lets us attack from the front (and still get dodged, parried and blocked for overall less DPS).

[Pokn]

Originally posted by Grimmlokk
Granted I haven't played in a few weeks. However when I did I know going full defensive disc, chain-inciting, and then popping mighty strike would drain my full bar before Mighty finished. I think that was the order. Anyhoo, that's how it should be. As it is it's hard to drain the bar through normal disc/skill usage.

So you're tanking a mob, gone defensive, did mighty strike.... and you're still tanking and now Defensive has reset again but you have no Endurance to use it....

Before the revamp you could use defensive again. Now you can't.

This is where you say ...."Yeah, but I used Mighty Strike."

Exactly my point. The whole reason for the different Timers is so that you don't have to worry about "saving" your offensive disc in case you need your defensive one. If you can't use your Defensive disc like you did before the change why have the change at all?

I do agree with what you are saying tho on having some limitations as far as the offensive side of the disc goes. The problem is you are running into the old /disc system that for the most part worked better, as the discs ALWAYS did their full duration regardless, did not require to be "cast" (which breaks sneak/hide for us Rogues), and did not require any extra gear requirements to be able to be "level appropriate."

If the /disc system was starting from a clean slate I could see your point of view, but it has not. The game since Kunark has been designed around knowing that Wars can go defensive every X mins.

[OG Dephton]

Um, they still can go defensive every X mins, if thats all they choose to do. they couldnt mighty strike at all before after doing defensive unless they waited out the defensive reset. now there is a choice, which what is good about the system. So, if there was an instance where a tank needed to use 2 defensives pre patch, they still can, however, on the 90% of fights where only 1 or 0 is needed, the tank has an assload of more options.

[Parv]

Uh yeah - the whole point behind linking them to a endurance pool is exactly so we couldn't just go willy nilly on using discs w/o a penalty. Like it was said earlier, I have a HARD time going OOE - I have to chain a bunch of discs to run out, and that's not the ideal way of using them. All the unlinking did really was allow us to use discs that we'd never use normally. Only if you're a stupid fucking idiot that runs around hitting incite and all your discs as soon as they pop will running out of endurance be a problem.

If they give me 5k+ endurance pools - I'd basically never run out of endurance - already for bosses I can DA to position, defensive, incite a few times to build up agro initally, and finish up with something offensive (or do this to tank rampage, minus the incites). I'm only fucked if I have to tank a boss in the next 10 minutes. When clearing trash I just pop off an incite, use offensives when they're recycled, and I'll have defensive/DA discs ready as needed.

[Gamblor]

Originally posted by Parv
Uh yeah - the whole point behind linking them to a endurance pool is exactly so we couldn't just go willy nilly on using discs w/o a penalty. Like it was said earlier, I have a HARD time going OOE - I have to chain a bunch of discs to run out, and that's not the ideal way of using them. All the unlinking did really was allow us to use discs that we'd never use normally. Only if you're a stupid fucking idiot that runs around hitting incite and all your discs as soon as they pop will running out of endurance be a problem.

The whole point of linking it to the endurance system was to give us spells to combat hybrid power creep. The old disc system fucking worked. Giving me a 5 minute reuse dps disc that I can't use every 5 minutes because it drains my goddamn yellow manabar is retarded. I have to run Deadeye and Duelist because that's as good as you get without running out of fucking endurance. Whee, one more disc per 22 minutes.

It would be no different than giving a wizard a nuke with a 5 minute recast time that took 10 minutes to med up the mana to cast. In other words, stupid.

[maace]

let me see if i understand you right.

you want your yellow mana to be as big and useful as my blue mana, yes? then give me your dps and abilities and well call it even ok?

the "creep" of which you speek is actually the pure melee creep into the hybrid world where the melee already have better of most important aspects of the game, and now you are getting the only thing the hybrids had left. and you want it to be equal too? man .

[Cybsled]

Not getting riposted DOES increase DPS. How? Because you arent forced to turn off attack everytime a mob spins in your direction to avoid eatting ripostes, or having to back out of the fight because you are hurt from ripostes. You arent doing damage when you arent fighting, thus technically its increased DPS because we dont have to drop out of the fight as often...just to control aggro.

It makes dual wielding more attractive again as well.

[Samus Aran]

I'm not here to make any point. Just mentioning that every time I see this topic in my list, I think it says "male openings" at first.