What is a "melee attack"

Hypertionb14_ESO · February 2015

the exact can be considered as such..

anything that does not leave your person that is use as an attack or in an attack, is generally considered "melee"..

in general, anything that leaves direct contact with you can be considered "ranged"

the lines are mostly only blurred when a connecting system is used, like a rope on a spear or a arrow... in which case the projectile is still considered "ranged"

my 2 cents

Mortac · February 2015

That we even have to discuss this stuff should be proof in and by itself that something is fundamentally wrong with how skills and effects are presented in this game.

They should put someone on rewriting these things with a little more clarity and consistency that is easily understood also by new players. Devs simply cannot write tooltips with the mindset that every reader knows about the same underlying mechanics that a dev does, and neither should they be written in ways that can be interpreted in different ways.

This should be really basic stuff to keep in mind. My best guess is that they have been written by several different people, hence the inconsistencies. My second guess is that they were written by people that might not actually know all the mechanics themselves. They should sit down and categorize each effect into different groups to make them easily distinguishable and then add this to the tooltip. They should also put their QA team to test each effect to ensure they synergize properly with each other. That would probably be the best way to get rid of all the bugs and inconsistencies.

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

Mortac wrote: »

That we even have to discuss this stuff should be proof in and by itself that something is fundamentally wrong with how skills and effects are presented in this game.

I would go so far as to say that skills and effects themselves are fundamentally flawed. Look at what's happening with 1.6: they couldn't figure out how to balance classes and create synergy with weapon skills. The solution: prevent all classes from gaining an advantage in weapon skills, and prevent all weapon skills from enhancing class abilities. Also, rework the buff system so that all your group member's buffs cancel eachother out.

PSLAnimal · February 2015

A punches B in the face - melee attack.

A throws a rock and hits B in the face - ranged attack.

Phaedrus · February 2015

PSLAnimal wrote: »

A punches B in the face - melee attack.

A throws a rock and hits B in the face - ranged attack.

C uses a stamina based class ability that breathes fire in the face of D - some sort of unclassified attack.

Valen_Byte · February 2015

Taditionaly, a 'melee' attack is a light or heavy attack with a dagger, sword (one or two hand), mace, hammer, ax. I would assume this is what they mean by 'melee'

Mortac · February 2015

PSLAnimal wrote: »

A punches B in the face - melee attack.

A throws a rock and hits B in the face - ranged attack.

A punches B in the face from 8 meters - Melee attack?
A punches B in the face from 11 meters - Ranged attack?

A throws a rock 8 meters and hits B in the face - Melee attack?
A throws a rock 11 meters and hits B in the face - Ranged attack?

Flame Lash from 8 meters - Melee or Spell attack? It costs magicka, so it should be a spell, but the tooltip says it's an attack, so that sounds like melee.

Dark Talons from 8 meters - Melee or Spell attack? It costs magicka, but it deals physical damage, so I'm somewhat confused, partly because the range is so short as well.

Critical Charge from 22 meters - Melee or Spell attack? I assume it's a melee attack, but the range is way over 8 meters.

Assassin's Blade from 5 meters - Melee or Spell attack? It costs magicka and deals magic damage, but since when is something called Assassin's Blade not a melee attack? I assume it's a magicka scaling melee attack, but you can also morph it into a 15 meter range ability, so does that still count as a melee attack in that case?

Destructive Touch from 7 meters - Melee or Spell attack? I assume it's a spell, but it has a range of 7 meters.

Which category an ability belongs to should be stated in the tooltip.

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

Valen_Byte wrote: »

Taditionaly, a 'melee' attack is a light or heavy attack with a dagger, sword (one or two hand), mace, hammer, ax. I would assume this is what they mean by 'melee'

Assume is the key word here. I can summon a glowing spear and stab you with it. It requires magicka, but uses weapon crit. It happens within melee range, and I'm sticking you with a spear, but it is a magical spear. Is that a melee attack? If I hit you with my sword, that's a melee attack, definitely. If I use an ability from the 2h sword line, is that a melee attack? It looks like one, and it uses the same stats as a melee attack. Is it a melee attack? What if I use my fire staff to smack you in the face and knock you back? it happens in melee range, and I make physical contact with you using my staff. This last one's a stretch, but considering the strange way that other abilities function, it's not outside the realm of possibility. My point is this:
We can't assume what is and isn't a melee attack here given ESO's wonky combat mechanics and ZOS' tendency to keep us in the dark.

Gyudan · February 2015

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

As I'm also interessted in the Ravager set I did some testing on pts. Thats what I found out:
Skills that cost magicka don't proc the set even when they are melee range (like the magicka morph of nb surprise attack).
Ranged skills from close distance don't proc the set.
Light / Heavy attacks with anything other than staves or bow can proc the set.
Charging to a target can proc the set.
Steel tornado doesn't proc the set even though the unmorphed version does, might be a bug.
Skills with multiple hits like rapid strikes just have 8% chance to proc every time you use them, not 8% chance on hit.

Thanks for sharing this.

Valen_Byte · February 2015

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

Valen_Byte wrote: »

Taditionaly, a 'melee' attack is a light or heavy attack with a dagger, sword (one or two hand), mace, hammer, ax. I would assume this is what they mean by 'melee'

Assume is the key word here. I can summon a glowing spear and stab you with it. It requires magicka, but uses weapon crit. It happens within melee range, and I'm sticking you with a spear, but it is a magical spear. Is that a melee attack? If I hit you with my sword, that's a melee attack, definitely. If I use an ability from the 2h sword line, is that a melee attack? It looks like one, and it uses the same stats as a melee attack. Is it a melee attack? What if I use my fire staff to smack you in the face and knock you back? it happens in melee range, and I make physical contact with you using my staff. This last one's a stretch, but considering the strange way that other abilities function, it's not outside the realm of possibility. My point is this:
We can't assume what is and isn't a melee attack here given ESO's wonky combat mechanics and ZOS' tendency to keep us in the dark.

Look you guys are making this much to hard.

Melee attack is a light or heavy attack from a melee weapon...thats it.

TheBull · February 2015

I think ZOS considers all physical attacks melee... Sometimes.

PSLAnimal · February 2015

But the real question is this: What is a Malay attack?

Grunim · February 2015

WraithAzraiel wrote: »

Phaedrus wrote: »

roechacca wrote: »

Hand to hand close ranged attacks . Not ranged attacks

Ok, but how close? Not trying to be funny or cynical.

For instance, the whirlwind skill has two morphs, one has a 5m range and one has an 11m range. Does one count as a melee attack and the other not?

Close enough to do damage with a light/heavy attack with a non-bow non-stave weapon. I'm assuming that's ESO's definition of melee.

That's always been my guess as well.

jelliedsoup · February 2015

david.haypreub18_ESO wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

ZoS laziness strikes again.

Each skill (and its morphs) should have, as part of the skill description:

"Attack Type: Melee"
"Attack Type: Missile"
"Attack Type: Magic"

Melee is melee. Missile is reflectable. Magic is not reflectable.

Examples:
- Surprise Attack: Melee
- Lethal Arrow: Missile
- Velocious Curse: Magic

Simple.

Totally agree.

The tooltips need to give more information. How is someone new to the game supposed to figure these things out?

Like the rest of us. getting misinformation, testing and reading the forums with a great deal of scepticism.

AshySamurai · February 2015

Mortac wrote: »

PSLAnimal wrote: »

A punches B in the face - melee attack.

A throws a rock and hits B in the face - ranged attack.

A punches B in the face from 8 meters - Melee attack?
A punches B in the face from 11 meters - Ranged attack?

A throws a rock 8 meters and hits B in the face - Melee attack?
A throws a rock 11 meters and hits B in the face - Ranged attack?

Flame Lash from 8 meters - Melee or Spell attack? It costs magicka, so it should be a spell, but the tooltip says it's an attack, so that sounds like melee.

Dark Talons from 8 meters - Melee or Spell attack? It costs magicka, but it deals physical damage, so I'm somewhat confused, partly because the range is so short as well.

Critical Charge from 22 meters - Melee or Spell attack? I assume it's a melee attack, but the range is way over 8 meters.

Assassin's Blade from 5 meters - Melee or Spell attack? It costs magicka and deals magic damage, but since when is something called Assassin's Blade not a melee attack? I assume it's a magicka scaling melee attack, but you can also morph it into a 15 meter range ability, so does that still count as a melee attack in that case?

Destructive Touch from 7 meters - Melee or Spell attack? I assume it's a spell, but it has a range of 7 meters.

Which category an ability belongs to should be stated in the tooltip.

A punches B in the face from 8 meters - Melee attack
A punches B in the face from 11 meters - Ranged attack

Flame Lash from 8 meters - Melee attack

Dark Talons from 8 meters - Melee attack (maybe changed)

Critical Charge from 22 meters - Melee attack (all charges are melee attacks because you charge to player)

Assassin's Blade from 5 meters - Melee attack

We never had an official response on this question. But if you want to check what is melee - roll Imperial on PTS and check which skill heal you (Imperial + Caltrops (yep, it's a melee now) = you'll never die ^^). AFAIK all that 8 meters or closer is a melee attack. But with 1.6 changes I don't know for sure. ZOS changed a lot of things.

Dreizopf · February 2015

Valen_Byte wrote: »

Traditionaly, a 'melee' attack is a light or heavy attack with a dagger, sword (one or two hand), mace, hammer, ax. I would assume this is what they mean by 'melee'

This!

I think this is true in TESO as well as in most other (mmo)rpg.
But: I fear that the devs by themselves are not sure about this point.

Merlin13KAGL · February 2015

It's based on the weapon. If it's not a stave or a bow, it's considered a melee attack (talking light's and heavy's). Distance does not matter.

A bow at point blank is still a bow, and is considered a ranged attack. It's in the same realm to say you can't throw a 2H and call it a ranged attack.

Melee = non ranged physical attack. (Meaning it is mitigated by Armor/Block, vice Spell Resist)

Consider if the weapon is making direct contact (aside from bash) without leaving your hands, it should be considered melee damage.

It gets even screwier when the base stat for the skill varies - magicka based physical attacks, stamina based magicka attacks.

Hope this helps, fearful is convolutes the water even more than ESO already has. Things like this, and by extension, how to mitigate them should be much more intuitive than they decided it to be.

NewBlacksmurf · February 2015

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

roechacca wrote: »

Hand to hand close ranged attacks . Not ranged attacks

I think what he wants to know is this: does this apply to only light/heavy attacks? Or does it include any sort of close-range attack? Does it include abilities from the weapon skill trees? Does it include class skills that use magicka? For example, a templar's biting jabs used weapon crit instead of spellcrit for a long time (I think it still does). Is this considered a melee attack even though it uses magicka?

ZOS needs to get consistent with its terminology. The tooltips in this game are confusing.

+1
I'm glad this is a thread. I assumed it was any weapon under the blacksmith crafting but ...that's even questionable as I think...is it what's equiped or skill based.

Mortac · February 2015

AshySamurai wrote: »

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

This makes me think of the Soulshine 5 set bonus: +xx Spell Damage when casting or channeling a spell.

WTF does that mean? Is that any spell? Or just ones that have a cast/channel time?

It's pretty clear. Only spells that have cast/channel time.

How is that clear? Even if a spell is instant you're still "casting" it. It's not clear at all.

Warraxx · February 2015

I use 5p ravager set and i can at least say what procs with my build. 2H/S&B: it procs on all 2H attacks and S&b attacks including crit charge, cleave(aoe) and sheild charge. it also procs in werewolf form light/heavy attacks too (makes wolfie a true beast).

reften · February 2015

My guess is, the lack of information is not a result of Zos withholding info, but, they simply don't know. There are so many techs working on this, things change, and there are so many variables, that they start to loose track of every ability, skill, spell In game and what's what.

As a player, you just have to test. It's like mark target...it simply does next to nothing in PvE other than get myself killed. (Thanks FTC for helping me find this out)

test test test

Phaedrus · February 2015

My initial intention of the post was just trying to clarify skills to help my build. However I think this points to a larger issue within ESO and it's lack of information to its players.

As an example I have some simple challenges. Plesae don't use the forums for these challenges, those are user created content.

Can someone, anyone, please direct me to a link/url on the official eso website (elderscrollsonline.com) that shows what classes are available in the game?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows what the racial passives are for the breton race?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows how many traits are required to craft the hundings rage set?

I'm not sure if this lack of information is intentional on the part of ZOS because they want this information to be user generated. However if I was a brand new player I would at the very minimum like to know what the classes are like in the game

AshySamurai · February 2015

Phaedrus wrote: »

My initial intention of the post was just trying to clarify skills to help my build. However I think this points to a larger issue within ESO and it's lack of information to its players.

As an example I have some simple challenges. Plesae don't use the forums for these challenges, those are user created content.

Can someone, anyone, please direct me to a link/url on the official eso website (elderscrollsonline.com) that shows what classes are available in the game?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows what the racial passives are for the breton race?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows how many traits are required to craft the hundings rage set?

I'm not sure if this lack of information is intentional on the part of ZOS because they want this information to be user generated. However if I was a brand new player I would at the very minimum like to know what the classes are like in the game

Cmon, you're beating a dead horse. No, we don't have official armory or skill calculator. Yes, it was already asked. You may to write your own and share it with others.

Phaedrus · February 2015

AshySamurai wrote: »

Phaedrus wrote: »

My initial intention of the post was just trying to clarify skills to help my build. However I think this points to a larger issue within ESO and it's lack of information to its players.

As an example I have some simple challenges. Plesae don't use the forums for these challenges, those are user created content.

Can someone, anyone, please direct me to a link/url on the official eso website (elderscrollsonline.com) that shows what classes are available in the game?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows what the racial passives are for the breton race?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows how many traits are required to craft the hundings rage set?

I'm not sure if this lack of information is intentional on the part of ZOS because they want this information to be user generated. However if I was a brand new player I would at the very minimum like to know what the classes are like in the game

Cmon, you're beating a dead horse. No, we don't have official armory or skill calculator. Yes, it was already asked. You may to write your own and share it with others.

Not asking for complex calculators or massive libraries of available items. Something extremely simple like what are the classes available? You think there would be something available wouldn't you?

AshySamurai · February 2015

Phaedrus wrote: »

AshySamurai wrote: »

Phaedrus wrote: »

My initial intention of the post was just trying to clarify skills to help my build. However I think this points to a larger issue within ESO and it's lack of information to its players.

As an example I have some simple challenges. Plesae don't use the forums for these challenges, those are user created content.

Can someone, anyone, please direct me to a link/url on the official eso website (elderscrollsonline.com) that shows what classes are available in the game?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows what the racial passives are for the breton race?

Can someone direct me to a link on the official eso website that shows how many traits are required to craft the hundings rage set?

I'm not sure if this lack of information is intentional on the part of ZOS because they want this information to be user generated. However if I was a brand new player I would at the very minimum like to know what the classes are like in the game

Cmon, you're beating a dead horse. No, we don't have official armory or skill calculator. Yes, it was already asked. You may to write your own and share it with others.

Not asking for complex calculators or massive libraries of available items. Something extremely simple like what are the classes available? You think there would be something available wouldn't you?

TBH I don't care about it. If ZOS will do it in future - fine. If not - not a big deal for me. There are a lot of information on other sites and I'm fine with it.

Mortac · February 2015

AshySamurai wrote: »

Well, afaik all attack which range less than 8 meters is a melee. Not sure about Impulse and some 11 and 24 meters attacks.

So all attacks with a range of 8 meters or less is considered a melee attack. Maybe.

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

anything that does not leave your person that is use as an attack or in an attack, is generally considered "melee"..

in general, anything that leaves direct contact with you can be considered "ranged"

the lines are mostly only blurred when a connecting system is used, like a rope on a spear or a arrow... in which case the projectile is still considered "ranged"

So anything that doesn't give off any kind of ranged effect is considered a melee attack. Destructive Touch should be a melee attack then.

PSLAnimal wrote: »

A punches B in the face - melee attack.

A throws a rock and hits B in the face - ranged attack.

Well, yeah, that sounds good in theory, but isn't quite how it works as far as I can tell.

Valen_Byte wrote: »

Taditionaly, a 'melee' attack is a light or heavy attack with a dagger, sword (one or two hand), mace, hammer, ax. I would assume this is what they mean by 'melee'

Valen_Byte wrote: »

Melee attack is a light or heavy attack from a melee weapon...thats it.

So only light and heavy attacks are melee attacks. In which case, Uppercut and Reverse Slash aren't melee attacks.

TheBull wrote: »

I think ZOS considers all physical attacks melee... Sometimes.

So sometimes all physical attacks are melee. Great!

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

It's based on the weapon. If it's not a stave or a bow, it's considered a melee attack (talking light's and heavy's). Distance does not matter.

So Lava Whip and Assassin's Blade aren't melee attacks then?

oren74 wrote: »

As a player, you just have to test. It's like mark target...it simply does next to nothing in PvE other than get myself killed.

I bought this game to play it. Not to level every class up to 50 to spend days on trying out skills and effects to figure out which class and build I want to play for real. The information from skills and effects are fundamentally lacking.

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

Valen_Byte wrote: »

Look you guys are making this much to hard.

Melee attack is a light or heavy attack from a melee weapon...thats it.

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

Skills that cost magicka don't proc the set even when they are melee range (like the magicka morph of nb surprise attack).
Ranged skills from close distance don't proc the set.
Light / Heavy attacks with anything other than staves or bow can proc the set.
Charging to a target can proc the set.
Steel tornado doesn't proc the set even though the unmorphed version does, might be a bug.
Skills with multiple hits like rapid strikes just have 8% chance to proc every time you use them, not 8% chance on hit.

I think you're wrong, @Valen_Byte.

Athas24 · February 2015

A melee attack is a weapon attack that is not ranged, it is held in your hand and you are hitting someone with it. that means any spell or spell like ability would not be melee. Smacking someone with your sword like puncture or simple white hits/ heavy hits would count.

Mortac · February 2015

Athas24 wrote: »

A melee attack is a weapon attack that is not ranged, it is held in your hand and you are hitting someone with it. that means any spell or spell like ability would not be melee. Smacking someone with your sword like puncture or simple white hits/ heavy hits would count.

But you can't conclude this merely by looking at skills. This would require you to know which effect a skill gives off, which you can't know until you try it, and even then these things are very vague. These are also things you need to know before you even start the game, because you choose your class BEFORE you get into the game even, and weeks before you have leveled it up. If ZOS would just add a skill type category to each tooltip we wouldn't have to be so unsure about these things. We're talking about ADDING TEXT here for crying out loud. This could be added in an afternoon by one person. How hard can it be?

reften · February 2015

Mortac wrote: »

oren74 wrote: »

As a player, you just have to test. It's like mark target...it simply does next to nothing in PvE other than get myself killed.

I bought this game to play it. Not to level every class up to 50 to spend days on trying out skills and effects to figure out which class and build I want to play for real. The lack of information from skills and effects are fundamentally lacking.

I hear ya, but, it is what it is. I love this game even with it's flaws. The fact that there are critical must-use addons tells me that ESO just doesn't have the man-power to pull off this game without community support.

Really is just a take-it or leave-it thing.