Melee DPS in trials is being marginalized even further in Cloudrest with the release of Summerset

ecru

I wanted to offer my perspective here as someone who has wanted to play melee dps during progression in vet trials for the past six months or so, but who has been (mostly) unable to.

With the release of Asylum Sanctorum, we saw a trial that was exclusively ranged dps only for the hardest form of the trial. There was just no reasonable way for anyone to play melee and do nearly as well as they would with ranged dps. Since my main is a StamDK, progression was painful, and the eventual solution was myself (and others) rerolling a magblade or magsorc.

After about 8 hours of experience in Vet Cloudrest, I'm seeing the same pattern emerge. Although ranged isn't required to clear this trial, ranged has a clear advantage and would be preferred in all situations for every single boss. The vast majority of the mechanics aside from a few (stack mechanic on one of the bosses) largely prefers ranged, and even this mechanic can be solved by a ranged stack, which could even be preferable due to sets like Master Architect.

Just a few other mechanics off of the top of my head:

• Bosses teleporting from one side of the arena to another consistently throughout the fight. This happens on every encounter.
• Crystals that need to be destroyed spread out to the very edges of the arenas. This also happens during every encounter. This mechanic is time sensitive strongly prefers ranged dps due to being forced out of melee range on the final boss during a certain mechanic. As melee, you're limited to light attacking with your bow during this time.
• Shades that spawn on a group member death. Doesn't sound so bad, right? Wrong. They teleport around 25-30m+ constantly, preferring ranged dps.
• Synergies that have to be activated in a certain period of time which can spawn all around the arena. Melee dps is unlikely to be anywhere near these and cannot maintain good dps even if they were to keep the boss in focus while traveling to them to activate. Ranged does not have this problem.

I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting and I'm sure these mechanics will be even more punishing while choosing to fight multiple bosses at once instead of attempting a regular vet clear.

These wouldn't seem too bad if melee had some kind of other advantage, like higher dps while in melee than ranged, but currently on PTS the highest parsing classes are ranged magicka dps. Where is the incentive to play melee at all? Melee is worse at mechanics, has worse or equal dps when in melee, and is punished by mechanics that seem like they were implemented to do one thing--to punish melee dps. There is no other good reason for a boss to decide to teleport from one side of the arena to the other and then run back other than to limit damage on that boss while it is moving.

This isn't only bad class design, it's bad raid design. Melee needs a niche that they can fill, like ranged has had since the release of vAS. If things remain as they are, I will likely be playing my magblade I created for vAS+2 even though I would prefer to play my StamDK.

s7732425ub17_ESO

Feels like ZOS wants to encourage more use of gap closers for melee, but people are very resistant to change.

Tempestwrath

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Feels like ZOS wants to encourage more use of gap closers for melee, but people are very resistant to change.

It's not that people are very resistant to change, it's that Trial-tier melee DPS need literally every slot they have for DPS to maintain the same or slightly less DPS than equivalent magicka builds. If you pull out a skill to add in a gap closer, you'll fall even further behind the curve because Magicka doesn't have to make that kind of concession.

Alanar

I play a StamDK in vAS+2 and consistently outsurvive and outdps many of the ranged magicka builds. That said, you do have to play a bit differently for the new content, and it takes some getting used to.

1. Start more defensive and gradually add damage. I often run Molten Armor for an Ult, Mighty Chudan for head/shoulders, and Deadly Cloak / Vigor / Purge. Dead toons do no deeps.
2. Mobility is critical. For the hardest fights, I run stamina/speed/brutality pots and get savagery from FOO. 100% uptime on major expedition with and extra 60% speed boost from sprint is amazing.
3. Anticipate everything. On a magical DPS, you can afford to shield through many mechanics, reducing the need to pay attention. For melee stam, you need to learn every mechanic and every tell, so you avoid damage as much as possible rather than shielding through it.

I’ve found that the skill cap is definitely higher for stamina melee builds, but it can be done, and I feel like I’ve become a better player as a result.

beetleklee

As someone who is better at melee DPS and prefers it, it's pretty disheartening.

People complained about the "stam meta" but the meta was fairly balanced, only not including melee magicka which I agreed needed to be adjusted as they got all of the risk with none of the reward unlike melee stamina.

Pretty much every class was usable for stamina DPS, with the exception of Warden which just suffers all around from being a jack of all trades but master at none. Magicka was Magblade and Sorc as they can pull their highest DPS at range, while Templar and DK suffered from being able to pull their highest DPS in melee but not pulling the numbers stam did.

For a long time, a longer time than Stam has been good, it was Elder Staves Online.

On PTS MagDK is pulling great numbers with slightly better sustain and I'm happy, but I think on the PTS, magicka light attacks got overtuned just a bit. Melee DPS deserves to pull higher ST DPS due to being in a more risky position and have to avoid more mechanics. We get the most curses first boss vMoL, we're the ones who have avoid Ra Kotu's spin, we have to be careful of the Warrior's cleave, it's hard to pull off good DPS in very AOE heavy fights with a lot of running around like the Pinnacle Factotum in vHoF and the entirety of vAS...

Mic1007

Alanar wrote: »

I play a StamDK in vAS+2 and consistently outsurvive and outdps many of the ranged magicka builds. That said, you do have to play a bit differently for the new content, and it takes some getting used to.

1. Start more defensive and gradually add damage. I often run Molten Armor for an Ult, Mighty Chudan for head/shoulders, and Deadly Cloak / Vigor / Purge. Dead toons do no deeps.
2. Mobility is critical. For the hardest fights, I run stamina/speed/brutality pots and get savagery from FOO. 100% uptime on major expedition with and extra 60% speed boost from sprint is amazing.
3. Anticipate everything. On a magical DPS, you can afford to shield through many mechanics, reducing the need to pay attention. For melee stam, you need to learn every mechanic and every tell, so you avoid damage as much as possible rather than shielding through it.

I’ve found that the skill cap is definitely higher for stamina melee builds, but it can be done, and I feel like I’ve become a better player as a result.

1. Or just switch to a ranged class and go all DPS from the beginning.
2. Switch to a ranged magicka class to keep the mobility as you only need to move where you place your DoTs.
3. You already stated the problem here.

Now where are the negatives to simply playing ranged? Damage is lower? Nah, they parse higher... Ah, they have less sustain. Wait, nope. Sustain on ranged magicka DPS is rather easy now, while the melee guys need to actually be in melee range to Heavy Attack the bosses...

Working 3x harder to get the same results as a ranged DPS is NOT a solution. It just emphasizes the problem.

Vaoh

Tbh I’d rather they leave it this way. I really like the movement involved in the last two trials.

How do you expect them to make trials that favor Stam which aren’t pure stack and burn mechanics? We already have enough of those fights.

I’d rather Stam DPS were powerful at a range. Can’t they just use Caltrops+Volley+Poison Injection+spam Crushing Weapon now?

ecru

Vaoh wrote: »

Tbh I’d rather they leave it this way. I really like the movement involved in the last two trials.

How do you expect them to make trials that favor Stam which aren’t pure stack and burn mechanics? We already have enough of those fights.

I’d rather Stam DPS were powerful at a range. Can’t they just use Caltrops+Volley+Poison Injection+spam Crushing Weapon now?

Mechanics don't have to favor melee, but when melee dps is equal/lower to ranged, I don't think there is a good argument as to why most of them should actively punish melee and favor ranged. The trade-off for being in melee in other games is almost always higher single target dps, with few exceptions.

As far as stam dps being good at range, does volley/caltrops/poison injection and light attack spam seem like interesting gameplay/an interesting rotation to you? I can't speak for everyone, but I'm pretty sure most people didn't roll a melee class to spam bow light attacks.

I should note that I'm not against bosses moving, or mechanics requiring you to move a lot, or anything like that. To me anything that has you doing more than just stacking and burning is great. It's the arbitrary placement of things or arbitrary/unpredictable movements which largely favor range dps that I'm bothered with.

Elsterchen

Vaoh wrote: »

Tbh I’d rather they leave it this way. I really like the movement involved in the last two trials.

How do you expect them to make trials that favor Stam which aren’t pure stack and burn mechanics? We already have enough of those fights.

I’d rather Stam DPS were powerful at a range. Can’t they just use Caltrops+Volley+Poison Injection+spam Crushing Weapon now?

See, the italic part highligts one half of the problem: Why should all stamchars be forced to play the same 5 abilities only to be able to pull compareable numbers to the many different builds of magchars? (...and my stamplar is missing the chrushing weapon skill, where do i find it?)

I understand that progressive PVE content need to be appealing to people that like this sort of content, but the changes do not balance nor do they bring variability, they are designed to push a magica meta. In all combat related aspects of the game. Ty OP for opening this discussion.

Vaoh

ecru wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Tbh I’d rather they leave it this way. I really like the movement involved in the last two trials.

How do you expect them to make trials that favor Stam which aren’t pure stack and burn mechanics? We already have enough of those fights.

I’d rather Stam DPS were powerful at a range. Can’t they just use Caltrops+Volley+Poison Injection+spam Crushing Weapon now?

Mechanics don't have to favor melee, but when melee dps is equal/lower to ranged, I don't think there is a good argument as to why most of them should actively punish melee and favor ranged. The trade-off for being in melee in other games is almost always higher single target dps, with few exceptions.

As far as stam dps being good at range, does volley/caltrops/poison injection and light attack spam seem like interesting gameplay/an interesting rotation to you? I can't speak for everyone, but I'm pretty sure most people didn't roll a melee class to spam bow light attacks.

I should note that I'm not against bosses moving, or mechanics requiring you to move a lot, or anything like that. To me anything that has you doing more than just stacking and burning is great. It's the arbitrary placement of things or arbitrary/unpredictable movements which largely favor range dps that I'm bothered with.

Elsterchen wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Tbh I’d rather they leave it this way. I really like the movement involved in the last two trials.

How do you expect them to make trials that favor Stam which aren’t pure stack and burn mechanics? We already have enough of those fights.

I’d rather Stam DPS were powerful at a range. Can’t they just use Caltrops+Volley+Poison Injection+spam Crushing Weapon now?

See, the italic part highligts one half of the problem: Why should all stamchars be forced to play the same 5 abilities only to be able to pull compareable numbers to the many different builds of magchars? (...and my stamplar is missing the chrushing weapon skill, where do i find it?)

I understand that progressive PVE content need to be appealing to people that like this sort of content, but the changes do not balance nor do they bring variability, they are designed to push a magica meta. In all combat related aspects of the game. Ty OP for opening this discussion.

I wasn't talking about the single target DPS of Mag vs Stam characters. What I was trying to get at was that the actual design of bosses being about movement, interesting mechanics, etc, is better than the stack and burn fights we already have. I agree with you both - Stamina DPS should be higher single target than Magicka DPS.....
.... and that's exactly how it is lol. Ofc the gap is not as wide as it used to be, though I can't speak on the details since I do not have access to PTS to tell you anything from my own testing.

Besides the fact that it makes Stam classes feel super similar, I don't see any issue at all with casting Caltrops+Volley+Poison Injection+spam Crushing Weapon. We finally got Crushing Weapon! This is very good. Stamina builds won't be so useless at a range, theoretically closing the ranged vs melee gap at least in part because they finally have a real ranged spammable unlike Poison Injection.

Elsterchen, Crushing weapon is a morph of Imbue Weapon. Imbue Weapon is a skill in the Psijic Order skill line. It's a cheap, powerful ranged instant cast attack.

As a side note I heard that some Stam builds have hit raid buffed 90K DPS in Summerset though idk any details behind that or how true it is.

Mystrius_Archaion

Vaoh wrote: »

Elsterchen, Crushing weapon is a morph of Imbue Weapon. Imbue Weapon is a skill in the Psijic Order skill line. It's a cheap, powerful ranged instant cast attack.

As a side note I heard that some Stam builds have hit raid buffed 90K DPS in Summerset though idk any details behind that or how true it is.

No it's not. It buffs the next light attack. That makes it tricky to use, so far, and not as good as a true instant. It's technically interruptible by anything that causes your next light attack to be a little slow.
It will not be the answer.

You really need to test that on PTS before you claim equality.

Vaoh

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Elsterchen, Crushing weapon is a morph of Imbue Weapon. Imbue Weapon is a skill in the Psijic Order skill line. It's a cheap, powerful ranged instant cast attack.

As a side note I heard that some Stam builds have hit raid buffed 90K DPS in Summerset though idk any details behind that or how true it is.

No it's not. It buffs the next light attack. That makes it tricky to use, so far, and not as good as a true instant. It's technically interruptible by anything that causes your next light attack to be a little slow.
It will not be the answer.

You really need to test that on PTS before you claim equality.

Ahh yup true. It’s *essentially* an instant cast spammable since it’s used like one, but really it will place its damage on your next light attack. In PvE I can’t imagine a situation where you would lose the damage though. Might require playing a bit more careful in certain scenarios.

I didn’t claim it was equal in my other post, though honestly based on PTS tests so for (ample amount of testing you can find online rn) the Damage it deals, along with its low cost, make it pretty on-par to other Stamina spammables.

Elsterchen

Vaoh wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Elsterchen, Crushing weapon is a morph of Imbue Weapon. Imbue Weapon is a skill in the Psijic Order skill line. It's a cheap, powerful ranged instant cast attack.

As a side note I heard that some Stam builds have hit raid buffed 90K DPS in Summerset though idk any details behind that or how true it is.

No it's not. It buffs the next light attack. That makes it tricky to use, so far, and not as good as a true instant. It's technically interruptible by anything that causes your next light attack to be a little slow.
It will not be the answer.

You really need to test that on PTS before you claim equality.

Ahh yup true. It’s *essentially* an instant cast spammable since it’s used like one, but really it will place its damage on your next light attack. In PvE I can’t imagine a situation where you would lose the damage though. Might require playing a bit more careful in certain scenarios.

I didn’t claim it was equal in my other post, though honestly based on PTS tests so for (ample amount of testing you can find online rn) the Damage it deals, along with its low cost, make it pretty on-par to other Stamina spammables.

@Vaoh ty for explaining, the new skill is only tagged with "imbued weapon" in my brain.
I agree this new skill is a pretty, shiny new tool to play with and from my stamplars viewpoint its going to be quite handy. Adding to it, one doesn't need to be more carefull with this ability when you are used to play with a 1.1s spammable that frequently misses moving targets. So, wether or not this ability is easy-to-handle depens on perspective, i guess.

But just to add to topic: I am assuming that base combat changes as well as boss mechanics will influence trial approach. The base combat changes hitting with SI shift damage output to magica users so does the design of the new trial mechanics. (I did preliminary testing of base damage on PTS, but want to wait for char transfer do really get them numbers.)
Nevertheless, if stamina is going to be only 2nd choice in sustained damage output and only 2nd choice in defeating mechanics, both aspects contribute to stamina beeing excluded from progressive PVE content. This is the reason I welcome this discussion, evenso I am as experienced in progressive PVE as an skeever is in rocket sience. The basic changes affect all combat, but I know its going to show very clearly in content you care about.

Secondary, or minor troubles at this point are that stamina players can't easily adept -> they simply don't have the variety of skill options magica users have at their leisure. Swapping weapons is the obvious choice of action and as you noticed bow/2H, that do get a small buff, will be prefereed to be used. Yet, imo this only masks the actual problem, it doesn't create more variablity or more oportunity to create new exiting builds its just the same old trick repeated. ... and adding to it, by design 2H as well as bows are less affective as staffs as soon as SI hits.