Ranged Light Attack Damage Reduction

ExistingRug61

Regarding the following change from the patch notes:

Reduced the damage from all ranged Light and Medium Attacks by 10% to ensure they meet ranged damage standards. Heavy Attacks already meet these standards.

While I understand that it conceptually makes sense that there be a disadvantage to ranged attacks vs melee attacks, I would like to highlight the following:

1) Ranged dps weapons already have a lower base damage than melee dps equivalents, instead only having the base damage of a single one-handed weapon. As such, all damage when using a ranged weapon is already lower. So now we have reduction based on the weapon type in terms of base damage of the weapon as well as a reduction from the skill/LA/HA scaling.

2) Several magicka classes have primarily melee based magicka skills, ie: dk, templar. As such it seems likely the magicka versions of these want to operate in melee range anyway but even though they are effectively using their staff as a melee weapon, they will still suffer from a LA/HA reduction while still suffering the risks of being melee. While they could use stamina weapons now with the change to LA/HA scaling, this will still be less damage due to lack of Crit, Pen, and CP boosts.

My initial thoughts are that for 1) we probably only need one of the reduction methods (to me it makes more sense for the reduction to be on the skill/LA/HA scaling only and make staves and bows have the same base damage as 2H, but this may require other balancing changes on some skills), and that 2) would be alleviated by having a proper melee option for magicka builds.

Interested in others thoughts. Is this going to be an issue? Are there other alternatives?

EDS604

Make the dmg reduction based on range, within 5 meters no reduction, further than 5 meters add reduction.

satanio

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

1) Ranged dps weapons already have a lower base damage than melee dps equivalents, instead only having the base damage of a single one-handed weapon. As such, all damage when using a ranged weapon is already lower. So now we have reduction based on the weapon type in terms of base damage of the weapon as well as a reduction from the skill/LA/HA scaling.

It is a difference of 236 WD/SD. That translates to roughly 4% dps difference. And still for some weird reason most of magicka classes outparse its stamina opposite on live (templar and dk are the only exception where stamina is performing better.)

Honestly, LA is like 20-25% of magickas dmg, that is a huge chunk (thanks to vMA destro). And so I think, that is why this nerf came. The better way, as always, would be to buff LAs of meele weapons. That would also counter some of the dps nerfs that were introduced in the pts thanks to the buffs changes.

ExistingRug61

satanio wrote: »

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

1) Ranged dps weapons already have a lower base damage than melee dps equivalents, instead only having the base damage of a single one-handed weapon. As such, all damage when using a ranged weapon is already lower. So now we have reduction based on the weapon type in terms of base damage of the weapon as well as a reduction from the skill/LA/HA scaling.

It is a difference of 236 WD/SD. That translates to roughly 4% dps difference. And still for some weird reason most of magicka classes outparse its stamina opposite on live (templar and dk are the only exception where stamina is performing better.)

Honestly, LA is like 20-25% of magickas dmg, that is a huge chunk (thanks to vMA destro). And so I think, that is why this nerf came. The better way, as always, would be to buff LAs of meele weapons. That would also counter some of the dps nerfs that were introduced in the pts thanks to the buffs changes.

That’s interesting. Magicka still out parsing even with lower base damage On the weapon indicates something else is at play, either through, skills, skill synergy or simply higher uptime on attacking due to being ranged or something else.

The second point, that LA make up a large amount of Magicka damage (which I assume by implication is more than Stamina) doesn’t surprise me - as currently the ranged skills suffer from the scaling reduction but the LA don’t so LA are comparatively better vs skills not Magicka (also if stamina has a higher reliance on proc damage from relequen this could also cause this result). This is why I think I the reduction to LA makes sense, as it makes sense for ranged to be reduced vs melee and the reduction to be the same on ranged LA as it is on ranged skills. Hence I was actually suggesting other changes to go along with that reduction to assist other build options.

Really what I would really like to see is to get away from the stamina = melee and magicka = ranged idea and instead have magicka melee be comparative to stamina melee, and then stamina ranged be comparative to magicka ranged (with both ranged options being a bit under the melee counterparts). Maybe not all of these for all classes, but at least for some.

Jodynn

Would love a melee option for me ( magDK )

But scaling light attack damage to my highest stat is not nearly enough to make that happen

What I would like, is a melee inferno staff I smack people with, and it has the same damage as a 2-handed weapon.

However; that is not the only concerning thing to make someone melee.