I, and most of meeles thinks that they are too weak to do anything in pvp, also we (specialy tanks) lvl much slower than others, there used to be AOE...but NCsoft tooked that away from us too. Groups can easily lvl without tanks (supporters is all they need, DD+SUPPORT = no tanks needed) I dont know what role should tanks play now, thay are only needed for the raids...
I knew 2 tanks who started to play over again in start of c4 with more powerfull classes...sorcerer and necromacer. Tanks got some good skills on 75+ lvls, but its almost nothing compared to the boosts others get (thats why they rerolled). I think that tanks...and meeles overall should get a drastical boost in theyr abbilities.
for example:
Tanks can't do damage and they only got slighty higher p.def then archers. We should have more P.def...ever tryed to compare total tanks defense and attack points with archers? Ofcourse they have low attack speed, but thats normal becouse they are ranged units and have high running speed, p.def and p atk points of archer and tank should be equalised or have a smaller difference.
M.Def should be increased too, we are tanks, we must sustain more nukes than others, right now we can take 2-3 nukes more than other class. This should be drasticly changed, tanks must be feared, we are not somekind of meat running around and absorbing dmg...hell we cant even do that ( p def should be increased as i said before)
All classes should be equal, every character should have theyr advateges and disadvatages, right now meeles got far more disatvateges then others...this should be fixed.
Im not expert of this game, i play it only for 1,5 year...And i dont say that this disbalance between meeles and others should be fixed like i mentioned above, but it should be fixed somehow...i'm sure NCsoft could find a way to do this, so every player could be happy.
And how about you dear readers? Do you think that meeles are good and devs should leave them how it is? Or do they need some radical chages?
Well, they are deleting them right now in some sort of way...Everyone are quiting meeles, exept such noobs as myself who are waiting for a day then meeles become strong.
Will this day come? Only god....uff...i mean...NCsoft knows.
Well.. count me in in the noob melee party... i'm orc destroyer and i don't want play nothing else. Some player like characters for how fast they can lvl.. how fast they can kill.. or simply how much they are overpowered... others like play only one type.. also if they are looser for many and many levels.
I see that with C4 a skill (the only one can be used with 2 handed sword) fatal strike got a boost.. this is good for my class... got only that damage skill (and the low level from 20).
I see also Guts and Frenzy when activated stay on more time.. that's good.
I don't know how is very high level... with a good bow.. a good jewels and good 2 handed sword... to be correct should be that if a nuker or a archer.. or a light armour can kill you in few hit from distance.. you should kill in few hit in close range. That seems not true for now at 40-50 lvl range.
For what i see now.. nukers kills in 2 hit mobs that i can kill with many hit and getting also hitten. I see speed mobs run.. but they die before do some damage. So what the point to say "yes but nukers have less hp and less pdef"? maybe high levels mobs can resist more to magic damage.. and go for give some hit before die.. but for now.. i see nukers kills my same mobs in no time.. with no damage.
I see monster with resist archery.. ok.. i think.. that a good way.. i can kill it without some punk that run around.. after that come an archer.. BAM BAM.. mob dead. O.O
Mobs with resist magic? with the fast rate nukers kill everything i see.. well... don't know if they exist.
More than one time i cannot reach a mob that an archer or a mage target him from distance and kill him before i reach him... and i'll need many hit to finish the job.
I spend money to top jewels.. but they don't seems go right like top heavy armour.. mobs with magic at my levels do me double the damage a melee mob same levels.
Well.. this is a noob point of view.. high levels maybe the things will change.. but well.. the time i cannot play more my destroyer.. i will not play more with lineage.
there are A LOT of mobs that have resist dark... rendering a necro completely useless against them... there are others that are resist matk... mostly in catas though...
there are A LOT of mobs that have resist dark... rendering a necro completely useless against them... there are others that are resist matk... mostly in catas though...
That's true... swamp of screams (and by the way... I haven't heard any screams there yet :mad: ) the mobs are green (maybe blue) to me. Imagine my surprise when I hit one and I didn't get that satisfied "hafl of hit points gone" feeling.
No problem.. I'll sleep it ... apparently not.. ok.. I'll..uh.. slow it. Luckily that landed because this thing was tough.
As I've said... I love the elegegance of the melee and plan to play a Dark Elf destroyer for my sub. And since I've nuked for 70+ lvls I am looking forward to wading into war with my great "Battle Blade" cutting a swath of destruction before me.. only to be downed by archers and mages. :D
It is my thougt (and this is my new take on it) that NC designed melee not to be balanced with ranged. That this is really how they want it.
That it is not balanced because this is how they want it "balanced".
Well NCsoft shouldnt make decsions all by them selfs, they should make game changes considering to the players opinions, and players want to have better meeles! (its incorrect sentence but i hope you understand my point)
Sry to bug in the whine thread(again) but do YOU wait 20 minutes for mana regen?(from 10 to 20 didnt count them duh).Also IF you have GHP recipe in common craft+some fishing you can hunt NON-STOP.So mages got awesome downtime,archers need TONS of shots/arrows(they cant carry much) and tanks do low dmg but can go for ages.Just my 0.02$
As for me, playing both melee and nuker sides I've come to realize you either like it or you don't. I went back to my Warlord a lil while ago because I love melee classes. Yes, we are way underpowered compared to nukers, archers but you have to like your class to stick with it. I've tried everything except a healer so far and melee's are my pride and joy. Now I've come to accept the fact warlords are practically the worse pvp class next to a dorf possibly but it wouldn't be the same not trying to bash someones brains in on a battlefield.
I would also like them to give melee a lil boost. Not for the new C5 ownage class that will suddenly dominate the playing field but rather someone who will now stand even the slightest of chances against other classes. Tanks have shield stun and arrow resist....every other melee has pretty much the same downsides..low m.def, so we get slept, and debuffed to high heaven. I noticed a took a nice Tallum Glaive the other day and hit a 60+ Necromancer for probably a 120-150 damage on each shot using soulshots...but a friend with a lvl 45 sorcerer was hitting me for the same damage amount. I understand mages and their nukes are more powerful but we need to have our melee skills work. Maybe an increase damage output against nukers and archers in close rnage possibly.
Think of it this way, when we finally are high enough in level to attempt the olympiad, we will have a serious advantage. While there may be thousands of archers or magic classed people fighting for the top spot, we might be declared the winner by default :)
Why not give all melees a new emergency type skill (like UD/UE) that would give them a sprint...main issue is the ranged types being able to kite the melees. So a 1min sprint with a 20min cooldown might balance things out a bit. And would have to make it stackable with other speed boosts (WW, Tyrant totems,etc.). I think it would be interesting at least.
It is my thougt (and this is my new take on it) that NC designed melee not to be balanced with ranged. That this is really how they want it.
That it is not balanced because this is how they want it "balanced".
Well NCsoft shouldnt make decsions all by them selfs, they should make game changes considering to the players opinions, and players want to have better meeles! (its incorrect sentence but i hope you understand my point)
I very much understand what you are saying and appreciate the spirit of it.
However... in a thread a while back there was much talk about the whole melee vs ranged issue. Pages went by. And someone made a statement that mages in this game are not like the books and that they should only be assessed in the context of this game.
That is when I came to the conclusion that all classes and races need to be looked at in the world of Lineage II.
The developers have a very clear idea as to how their world is to work. Now.. they do listen to player feed back as we've seen it. It might be more from Korea but there is evidence such as the 3rd class change allowing for players to be able to advance their character without going the noblesses/hero route, auto shots etc.
And it seems that their idea of melee is a sort of support class for ranged. You tank, you give BD buffs you block castle doorways so that the ranged can do their thing.
But I feel that that is the extant of it. NC Development team are not stupid.. you might disagree with their decisions but there is much in this game that is well thought out (and much that seems to be done a bit lazily I might add.. .warehouse management for one)
Should they listen to the players and recreate their vision? Well.. no. But, they will start seeing less and less people playing certain classes because they really aren't worth it.
That is a huge problem as that means a lot of manpower has gone into creating characters that are not desireable in a pvp setting. Whether it be melee, healers, buffers etc.
I think they SHOULD make changes so that tanks can take some of the damage of their party members (or a particular party member) that hate should work in pvp, that melee can have some sort of hope to stand against the ranged bretheren.
But this must be done carefully. Some have said "just remove blessed shots". Well.. that might solve one problem but it creates huge PvE problems.
Mages really are brittle and don't stand up well to any type of beating.. hence the whole huge damage but "fall" if reached.
If they were to balance this then it can't be just a "raise this, lower this" and it will be better. It must be a true balance so that the skill of the player comes into the equation. Otherwise you will hear the "melee are overpowered" mantra because they easily reach the ranged and take them out quickly. So the problem isn't solved it is just reversed.
But again.... I don't believe that is the NC vision. They seem to have the idea of a hierarchical class structure very very ingrained into the system. You see it in the clan leader system, the Castle owner system etc.
They really have a completely different outlook and don't really seem to value the "everyone should have a chance" idea.
I think that that is part of the problem. You are asking people who are developing the game to make things "even" when that is not a value or even a concern to them. I wonder if it is even on the radar so to speak.
This doesn't mean that it can't change, that they might not realize this is for the better but I wonder if this is really a non-issue for them.
You need atleast 5 ppl to compete per class and have the most points of them.Also most ppl go for open-class battles (SpSvsPP anyone?).The ppl that are lvl 75/75 now will get HUGE advantage since they will get blessed scrolls :(
>>The developers have a very clear idea as to how there world is to work.
I doubt (very highly) that.
Removing the effect of blessed shots in pvp is one (a single if to check target instance and force normal [non-blessed] sps) line of code; I still wonder why olympiads doesn't allow blessed shots but normal pvp is ok w/.
Blessed shots are also very cheap to use at high levels, esp w/ B grade.
>>The developers have a very clear idea as to how there world is to work.
I doubt (very highly) that.
Removing the effect of blessed shots in pvp is one (a single if to check target instance and force normal [non-blessed] sps) line of code; I still wonder why olympiads doesn't allow blessed shots but normal pvp is ok w/.
Blessed shots are also very cheap to use at high levels, esp w/ B grade.
That doesn't mean that they are not clear about it. I just means that they feel that the Olympiad should be something different.
YEs, if you inspect the Olimpiad rules; you'll see that classes are "balanced out" at least on paper; since you are debuffed and forbidden from using outside buffs and blessed SpS.
Also, no one here really plays the game as it is "planned". Melee are supposed to outnumber archers and mages 3 to 1 at least. Or be somewhat even. How is melee supposed to take down range if there aren't enough people palying cannon fodder?
You just simply can't rush by yourself.
And yet I see melee steadily getting better each chronicle. In very small, fractional increments. But improving nonetheless; it's easier to level a tank now than in prelude or C1; maybe you can't PvP much one on one, but leveling is certainly easier. And leveling is half the battle :)
This doesn't mean that it can't change, that they might not realize this is for the better but I wonder if this is really a non-issue for them.
That's the problem that we seem to have.
European/North American game concepts of even playing fields and equal value. This establishes a meritocracy which means that the good rise to the top.
I don't think that the developers were that smart. I think they built a poorly balanced PVE game and then decided to let players fight one another. Their classes aren't even balanced correctly for PVE utility so its a really tough job to claim they were doing anything other then making rough copies of all the traditional D&D stereotypes.
There are some great theories in this game. Its just too bad the design team didn't implement them correctly to support the way they try to sell the game.
Class inbalances are fine in a PVE game... people can compensate for that. It makes no sense in a PVP game where certain classes will constantly be there just to pad the PK/PVP counts of other classes. Its much simpler to just not include those classes and not waste the design time.
The majority of the game is designed to be a major timesink and the implied motivating factor is focused on high-risk gambling. The odds in this game are horrible for almost all chance based systems in the game when compared to the losses suffered when you fail (Drops, Crafting, Over-Enchanting, Coin Gambling, Lotto). They didn't design a game they designed a full time job with some extra graphics. But if the Koreans are willing to buy it... I guess it works for them.
So complaining about all of this stuff doesn't matter... If you want a game designed around NA/Euro concepts you should find a NA/Euro game. Now if NCSoft would just license the game to people that want to design a game for the NA/Euro markets....
You haven't played a lot of asian arcade and console games have you? Gameplay imbalance and gimped characters are what make games really popular over there. I'm not surprised EE are liked in Korea because they are "cute".
It's the Fighting game syndrome: Every new release, if there is a new character; said character will pwn every other character in game. Returning charas will pwn depending on wether they are popular or not; with the game's "hero" being the toughest character to finish the game with.
In Street Fighter, gameplay was "balanced". By SFII since everyone was technically was a new character, everyone could pwn "equally" each other. By champion edition there were already tiers: Ken was far more popular than Ryu; Ryu was then branded the archetype of hero of the game; popular characters like Guile, Chun-Li and Blanka dominated the scrub scene since they were easy to pick up and fun to play. then they let the "bosses" to be played with... guess what happened?
This game is the same. It's heavily balanced towards archers, always were always will be. Melee will catch up but not much, see; us melee are the "heroes" and we shouldn't be having an easy time doing nothing since if we could, we wouldn't be the heroes see? Hard to swallow? maybe yes, but that's how crazy things are with asian design.
I can imagine the designers and programmers are scratching their heads saying "We can't see what the problem is... if you rush 50 mages with over 300 knights backed up by archers there is enough time for daggers to start dropping the oponent's melee... everything works as intended..."
Quoting Jhon Rico from Starship Troopers, the movie: "Didn't you know sir? Dieing is what the mobile infantry is for..." :)
Mmm... best we can hope is a SLIGHT boost in the not so near future. One to ensure survivability in small groups PvP.
After all... the dragon punch has not been invincible for like 10 games now...
I can imagine the designers and programmers are scratching their heads saying "We can't see what the problem is... if you rush 50 mages with over 300 knights backed up by archers there is enough time for daggers to start dropping the oponent's melee... everything works as intended..."
I would not be surprised if this wasn't 100% correct. I truly believe in my heart of hearts that this is what is going on.
You haven't played a lot of asian arcade and console games have you? Gameplay imbalance and gimped characters are what make games really popular over there. I'm not surprised EE are liked in Korea because they are "cute".
It's the Fighting game syndrome: Every new release, if there is a new character; said character will pwn every other character in game. Returning charas will pwn depending on wether they are popular or not; with the game's "hero" being the toughest character to finish the game with.
In Street Fighter, gameplay was "balanced". By SFII since everyone was technically was a new character, everyone could pwn "equally" each other. By champion edition there were already tiers: Ken was far more popular than Ryu; Ryu was then branded the archetype of hero of the game; popular characters like Guile, Chun-Li and Blanka dominated the scrub scene since they were easy to pick up and fun to play. then they let the "bosses" to be played with... guess what happened?
This game is the same. It's heavily balanced towards archers, always were always will be. Melee will catch up but not much, see; us melee are the "heroes" and we shouldn't be having an easy time doing nothing since if we could, we wouldn't be the heroes see? Hard to swallow? maybe yes, but that's how crazy things are with asian design.
I can imagine the designers and programmers are scratching their heads saying "We can't see what the problem is... if you rush 50 mages with over 300 knights backed up by archers there is enough time for daggers to start dropping the oponent's melee... everything works as intended..."
Quoting Jhon Rico from Starship Troopers, the movie: "Didn't you know sir? Dieing is what the mobile infantry is for..." :)
Mmm... best we can hope is a SLIGHT boost in the not so near future. One to ensure survivability in small groups PvP.
After all... the dragon punch has not been invincible for like 10 games now...
This is the most insightful and probably the most correct thing anyone has ever said on this whole debate. I'm ashamed that after living in Asia for years I didn't make this connection. I can't tell you how many fighting games I played over there that had completely useless characters in it. Being "western" I'm thinking, "What the hell are these characters doing in here?"
My western mind says that there is no problem with there being a character hieracrchy, but its stupid if you can jsut pick the best one from the start. Do you see what I mean? Ok, so archers and mages are better than melee. Fine. The problem is you can just say, ok, I want to be the best from the start, and so there you go.
This is really is totaly in line with gaming in Asia though. Jesus. I'm going to go give myself 30 lashes for not seeing this.
It's been touched upon in this thread already, but taking it a bit further:
This is a Korean Game, not a NA/European game.
This game is heavily focused on Clan play over Solo play.
This game is not Magic, D&D, LotR, WC/WoW. It is it's own take simply using races many of us are somewhat familiar with and giving them unique twists.
Drink that deeply.
Now, you take that game and you present it to the NA/Euro gaming crowd. As a demographic we are much more inclined to be about ME, Me, me over We.
This demographic is top-heavy with players who want to win (pwn, haxx0r, stomp), not achieve. It's infused with the "I want My Class to be the best AND look the coolest" mindset.
Plenty of NA/Euro games are designed to meet that demand.
L2 is NOT one of them.
So yes, the tank is a support toon. It was designed to be that way. It was designed to be played by a character who actually wants to play a cog in his clan's war machine gear. Who wants to drag the boss behind him while his clanmates nuke it, who want to clog the gate with pointy bodies while his archers pick off defenders, who want to dance and sing to give their clanmates the advantage over the opposing clan.
The glory of the clan is greater than the pvp score, greater than the fraps video of how 1 player owned a 9 man party.
This game wasn't designed for the greedy, instant gratification crowd.
So yes, the tank, the healer, the buffer will NOT be as "uber" as the nuker or the archer. It was never intended to be that way, because the developers didn't design this game with YOU and all your "I want, I want, I want" self importance in mind.
Some people get the idea of the Clan, and some don't. Guess which voices are usually the loudest?
Now, you take that game and you present it to the NA/Euro gaming crowd. As a demographic we are much more inclined to be about ME, Me, me over We.
This demographic is top-heavy with players who want to win (pwn, haxx0r, stomp), not achieve. It's infused with the "I want My Class to be the best AND look the coolest" mindset.
Most of the NA/Euro sports that I know of designed around player skill more so then environmental advantages. Maybe you know of a different version of football/soccer/basketball that have fields of varying lengths and different requirements for each team.
The actual ideal is that skill is the determining factor rather then the game being biased towards one party. Lineage2 is biased towards certain classes and shows favortism... its really no different from allowing one soccer team (but not their opponents) to use their hands in addition to their feet. It is that broken as far as balance and that is why many players have a problem because they start assuming that the classes are balanced because its a PVP game.
So yes, the tank is a support toon. It was designed to be that way. It was designed to be played by a character who actually wants to play a cog in his clan's war machine gear. Who wants to drag the boss behind him while his clanmates nuke it, who want to clog the gate with pointy bodies while his archers pick off defenders, who want to dance and sing to give their clanmates the advantage over the opposing clan.
Last I checked corpses don't prevent movement...
The glory of the clan is greater than the pvp score, greater than the fraps video of how 1 player owned a 9 man party.
The clan with the 1 character that owns 9 man parties of the other clan is going to have a pretty extreme advantage since each clan is capped at the same number of players. If they really did intend for a tank to count for less then a nuker then they should allow for more tanks per clan since they'll have to make up the difference with additional manpower.
So yes, the tank, the healer, the buffer will NOT be as "uber" as the nuker or the archer. It was never intended to be that way, because the developers didn't design this game with YOU and all your "I want, I want, I want" self importance in mind.
Some people get the idea of the Clan, and some don't. Guess which voices are usually the loudest?
Some people understand game balance and design theory... some don't.
This thread is getting more and more interesting. I believe SethofAlmarak and the posters after him got a good point why the game is designed the way it is and why we don't like the build in inbalance for one thing (in fact I sincerely dislike being the underdog all the time).
If SethofAlmarak is right in his analysis this will mean one thing for us poor melee types:
No, we will never get even close to the ranged combat classes.
So we either learn to live with this and try to find satisfaction in being cannon fodder as the Asians seem able to do or we reroll to an uberclass and make the melee extinct on NA servers.
Not to mention, the second this game hit the NA/Euro market it became an "international" game, and no longer a Korean one. This game could be HUGELY successful in the NA/Euro market if they actually put some cognizant thought into what they were doing in these two markets. Western mindset is completely different. We don't like having to pile tons of crappy classes against one super powered class to compete. We also like individualism, something severly lacking in the eastern design and development. IE, we don't want a server with nothing but necros on it.
So as i understand, we (meeles) are cannon fodders on castle sieges, not a very pleasant role (and thinking that it is our ONLY role despite of the raids). We arent needed in partys, we arent needed in clan/ally wars, we just absorb damage.
And blame me if im wrong, but we even arent good at this point (absorbing dmg). All we get for it is a 20 sec Ultimate Defense skill...without it, we are jus easy targets for nukers.
And if koreans thinks that this is how its should be, soon there will be no tanks left at all! I mean who would like to play a toon whose only roll is to take few more hits than others.
Devs should do something BIG about it. Tanks have low damage output and can take few more hits than others, we should get a big p.defe boost, so in PvE we realy could go as TANKS and on sieges we should make some trouble for others getting through us.
Someone mentioned that tanks can go non stop on PvE... there did you get that? we must sit also to get out hp back (unless you're one rich bastard who drinks healing potions non-stop) plus we kill mobs much slower.
So as i understand, we (meeles) are cannon fodders on castle sieges, not a very pleasant role (and thinking that it is our ONLY role despite of the raids). We arent needed in partys, we arent needed in clan/ally wars, we just absorb damage.
And blame me if im wrong, but we even arent good at this point (absorbing dmg). All we get for it is a 20 sec Ultimate Defense skill...without it, we are jus easy targets for nukers.
And if koreans thinks that this is how its should be, soon there will be no tanks left at all! I mean who would like to play a toon whose only roll is to take few more hits than others.
Devs should do something BIG about it. Tanks have low damage output and can take few more hits than others, we should get a big p.defe boost, so in PvE we realy could go as TANKS and on sieges we should make some trouble for others getting through us.
Someone mentioned that tanks can go non stop on PvE... there did you get that? we must sit also to get out hp back (unless you're one rich bastard who drinks healing potions non-stop) plus we kill mobs much slower.
The point that has been made is that Koreans like the class disparity in the game or at the very least don't know any better to have a problem with it.
So to answer your question: No, melee will probably never be improved in this game to be competitive with the ranged damage classes. You can either enjoy your role as cannonfodder, start over with a more competitive class or cancel your subscription.
That's the point that is being discussed. There is no reason to do anything "big" about it because there is no issue. At least according to the developers.
That's true... swamp of screams (and by the way... I haven't heard any screams there yet :mad: ) the mobs are green (maybe blue) to me. Imagine my surprise when I hit one and I didn't get that satisfied "hafl of hit points gone" feeling.
No problem.. I'll sleep it ... apparently not.. ok.. I'll..uh.. slow it. Luckily that landed because this thing was tough.
wait until a stakato runs away and comes back w/ reinforcement .... then u will scream for sure :eek: (maybe u won't have even time to scream ;) )
That's true... swamp of screams (and by the way... I haven't heard any screams there yet :mad: ) the mobs are green (maybe blue) to me. Imagine my surprise when I hit one and I didn't get that satisfied "hafl of hit points gone" feeling.
No problem.. I'll sleep it ... apparently not.. ok.. I'll..uh.. slow it. Luckily that landed because this thing was tough.
wait until a stakato runs away and comes back w/ reinforcement .... then u will scream for sure :eek: (maybe u won't have even time to scream ;) )
I think because of this the swamp of screams is more of a melee, archer, healer place and less of a mage place.
The amount of damage I was doing was quite frankly not worth even joining a party... they wouldn't want me because there would be no reason.
Ok i understand what you mean...
I guess it would be nice to reroll to some nuker right now, becouse connon fodder isint my favorite roll, guess it would be fun and wise to lvl some nuker instead of tank...
But i wont, i played all games on Hard difficulity :cool: and lvling on lineage should go like:
Nukers: very easy
Archers, Summoners, Buffers etc: easy
Melee dd's (gladiators, destroyers, tyrants, daggers): Normal
Tanks: Uber Hard
So i hope i'll be a rare class in the world of Aden, and maybe someday become a hero, w00t!
P.S my sub will definetly be a Nuker.
I envy you as quite frankly I wish Nukers were rare. Oh well. I don't suppose I can get to 75 in one weekend so I can do my subquest and become a Dark Elf destroyer... maybe next weekend :)
As I said earlier. I play tank not because I like to be beaten (except if involved with a **** chick with "special" sexual tendencies)...
I play tank because I find it less mind numbing. Being in the line of fire is quite exciting, watching your HP bar lowering down makes me really think that I'm fighting for my life, which for me it really adds that extra kick.
I've played with mages before...but it feels that you are just working to lvl...not enjoying it...(this is my own opinion)
Tanks are not bad for PVE...just slower. I can also take on a 10+ lvl monster on my own...but it's just not effective since I would have to sit down right after it.
I don´t like PvP very much...at least not unjustified PvP (pking)...sieges are extremely fun, or just hanging out in the arena with some friends is cool....but I don´t play to be an uber toon killing machine.
I really don´t care if tanks are not balanced in PvP....but the moment tanks go useless on PvE I'm really going to be ******...
I've played with mages before...but it feels that you are just working to lvl...not enjoying it...(this is my own opinion)
I sort of agree. Sort of...
I have found that melee (with my brief experience of playing them) are indeed more interesting to level. It is slower but I find it more exciting.
Leveling "Sovrath" is.. well.. as I've said ... "contemplative". The things that break that are the lag (which is very frustrating) and the idea that I have to always be aware of mana.
One of my favorite things to do (especially when I have no lag) is to fall into a rythm. For the few people who have partied with me.. especially in duos, they will find that I rarely if ever "talk". I like the rhythm... the faster the better as long as it's smooth.
One of my favorite things to do is to lvl with healers.. especially SE because I never have to worry about mana.
However.. with melee.. even though I can get the same rhythm, it is more complex... I also don't have to worry about "being brittle".
My first experience of this was on the recent PTS when I made my dark elf sub destroyer... AFter I lvled beyond Sea of spores I went to Dragon VAlley. Though the mobs were yellow and light red I decided to try my luck.
I caught the aggro of 2 of those large wyrms that fly in that area. It was such a relief to concentrate on the fighting and not have to be concerned about my health bar. Even though they were two high lvl mobs beating on me.
Don't get me wrong.. I love the Spell Howler and if I had to do it again I would make the same decision. However... I really like the melee way... and espcially the dark elf melee way.
You haven't played a lot of asian arcade and console games have you? Gameplay imbalance and gimped characters are what make games really popular over there. I'm not surprised EE are liked in Korea because they are "cute".
you should give RO a try. that's pretty much a perfect counter example of your arguement, and it's made by koreans for koreans.
Whenever I have fought an equal leveled, equal geared nuker, and we don't use bsps or ss, Self buffs, it is an even fight.
Add bsps and Im putty in the nukers hands, representing 0 threat.
Yet people think that the classes were not meant to be balanced, and melee were meant to be cannon fodder. If bsps didnt guarantee debuffs, you'd be mortal too. Run around and try to fight people without bsps and we'll see who's cannon fodder.
Well I think the real problem is within the definition of "competitive" wich I assume means something along th elines of 50-50% chance of every class defeating the others.
Again: competitive play over there is more among the lines of "well, I play a char that has a 45% chance of defeating this other class, and 20% of killing this other guy with this setup; cool. More power to me if I manage to do that". I figure melee will NEVER be able to have a 50-50 chance of beating archers or nukers. EVER. Best we can hope is a 35% chance of consistently winning.
Depressing? to some maybe, that wanted to dominate the arena. Surreal? Well it's far away enough from the stereotype to make it interesting. Funny thing is mages in western mythology are also so uber that the only way to defeat them is catching them asleep or in the bathroom. Gandalf was freaking immortal. Merlin had no known weaknesses. Tim the Enchanter would only be afraid of the Killer rabbit.
Melee are fun to play PvE and somewhat interesting to watch in DD vs Melee matches because they don't get a lot of attack skills... not flashy ones at least. You know it, learn it and endure it. I'm gonna go level SLOW but steady.
Sincerely have you ever heard of melee complaining they cannot group together and not be able to level anywhere? NO. Just that it is [censored] slow and boring along the lines of "it's taking forever and ever". Melee and healing go hand in hand; attach a healer to a melee party and voila! No downtime and low risk.
I don't think falling back on the 'Well in Lord of the Rings mages are uber so in a game they should be uber as well.' argument is all that logical.
The classes were balanced in the pve aspect (originally before nukers found the cast speed robes and bsps).
It just goes back to how Korean designers don't understand the basics of game design. They didn't do a horrible job when they originally designed the pve aspect of the game. The mana limitation on mages and archers in addition to allowing their PVE oriented crowd control and snares to function in PVP... just poor game design.
You can defend it all you want but it doesn't mean that its a good design for a pvp game.
As far the theory on character balance in fighting games... typically most fighting games make attempts at balance based on their attack speed/attack power/special coverage. Those are Japanese game developers though that you're using as your basis. The game developers aren't Japanese anyway so the point doesn't even hold true.
It goes back to the fact that the developers continue to design a PVE game that just happens to have PVP enabled. They don't design it to allow every class to be competitive and waste design time on pointless classes.
It has to be painfully obvious to anyone who has played in the high end PVP part of this game that PVP is 100% dominated by ranged classes, nukers and archers. Non-ranged classes are nothing more than targets that have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the outcome of any PVP battle, other than taking up a spot in a DD party where a archer or nuker would be better.
There's no amount of convincing anyone can do to show me any melee DD class would be a better pick in a PVP over a nuker or archer.
I've said it 1000 times before, and I'll say it again, there's a reason 99% of all DD subclasses are nukers or archers. I know 100s of people on our server and can only think of 2 melee DD subclasses.
PVP balance in this game is completely screwed up. The only exception is the Olympiad where you have to fight self buffed. I'm sorry, but people simply don't fight without buffs in this game, so claims of the game being balanced because of this are bogus.
Pretty simply, fully buffed archer and nukers do way too much damage for the amount of HP/CP and speed of melee DDs, and they have ranged attacks to boot.
It has to be painfully obvious to anyone who has played in the high end PVP part of this game that PVP is 100% dominated by ranged classes, nukers and archers. Non-ranged classes are nothing more than targets that have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the outcome of any PVP battle, other than taking up a spot in a DD party where a archer or nuker would be better.
There's no amount of convincing anyone can do to show me any melee DD class would be a better pick in a PVP over a nuker or archer.
I've said it 1000 times before, and I'll say it again, there's a reason 99% of all DD subclasses are nukers or archers. I know 100s of people on our server and can only think of 2 melee DD subclasses.
PVP balance in this game is completely screwed up. The only exception is the Olympiad where you have to fight self buffed. I'm sorry, but people simply don't fight without buffs in this game, so claims of the game being balanced because of this are bogus.
Pretty simply, fully buffed archer and nukers do way too much damage for the amount of HP/CP and speed of melee DDs, and they have ranged attacks to boot.
Fix your game NC.
This guy hates all that is melee with an unnatural passion of hatred, don't listen to his nonsense.
Anyway its because developers listened to players that got us all in this mess in the first place. Remember Prelude and C1? Nukers were practically useless at low lvls back in the day so they listened to the cries of nukers and gave them Blessed SpS which did in fact make things fair for them.....in that lvl range. Now 30+ lvls later adding blessed sps to balance things really jacked up what balance was put into the original game design. Then come tatoos and Acumen SA, uhhh after Blessed SpS was added I think nukers stopped whining, why the shiit did they add Acumen SA?! For PvE isn't even a good valid answer because nukers only hunt mobs they can 2-3 shot anyway. But personally I have tried the nuker path and found out they are BOOORRRRIINNNGGG. I also tried archers which were just as boring. Something about resting MP or pacing yourself just bugs me. I'm used to the dungeon crawling as a melee. You walk in and start swinging and don't stop till you have to leave. With nukers its either nuke like a **** madman and rest for 15 min or nuke once every 20 sec or so......boring. Sometimes I do wish as a melee I could kill as fast as nukers/archers but I know that OFFENSE itsn't exactly my strongpoint. Melee are defensive and offensive and therefore their damage shouldn't compare to brittle and scrawny nukers and archers. There was balance before Acumen SA and tatoo craze. It should be fixed. Just as before Might Mortal and ignoring pdef stat there was balance, however that go attention and got 'fixed' (not really fxed, more like destroyed).
something about rest and nukers.
w/ ES/Sword muses new party buffs they dont need such extra.
2hrs constant owange in omen catas in a group consiting of:
1sorc,1archmage,1soultaker,1stormscreamer,1sps,1ES ,1spectral dancer,1shilen saint...prophet outside party.
no downtime. btw, we used ES as party healer to restore b2m.
---
note MM has never been unbalanced in the 1st place, the fact VS ignored pdef was the bug that brough that stupidity and unjustified ppl's whinings.
MM is the only viable SA for a dagger has any chance in pvp. MM is not good in PvE...
Alos MM is STRINCLY limited to daggers (unless you count pre 20 MB as an option)
something about rest and nukers.
w/ ES/Sword muses new party buffs they dont need such extra.
2hrs constant owange in omen catas in a group consiting of:
1sorc,1archmage,1soultaker,1stormscreamer,1sps,1ES ,1spectral dancer,1shilen saint...prophet outside party.
no downtime. btw, we used ES as party healer to restore b2m.
---
note MM has never been unbalanced in the 1st place, the fact VS ignored pdef was the bug that brough that stupidity and unjustified ppl's whinings.
MM is the only viable SA for a dagger has any chance in pvp. MM is not good in PvE...
Alos MM is STRINCLY limited to daggers (unless you count pre 20 MB as an option)
even then I'm still a person who likes a challenge. I'm the type of person that will compain about the group's SpS Sleeping Clouding all the mobs :D. RPGs that depend on sleep are ridiculous, when I have an SpS in the group sleeping EVERYTHING I usually leave the group, there just is no point in playing if its THAT simple.
Even though I hate nukers and their playstyle I am still looking forward to new songs. Just got about 28% till 76 :)
anyway i cant recall using sleeping cloud at all (aside sps, there were 2 sorc). Just vortex, nuke, nuke (or nuke, nuke)... (Dark vortex to replesnish any hits/b2m + ES group heals...). Occassional drain/root.
MP use has no impact at all in PVP. Most fights are over before any nuker can go through 1/2 his MP bar, and in long fights or sieges nukers are recharged. There's a reason people tote around rechargers.
PVP is way unbalanved in this game. Anyone that doesn't see this has no idea how to play or hasn't experienced high end PVP in this game.
It's been touched upon in this thread already, but taking it a bit further:
This is a Korean Game, not a NA/European game.
This game is heavily focused on Clan play over Solo play.
This game is not Magic, D&D, LotR, WC/WoW. It is it's own take simply using races many of us are somewhat familiar with and giving them unique twists.
Drink that deeply.
Now, you take that game and you present it to the NA/Euro gaming crowd. As a demographic we are much more inclined to be about ME, Me, me over We.
This demographic is top-heavy with players who want to win (pwn, haxx0r, stomp), not achieve. It's infused with the "I want My Class to be the best AND look the coolest" mindset.
Plenty of NA/Euro games are designed to meet that demand.
L2 is NOT one of them.
So yes, the tank is a support toon. It was designed to be that way. It was designed to be played by a character who actually wants to play a cog in his clan's war machine gear. Who wants to drag the boss behind him while his clanmates nuke it, who want to clog the gate with pointy bodies while his archers pick off defenders, who want to dance and sing to give their clanmates the advantage over the opposing clan.
The glory of the clan is greater than the pvp score, greater than the fraps video of how 1 player owned a 9 man party.
This game wasn't designed for the greedy, instant gratification crowd.
So yes, the tank, the healer, the buffer will NOT be as "uber" as the nuker or the archer. It was never intended to be that way, because the developers didn't design this game with YOU and all your "I want, I want, I want" self importance in mind.
Some people get the idea of the Clan, and some don't. Guess which voices are usually the loudest?
Good post.
The game is designed for everyone to play a character they enjoy, in a team.
Balance is always made worse by the amount of people who play classes. If there were more daggers and melee playing actively at high level, then the Nukers wouldn't be so bad. Unfortunately instead of most people seeing this, they just reroll to a Nuker as well, contributing to the problem and making the entire thing seem worse.
Same happened with Daggers in C2. Too many rerolls made what was an extremely strong character seem unbeatable and beyond what it actually was. Simply because everywhere you turned you had to face another Dagger that could 2-3 hit you. This made more people frustrated as their characters couldn't function very well in this climate and so more rerolled and more complained.
Right now what do we see? Many people saying their characters cannot function in the current climate. Simply because there are too many nukers everywhere you turn there is not enough other classes to balance it out.
This problem would effect the game for almost any class. If there were mass rerolls of tanks everywhere you'd see the perception of tanks change and the game would change too. A mage wouldn't be able to do anything without getting shield stunned and cause tanks have so much HP they can never stop them etc.
No matter what NC do, if people continue to mass reroll into the characters that seem to be the strongest, game balance will suffer. Some classes are designed to be played more than others, Mages are not really designed to be of a far higher population than Melee's.
I would agree that part of the problem is simply that as soon as one class stands out above the others, that everyone rerolls to it. Making it all the more evident that the class is unbalanced. And maybe if there weren't so many nukers, I, and others, wouldnt mind occasionaly getting owned. Or we at least might not notice as soon.
But a majority of people rerolling to a certain class is not arbitrary. There are so many nuker rerolls for a reason, just as there were so many dagger rerolls in C2. They find out that there is a broken class, and they milk it for as long as they can.
More people playing different classes would not really change the fact that a given class is overpowered. It would just make it less evident maybe. And sadly I don't think more people playing daggers would help counter balance the nukers. The only thing that will help against nukers is archers.
I would agree that having tons a certain class, like tanks, would increase awareness of their abilities, and their strengths. A lot of tanks running around would make for a few more hard targets. And yes I think it would change the perception of tanks. But even if the server was 70% tanks, tanks would not "own" they wouldn't be seen as overpoweerd, because they aren't. If you think shield stun is gonna cause a nuker any trouble at all, I'd like you to meet my best friends, sleep, slow, and death from 900 range.
Pure melee classes should get a special bonus of leveling 2x as fast as ranged/mages. If their exp requirments are half as much and they are easier to level, then they can keep their weak status and be truely cannon fodder. In wars and such there should be more melee's then anything else. If melee/tank get to level twice as fast then what they do compared to other classes then they will be more desirable and more people would play them. Of course this is a stupid idea but i felt like saying it.
Meeles should get something to attract new players attention, now meeles are chosen by the players who just...like beeing a meele, who enjoys close combat etc.
But there is no advantage (looking from technical points) in choosing to play a meele class, they lvl slow, they pvp bad.
NCsoft should give them something, so they could become more attractive.
No.. melees will probably never be balanced because they are not perceived as broken by the NCSoft development team.
Lots of people playing a class doesn't make it overpowered.
Having great skills which are more cost efficient and being able to negate innate weaknesses are what make a class overpowered and the population of the class has no bearing on those traits.
This isn't about 'I want I want I want'... trying to setup the straw man that this is about personal gratification is a very weak argument. This isn't about melees wanting to dominate. This is about melees wanting a fighting chance in PVP (which they don't currently have).
If certain classes are easier to play.. they should be imposed heavy adena and xp penalties that makes them much harder to advance. The problem is that these penalties are actually present on the classes which are already harder to level.
This comes down to the developers creating a broken PVE game for a Korean market which is apparently much easier to satisfy then the American/Euro audience.
Again...
No... the inbalance will not be fixed because the developers don't seem to have a problem with it and only managed to make it worse in the latest chronicle. People will continue to switch classes to play the most powerful and easiest to play option.
Possible courses of action: Either play a melee and get used to being cannonfodder... create a mage/necro alt and start over so you can PVP or quit and hold out hope for Lineage III (according to their latest financial documents they're planning on that coming out in Late 2006 in Korea.. if we're lucky we could see it in early 2007).
actually I agree with class population, though not in the way the post explained it. There are rare classes out there that can destroy nuker's abilities and there are skills that destroy their abilites too. Overlords with AoE Silence can potentially make like 10 nukers useless. SH and Necros have Silence as well which would really mess enemy nukers up but these 2 classes choose to nuke people to death, they don't want to play as a team all the time. Ad Necros at 77 or 78 or whatever get Mass Mage Bane which also destroys nukers ability to nuke. Then there are SwS whose songs can half many nukes. And a smart group who uses Waking Scrolls make Sleep an almost useless spell.
Now correct me if I'm wrong but people say mages are so uber mostly for buffs that up casting speed and matk, Mass Mage bane or Silence destroy that. people say melee can't fight nukers because of slow and sleep, well sleep shouldn't be a problem to people who aren't noobin it all the time and the slow argument is as good at the Silence argument. Its just that there is more slow being cast than silence and therefore thats what people consider, they don't think about Silence because classes like Necros and SH refuse to throw some Silences down here and there and Overlords are scarce and usually told to ally buff or heart of Paagrio. And to say, "isn't it more efficient for SH and Necro to just nuke someone to death," is dumb. Think about it. A Necro or SH quickly assists a melee, casts Silence, and then goes on to his own target. It took him TWO whole seconds to help out an ally tremendously and he still could just turn around and nuke his own victims. The main problem with melee in PvP is mostly due to the fact that people don't play as a team and the fact that melee seem to think they are something they are not, a cannon like archers and nukers.
Also with my anti-nuker set up it takes most nukers about 1/4 of their MP to bring me down, imagine how much it takes to bring down a tank or Orc with the same set up. What people need to realize about SwS is that its not our natural mdef that makes us so magic resistant, its our songs. The songs and prophet buff make up for most of our magic resistance. We do have more mdef than most classes but its not by all that much at all.
So yea, it is a population problem to an extent because certain useful classes vs. nukers like SwS, Overlords, and Prophets are hard to come by and therefore mages overrun many people simply because they have no one to assist them by Silencing nukers and giving them the buffs to more than half the damage of nukes.
you say that there are classes who's skills destroy nukers abilities. Then you list OL (who I would consider to be just as good if not better than a nuker) and then nukers. So the reason you give for nukers not being overpowered is that other nukers can beat them. Yes and so can archers. But can melee?
And mages are not overpowered because of casting buffs, or any buffs at all. A nuker self buffed, 10 lvls under me, was humiliating me in arena. I could not even get in range. Im not sure what you mean by "noobin it all the time". If you mean the person doesnt have good jewels, mdef is almost useless against bsps. I have tested the myth, and I got slept through UD by that same nuker 10lvls under me, took 4 or 5 tries, which aint bad against 3500 mdef. I dont think my normal 650 or so will hold up to well. And as has been stated several times before, one melee should not have to have full buffs, and optimal songs, to stand a chance against a self buffed nuker.
A lot of people bring up the point that this is a team game, each person has a role, so on . I would agree, but no one part of the team should be the worthless zergling helping the godly class get his pvp/pk numbers a boost. Each class should be worth playing in their own right.
I know people seem to think there should be a distinction between PvP with melee vs. ranged but there just isn't, they have to work together. 1v1 and melee vs. ranged wasn't exactly in the game design, as if that isn't obvious :p. Ranged got range and offense whereas melee got mediocre strength (unless they do Bison Totem or Frenzy :)) and good defense. People ignore defense as one of the strong points to melee and often nerf that strong point by choosing buffs that aren't exactly the most effective. I still see WAY too many people try to battle mages without having any Resist element buff on them. People cannot imagine fighting mobs without Vamperic Rage but they are cool with fighting SH without Resist Wind, now of course in 1v1 they would cast Weakness curse but in mass PvP its not exactly standard procedure, its usually nuke, nuke, nuke, etc. Melee need to focus more on what makes them melee and thats defense, carrying weight (for CP pots), and high HP/CP. Everybody pretty much knows that if classes like Destroyers, Gladiators, and Tyrants get close to ranged that they typically come out on top, and root makes that possible. A Prophet or SE in a melee group assisting the main target picker can root enemies making them vulnerable to melee. Melee may kill slower but they can live a hell of a lot longer than ranged classes. In fact in a perfect world all melee would use HP SA weapon so that even when they do take hits the healer has some time to actually heal them, something most nukers and archers cannot take advantage of because they get downed so fast. About nukes dropping people in 3 hits, that means the victim doesn't have the proper buffs/support. With HP set up I have 9k HP and most 70+ nukes will hit me for around 700-800 damage, now I got about 2.1k CP and I carry Greater CP pots and Greater Healing pots so even without a healer healing me I can survive fairly well. Now look at classes like Tyrants and Destroyers who can reach up to 19K HP and Tyrants should have NO problem catching up to ANY class.
The main point I'm trying to make here is that the game IS NOT ranged DDs vs. melee DDs. There are support classes involved, there is equipment to negate things like root/sleep that people fear so much and nukers can be disabled just as much as melee if not more, its just you don't see many people actually trying to disable nukers because its classes like Spell Howlers, Necromancers, and Overlords that do it best and most SH and Necros I see ONLY do nuke damage and sleep here and there, they rarely assist in any way as far as I see. And Overlords are rare and most are ordered to ally buff and heal at seiges.
And by the way sleep is effected by WIT and Mental shield/aegis and a few other unique buffs and equipment bonuses. In mass PvP Sleep is hardly effective as teammates can just Waking Scroll their teammate real fast. And truly, buffs like Resist XXXX and Guard songs and dances are more effective than mdef against nukes but of course more mdef helps :p, its just not AS effective as Prophet/SwS/BD buffs that resist magic.
also people need to realize ranged are best suited for open field (outside of a castle) and melee are better suited for close quarters (inside castle). Also consider that melee al bunched up can actually block off doorways inside castles and they can have a healer safely tucked back that can keep healing them. Also if you are lucky enoguh to have an alliance with at least 3 Warlords on at once they could cover almost entire rooms in most castles with their AoE stun (and OL with their AoE Root) with all 3 strategically positioned and with them decked out in defense and HP they will not fall easily by any means, but that would also require aother high lvl SwS. Honestly if we had more high lvl SwSs in this game people would realize that nukers are not THAT powerful.
I don't belive that they designed the game for archers and nukers to reign supreme. I dont even remember fighting nukers back in the day. Everyone was a dagger, a melee. They were overpowered, overplayed, and feared. But they were not INTENDED to own everyone. They were broken. As nukers are broken now. And some people seem to think thats the way it was intended. Well then why wasnt it always this way? and if I was meant to be killed by ranged DD 1v1, then why am I able to kill archers (equal buffs, gear etc) and nuker who dont use bsps. Because its a design/balancing issue, its not how the game was intended.
Im sorry but I dont run around fully buffed, I dont have an sws to tote around, I dont have a buffbot. And yes logicaly it would be safer for me if I had those things, and I will never complain that I lost to a fully buffed character. I will complain when I cant even touch a nuker with self buffs.
Not: I lose more than I win, not: they do too much damage, not: they cast to fast. I dont touch them! Yes Im sure if I had a high level sws that had nothing better to do than follow me around, it would take some of the edge off nukers, Im sure if I had full buffs 24/7, they would balance out. Im sure If I had GM powers I could beat them to a pulp. Its irrelevant.
why should it take 2 or 3 people for me to even get 1 hit on a nuker?
I don't care if I lose. I lose to a lot of classes. But in a nuker fight, if they dont want me to touch them..i wont.
I know your gonna bring up the team game thing, and the buff argument. And maybe thast where we are having the issue. I think the game should be balanced from the bottom up. That the classes should be SOMEWHAT balanced at base stats, equal gear, equal levels. Of course it wont be 100% Id be happy with 75%. Because my chance of beating a nuker one on one is less than 10% maybe less than 5. Make everyone stand some small chance against one another.
After that try to balance the buffs, and tats, and such. A buffed character is gonna beat an unbuffed, thats fine. A nuker resistant melee is gonna beat a self buffed nuker. Its common sense. And with equal buffs idealy things balance out somewhat again.
I refuse to believe that its the other way around, that some classes were designed to NEED full buffs, and perfect setups to compete.
yea, when I speak of balance I mean in the context of seiges and mass PvP mostly. I guess you can argue that PvP outside of rules and out in the open is unfair to most classes, thats true. But most PvP outside of wars and seiges is ganking, at least thats what I observe. I don't think there is any way to balance PvP out in the open fields while alone because anyone could simply come up in mass and walk over you. If me and a Tyrant were in some kind of sadistic, ****** off mood we could go hunt a lonely nuker and drop them. There can never be balance at all outside of seiges and mass PvP. Hell even IN seiges and mass PvP it can never be truly balanced at all because of #s and such.
And I think its quite obvious that archers and nukers were designed to be the most efficient killers because thats really all they can do, dish out damage. They can't block doorways or take damage as well as melee. I think this is fact. So until nukers/archers can take damage as well as melee, melee should not expect to kill people as fast or as efficiently as nukers/archers. Its that simple in my opinion.
also people need to realize ranged are best suited for open field (outside of a castle) and melee are better suited for close quarters (inside castle). Also consider that melee al bunched up can actually block off doorways inside castles and they can have a healer safely tucked back that can keep healing them. Also if you are lucky enoguh to have an alliance with at least 3 Warlords on at once they could cover almost entire rooms in most castles with their AoE stun (and OL with their AoE Root) with all 3 strategically positioned and with them decked out in defense and HP they will not fall easily by any means, but that would also require aother high lvl SwS. Honestly if we had more high lvl SwSs in this game people would realize that nukers are not THAT powerful.
What's the range on a heal? Not 900? Then I guess the healer can't be safely tucked away.
Oh and corpses don't block doorways... you can walk over them so that's not much of an issue.
Offense is greater then defense in this game. Its far easier to boost m.attk and cast speed then it is to compensate with m.def. You've admitted this in other posts so I don't know why you keep attempting to defend it.
Its not balanced. Nothing will change though so either cancel your account to send an economic message, create a mage or archer to contribute to the problem or stop complaining. Those are your options. There is no debate here. There are just a bunch of players trying to either justify wasting so much time on a largely pvp useless class or trying to ward off a future nerf because they play an overpowered class.
I would agree that if you are out alone and a group comes to gank you, your gonna die, and thats how it should be. And like I said buffs should be greater than no buffs, and someone comming to start trouble with me out in the field should be able to kill me if he is buffed to.
The thing is, Im not talking about mass PVP, Im not talking about group pvp, Im not talking about ganking, Im not talking about griefing, etc. Im not talking abot any hypothetical situation. Im sure even if they balanced the classes there would be plenty of ganking to go around. And thats fine with me. Im not trying to change that.
All Im saying is that in a clean laboratory setting, self buffs, even gear, ss/bsps, even levels. Most melee dont stand a chance of even getting 1 hit in on a nuker.
Of course I dont ever expect to have laboratory setting ever in game, and like I said thats fine, I expect to be beaten if Im outbuffed, or outleveled. But I think that if Im not outbuffed, and not outleveled, then the playing field should be remotely even. With the way things are now, I am very lucky to set foot on the playing field.
I would also agree with your point that nukers and archers are made to dish out damage, and thats about it. They are glass cannons, if you get to them, they are supposed to go down pretty fast. And their range is supposed to give them a chance to stay away from you for that reason. Im a tank, and the reason I dont complain about archers much is because, I CAN ACTUALLY TANK THEM. Self buffed archers dont do all that much damage to me. And their keep away skills are not super effective. I can usually close the 900 gap. I may not win, but I get to fight them. The problem with nukers is on top of the fact that none of my skills (aside from a bit more mdef from magic defense passives) help me against nuker damage. Yeah it may take them 2 or 3 more shots than most classes to kill me, but it still doesnt take them very long. And with bsps, sleep, root, silence, slow, or para, they have all the time they need to kill me.
With bsps their debuffs land nearly 100% in self buffed fights and they cast fast. Imagine if archers had low mp, super fast, 100% landing stun shot, that had little to no cool down.
Nukers are impossible to be killed by a meele, and i was thinking about nerfs NCsoft could do to nukers (i know that thay wont, they think that meeles arent broken etc).
I think that nukers should have somekind of minimum range for some of their nukes...
If meele gets close to nuker (lets say >100 range) the nuker cant attack him, he gets "target is too close" messege in his system bar. Still he can sleep target or aure flare him, but atleast minimum nuke range would be some kind of counterbalance for meeles.
The next thing is that nukes would loose their power then getting close to the caster.
You have to admit that nukers have much more advanteges than meeles (and don't start bullpoo'ing me about how its hard to level becouse we need to sit and regen our MP, this is the only downside for beeing a nuker)
Meeles have to sit too, i can name more downsides for beeing a meele if anyone cares...
1. Low dmg output, low defense compared to dmg nukers/ranged do to us.
2. We are slow at speed and also slow at lvling.
3. Talking about solo, we kill mobs much more slower than nukers, we have p.def...but still monster (green) takes away 300-400+ hp (for a tank, dont know about a dagger) until you kill him. And nuker who is at your lvl kills a mob while you are casting a *****' life leech on the other mob.
4. Most of mages have Body to Mind skill, I wish meels could have Mind to Body skill...
Im not going to speak about pvp disatvanteges for beeing a meele.
We are cannonfodders, we are unable to do anything exept take dmg. And if you think this is normal, you are wrong.
Simple answer. Unlock UD. Everyone knows when you UD and you just stand there, maybe pull out a bow and crit for 1k damage if you have bd dances, but your range sucks and things arent gonna die before they can run.
Make UD so it doesnt stick you on the ground. Drop the timer to ten minutes. Its really the only useful pvp skill atm unless you can sneak into your enemy and stun. The distance is the issue. Close the gap with UD up, and make it so slow requires an mdef check which will fail on 4k mdef...bam there's a mean tank coming in.
That's how it used to feel, now it's "hopefully I can turn somebody's attention while my dd's get in range." Oh no! Cancelled through UD, dead.
I'd settle for a "not so ultimate Defense" that gave you half the buff, but allowed for full movement. 1.5x Pdef and Mdef wouldn't hurt that much I think.
I'm still thinking of the name for the skill... "halftimate Defense" or maybe "Penultimate Defense".
This penultimate defense (i think it should be called uber deffense :cool:) could be a completely new skills for tanks, because in PvE i think UD is better then this new type of defense, and in PvP it would be better to have a Uber Defense :o on you.
Both skills could have the same cooldown...If you use one, the other is used aswell, after 20 minutes you can use one of these skills again, but you have to choose which one.
Hmm there was a (dare I say it) private server my friend played on where tanks were really really good, not overpowered however far stronger than any nuker or archer yet gladiators, warlords and destroyers (high hp classes) obliterated tanks but nukers and archers destroyed those meat shields.
My friend was a DA there it was really kool he could take like 30 crits from a fully buffed archer because his deflect arrow skill had been made really really strong and he had very high mdef and could tank nukers really well.
They also made the cancel skill take really long time to cast and it interrupted if any hit was taken.
I'm not trying to advertise anything other than retail servers (they crash non-stop anyway) but if people say it can't be done then its bs, coz I've seen L2 with the perfect balance from my own eyes.
(oh and the slow spells were really hard to land on tanks with their top Mdef).