TOPIC: Thoughts on Ranged Combat/Melee hosing this year?

Joshua Long wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Last year and this year both had rogues not being able to sneak attack a LOT of the monsters, unless you equipped tokens that allow you to sneak attack constructs.

+1

Rogues only burst of damage has been shut down much more often than melee this year, TDC, and last year.

You primary melee builds finally got a taste of what rogues having been eating for awhile now...

Finally? Melee builds have been penalized in combat for years.

Joshua Long wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Last year and this year both had rogues not being able to sneak attack a LOT of the monsters, unless you equipped tokens that allow you to sneak attack constructs.

+1

Rogues only burst of damage has been shut down much more often than melee this year, TDC, and last year.

You primary melee builds finally got a taste of what rogues having been eating for awhile now...

To be fair, there is a pretty big difference between "target is immune to once per combat 15 points of damage bonus on hit" and "target is immune to your primary attack mode."

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but melee is almost always more powerful than ranged (e.g. Ranger, Barbarian, Monk). If we never had ranged-only monsters, then people would eventually just create builds with max STR and max damage. But if that party ran into a ranged-only combat, they'd be in trouble (depending on their spell casters).

If you hose ranged and only allow melee, well you are just forcing most people to use their strongest attack, which isn't exactly a challenging situation. It would only hose the few people who focus on just ranged combat. It can (and should) happen once in a while, but I think it is far less interesting than hosing melee.

Kirk Bauer wrote: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but melee is almost always more powerful than ranged (e.g. Ranger, Barbarian, Monk). If we never had ranged-only monsters, then people would eventually just create builds with max STR and max damage. But if that party ran into a ranged-only combat, they'd be in trouble (depending on their spell casters).

If you hose ranged and only allow melee, well you are just forcing most people to use their strongest attack, which isn't exactly a challenging situation. It would only hose the few people who focus on just ranged combat. It can (and should) happen once in a while, but I think it is far less interesting than hosing melee.

There's a big difference between never having ranged-only monsters and having melee combat being penalized several times in a single year.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: I agree. I prefer ranged-only scenarios here and there. It rewards spell casters and well-balanced builds or parties.

If melee is repeatedly penalized but there aren't ranged penalties (as I think this year was, unless I'm mistaken), that seems to promote ranged builds instead of balanced builds. There would need to be both melee and ranged restrictions to promote balanced builds.

I think this statement would be true if Melee and Ranged builds were equally powerful. But they are are not, as melee offers much higher combined hit and damage bonuses.

I think at bottom the question is more one of what dungeon design should promote:

* similar effectiveness in both modes of combat
* not care if you are heavily weighted to one or the other modes of combat

I like the former, but it is a matter of taste.

Or another option, some of the party focus on melee, some on ranged. When they cant use their preferred attack mode they can focus on bumping.

I actually just asked my rogue friend about equating the no-crit/sneak to no-melee, expecting a response about how sneaking IS the rogues primary attack, instead she came back explaining how once she saw that she couldnt crit anything in the dungeon, she focussed on bumping the heavy hitters into better spots and still had fun in combat.

So this brings up an interesting question that someone might have an answer to. If I creature can't be hit by melee can you still slide a melee weapon to bump or are you not permitted to slide melee at all? Like if a dragon is 40' in the air how is me swinging 35' away helping the archers?

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: I agree. I prefer ranged-only scenarios here and there. It rewards spell casters and well-balanced builds or parties.

If melee is repeatedly penalized but there aren't ranged penalties (as I think this year was, unless I'm mistaken), that seems to promote ranged builds instead of balanced builds. There would need to be both melee and ranged restrictions to promote balanced builds.

I think this statement would be true if Melee and Ranged builds were equally powerful. But they are are not, as melee offers much higher combined hit and damage bonuses.

I think at bottom the question is more one of what dungeon design should promote:

* similar effectiveness in both modes of combat
* not care if you are heavily weighted to one or the other modes of combat

I like the former, but it is a matter of taste.

I do try to have much of the party be capable in both modes of combat. But that's preparing primarily for Hardcore level. If I was building towards Nightmare level, since I outfit the whole party and have limited resources, I'd have to focus each character on either Melee or Ranged though.

Kirk Bauer wrote: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but melee is almost always more powerful than ranged (e.g. Ranger, Barbarian, Monk). If we never had ranged-only monsters, then people would eventually just create builds with max STR and max damage. But if that party ran into a ranged-only combat, they'd be in trouble (depending on their spell casters).

If you hose ranged and only allow melee, well you are just forcing most people to use their strongest attack, which isn't exactly a challenging situation. It would only hose the few people who focus on just ranged combat. It can (and should) happen once in a while, but I think it is far less interesting than hosing melee.

I disagree:

The ridiculously overpowered Relic/Legendary Bows give you the benefit of having lots of +damage (or +STR for Mighty) tokens but without needing to actually have those tokens or use those slots.

Ranged builds can take advantage of off-hand sleaze a lot better than melee builds.

Ranged builds get additional bonuses through ammo and Quiver of Anointment. Heck, with this year's Figurine of Power - Brownie, you can squeeze a few extra damage out of each attack with a second ammo.

GaryM wrote: So this brings up an interesting question that someone might have an answer to. If I creature can't be hit by melee can you still slide a melee weapon to bump or are you not permitted to slide melee at all? Like if a dragon is 40' in the air how is me swinging 35' away helping the archers?

You can still normally slide.

Incognito wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but melee is almost always more powerful than ranged (e.g. Ranger, Barbarian, Monk). If we never had ranged-only monsters, then people would eventually just create builds with max STR and max damage. But if that party ran into a ranged-only combat, they'd be in trouble (depending on their spell casters).

If you hose ranged and only allow melee, well you are just forcing most people to use their strongest attack, which isn't exactly a challenging situation. It would only hose the few people who focus on just ranged combat. It can (and should) happen once in a while, but I think it is far less interesting than hosing melee.

I disagree:

The ridiculously overpowered Relic/Legendary Bows give you the benefit of having lots of +damage (or +STR for Mighty) tokens but without needing to actually have those tokens or use those slots.

Ranged builds can take advantage of off-hand sleaze a lot better than melee builds.

Ranged builds get additional bonuses through ammo and Quiver of Anointment. Heck, with this year's Figurine of Power - Brownie, you can squeeze a few extra damage out of each attack with a second ammo.

Do you have an example of a Ranged build that competes with this not-quite-best-in-slot-but-close, doesn't slide 2 pucks Barbarian of mine:

+22 to hit
+25 damage, average damage 37.8
Damage subtypes of Sacred and per-dungeon choice of Cold, Fire, or Frost
Ability to drink Potion Bull's Strength as a free action

?

This build has one Legendary (Avernon's) and no Eldritch tokens.


I understand your personal beef with the relic/legandary bow, and in grind the ability to have good damage, hit, AC, and RFLX is relevant, but in the main dungeon I think STR is simply better, unless you can show me a build that outclasses these types of numbers.

It looks to me that going with Io's you're just giving up like ~20 average damage per slide in exchange for crits on 18 and 19. This is not a good trade when your max damage is ~20.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but melee is almost always more powerful than ranged (e.g. Ranger, Barbarian, Monk). If we never had ranged-only monsters, then people would eventually just create builds with max STR and max damage. But if that party ran into a ranged-only combat, they'd be in trouble (depending on their spell casters).

If you hose ranged and only allow melee, well you are just forcing most people to use their strongest attack, which isn't exactly a challenging situation. It would only hose the few people who focus on just ranged combat. It can (and should) happen once in a while, but I think it is far less interesting than hosing melee.

I disagree:

The ridiculously overpowered Relic/Legendary Bows give you the benefit of having lots of +damage (or +STR for Mighty) tokens but without needing to actually have those tokens or use those slots.

Ranged builds can take advantage of off-hand sleaze a lot better than melee builds.

Ranged builds get additional bonuses through ammo and Quiver of Anointment. Heck, with this year's Figurine of Power - Brownie, you can squeeze a few extra damage out of each attack with a second ammo.

Do you have an example of a Ranged build that competes with this not-quite-best-in-slot-but-close, doesn't slide 2 pucks Barbarian of mine:

+22 to hit
+25 damage, average damage 37.8
Damage subtypes of Sacred and per-dungeon choice of Cold, Fire, or Frost
Ability to drink Potion Bull's Strength as a free action

?

This build has one Legendary (Avernon's) and no Eldritch tokens.


I understand your personal beef with the relic/legandary bow, and in grind the ability to have good damage, hit, AC, and RFLX is relevant, but in the main dungeon I think STR is simply better, unless you can show me a build that outclasses these types of numbers.

It looks to me that going with Io's you're just giving up like ~20 average damage per slide in exchange for crits on 18 and 19. This is not a good trade when your max damage is ~20.

Io's bow easily wins when you have constraints based on $$$, # tokens, or # slots, due to its insane efficiency.

For example, let's suppose you have a 2-token limit.

Ranger with two +5 Viper Strike Fangs. Each weapon does 11.5 average damage (-2 against monsters immune to poison) + 1 for STR.

Ranger with Io's Bow does 15.25 average damage (+4 due to sharp shooter) and crits on 18-20. For the second token, you need a DEX buff, so I'd probably go with either Amulet of the Champion or Gloves of the Cutpurse.

In this scenario, I think the Io's Bow is definitely stronger. There are more anti-melee defenses than anti-missile. You can hit flying creatures, avoid retribution damage, etc.

Incognito wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but melee is almost always more powerful than ranged (e.g. Ranger, Barbarian, Monk). If we never had ranged-only monsters, then people would eventually just create builds with max STR and max damage. But if that party ran into a ranged-only combat, they'd be in trouble (depending on their spell casters).

If you hose ranged and only allow melee, well you are just forcing most people to use their strongest attack, which isn't exactly a challenging situation. It would only hose the few people who focus on just ranged combat. It can (and should) happen once in a while, but I think it is far less interesting than hosing melee.

I disagree:

The ridiculously overpowered Relic/Legendary Bows give you the benefit of having lots of +damage (or +STR for Mighty) tokens but without needing to actually have those tokens or use those slots.

Ranged builds can take advantage of off-hand sleaze a lot better than melee builds.

Ranged builds get additional bonuses through ammo and Quiver of Anointment. Heck, with this year's Figurine of Power - Brownie, you can squeeze a few extra damage out of each attack with a second ammo.

Do you have an example of a Ranged build that competes with this not-quite-best-in-slot-but-close, doesn't slide 2 pucks Barbarian of mine:

+22 to hit
+25 damage, average damage 37.8
Damage subtypes of Sacred and per-dungeon choice of Cold, Fire, or Frost
Ability to drink Potion Bull's Strength as a free action

?

This build has one Legendary (Avernon's) and no Eldritch tokens.


I understand your personal beef with the relic/legandary bow, and in grind the ability to have good damage, hit, AC, and RFLX is relevant, but in the main dungeon I think STR is simply better, unless you can show me a build that outclasses these types of numbers.

It looks to me that going with Io's you're just giving up like ~20 average damage per slide in exchange for crits on 18 and 19. This is not a good trade when your max damage is ~20.

Io's bow easily wins when you have constraints based on $$$, # tokens, or # slots, due to its insane efficiency.

For example, let's suppose you have a 2-token limit.

Ranger with two +5 Viper Strike Fangs. Each weapon does 11.5 average damage (-2 against monsters immune to poison) + 1 for STR.

Ranger with Io's Bow does 15.25 average damage (+4 due to sharp shooter) and crits on 18-20. For the second token, you need a DEX buff, so I'd probably go with either Amulet of the Champion or Gloves of the Cutpurse.

In this scenario, I think the Io's Bow is definitely stronger. There are more anti-melee defenses than anti-missile. You can hit flying creatures, avoid retribution damage, etc.

Let's start with some common ground, I agree that Io's is an extremely powerful, even possible the singlemost powerful token.

But it's power level occurs in a context, and that context is: "Ranged combat is worse than Melee." So the mere fact of it's power doesn't mean that Ranged is the superior mode of combat.


Can you present a build with something like:

1. One Legendary.
2. Up to 2 Relics.
3. Up to 7 URs / exalted / enhanced.
4. Unlimited Rares / uncommons.

That compares with the +20 to hit, +25 to damage melee Barbarian above?

This may be easy, I haven't worked it out. But I don't think it's possible, and I think the only way you get to builds involving Legendary tokens out hit and damaging for Ranged versus Melee is with very artificial restrictions like "only two tokens allowed" - which is not how people who have an Io's will build.