I see this problem in games all the time. Melee requires more damage, battlefield control(cc, roots, stuns) and survivability.
Higher damage translating to higher damage per hit in a lot of cases because attacks tend to be of similar speed. This is due to ranged attacks having more uptime for doing damage both in pvp and pve. This uptime difference should account for an overall similar level of dps
A higher level of battlefield control suchs as stuns or lockdown skills such as roots or slows. This is due to being able to be kited pretty easily so once reaching a target it needs to have some way of controlling it. I think the decision to give different armor sets higher levels of freedom is a good idea. This doesnāt mean that ranged has none they also usually have escapes or slows but it is definitely skewed towards a melee advantage.
Higher survivability. This is in the form of more damage mitigation(more dodges or higher effective health from armor. More options of self sustain usually.
This game struggles because ranges has high mobility, damage, same level of sustain, lots of battlefield control, and pretty much the same survivability .
The ttk is so low right now its probably hard to make balance decisions when everyone dies in 3 to 6 hits . A blanket damage adjustment making everyone do like 50% damage to other players and reducing mobility as a stop gap to figure out how to balance. They could do this in ptr.
A lot of the games issues stem from it is too easy to escape in general from other players specially as dex where you have high levels of mobility, almost instant stam regen, and long dodges You can basically perma dodge until you are so far away you are untouched. Stam regen needs to be looked at badly.
one of the biggest nerfs to melee has always been removing follow or stopping the player after every dodge or after every skill. the fray spends its time stopping.
Iām sure if the devs allowed for better fluidity and allowed melee players to continue their run faster after their attacks, skills or dodges, melee could compete a bit more despite all the nerfs they had. of course, Iām not saying nerves are good. they are totally unjustified.
The best fixes in the game have always been in the direction of more responsive gameplay, with less movement penalty. the light dominates above all because it goes faster and has no interruption after its dodge. itās incomprehensible.
On castle of steel, starting to see more melee players now then first few days of patch. At least at night time when more premade teams are running opr. During day time Iād expect there be more range (easier to que solo as range no doubt). Last night I played 3 OPRs and every single one of them there were more melee and healers than range . Guess itās a start . Lot of GSās . Was a good mix and the games were fun. Gettin chased by a 5 man premade with all GS and a healer isnāt fun haha cus Iām typically a high target but thatās just part of it ! There was a gs user (odosu) with 40 kills couple nights ago . Guess that kinda rubbed off on some people and def starting to see more melee. Shout out to @odusu for that bomb of a game ! Hella of a player and pretty dam scary lmao
With this update, playing scrums involves playing with a non-team. you must be accompanied by good players, by a healer who follows you. you no longer have a choice.
Need small adjustments to IG, bow and FS, but nothing drastic. 1v1 in OPR I donāt struggle against any build as melee. It is far too easy to range zerg, I give you that. But honestly, melee players are still cooking.
Edit: If they nerf light movement, so they couldnāt forever reset the game would be banging!
If you playing range you could just kite around but like I said it depends on heavies set up. I played heavy blunder and I just net shotā¦ problem solved. You could also play sns and completely counter range
Itās the same on Eldorado, more and more melee and guess what, they are doing just fine. Just as oppressive. If they touch you once they can still lock you down until the end of time.
People saying melee is unplayable are just full of crap.
I will say Iām not seeing many Gaxe or Hammers. Those 2 seem to be the main weapons not coming back. Every other melee - GS, Hatchet, Spear, Rapier, S/S, seeing a lot of these doing good in OPR and 3ās.
Yeah and actually had one game last night I donāt think the other team had one range FS or bow that I saw . They were incredibly stacked with SNS / healers / GS / spears. We had prolly 8ish range players . Guess who won by a large margin . Game was absolutely miserable as a bow player lol . But Iām not complaining , just saying I think we gonna see more and more melee even in this patch as time progresses. Itās tough to run into an opr as the only melee person, I get it . But it makes sense we saw so many FS and lot of bow people in beginning of patch . People want to try the new and hot thing . Think itās gonna change slowly to a good balance. Melee still has its place especially in high competitive team modes
SnS is strong against range but if they have an escape weapon or stoneform up it invalidates it.
any good dex with a rapier can ALWAYS escape a 1v1 unless they are just mediocre.
Balancing rarely needs to occur based on the average player itās by how the experienced player can push that role to an unstoppable level.
You can easily dodge leaping strikeā¦ the only way you are stopping them is with a CC chain. Heavy players get outpaced and fast. The less damage they take isnāt even proportionate to the effective defense they get through mobility.
Show me a non cheese combo build that is resetting a dex with 10 stacks.
you keep using SnS as an example but SnS is used on light medium and heavyā¦
Net shot is strong for sure but itās not going to guarantee your kill. ASB is easy to avoid if you know itās coming. You have no kill potential on your build.
I would dump on you again and again on my light Gs/SnS.
Heavy relies on so much to do anything itās just a garbage armor class right now it needs a serious rework.
Rapier is a a whole other discussion, thatās not bows fault. Rapier is used on healers to stall and run, on top of low cd heals and the ls being one of the most busted weapons in the game. Rapier brings mobility to any class. Sns is not that easy to dodge itās practically instant and even connects when out of range, they could miss by a couple meters and still connect. Itās the hardest and fastest gap closer making it super difficult to anticipate, you practically just have to guess when they are going to use it. Sns is the stickiest weapon in the game right now and with all the staggers and a cc thatās unaffected by freedom is terrifying
It doesnāt matter, every bow is running a rapier so itās part of the discussion. Plus you brought weapons into an armor debate.
Like heavy armor canāt catch light armor without a weapon. Make sense?
But light roll can out run anyone. Rapier invalidates the SnS gap closer. No good bow is letting you just left click them with the sns. and leaping strike is incredibly easy to dodge. Must be a skill issue for you champ.
Not every bow, a lot run spear. Rapier is on bows with less con. And if thatās the case how come rapiers on healers is not an argument? Also if you get close to a range player it should be harder for them to escape after la nerfs. Itās literally a free slow that is infected by freedoms and stone form. Anyone can also pop stone forms and dip. Itās not fair to just solo bows out when they aināt even the fastest class in the game even with rapier. You could run rapier and fs and between flĆØche and burnout nobody is catching you. Any class can run most dex players are not good they sit back and 3rd party and I think thatās the main issue, so people try to blame certain things about the bow that arenāt even relevant anymore. Haste use to be a problem with og light armor but now after any melee hit they are crippled pretty bad.
Yes it is.
They have infinite haste, easy to escape with a rapier so you canāt even use the LA slow on them.
Plus evade shot on the bow all while dealing extreme damage.
Now I know you donāt know pvp. Spear is absolute garbage with a bow. It does nothing for the bow aside from telling everyone (free kill right here boys)
and some players use might gavel on WH in pvp? The dumb players arnt a problem. Itās how cracked good pvpers can become on certain builds because of how broken things are in conjunction with eachother.
Light armor on a ranged class in conjunction with an escape weapon is absolutely busted in comparison to medium or heavy in an engagement.
It is unfair that heavy or medium can NEVER hope to catch me.
Iāve done over 1k OPRs since leaderboards launched alone and I maybe died 5-6 times Vs medium or heavy players total? That is wild. Thatās how bad those armor classes perform. and in that window I had only seen a bruiser score above 20 kills a couple times and that was with a pocket healer.
Meanwhile every single match Bow 20+ kills, sometimes multiple.